Affection and Trust: The Personal Correspondence of Harry S. Truman and Dean Acheson, 1953-1971

by David McCullough

  Alice sends her most affectionate greetings to you and Mrs. Truman, as do I.

  Sincerely,

  Dean

  Truman was ill for a few days and unable to attend the memorial service of one of his best friends, his old haberdashery partner Eddie Jacobson. Truman’s doctor called his ailment an “intestinal illness.” Acheson once again asks Truman to allow historians from the State Department to see his documents relating to the Potsdam Conference for use in preparing a volume in the series Foreign Relations of the United States. Truman did eventually permit the historians to see the documents, but he remained very reluctant to permit access to his White House office file and some related papers, and kept them in his personal custody until he died.

  December 8, 1955

  Dear Mr. President,

  Alice and I were distressed to read of your illness after the Pacific coast trip. Your malady was one on which I am the world’s greatest expert, having learned the hard way. And so Dr. Acheson says that you have been doing too much, what with politics and the library, and that you ought to cut down on this travel of yours. Of course, you will agree with this advice, and then go right on doing the same thing. The only hope is Mrs. Truman. Shall I bring her a baseball bat when I come out.

  A few days ago I had a call from a man suffering badly from frustration—Dr. [G. Bernard] Noble of the Historical Division of the State Department, a good man. You were the cause of his frustration. He showed me a letter from you last spring saying that you would take up his request to look at some of the Potsdam papers when the book was out of the way; then a recent one saying that you would get to it when the library was finished and the papers installed. Poor Dr. Noble! He said sadly that he wasn’t even staying in the same place. He was going backwards. We had a long talk in which I said that I would intercede for him when I saw you in late December to the extent of urging you to let him, with Grover’s men [one of the archivists who were working on Truman’s papers] and anyone else—say Hiller [sic; probably William Hillman]—you wanted to supervise, look at certain specified papers which were not personal and private but governmental in nature—communications with foreign governments, etc. Some of the ones he once listed have since appeared in your book, others he has had available in Adm. Leahy’s papers. I think this is fair and right. He doubts whether the Potsdam volume will be out for years as the British do not propose to be treated again as they were in the Yalta papers—a trick of our friend Foster’s which bounced back on him. Noble will give me a new list of documents before I come out and I hope you can find a few minutes to talk with me about it.

  I was honored and pleased beyond words to join you last Sunday on the N.Y. Times best seller list.

  Most affectionately and sincerely,

  Dean

  Responding to Acheson’s letter of November 23, Truman mentions the passing of his close friend John Caskie Collet and the pleasures of being a “lightfoot” Baptist. He also writes about some generous gifts in kind to his library, now under construction. Wilmer Waller was the treasurer and Basil O’Connor the president of Harry S. Truman Library, Inc., which raised the money that built the Truman Library.

  December 9, 1955

  Dear Dean:

  I more than appreciated your good letter. The last paragraph was out of this world. I knew very well that it was all there, just as the workmen in the street found it. I pride myself on being a judge of the hearts of men, and I know I had yours in the right category.

  Your book is really the best essay on the Democratic Party that has ever been written. I keep one copy on my office desk and another on the table where I work at home. When I get to thinking about some of the things our fellow Democrats are doing, I open up your book and read a paragraph or two. It puts me back in the right groove.

  I had a very sad duty to perform yesterday. Judge Collet died, and his family asked me to say a few words about him from the pulpit of the church to which he belonged. He and I are members of the “lightfoot” Baptist fraternity. We do not like to have a harness around us to prevent our doing what we want to do. I think you are somewhat familiar with that facet of my character. As you know, Roger Williams organized the Baptists in Providence, Rhode Island, because he could not get along with the Puritans. He later found that he could not get along with his new group either and had to try something else. Caskie and I are in that same class.

  I received a copy of Clement Attlee’s review of my book which appeared in the London Times. It is simply out of this world. In fact, the reviews in England are even better than those in this country, and your treatise on the Democratic Party has received the same sort of treatment. It is a great satisfaction when these birds have to eat crow because of the both of us, although I never gave a crow dinner to anyone and don’t expect to.

  I am looking forward to a most pleasant visit here on the 19th and 20th of this month. I believe everything is in order, and I hope that you will find it that way. I am very anxious for you and Waller and Doc O’Connor to become acquainted with the contractor and builder. He is one of the finest men I have ever known, and he refused any compensation for the operation. The same thing is true of the contracting plumber. He is Eddie Jacobson’s brother and the biggest operator in the business in this part of the country. Besides the fact that there will be no compensation whatever to his company, he has also made five or six contributions to the library fund. The electrical work is also being done on the same basis.

  It seems that we will receive something over two hundred thousand dollars from the West Coast trip to put us within a very short distance of our goal.

  Please give my best to Alice and tell her I hope she will come to Kansas City with you. We’ll put you up, as before, in the second hand accommodations we have to offer.

