Eisenhower obviously thought he could run the White House the way he ran the army. “He’ll sit right here,” Dad said, “and he’ll say do this, do that!! And nothing will happen. Poor Ike - it won’t be a bit like the Army. He’ll find it very frustrating.”
On that score, I think the history of the Eisenhower Administration made Dad a good prophet.
As the time grew near for our departure from the White House, Dad became more and more philosophic about politics. Perhaps he also had a little more time to write memoranda to himself. Here is one of my favorites:
Had a memo from Mr. Lovett on plane production, prepared by the Sec. for Air and a Munitions Report which were most encouraging. Bob gave me a definition of a statistician - “A man who draws a straight line from an unwarranted assumption to a foregone conclusion.” I gave him one for a consultant Washington style - ‘An ordinary citizen away from home.”
Came over to the House after a long session with a new chairman of the Dem. Committee.
Bess and I talk to Margie at 6:30 on a three way hookup. We go down to the south porch at seven for dinner - a good dinner too - tenderloin of some kind, really tender, asparagus, and a cooked stuffed tomato, then a large piece of thick, light yellow cake with caramel sauce.
One of our squirrels comes up to the table and asks for a bite to eat. Turns up his nose at a crumb of bread soaked in cooked tomato juice. We send for some crackers and he accepts pieces of cracker and goes under a chair each time, sits up and eats. Bess hands him the pieces one at a time until he has eaten three whole crackers. Then without a bow or a thank you he walks down the steps and disappears. But he’ll be back tomorrow night as usual for more to eat.
Mr. Hopkins, the chief clerk, informed me when I signed the documents and letters this afternoon that the mail had fallen below 5000 letters today for the first time since I’ve been President. I asked him a foolish question - why? The diplomatic chief clerk informed me that the mail always decreased in volume at the end of an Administration, particularly when the White House occupant was not coming back. Well, it is “The King is dead - Long live the king.”
It is fortunate that I’ve never taken an attitude that the kudos and kow-tows are made to me as an individual. I knew always that the greatest office in the history of the world was getting them, and Harry S. Truman as an individual was not. I hope I’m still the country man from Missouri.
Even though the Democrats had lost the election, Dad and the members of his Cabinet continued to work toward many Democratic goals, right up to the final hours of his administration. On December 2, Attorney General James McGranery submitted an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in support of five cases filed by black plaintiffs challenging segregation in the field of education. Quoting Secretary of State Dean Acheson, Attorney General McGranery argued racial discrimination had to be viewed in the context of “the present world struggle between freedom and tyranny.” He said segregation furnished grist for Communist propaganda mills and raised doubts even among friendly nations as to the intensity of our devotion to the democratic way of life.
Dad had, of course, already achieved a landmark breakthrough in the fight against segregation with his Executive Order 8802, abolishing segregation in the armed forces. On May 22, 1950, a presidential committee gave him a report, “Freedom to Serve,” which spelled out in detail why the Pentagon was now convinced equality of opportunity would produce “a better army, navy and air force.” Later, Dad issued Executive Order 10210 banning discrimination against any person on the ground of race, creed, or color in the companies of all contractors and subcontractors working for the federal government.
In these final White House days, Dad also displayed one of his greatest gifts, his ability to laugh at himself.
We had dinner at seven as usual, discussed ghosts, hosts and who’d died in the White House, and then dressed up and went across Lafayette Square to celebrate the anniversary of the new U.S.O. in the old Belasco Theater building. Mrs. T. had and has been interested in U.S.O. work so they wanted her to cut the birthday cake. Well, we all, Mrs. T., Margie and the President, dressed up and went over to the U.S.O. The Boss cut the birthday cake, they drew a number out of a box for the one to get the first slice that the First Lady cut, and a Marine won! The President made some asinine remarks, and we came back to the White House.
In that same memorandum, Dad recorded a pretty good joke which the White House played on us. You will recall his conviction that the old place was really haunted. It was also drafty. When the wind was northwest, it came whistling down the fireplace in the corner of my bedroom. To protect myself from this chilly blast, I had a bridge table leaning against the fireplace. I’ll let Dad tell the rest of the story:
It was agreed we’d go to bed at once because Margie and I had to board the train for Philadelphia at 8:15 tomorrow to go to the Army-Navy football game - our last appearance officially at this function. Mrs. T. can’t go because of her mother’s condition.
Well, I went to bed and read a hair-raiser in Adventure. Just as I arrived at a bloody incident, the Madam bursts into my bedroom through the hall door and shouted, “Did you hear that awful noise?”
I hadn’t and said so - not a popular statement. So I put on my bathrobe and made an investigation.
What do you think I found after looking all around? Why that Margie’s bridge table had fallen from in front of the fireplace in her bedroom and knocked over the fireguard!
It must have made a grand ghost sound where Margie and her mamma were sitting in Mrs. T.’s sitting room!
I didn’t hear it. What a relief when the cause of the noise was discovered by me. I left two very happy ladies and went back to bed.
