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

by David McCullough

  Next week I’m going to try and work things out and you’ll hear immediately soon as it’s done.

  Hope you’ve noticed Mr. Butler’s shot from the hip. Sam and Lyndon are boiling over. Humphrey, Stu, Kennedy and Soapy are upset because they didn’t think of it first. Let the pot boil. It won’t hurt anything. Later we’ll try to obtain two men who can lead us to victory—and that we must have.

  My best to Alice and all your family. Hope all are well.

  Sincerely,

  Harry

  Truman frets about his relationship with Winston Churchill, about Paul Butler’s leadership of the Democratic National Committee, and about Eisenhower and Nixon. But he had no need to worry about Churchill, who had in fact sent a very understanding letter (May 21, 1959) in response to Truman’s apology letter (May 16, 1959) for his inability to visit Churchill in New York or Washington earlier that month. Three months later, Truman and Acheson had apparently both forgotten about Churchill’s letter. William E. Jenner was a Republican Senator from Indiana and a McCarthy follower. The name “Alibi Ike” probably came from the 1935 movie of that name, which features a baseball player who is always making excuses. On July 9, 1935, when the movie was playing in Washington, Truman wrote to Bess Truman, who was in Independence, “I wanted to see Joe Brown in Alibi Ike but didn’t.” Truman and Acheson did not quit the Democratic Advisory Committee, which became moribund once the Democratic National Convention met in July 1960. It went officially out of existence early in the Kennedy administration.

  August 22, 1959

  Dear Dean:

  I’m in a very bad position. When Winston Churchill paid his last visit, it was not possible for me to be present at the White House, because the invitation came too late—as intended. Then he was in New York as the guest of our “old friend” Barney Baruch.

  Averell Harriman called me at the last minute and asked me to go with him to Barney’s house where Winston was a guest. I couldn’t go because I was at that minute packing up to take a train home. Mrs. Truman was due for an operation. So was Margie.

  I wrote Winston and explained the situation. Haven’t heard from him and probably won’t. He thinks very much of old man Baruch and I don’t. Of course he’s fond of Ike because he thinks Ike saved the world in 1945. So I suppose I’ve lost a friend whom I have on record as just that. To hell with all that.

  Now I have another problem.

  You and I are on the advisory committee of the National Democratic Committee at the request of Paul Butler. I was never for him as National Chairman of the Democratic Committee. He owes his position to Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson. He is organizing the L.A. Convention for Stevenson. What can we do? If we don’t have a winner this time, it will take another F.D.R. to put the country on the right track. We are on a switchback now.

  Butler was elected at New Orleans on the basis of a statement which he made to the southern block. Now he says he didn’t mean it. He agreed to the Los Angeles site and now he says he didn’t.

  Seems to me the Chairman of the Democratic Committee should try to keep things in such shape as to nominate a man who can lead the people to believe that the Democratic Party will give them the best government, nationally and internationally.

  Mr. Butler has not done that and as far as I can see does not intend to do it. I suppose we’ll just have to let him lead the party to defeat—but I don’t want to be a party to it.

  Ike’s gone to Germany, France, Britain and Russia. He sent the Vice President ahead of him. Mr. Nixon’s background is one of sabotage. By misrepresentation he was able to beat a good Congressman, a good Senator and make himself Vice President. As representative of the President he ran up and down the country calling Democrats, me particularly, traitors. That was in 1954. Ike stood on the platform in Milwaukee and allowed Jenner and McCarthy to call Gen. George C. Marshall a traitor. It was my privilege to peel the hide off him for that in Colorado Springs.

  Now Tricky Dick and Alibi Ike are trying to take me into camp. I won’t go. Maybe I’m wrong. But I’m one of these contrary Kentucky feudists by inheritance. We don’t forget our friends and we remember those who lied about us—and I’m afraid don’t forgive them—especially if the objective is to use us to get right with God!—for a purpose.

  Should we quit the Advisory Committee or should we not? If Butler has his way we’ll nominate a loser and elect Nixon for President.

