Bess Truman

by Margaret Truman

  For the climax of their matriculation, Mother turned the White House kitchen over to Mr. Ramos, and she and several others joined him to cook a Spanish lunch. I have no recollection of the menu, but I will never forget the odors that were still wafting through the executive mansion when I walked in that afternoon. Dad said the place smelled like a garlic factory. We teased “Senora” Truman about it for days.

  During these same months, Mother really took charge of the White House. Under her first ladyship, she was determined that the place would be clean. She did not go so far as to don white gloves and inspect for dust, navy and marine style. But she was constantly eyeing end tables and windowsills and pointing out to Mr. Crim, the head usher, that his large staff was less than perfect in the dustcloth department. She also took an interest in the grounds. When people all over the country sent her iris bulbs, because a friend in Independence had said she liked them, she issued special instructions to the gardener to plant them in a single bed behind the executive offices in the west wing.

  One battle Bess fought largely in vain was with her maid, Julia, who was proud of her efficiency. The moment Mother took off a dress, Julia would pounce on it and put it away on the third floor. One of the less charming aspects of life in the White House was the complete absence of closets, which meant you could keep only a few dresses within reach - a frustrating experience when you were trying to decide what to wear. Mother repeatedly told Julia not to take anything upstairs until she got a specific order. Julia never seemed to get the message.

  It is somewhat mind boggling to go through Mother’s papers and see the incredible mishmash of problems with which she dealt. Here’s a typical month in the fall of 1946:

  She had to issue a statement denying a Walter Winchell story that I had spent the summer in New York having an operation on my nose.

  Saks Fifth Avenue started sending her free nylons. She told them to stop it.

  A soldier appeared at the gate with a gift for me, a pearl pin. The guards found out he was AWOL and using an assumed name. The Secret Service wanted to know what to do with the pin. Mother told them to send the pin back to the store and refund the money to the soldier, who was in enough trouble already.

  A theatrical friend of a New York friend applied for a Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) loan and asked her to put in a good word for him. She asked RFC examiners to check him out, and they reported that he was a deadbeat, had been blacklisted by a half dozen government agencies and was being sued by his own lawyer for an unpaid fee. He did not get a good word from the First Lady.

  On one aspect of her first ladyship, Bess remained adamant. No press conferences. She entertained the women reporters at teas and even went to their luncheons. But it was off the record all the way. If they wanted any information, the questions had to be submitted in writing. There are about two dozen of these forlorn questionnaires in Bess’ papers, with her answers written beside the questions. If the reporters had any sense, they would have given up in 1945. Here is how she answered the first question of a relatively short list, then.

  “On what date were the President and Mrs. Truman married? Was it a church wedding, if so where is the church located and what is its name? Who performed the ceremony and is he still living? Who attended the bride and who served as best man? How were the bride and groom dressed? How many guests were present? Was there a large or small reception afterwards? Where did the couple go on their honeymoon?”

  Bess’ answer consisted of one line: “June 28, 1919.”

  She was surprisingly candid about some things, even though her answers remained terse. When someone asked her in 1946: “If it had been left to your own free choice, would you have gone into the White House in the first place?” she replied: “Most definitely would not have.” Asked if she found being First Lady enjoyable, she answered: “There are enjoyable spots . . . but they are in the minority.”

  “Do you think there ever will be a woman President of the United States?”

  “No.”

  “Would you want Margaret ever to be a First Lady?”

  “No.”

  “If you had a son would you try to bring him up to be President?”

  “No.”

  “Has living in the White House changed any of your views on politics and people?”

  “No comment.”

  As time passed, that last answer got to be her favorite on these lists. In 1947, Newsweek magazine became so exasperated, they printed an entire set of Bess’ replies, as read by Reathel Odum, under the head, “Behind Mrs. Truman’s Social Curtain: No Comment.”