  Sincerely yours,

  Harry

  December 10, 1955

  Dear Dean:

  Just as I’d put an air mail letter down the chute in answer to yours, here comes this handwritten letter telling me you are an expert on upset insides! Well, you are an expert on many things including politics, foreign affairs and shoes and sealing wax and whether the sea is boiling hot and pigs have wings—but I didn’t know that you are familiar with the ramifications of 5000 feet of—should I say guts or intestines?

  If I show your letter to the Boss she’ll say, “Of course, tell him to bring the baseball bat with spikes in the business end.” Maybe I won’t tell her but of course I will.

  It’s too good to keep. I’m looking forward to a most pleasant session with you—bring Alice.

  Sincerely,

  Harry

  Acheson is still anxious to ensure that the historical records of the State Department are complete. Here he sends Truman a list of documents relating to the Potsdam Conference requested by the State Department historians. Acheson also writes about the problems caused by the Eisenhower administration’s consulting with only one Democratic senator on foreign-policy matters—Walter F. George of Georgia, chair of the Committee on Foreign Relations. Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan led Senate Republicans in bipartisan support of many of Truman’s most important foreign-policy initiatives. Wayne Grover, archivist of the United States, was very involved in establishing the Truman Library.

  December 14, 1955

  Dear Mr. President:

  Your two letters arriving so close together whetted my appetite for the meeting which we were to have had next week and then only yesterday Dave Lloyd told me that the figures would not be ready and that we would have to postpone our meeting together until January.

  I had intended, while in Kansas City, to go over with you Dr. Noble’s list of papers which he would like to see and photostat. Since this is being put off, I thought that we might get on with the matter by my sending them to you in this letter with a suggestion.

  You will see that all of these papers are entirely official in their nature; so much so, that I am greatly surprised that copies of them do not exist in the files of our gover
nment. I think that it is quite understandable, natural, and proper that Dr. Noble should want to keep the official files complete by asking the opportunity to photostat these.

  I do not want to cause you inconvenience at all, and most certainly I do not want to have him do that. Also you will want to be sure that these papers are properly handled and returned unharmed to their proper places in your files, and you do not want to give the time necessary or have Rose bothered with this task. It seems to me wholly possible that, if you will approve Dr. Noble’s photostating these papers, Dave Lloyd can then arrange through Dr. Grover that Grover’s men will find the papers, show them to Dr. Noble in their quarters in Kansas City, supervise the photostating, and return them to their proper place. Since all of these documents have to do with the period already covered by Volume I of the Memoirs, it would seem clear that no problems would arise in connection with your contract with Life.

  Does this seem sensible to you, and if so, will you let Dave and me try to work it out?

  On Monday afternoon I had a very fine call from Averell who spent an hour and a half with me prior to having dinner with Lyndon Johnson and some of his colleagues. I was impressing on Averell the need for Lyndon’s requiring real consultation with the Democrats instead of merely personal consultation with Walter George, as the result of which the Democrats in the Senate and House find themselves committed to courses of which they never heard anything. Averell called me this morning from Albany to say that he thought he had made some progress with this idea. I pointed out that Vandenberg never made any blind commitments for the Republican Party and, since Lyndon prides himself on being a shrewd Texas trader, he ought to do at least as well as Van. One of the great difficulties in the way of Democrats on the Hill at present is that they know nothing except what Dulles tells them, and this leaves them in pretty profound ignorance of the real issues.

  I shall now look forward to January instead of December and store up matters to talk over with you. In the meantime I am preparing the baseball bat with spikes.

  Faithfully yours,

  Dean

  The book Truman sent was the first volume of his memoirs, Year of Decisions.

  December 20, 1955

  Dear Dean:

  I was completely and thoroughly disappointed when our visit was called off, but I am looking forward to the time when that architect gets things in shape.

  I will be glad to do what I can with regard to the photostatic copies you mentioned. One problem is that these papers are going to be very difficult to work with, because they are scattered—some of them in the vault of the Federal Building at 9th [and] Walnut Streets in Kansas City, a few in the office, and the vast majority of them are in the archives file in the basement of the Memorial Building in Independence.

  If Dr. Noble will come out here the first part of January some time, I will be happy to cooperate with him the best I can along the lines you suggest.

  Again, I am just as sorry as I can be that you are not here.

  Sincerely yours,

  Harry S. Truman

  [Handwritten postscript:] My best to Alice. Sent you a book today.

  December 27, 1955

  Dear Dean:

  The “Boss” and I certainly did appreciate those beautiful gladioli which you and Alice sent us for Christmas. We placed them right under Winston Churchill’s picture of Marrakech, so that everyone who came in could see them. I hope you and Alice had a wonderful Christmas.

  Sincerely yours,

  Harry S. Truman

  At the end of December 1955, Truman sent Acheson another “spasm” as a kind of New Year’s present. This spasm was directed at the “prostitutes of the mind” who filled the press with lies and menaced free government.