  I’m against it!

  Sincerely,

  Harry

  My best to Alice in which the Boss joins me.

  Acheson analyzes the possible outcomes of the nominating process at the Democratic National Convention. Significantly, he picked Johnson and Kennedy as the most likely winning ticket in 1960, but in reverse order from the ultimate result. “Ziffren” is Paul Ziffren, a California Democratic party leader. Edmund G. “Pat” Brown was governor of California. Florence S. Mahoney was an advocate for health research and programs; her home in Georgetown served as a sort of salon for politicians and scientists. Adlai Stevenson is “this paunchy quipster.” The recent Truman article to which Acheson refers was a NANA syndicated column that ran on or about August 25, in which Truman opposed Eisenhower’s trip to Moscow to meet with Khrushchev and said that if Russia really wanted peace, it should bring its plan before the United Nations. Acheson, who once derisively called the United Nations “the international orphan asylum,” might not have agreed with this view. The “triptych” enclosure Acheson mentions has not been identified.

  August 31, 1959

  Dear Mr. President:

  I find it hard to believe that Winston would be so silly and so rude as intentionally to ignore your letter. He was certainly far from mentally acute when I lunched with him at the Embassy and it seems far more likely that he has forgotten it or that some secretarial failure is responsible. My suggestion is to get Rose to remind you well in advance that Sir Winston’s birthday is Nov. 30 and write him a note in the course of which you can say again how sorry you were to miss him and hope that he got your letter explaining why. Then, at least, you can rest in the belief that you have done all you could to put things right.

  I spoke to Sam Rayburn today about your concern over Paul Butler. Sam said he knows that Adlai was right when he wanted to fire Butler and thinks less than nothing of him and of his friend Ziffren of California. But the gossip Sam hears is that neither of them are for Stevenson. One of his authorities for this, so he said, was Pat Brown. Pat told me that the only Democrats who could carry California—aside, I imagine, from himself—were Kennedy and Stevenson.

  My mind goes back to our talk the Sunday we lunched together with Florence Mahoney that the fruit of drift would be Stevenson. It still seems to me to be the most likely outcome, and I agree with you that it seems more likely than not that he would be defeated by either Nixon or Rockefeller. My analysis of the convention is that John Kennedy must win, if he wins at all, on a very early ballot. If he does not, there seems to me to be only two realistic next choices, Adlai and Lyndon. Humphrey is only an heir to Stevenson; and Symington, to Johnson. Stevenson would certainly get it if Kennedy would agree (having lost on his bid for first place) to run with him. Tom Corcoran tells me that the only person with whom, according to Joe Kennedy, John would run under the circumstances is Lyndon. If, therefore, Kennedy threw his strength to Johnson, Adlai might be stopped and the Johnson-Kennedy ticket might be nominated. Lesser combinations seem to me of only theoretical interest, because they cannot win.

  To me a Johnson-Kennedy ticket would have much more appeal than a Stevenson-Kennedy ticket, though the polls would give the latter a better chance. But the polls gave you no chance in 1948. I say, to hell with the polls, if we have the real stuff against them.

  Lyndon is the ablest man in national public life today. He has thousands of faults. But when we really take our hair down, he is a giant among pigmies. So I feel confident that if, with strong support and a united party, he took on the campaign, especially with Kennedy, we would
have a chance for a fight in which I could join whole heartedly, because there would not only be a real chance to win, but to win under circumstances where victory might really turn the tide for the great struggle of our time. My constant worry about Adlai is that all we accomplish by electing him is to accept formal responsibility for ultimate defeat. Surely this is better than Nixon or Rockefeller, the inevitable figureheads of the futility and incapacity of the American managerial interest whose Pope is George Humphrey, but it isn’t very good.

  If I thought that it might even usher in a golden age before the twilight, like the 30 years of the Antonines, it would be worth while. But this paunchy quipster is no Marcus Aurelius.