  Having married a newspaperman, I can sympathize somewhat with the press’ vexation. But the American public did not seem to be bothered in the least by Bess’ taciturnity. In fact, they rather liked it. Harry Truman, who was no slouch at judging the reaction of the man and woman in the street, was of this opinion. In the fall of 1947, he sent me clippings of the stories that the desperate reporters had constructed out of non-answers to another questionnaire.

  The New York Times, for instance, tried to find political significance in the statement that Bess “wouldn’t miss a Democratic Convention if she could help it.” This reduced Dad and me to helpless laughter. In this letter, Dad wrote: “It looks as if your mamma has gone ‘Potomac,’ as all people do who stay in the White House long enough. When you write to her you might ask her what caused this outburst.

  “I’m glad she did it,” he added. “It will make a hit everywhere.”

  Along with politics and diplomatic receptions. Mother had another worry on her mind during these closing months of 1946 and the beginning of 1947: me.

  I had graduated from George Washington University in June 1946 and forthwith announced that I intended to pursue a career as a professional singer. Mother was not pleased, and Grandmother Wallace, who had quite a lot to say on the subject, was appalled. In her opinion, a lady could not possibly have anything to do with show business, even the classical music branch of it, and remain a lady. Mother persuaded me to go home with her to Independence, consult with my voice teacher, Mrs. Strickler, and think it over for the summer. I can see now that she hoped I would change my mind. Mary Paxton Keeley’s son had gotten married by this time and presented her with a grandchild that fall. Bess wanted me to do the same thing.

  She said as much to Dad in an August letter, hoping to solicit his support. “Of course I’d like to be a grandpa,” he replied. “Except for having to call you gramma it would be very nice. But if the child wants to sing, let her try it. She has a lovely voice but I hope the prima donnas . . . do not spoil her. Think maybe she is past the spoiling stage by now, anyway.”

  Perhaps you can see why I tend to favor my father, just a little, in my writing about the Trumans. Dad supported my ambition wholeheartedly, even though he knew that it would complicate his presidency, and the presidency would complicate my career. To give Mother her due, she refrained from throwing her weight around in any dictatorial way. But she continued to lobby against me behind the scenes.

  As I began spending more and more time in New York taking voice lessons, Bess complained to the president, especially when he too deserted her in the White House for a brief vacation in Key West. Dad did his best to soothe her, but he did not change his mind. “I am sorry about Margie’s not getting back for any of the W.H. functions,” he wrote. “Looks as if we’ve lost her for good and it’s a wrench - but we’ll have to stand it I guess. Glad the teas turned out to be not so bad as usual.”

  When I took an apartment in New York and began my long career as a resident of that city, Dad wrote rather mournfully to his mother and sister about my departure. But he still did not change his mind.

  Margaret went to New York yesterday and it leaves a blank place here. But I guess the parting time has to come to everybody and if she wants to be a warbler and has the talent and will to do the hard work necessary to accomplish her purpose, I don’t suppose I should kick.

  Most everyone who has he
ard her sing seems to think she has the voice. All she needs is training and practice.

  Gradually, Mother accepted Dad’s point of view. Later in the year, she received a letter from her old friend, Arry Calhoun. She had moved to Vancouver, but distance did not alter Mother’s fondness for her. “I was so delighted to hear from you!” she wrote. She inquired about the weather in the Northwest and expressed a hope that her son, Peter, whom she had adopted after the death of her baby, and her sister, Kathleen, would move out there to join her. “There’s nothing quite like one’s family,” Mother wrote, with an almost audible sigh. “Heavens! How I miss mine!” Then she reported on me. “Marg is busy with her music and so deeply interested in it that nothing else matters. I am thankful, tho, that she has an excuse to skip this grind.”

  As I began the hard work that every singer confronts to reach and maintain professional quality, I received a letter from Dad that I still treasure.

  It takes work, work and more work to get satisfactory results as your pop can testify. Don’t go off the deep end on contracts until you know for sure what you are getting - and what you have to offer.