Our last days at the White House were a mingling of joy and sadness. On December 4, we had a formal dinner for all the members of the Cabinet and their wives, as well as the regular White House aides. Dad made the following note on it: “It was a grand affair. I told those present how I appreciated the advice, help and assistance I’d received from all of them and that if I’d had any success as the President of the United States, the greatest office in the history of the world, they had made it possible. The Chief Justice responded in a wonderful tribute to me.”
The following day, Grandmother Wallace died at 12:37 p.m. She had been ill for several weeks and had been in a coma for the last few days of her life. It was a little awesome, to think of the way the world had changed in the ninety years she had lived. It redoubled my feeling of things coming to a close, of history changing direction.
After the New Year, Prime Minister Churchill arrived for another visit and enlivened our spirits immensely, as he always did. In the course of his stay, my father gave him a small stag dinner to which he invited Robert Lovett, Averell Harriman, General Omar Bradley, and Secretary of State Dean Acheson. Everyone was in an ebullient mood, especially Dad. Without warning, Churchill turned to him and said, “Mr. President, I hope you have your answer ready for that hour when you and I stand before Saint Peter and he says, ‘I understand you two are responsible for putting off those atomic bombs. What have you got to say for yourselves?’ “
This could have been a rather unpleasant subject. But Bob Lovett, who is as witty as he is brilliant, came to the rescue. “Are you sure, Prime Minister, that you are going to be in the same place as the President for that interrogation?”
Churchill sipped his champagne and then intoned, “Lovett, my vast respect for the creator of this universe and countless others gives me assurance that he would not condemn a man without a hearing.”
“True,” said Lovett, “but your hearing would not be likely to start in the Supreme Court, or, necessarily, in the same court as the President’s. It could be in another court far away.”
“I don’t know about that,” rumbled Churchill, “but wherever it is, it will be in accordance with the principles of the English Common Law.”
“Is it altogether consistent with your respect for the creator of this an
d other universes,” Dean Acheson asked, “to limit his imagination and judicial procedure to the accomplishment of a minute island, in a tiny world, in one of the smaller of the universes?”
Churchill was somewhat taken aback by this observation. “Well,” he said, “there will be a trial by a jury of my peers, that’s certain.”
Now the conversation was really soaring. “Oyez! Oyez!” cried our Secretary of State. “In the matter of the immigration of Winston Spencer Churchill. Mr. Bailiff, will you empanel a jury?”
Everyone eagerly accepted historic roles. General Bradley decided he was Alexander the Great. Others played Julius Caesar, Socrates, and Aristotle. The prime minister declined to permit Voltaire on his jury - he was an atheist - or Oliver Cromwell, because he did not believe in the rule of law. Then Acheson summoned George Washington. That was too much for Churchill. He saw that things were being stacked against him. “I waive a jury,” he announced, “but not habeas corpus.”
They ignored him and completed the selection of the jury. Dad was appointed judge. The case was tried, and the prime minister was acquitted.
Later in the evening he served as judge in an argument which compared Dad’s merits as a statesman to his demerits as a pianist. The prime minister sat as judge and declared in favor of the President’s statesmanship.
During this visit, Churchill confessed to Dad that he had been very pessimistic when Harry Truman succeeded Franklin Roosevelt. “I misjudged you badly,” the prime minister said. “Since that time, you, more than any other man, have saved Western civilization.”
Finally came January 20, 1953, our farewell day. We had finished packing, and I put on my dress for the last time in the White House. Outside, the atmosphere was chilly, both politically and meteorologically. Part of it, I will freely admit, was Dad’s fault. In the middle of December, he had become very riled when General Douglas MacArthur announced he wanted to talk to President-elect Eisenhower because he had a solution to the war in Korea. Ike immediately rushed to confer with the deposed Far Eastern General. Angrily, Dad told reporters if General MacArthur had a solution to the war, he should come to Washington and inform the Defense Department immediately. Then he tore into Ike’s trip to Korea, which he made immediately after conferring with MacArthur. Reporters noted Ike had said he had no “trick solution” for Korea. Dad wryly replied, “He was quoting me. I made the statement quite some time ago in the campaign.” Then he called the trip “a piece of demagoguery.
“Ike resented these remarks, but it seems to me that he should have realized Inauguration Day was hardly the time to display his pique. It was traditional for the outgoing President to have the incoming President to a pre-inaugural lunch at the White House. The Eisenhowers coldly rejected our invitation. Then Ike tried to force Dad to pick him up at the Statler Hotel en route to the inauguration ceremonies. Dad, very conscious of the fact that he was still President, replied, “If Ike doesn’t pick me up, then we’ll go in separate cars.”
The President-elect capitulated, but when he arrived at the White House to pick Dad up, he refused to get out and greet us inside the house, in the traditional manner. Rather than hold up the inauguration, Dad came out and got in the car.
There was very little conversation during their one-mile ride to the Capitol. Ike remarked that he had not come to the 1948 inauguration because he did not want to attract attention from the President.
“You were not here in 1948 because I did not send for you,” Dad said. “But if I had sent for you, you would have come.”