  As you know, I agree with you about the dangers of the forthcoming visits, though I advised against either of us opposing them now. Because of Ike’s neglect for the basic realities of power he has been forced to substitute improvisation for planning. He feels, as a beautiful woman might, that his charm must carry all. But as Norman Hapgood said of Maud Adams in Chanticleer, “charm never made a rooster.” Averell thinks your recent article was a mistake and that, of all the trips, Ike’s to Russia may be the most important in undermining the picture of the U.S. which Mr. K has been selling to his people and limiting his capacity to build up war scares. But I have told him that he takes too serious a view of the effect of your piece and not to worry himself or you about it. The article has about it some of the mystery of the Virgin birth. I wonder what inspired it.

  My own writing is taking varied forms.

  I have done an article for American Heritage about Arthur Vandenberg. Another for the N.Y. Times Magazine, called “Time to Think,” stimulated by Ike’s speech on thinking in “the highest echelons” to the Foreign Service Institute. Both of these you will get in due course. Then I have written another story for Harper’s about Italy like the one I had in last June’s issue. It has kept me busy and my mind from rusting. I hear that you are to write two books. This is real ambition and energy.

  I am enclosing a triptych which came to me in the mail showing you in the company of your successors. How about a good law suit out of this?

  We are off on Sept. 13th for Italy, Germany, and England, part vacation, part meetings. We look forward to it eagerly.

  Alice sends her love; and much of it to Mrs. Truman. (I always stumble over calling that dear lady, Bess, as she has bid me), and to you, Excellency and Friend, as do I.

  As ever,

  Dean

  General George C. Marshall, who served President Truman as Army Chief of Staff, special envoy to China, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense, died on October 16, 1959. Truman in 1947 judged him “the great one of the age” and greatly valued his friendship and unwavering support. Truman has just read Acheson’s recent article about Marshall—“Homage to General Marshall,” in The Reporter (November 26, 1959).

  November 24, 1959

  Dear Dean:

  That article in the Reporter about General Marshall was “just out of this world.”

  I sat and read it and read it again because my spectacles became clouded the first time. Do you suppose any President of the United States ever had two such men with him as you and the General? In my history studies of the Presidency, I haven’t found a single case like it. Presidents had one on whom they could rely—but not two.

  I’m getting sentimental again. Please forgive me. My best to Alice and I hope I can see you again soon.

  Sincerely,

  Harry

  Happy Thanksgiving.

  Acheson spoke before the fifth annual conference of parliament members of the NATO nations on November 18. He advised the Western alliance not to succumb to meretriciously attractive invitations to negotiate the situation in Berlin and Germany proposed by the Soviet Union. He ridiculed “the incredible view that any sort of a negotiation is good per se.” Acheson regarded “the spirit of Camp David” as a “feel good” concoction that obscured the issues with the Russians. Camp David, in Thurmont, Maryland, on Catoctin Mountain in the Blue Ridge Mountains, was the weekend White House where Eisenhower had extended hospitality to the Russian leadership. Truman and Acheson would be together in New York City on December 5, 6, and 7 for meetings of the Democratic Advisory Council.

  November 30, 1959

  Dear Mr. President,

  Your letter about my tribute to General Marshall and your words about me are about the most cherished that have ever been said to me. I cannot tell you how much they mean to me. In the next mail came a letter from Mrs. Marshall saying that my article “expresses a knowledge of my George that few people had.” I was delighted to have been able to bring her some comfort that others who did not know him could get some understanding of his nature.

  To have you class me with him is enough praise for one life time. And it came when it helped a lot—just as I was getting a good measure of abuse for my remarks about Ike’s junket and my speech to the NATO Parliamentarians, which Pravda printed in full. Thank God the Russians say that I have none of the spirit of Camp David. I wonder where the world would be—or, rather, I don’t wonder—I know—where the world would be now if you had had the spirit of Camp David from 1945 to 1953?

  I am looking forward to seeing you in N.Y. next weekend. Can we keep Adlai and Co. from “grabbing the peace issue”?

  Alice and I send much love to the boss and to you.