  I am only interested in your welfare and happy future and I stand ready to do anything to contribute to that end. But remember that good name and honor are worth more than all the gold and jewels ever mined. Remember what old Shakespeare said, “Who steak my purse steals trash, but who filches my good name takes that which enriches not himself and makes me poor indeed.” A good name and good advice is all your dad can give you.

  Early in 1947, I got a tremendous break when the conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Karl Kreuger, invited me to make my debut with his musicians over a nationwide radio hookup. In spite of a sore throat that kept me in bed for the previous four days, I performed well enough to win praise from an encouraging number of critics. Mother telephoned me from the White House and Dad from Key West, where he was taking a brief vacation. Bess was considerably cooler than Dad in her remarks, but she told me that an avalanche of flowers and telegrams were pouring into the White House, and the number of telephone calls had forced them to shut down the switchboard.

  I received $1,500 for that performance, and on the second or third day after my return to Washington I asked Mother to go shopping with me. I knew exactly what I wanted to celebrate my success: a lovely mink scarf. The saleslady beamed as I casually told her to charge it to Mrs. Harry S. Truman. “Oh no you don’t,” Mrs. Truman said.

  “What?” I said dazedly.

  “You bought it, you pay for it. You’re making your own money now.”

  She was absolutely right, of course. But she also enjoyed reminding me that if I was going to be a career woman instead of a housewife and mother, I had better learn how to cope with my expensive tastes.

  When I began a concert tour in August 1947, Bess added that to her list of responsibilities. In letter after letter, she reminded me of the basic rules she and Dad had laid down. I was to take no freebies from anyone. When I went into the South, she fretted over the possibility that Vietta Garr, who was traveling with me, might be barred from some hotel, and it would get into the newspapers. She consulted with various people and reported that they assured her no hotel in the South would do such a thing, as long as it was clear that Vietta was my maid. I was also regularly sent stamps and told to use them, “if even on postcards.” Other letters ended with “Send that wire!”

  To my surprise, along with all these orders Mother mingled some pretty expert press agentry. I launched that first concert tour in Pittsburgh. Mother organized an expedition of prominent friends, including Perle Mesta, to support me. Mother reported that Perle had been “all steamed up” about going to Los Angeles to see me, but she had persuaded her to join the Pittsburgh junket.

  After that concert, Mother wrote me a note that I still cherish. “You did a darn good job last night, Margie & I was mighty proud of you. We flew after all & had a perfect trip! (This from me!)”

  While trying to run me, Bess was also running the White House. She scrutinized every bill that came into the personal side of the operation and often added them up again to make sure the staff knew their arithmetic. Running the White House is a little like running a hotel, with the added complication of having your own personal expenses tangled up in the business budget. She and Dad went to extreme lengths to make sure that Drew Pearson and his ilk did not find anything to snipe at in this area. They even paid their own dry cleaning bills, although the White House had a resident valet.

  I like to joke about Mother’s penchant for penny pinching. But when the Trumans added up income and outgo for the first year in the White House, it became apparent that they needed every cent she could save. They had exactly $4,200 left from the president’s supposedly munificent salary of $50,000 a year.

  As we have seen, Bess’ first impulse was to tell the world it was none of its business how she dressed. But she soon had to face the fact that the First Lady’s clothes were under intense scrutiny all the time. She decided to place her couturial confidence in a darkhaired, Greek-born designer named Agasta. I believe Evalyn Walsh McLean steered her in this direction, and it turned out to be good advice. Agasta had taste and tact. She never talked to the press, beyond supplying them with descriptions of new dresses, as Mother introduced them.