  December 29, 1955

  Dear Dean:

  Well, I have the urge to give some of these lying, paid prostitutes of the mind a little hell, and rather than speak out publicly, you are the victim. Old man Webster, who is purported to have written a collection of words with derivations and definitions, says that: Prostitute: 1. To submit to promiscuous lewdness for hire. 2. To denote to base or unworthy purposes; as to prostitute one’s talents. Prostituted; now, chiefly denoted to base purposes or ends; corrupt.

  The same source (from old man Webster) gives this definition of prostitution: 1. Act or practice of prostituting; as, the prostitution of one’s abilities. Dean, that’s the end of Mr. Webster’s dissertation on the oldest profession in the world, and as you see it is not confined to the occupant of a bawdy house.

  We have men, in this day and age, who are prostitutes of the mind. They sell their ability to write articles for sale, which will be so worded as to mislead people who read them as news. These articles or columns are most astute and plausible and unless the reader knows the facts are most misleading.

  These men are prostitutes of the mind—they write what they do not believe for sale. Mr. Webster has clearly defined them for what they are. In my opinion they are much worse and much more dangerous than the street walking whore who sells her body for the relief of a man whose penis is troubling him.

  Prostitutes of the mind have been the great menace to free government since freedom of speech and freedom of the press was first inaugurated.

  Presidents and the members of their Cabinets and their staff members have been slandered and misrepresented since George Washington. When the press is friendly to an administration the opposition has been lied about and treated to the excrescence of paid prostitutes of the mind.

  A prostitute of the mind is a much worse criminal in my opinion than a thief or a robber. You know old man Shakespeare said:

  “Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,

  Is the immediate jewel of their souls.

  Who steals my purse steals trash,

  ’tis something, nothing; …

  But he that filches from me my good name

  Robs me of that which not enriches him

  And makes me poor indeed.”

  Prostitutes of the mind are skillful purveyors of character assassination and the theft of good names of public men and private citizens too. They are the lowest form of thief & criminal.

  Well, I don’t have to name them. You know ’em too.

  Hope you and Alice had a grand Christmas. We were sorely disappointed when you didn’t come out.

  Sincerely,

  Harry Truman

  Acheson is delighted with Truman’s December 29 “spasm.” Herblock is political cartoonist Herbert Lawrence Block. Acheson uses “HP2x” to characterize misleading statements to the public from President Eisenhower and Secretary Dulles.

  January 3, 1956

  Dear Mr. President,

  It was a great idea you had to make that speech—the one in your letter of December 29th—in a letter to me and not to the great American public, about to go into a New Year’s binge full of what Herblock calls the new secret ingredient HP2x (Hocus Pocus twice multiplied). The new Truman doctrine of intellectual prostitution is great stuff, but it is best to start with a few of the faithful first and let the word spread. The man in the street is so conditioned to intellectual prostitution that an old fashioned fellow who tells the truth every once in a while is sure to be charged with unnatural practices. We are so used to—in another of Herb’s prize expressions—“genuine simulated prosperity” that just an ordinary fair break looks like poverty now. So I win by all this, and get one of the best H.S.T. letters yet produced. The only trouble is I can only pass on the doctrine in a highly expurgated edition which loses a good deal of the pungent outrage flowing off your pen.

  What, I wonder, was it that caused that incandescent moment? There are a lot of candidates for the crown of Queen of the intellectual prostitutes, but most of them are too much fat old madams to arouse passion—Walter Lippmann, Arthur Krock, even Pegler and Sokolsky. Who in the world was it who set you off into such a fine rage that it glowed even through old man Webster’s definition? Whoever it was I am grateful to hi
m. Whenever he gets your “Missouri” really boiling again, reach for a pen and begin “Dear Dean.” Your letters are at the top of my best seller list.

  And your own best seller, the Memoirs in that superb edition and with the most moving and generous inscription, delighted us both beyond words. That was a real present for the archives. Alice and I are immensely grateful to you. Thinking about all that those years meant, seeing your writing, and reading your letter, made me wish that you would forget these things called years and run the show once again before it all goes completely to hell in a hack. The Presidency today is not even visible. It is as intangible as an odor which some call a perfume; and others, a smell. The best 1956 imaginable to you and Mrs. Truman.

  As ever,

  Dean

  Acheson had participated in officially inviting Truman to attend a dinner given each year in Washington by the Alfalfa Club, a select organization whose only purpose was to hold an annual dinner in late January. The club allegedly got its name because the alfalfa plant is perpetually thirsty and will do anything for a drink. Truman’s “doldrums” stemmed from his ongoing dislike for Eisenhower and Dulles.

  January 19, 1956

  Dear Dean:

  What a wonderful letter you sent me in reply to my letter on mental prostitutes!

  You’ll come to a conclusion some day that I’m only fishing for those grand communications—and you’ll be more than half right too. You’ve no idea how much you contribute to keeping [me] out of the doldrums and keeping me from literally exploding when I read the sugar on Ike and about the decisiveness of the Snollygoster who is now Secretary of State, author of Foreign Policy since U.S. Grant and the Savior of you and me. Well, to hell with all that—I wonder if Bobby Burns had John Foster in mind when he said a “man’s a man for a’ that.” Reckon he did?