When they reached the Capitol, they went to the sergeant-at-arms’s office to wait for the summons to the platform. Ike suddenly turned to Dad and said: “I wonder who is responsible for my son John being ordered to Washington from Korea? I wonder who is trying to embarrass me?”
“The President of the United States ordered your son to attend your inauguration,” Dad said. “If you think somebody was trying to embarrass you by this order, then the President assumes full responsibility.”
My father had ordered John Eisenhower home from Korea as a gesture of thoughtfulness. He was not serving in the front lines, or in any particularly vital role in the army, so there was no reason to accuse either his father or Dad of favoritism, or of endangering the public interest. It astonished Dad that Ike resented this gesture. It still astonishes me.
On the way to the inaugural platform, I walked in the procession, several dignitaries behind Dad and Mother. Suddenly a man stepped from the crowd and kissed me on the cheek. I turned and found myself being embraced by General Marshall. That was the first and only time I felt a little sad at the 1952 inauguration. We were saying goodbye to so many wonderful people.
After the ceremony, we piled into a White House limousine and headed for a luncheon at Secretary Acheson’s house. As we rolled through the crowded streets, I was suddenly struck by a wild thought. I turned - I was sitting on the jump seat - and looking straight at Dad said, “Hello, Mr. Truman.”
He got the joke immediately, and loved it. It was the first time since I was born - give or take one year when I was too young to know what was going on - when he was not sporting an official title.
A crowd of about 500 people was waiting for us outside the Acheson house. They startled us with a round of cheers. You might have thought we had just been reelected. The luncheon was attended by all the Cabinet members and ex-Cabinet members and White House aides. It was an absolutely wonderful affair, full of jokes and laughter and a few tears. Especially when Dad made a little speech, reiterating how grateful he was for all they had done to help him. Then we were back in the limousine, and on our way to Union Station, where the presidential car was waiting to take Dad and Mother to Independence. I was going to stay in Washington overnight and return to New York.
If we were startled by the crowd around the Acheson house at the end of Ρ Street, we were amazed by the mob scene in Union Station. At least 5,000 people were in the concourse, shouting and cheering. It was like the 1944 and 1948 conventions. The police had to form a flying wedge to get us to the Ferdinand Magellan. Inside, the party started all over again. Members of the press who had spent eight years tearing Dad apart came in to mumble apologies and swear they never meant a word of it. Half the executive branch of the government seemed to be trying to shake his hand, or, in the case of the ladies, give him a kiss. He soon had lipstick all over his face. We finally had to call a halt to it, so the train could get out of the station on something approximating its schedule. Dad went out to the old familiar rear platform and gave them a farewell salute:
May I say to you that I appreciate this more than any meeting I have ever attended as President or Vice President or Senator. This is the greatest demonstration that any man could have, because I’m just Mr. Truman, private citizen now.
This is the first time you have ever sent me home in a blaze of glory. I can’t adequately express my appreciation for what you are doing. I’ll never forget it if I live to be a hundred.
And that’s just what I expect to do!
I got off the train and stood beside Mrs. Fred Vinson as it pulled out. Everybody in the station started singing “Auld Lang Syne.” It was absolutely thunderous. Beside me, Mommy Vinson was weeping. But I didn’t feel in the least weepy now. This tremendous outpouring of affection for Dad was too wonderful. It made all those years in the Great White Jail almost worthwhile.
SHORTLY BEFORE WE left Washington, a reporter asked my father if he planned to take down the substantial iron fence which had been put around our house in Independence after he became President.
“No, you can’t,” Dad said. “When Herbert Hoover went back to his home in California after 1932, the souvenir hunters almost tore his house down, and he had to put a fence around it. We are going to leave that fence there, not because we like it, but it’s just the American way to take souvenirs. It was said in the First World War that the French fought for their country, the British fought for freedom of the seas, and the Americans fou
ght for souvenirs.”
The fence, kept on Herbert Hoover’s advice, turned out to be our salvation. At the that time, the nation was quite indifferent to the fate of its ex-Presidents. At Union Station Dad’s Secret Service escort shook hands with him and said goodbye. He went home to Independence and began living at 219 North Delaware Street without any protection whatsoever. The local government of Independence did their best to help us, but they could not permanently station at the house a detail of police from their small force.
We were badly in need of some sort of protection. The house was already a tourist attraction. They had been selling picture postcards of it as the summer White House for years. In the first months, thousands of people came by to gawk. You will notice by my choice of words that I take a somewhat negative view of the American people’s attitude that Presidents and ex-Presidents are objects of curiosity. Dad often tried to explain patiently to me that it was a waste of time to get mad about it, that it was a tradition that went all the way back to Thomas Jefferson, who was plagued by hordes of curiosity seekers when he retired to Monticello. I still kept getting mad. The people who regarded our house as public property were the ones who annoyed me most. Often they would drive down the long alley on the right of our house, into the backyard where our garages are. When I was there, I would march right out and say to them, “Get off here. You’re on private property, and you’re trespassing.”
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