One-Night Stands with American History

by Richard Shenkman

  • Disgusted with bureaucratic intrigue and small-minded meddling, Albert Einstein remarked in 1954 that if he had his life to live over again he would want to be a plumber or a peddler—for the independence.

  • Gary Cooper made this statement before the House Un-American Activities Committee when asked what he thought of communism: “From what I hear, I don’t like it because it isn’t on the level.”

  • After General Motors hired seven psychologists in the middle 1950s to determine the effect of Chevrolet’s sounds on potential buyers, one Chevy general manager boasted: “We’ve got the finest door-slam this year we’ve ever had—a big-car sound.”

  • In 1957, Ford spent $20 million advertising a single car, the Edsel—$10 million before the car went on the market and another $10 million after it initially failed to sell.

  • At political rallies young Congressman Lyndon Johnson would flamboyantly whip off his twenty-five-dollar Stetson hat and throw it to the crowd. He always got it back, however, because he would pay a small boy one dollar in advance of each rally to retrieve it.

  • The New York Times’s endorsement of Kennedy for president in 1960 was surprising, since the paper usually supported Republicans. After the election Kennedy remarked: “In part, at least, I am one person who can truthfully say, ‘I got my job through the New York Times.’”

  • When President Johnson found he had nothing interesting to do on a Sunday, he would call a small group of reporters to the White House and spend the afternoon complaining that he had no time as president to do half the great things he needed desperately to do.

  • When Georgia Congressman Carl Vinson received an award from the American Political Science Association, he immediately ordered an investigation of the organization, since he had never heard of it.

  • The last state to end prohibition was Mississippi, which adopted a local-option law in 1966.

  • After charging in the 1968 campaign that Hubert Humphrey was soft on communism, Spiro Agnew retracted the comment when he was told it was the kind of remark made during the McCarthy era. Agnew explained that he had never heard anyone use the expression “soft on communism.”

  • Spiro Agnew’s election as vice president of the United States in 1968 came just ten years after his first political victory—his election as vice president of a local Kiwanis club.

  • The plaque which Neil Armstrong placed on the moon in 1969 was marred by an error. Instead of reading, “July A.D. 1969,” it read, “July 1969 A.D.”

  • J. Edgar Hoover refused to allow people to walk on his shadow.

  • Gerald Ford made an unsuccessful attempt to impeach Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas in 1970.

  • Nixon’s 1972 inaugural parade was made pigeon-proof, through the use of a chemical sprayed on Pennsylvania Avenue.

  • After the Russian wheat deal Lester G. Maddox of Georgia remarked: “The Communists got our grain, the Administration got credit for the deal, the speculators got the profit, and the rest of us got the bill.”

  • In 1973, President Nixon appointed William Saxbe attorney general of the United States—the same William Saxbe who on one occasion had referred to Haldeman and Ehrlichman as “those two Nazis” and another time had remarked, “I don’t know whether or not [the Nixon administration’s] the most corrupt but it’s one of the most inept” in American history. After Nixon ordered the Christmas bombing of Haiphong Harbor, Saxbe had commented: “He’s out of his fucking mind.”

  • Before Chuck Colson was “born again,” the following Green Beret slogan hung over his bar at home: “If you’ve got ’em by the ——, their hearts and minds will follow.”

  • The White House Plumbers received their name when the grandmother of one of the men remarked, after reading in the New York Times that her grandson had been working on leaks, “Your grandfather would be proud of you, working on leaks at the White House. He was a plumber.”

  • In 1974 the Texas legislature repealed a law passed in 1837 that allowed a husband to murder his wife’s paramour if he caught the pair in the act of lovemaking.

  • Richard Nixon to Len Garment, his law partner: “You’re never going to make it in politics, Len. You just don’t know how to lie.”

  THE PECULIAR ORIGINS OF THE POINT FOUR PROGRAM

  One evening in 1948, after the day’s work was done, Louis Halle, a low-level officer at the State Department, had a conversation with his superior, the deputy director of American Republic Affairs. Halle and the deputy spoke of nothing particularly serious, but Halle did mention an idea he had—an idea that would eventually become known as Truman’s Point Four—American technical assistance for underdeveloped countries. The idea was not exactly original—the United States had for many years been giving technical aid to the countries of Latin America. But Halle had in mind a program of worldwide aid. The deputy director said the idea was worth considering.