  As ever,

  Dean

  December 15, 1959

  Dear Mr. President:

  When I was walking down 22nd Street to the office this morning, a small, elderly colored man accosted me and challenged me to say who he was. Of course I failed in this endeavor and he told me that he used to open the west door of the White House for me many times a week.

  I told him I had seen you very recently and gave him a good account of your spirits and fighting trim. This delighted him.

  I had only gone a few yards down the street before he called after me and came running up to say that his name was Harry, too, and to ask me when I wrote to you to tell you that you were his boy.

  Do you remember him?

  Please give the Boss especially affectionate messages to add to the warmth of the Christmas Season and to those which usually go to you both.

  Sincerely yours,

  Dean

  At a dinner tribute in New York City for Eleanor Roosevelt on December 7, Truman introduced the Democratic presidential candidates, including John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey, and gave a speech in which he said that, for the Democratic candidate for President in 1960, “we need a vigorous, fighting, genuine liberal, and not a hot-house liberal, who talks the game but doesn’t play it.”

  December 22, 1959

  Dear Dean:

  I appreciated your letter of December 15 telling about the messenger boy who stated that he was in the habit of meeting you when you came over to my office from the State Department Building. To tell the truth, I cannot remember him either. We had two men who usually looked after those doors at that office; one, by the name of Jackson and the other was John Mayes and both are dead now. I do not recall this man but I might have been able to if I had seen him. There seems to be a tendency nowadays for everybody who was in sight of the White House at the time you and I were there to give the impression they were exceedingly interested in our welfare. Well, maybe they were.

  It certainly was a pleasure to see you at the meeting the other night and I do not know when I have had as good a time as I had introducing the candidates for the Presidency. As you noticed, I have placed a statement in the speech regarding the synthetic liberals which covers the situation in which you are interested.

  I am hoping to be in Washington for the meeting on January 23 and I certainly want to have a chance to see you and Alice. I do not know whether or not Mrs. Truman will be with me. It will depend upon how she feels after the visit with these grandchildren of ours. She is having a good time with them and so am I, but we are not in the same position we were when Margaret w
as their age and we cannot go quite so fast. However, I expect you have had the same experience even though you are a good many years younger than I am.

  Sincerely yours,

  Harry

  Truman encloses an article about an exhibition of works of art, all gifts to Truman, at the Truman Library. Alice Acheson’s Bus Queue was one of the works on display. Truman had lunch with Acheson at his home on January 24. He was in Washington to attend the 1960 Democratic Presidential Campaign Kick-Off Dinner. The artist Thomas Hart Benton painted the mural Independence and the Opening of the West in the main lobby of the Truman Library.

  February 5, 1960

  Dear Dean and Alice:

  I am as tardy as I can be writing you about that lovely luncheon. Don’t know when I’ve had a more enjoyable one—not since your last one.

  Glad I was tardy because here is something Alice will like, I hope. This place has stepped up a notch. Even Tom Benton admits it!

  Hope to see you again soon.

  Sincerely,

  Harry

  The madam gave me “what for” because I’m late. The best to both of you.

  April 10, 1960

  Dear Dean:

  Haven’t heard from you for some time. I’m at the office in the Library signing piles of mail the girls typed yesterday, sealing them and shall take them to the post office in Kansas City so they’ll go out. You know this five day week doesn’t work with me. I guess I’m old fashioned. I work every day and Sunday too even if Exodus 20:8, 9, 10 and 11 and Deuteronomy 5–13 and 14 say I shouldn’t. I think probably those admonitions were the first labor laws we know about—and see how they’ve made contributions to the greatest Republic in history. But someone has to fix things so the rest can work five days—coffee breaks and all. I’ve often wondered what would have happened to me when I was receiving $35.00 to write up checks for collection on a 12 hour day if I’d stopped at 10 A.M. for a Dutch lunch. You know the Dutch farmer in our old neighborhood had a breakfast at 4:30 A.M., a lunch in the field at 10 A.M., dinner at 12 noon—and it was a dinner, lunch at 4 P.M. and supper after sundown.