  While the First Lady was launching a social season that remained unmatched for splendor and dignity (in her memoirs, Edith Helm called it “the most spectacular of my long life”), the Truman presidency was in deep trouble. In the 1946 elections, the Republicans won control of both houses of Congress and declared war on the Democrats. Simultaneously, the Russians, seeing a divided government and a U.S. Army and Navy that had been demobilized into impotence, became more aggressive and arrogant. They backed a guerrilla army in Greece and threatened Turkey. The British, traditional stabilizers of the balance of power in Europe, were bankrupt, and the French and the Italians were not in much better shape. On the other side of the world, the Communists were smashing up Chiang Kai-shek’s corrupt regime in China and threatening the free half of Korea.

  When the British abruptly informed the United States that they could no longer support the Greek government in its war with the Communist guerrillas, Dad was faced with the first great foreign policy challenge of his administration. To bolster his political support in this crisis, Dad replaced Secretary of State Jimmy Byrnes with General George C. Marshall, the man who as Army chief of staff had been the architect of America’s victory in World War II. This change came as a shock to Mr. Byrnes, who thought he had won a victory when the president fired Henry Wallace.

  A doctrinaire conservative like Mr. Byrnes was not the man Dad needed to help him rally the majority of the country to meet the Communist challenge. He wanted a man like General Marshall, who was above politics. Proof of the wisdom of Dad’s choice was the response of the Republican-controlled Senate. They unanimously ratified the general’s appointment the same day it was submitted.

  Dad’s admiration of General Marshall was unqualified. The day he came to the White House to accept his new assignment, Dad noted on his desk diary: “The more I see and talk to him, the more certain I am he’s the great one of the age. I am surely lucky to have his friendship and support.”

  I am quite certain that Mother was the first person to hear about this decision to give General Marshall the second most important job in the administration. I am equally certain it won her enthusiastic backing. This was a good example of how the Truman partnership worked in the White House. More often than not, in those evening discussions, Mother listened as Dad talked out alternatives. She was particularly good at cautioning him against people like Jimmy Byrnes, who were mainly interested in enlarging their personal reputations at the president’s expense. She was equally good at spotting people whose first loyalty was to the country and the president. For her, as well as Dad, George Marshall was the prototype of this sort of man. Mother was equally fond of his wife, a woman of marvelous charm and gra
ce.

  Dad particularly valued Mother’s opinion regarding the political impact of his decisions on the American voter. Most of the time she was a cautionary voice, warning him against impulsive decisions. Only rarely did she suggest a man for a job, or recommend a change in a policy.

  If she expressed an opinion with which Dad disagreed, that was the end of it. He had the final say. Dad’s appointments secretary, Matt Connelly, who saw more evidence of Mother’s influence on Dad than anyone else, considered this the most important aspect of the Truman partnership. “She never nagged him,” Matt said. “Once he made a decision, whether or not she agreed with it, she accepted it.”

  With General Marshall on his team, Dad tackled the Greek crisis. Working day and night (on the heels of an exhausting effort to prepare a budget and legislative program to submit to the hostile Congress), Harry Truman put together a historic departure in American foreign policy. On March 12, Dad went before a joint session of Congress and asked them to approve $400 million in military aid for Greece and Turkey. It was the first time any president had ever proposed such aid when the nation was not at war.

  Even more important to the history of our century was Dad’s declaration of support for nations struggling to resist Communist conquest. Without mentioning the Soviet Union by name, he equated it with the totalitarian regimes of Germany and Japan. “I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures,” he said. With those momentous words, the president was declaring to the world - and to Joseph Stalin in particular - that the era of doubletalk was over. Henceforth, the United States regarded Soviet Russia as an enemy of freedom.

  The day after Dad delivered that now famous speech, Mother insisted that he take a vacation. He headed for Key West, and his letters from there show how important Mother’s intervention was. “I had no idea I was so tired,” he wrote. “I have been asleep most of the time [since he arrived]. . . . Even drove to the beach instead of walking as I did before.” He added that “Steelman [John Steelman, Assistant to the President] and Clifford [Clark Clifford, White House counsel] were as nearly all in as I was so it is a good arrangement all around.”