  In November the State Department’s director of public affairs called a meeting to consider ideas for the President’s upcoming inaugural address. At the meeting was Halle’s superior, the deputy director. Quickly, everyone agreed that the President would have to cover three points. He would have to announce his full support for the embryonic United Nations; he would have to assure American allies that the European Recovery Program would be continued; and, finally, the President would have to declare that the United States favored the establishment of a defense organization for Western Europe.

  Anything else? The director of public affairs looked searchingly around the room; the people present looked back blankly. Suddenly, the deputy director came to life. In a corner of his mind he recalled his conversation with Halle. What about having the United States give technical assistance to underdeveloped countries around the world? The public affairs director thought for a moment and then told the secretary to write down the idea. That would make four points, a good number to have. The meeting ended.

  Over the next few weeks the “points” were sent to the appropriate offices at the State Department. Points one, two, and three passed with flying colors, but not point four. It was dropped entirely. Who knew what “technical assistance” meant? Which countries would aid be given to? At what cost? No one knew.

  Points one, two, and three were sent to the White House.

  Several days later one of the President’s speechwriters telephoned the director of public affairs and complained about the three points. They were fine, he said, but they were not very exciting. Was there some other idea that might arouse a bit of attention?

  The director paused for a few seconds. There was a fourth point, he said finally, but it had been dropped. What was it, the presidential assistant asked. The director told him. Fine, was the response, that will do just fine. The fourth point had been resurrected.

  On January 20, President Truman delivered his inaugural address, with the four points. Instantly, newspaper reporters jumped on the last point. The other points were dull, but Point Four was a headline story. But what did it mean? Could the reporters see the plans, the blueprints? What did America’s allies think about it? Had they suggested the idea?

  The State Department, the White House, and the President responded with stares. They certainly did not know what Point Four was. Nobody did. It was simply an eye-catcher, a professional speechwriter’s device—not a plan.

  The plain fact was that after the speechwriter’s telephone conversation with the public affairs director, not one person had given another thought to the idea. For all intents and purposes the idea had not got beyond the teacup stage—the stage it had been in when Halle casually mentioned it to his superior.

  Six days after his inaugural address Truman was asked about the origin of Point Four. The President responded: “Point Four has been in my mind, and in the minds of the government, for the past two or three years, ever since the Marshall Plan was inaugurated. It originated with the Greece and Turkey propositions. Been studying it ever since. I spend most of my time going over to
that globe back there, trying to figure out ways to make peace in the world.”

  “Been studying it ever since,” Truman said. But it took a full twenty-two months for the plan to be put into operation.

  SOURCE: Louis J. Halle, The Society of Man (New York: Dell, 1969), chap. 1.

  TRUMAN AND THE GREAT SEAL

  One day Harry Truman walked into the Green Room at the White House and looked down at the rug. Something bothered him about that rug. Finally, he realized that the head of the eagle on the presidential seal in the center of the rug was turned the wrong way. Instead of facing the olive branch, this eagle’s head pointed toward the arrows. Promptly Truman ordered that the rug be restitched with the eagle’s head turned the right way.

  SOURCE: Lillian Rogers Parks, My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House (New York: Fleet, 1961), p. 345.

  LBJ GOES TO CONGRESS

  “Landslide Lyndon” earned his nickname and his United States Senate seat in 1948 after winning the Texas Democratic primary by an overwhelming eighty-seven votes. There were almost a million votes cast in the election. The future president’s margin of victory, however, was closer than mere statistics indicate.

  In Jim Wells County, Johnson won by over 1,000 votes. After a statewide recount, however, election officials in the south Texas county reported that Johnson had actually received over 1,200 votes. In the recount 202 votes that officials had previously miscounted suddenly appeared, all in the same handwriting, with the same ink, and in alphabetical order. All 202 names were on Johnson’s election sheet. His opponent, former Governor Coke R. Stevenson, charged fraud, but a brief investigation upheld the election, and “Landslide Lyndon” was declared the winner, 494,191 to 494,104.

  One former Johnson aide later commented on the 1948 Senate race. “Of course,” he revealed, “they stole that election. That’s the way they did it down there. In 1941, when Lyndon ran the first time for the Senate, he went to bed one night thinking he was 5,000 votes ahead . . . and he woke up next morning 10,000 votes behind. He learned a thing or two between 1941 and 1948.”

  Reportedly, one name that was recorded as a vote for Johnson in 1948 belonged to the grandfather of William F. Buckley Jr., the New York conservative. Even though the elder Buckley had died in 1904, the old Texan apparently considered LBJ’s election important enough to rise from the grave to cast his ballot. Said Buckley Jr., of his grandfather’s voting record: “I am very proud of my grandfather’s sense of civic obligation. Clearly it runs in the family.”

  SOURCES: Newsweek, August 8, 1977, p. 27; National Review, September 2, 1977.

  THE SEARCH FOR THE LAST REBEL YELL

  In the spring of 1949, Frank Tolbert, famous Texas historian and folklorist, went searching with a tape recorder for what legend describes as the most fearsome sound ever uttered by man—the Rebel yell of the soldiers of the Confederate army. His hunting ground was Texas, which at that time had four living Civil War veterans, all Confederates. Time was of the utmost importance, since all four men were over a hundred years old.

  Tolbert first visited Joseph Haden “Uncle Hade” Whitsett, a 103-year-old retired gentleman farmer.

  “Can’t do it,” Uncle Hade informed him. “Can’t Rebel yell. I’m sorry. I tried to learn it a thousand times when I was with [General Joseph] Shelby’s Escort during the war. I didn’t seem to have the right kind of voice. Wish you could have heard Uncle Joe, himself, Rebel yell. He could make a full-voiced loafer wolf sound like someone blowing on a penny whistle.” Then, indicating Tolbert’s tape recorder, Uncle Hade continued, “I can’t do you no Rebel yell, but I’ll sing into your gadget.”

  Walt Williams, 107 years of age, was the person Tolbert next interviewed.

  “Used to could do it,” he replied. “But I haven’t got the throat linings for it now. When you get a hundred seven you can’t do everything you want no more.”

  Williams then offered Tolbert his secret for a long life. “Don’t et much. When I was riding up the Chisholm Trail the range cooks sort of held it against me because I was such a light-eating man.”

  Tolbert next traveled to Wichita Falls, the home of Thomas E. Riddle, a 104-year-old veteran who had recently divorced his third wife and claimed to be looking for a fourth.

  “Can you do the Rebel yell?” inquired Tolbert.

  “Yes, I’m feeling pretty well,” Riddle answered. “I’m peart enough to walk to the courthouse and back every day.”

  Tolbert shouted his question.

  “I’ll be a suck-egg mule!” Riddle exclaimed. “I’m sure getting deaf before my time. No, sir, I can’t do the Rebel yell—not anymore. Not rightly anyway. I remember hearing it the best at Gettysburg and in the Wilderness. It was a terrible sound. But I can’t do it rightly anymore. No old man can. It’s a young man’s yell. For those seventy or under.”

  Samuel Merrill Raney, 103, was Frank Tolbert’s last hope. In introducing himself, Tolbert mentioned that he was from Dallas.

  “Haven’t been to Dallas in sixty year,” replied Raney. “I went down there the last time to help pave the streets with bois d’arc blocks. I suppose it has growed. Last time I was in Dallas it was full of carpetbaggers. Here it still is.”

  A tall, athletic-looking, white-haired man came in from the field, leaped over a wire fence, and trotted up to the porch. He was George W. Raney, the seventy-five-year-old “baby” of the family, Samuel’s son.

  “Can you do the Rebel yell?” Tolbert asked Samuel.

  George Raney answered, “Papa can. But he best not.”

  Samuel waved his son silent. He spoke of the war and began to reminisce about his first action at the Battle of Murfreesboro. The cedar trees and cotton stalks set afire by the roaring cannon . . . the band playing . . . the charge. Abruptly the old veteran threw back his head and started yelling, “like an opera singer hitting almost impossibly high notes, . . . as if a mountain lion and a coyote were crying in chorus.” As the yell trailed off into convulsive coughs, George Raney ran to the well to fetch his father a dipper of water, while Tolbert headed for his car and the tape recorder.

  “With this thing we can make a record of that yell,” Tolbert explained. “I’ll give you a record of it, and you can play it for people who want to hear a real Rebel yell. All I’ve got to do is plug in this switch and then you can start yelling again.”

  “We haven’t got no electricity,” said George Raney. “We never did tie on to REA [Rural Electrification Administration].”

  “We could get into the car and drive to the nearest house that has electricity,” suggested Tolbert.

  “Best not,” answered George firmly. “Papa don’t ride in cars.”

  “Never do,” agreed the old man. “Cars shake me up too much. Bother my kidneys.”

  “You come back later and bring a battery for that talking machine and he’ll yell for you,” George recommended.

  A few days later Tolbert returned to Raney’s farm armed with a battery-powered tape recorder. A big red hen was resting on Raney’s rocking chair in the breezeway. Tolbert knocked on the bedroom door, but there was no answer.

  “Mr. Raney, Mr. Raney!” he shouted.

  George Raney suddenly appeared from the field, hurdled the wire fence, recognized Tolbert, and remorsefully informed him: “Papa died.”

  SOURCE: Frank X. Tolbert, An Informal History of Texas (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1961), pp. 237–44. Dialogue reprinted by permission of Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.

  THERE ARE NO SMILING RUSSIANS

  In the days of McCarthyism, spokesmen against communism could say almost anything about the Russians and be believed. But there were limits to people’s credulity even then, as the famous libertarian Ayn Rand discovered.

  In October 1947 she testified before the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee about the 1944 film Song of Russia. She criticized the movie for showing the Russian people smiling and remarked that she had “never seen so much smiling in my life, except on the murals of the
World’s Fair pavilion of the Soviet. If any one of you have seen it, you can appreciate it. It is one of the stock propaganda tricks of the Communists, to show these people smiling.”

  This comment sparked the following remarkable exchange:

  Congressman John McDowell: You paint a very dismal picture of Russia. You made a great point about the number of children who were unhappy. Doesn’t anybody smile in Russia any more?

  Miss Rand: Well, if you ask me literally, pretty much no.

  Mr. McDowell: They don’t smile?

  Miss Rand: Not quite that way; no. If they do, it is privately and accidentally. Certainly, it is not social. They don’t smile in approval of their system.

  Source: U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Un-American Activities, Hearings on Hollywood (80th Cong., 1st sess., October 20–24, 27–30, 1947 [Washington: Government Printing Office, 1947]).

  A MOMENT IN THE LIFE OF HUAC

  Paul Robeson, the accomplished Negro singer, was an unabashed apologist for Soviet Russia. In the summer of 1956 he was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

  Staff Director Richard Arens: Are you now a member of the Communist Party?

  Mr. Robeson: Would you like to come to the ballot box when I vote and take out the ballot and see?

  Mr. Arens: Mr. Chairman, I respectfully suggest that the witness be ordered and directed to answer that question.

  The Chairman: You are directed to answer the question.

  Mr. Robeson: I stand upon the Fifth Amendment of the American Constitution.

  . . .

  Mr. Arens: Now, tell this Committee whether or not you know Nathan Gregory Silvermaster.

  Mr. Robeson: [Laughter. ]

  Congressman Gordan Scherer: Mr. Chairman, this is not a laughing matter.

  Mr. Robeson: It is a laughing matter to me, this is really complete nonsense.

  Mr. Arens: Have you ever known Nathan Gregory Silvermaster?

  Mr. Robeson: I invoke the Fifth Amendment.

  Mr. Arens: Do you honestly apprehend that if you told whether you know Nathan Gregory Silvermaster you would be supplying information that could be used against you in a criminal proceeding?