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

by David McCullough

  But what caused this effusion[?] I have a card inviting me to cocktails at 6 o’clock prior to the Alfalfa Club Dinner at the Statler on Saturday evening Jan. 21, 1956! That card is in the name of a personal friend of mine, one Dean G. Acheson, Edward Burling, Jr., with whom I’m not well acquainted, and John Lord O’Brian of whom I think most highly.

  Now what stumps me is that I’d be willing to risk my front seat in Beelzebub’s domain against a jet flying machine that not one of those gentlemen knows where Alfalfa came from, what it is used for, how deep the roots go and what they do for the soil: nor do they know the principal use of the seed, nor do they know how many crops per year are harvested and which one is the seed crop.

  I’m of the opinion that these three excellent gentlemen think that Alfalfa is the basic commodity in either Scotch or Bourbon Whiskey! Anyway I wish I could be there.

  My best to Alice.

  Sincerely,

  Harry Truman

  Acheson refers to an upcoming trip to Kansas City, where he will visit Truman and meet, in his capacity as vice president of the Harry S. Truman Library, with the members of the building committee, to discuss progress building the library. Mr. Rabinowitch’s letter discussed leaks from the so-called Acheson-Lilienthal Report of 1946, which had made recommendations to Truman about the international control of atomic energy.

  February 9, 1956

  Dear Mr. President:

  I am looking forward to Monday and seeing you. I hope the meeting will take place as planned.

  In the meantime I am sending you, in the thought that you might be interested in seeing it, a letter from the editor of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Mr. Rabinowitch, and of my reply to him.

  Alice joins me in the most affectionate greetings to you and Mrs. Truman.

  Most sincerely,

  Dean

  Acheson wasn’t able to stay at Truman’s home while he was in Kansas City, and stayed instead in the Presidential Suite on the eleventh floor of the Muehlebach Hotel, which Truman and his staff had apparently called the “penthouse” when they stayed there during Truman’s presidency. The three people Truman fired during his presidency were Douglas MacArthur, James F. Byrnes, and Harold L. Ickes, and in a famous meeting shortly after he became President he spoke very bluntly to Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov.

  February 21, 1956

  Dear Dean:

  Well, you are sunk again! I don’t know when I’ve been so down in the mouth as I was when you were here. Vietta, the old cook and general factotum who has been with us since 1922 and who tried to show the White House cooks how to make pies, biscuits and other things good to eat, was down with a flu bug and the “Boss” had been having arthritis pains in hands and knees—so you were treated like a stepchild coming home to see his family.

  I hope you’ll forgive me. That’s what I was thinking when I came up to the Muehlebach penthouse. So if I appeared absent minded you’ll know why. Things seem to be in the groove since you were here and the Library is an assured fact now. I’m glad we did it.

  The present occupant of the White House seems really to have repented—Homburg Hats, Formosa Straits, Korea visit, Egyptian Arms, Saudi Arabia, etc., etc., ad lib. But Dean I’m not sure that election year repentance will get him into Heaven or Hell which ever title you think is the correct one for the great white jail at 1600 Connecticut Ave.

  The National Committee of the Democratic Party I’m sure is of the opinion that “moderation” is the word. Maybe I’d [have] been much better off if I hadn’t told Molotov, MacArthur, Byrnes, Ickes and Ike where the track ended and it was time to get off.

  Maybe I’d better go to Europe and speak softly and bow and scrape in tails, tux and preacher coats. What about it.

  My best to Alice and to you and yours.

  Sincerely,

  Harry Truman

  “Stanley and Shirley” are Mrs. and Mrs. Stanley Woodward, who would accompany Truman on a two-month trip to Europe that began on his birthday, May 8. Woodward had been State Department chief of protocol and ambassador to Canada during the Truman administration. Acheson still thinks Eisenhower may not run for re-election. Christian Herter was at this time governor of Massachusetts. He would succeed John Foster Dulles as Secretary of State in 1959. Herter and Nixon were thought to be Republican moderates, compared with the right-wing isolationists of that time.

  February 23, 1956

  Dear Mr. President,

  As I told you in Kansas City, I had a delightful time on my visit. And our talk on Tuesday afternoon will remain with me for a long time. We have seldom had such a quiet, private and uninterrupted chance to “jaw”—as old Judge Holmes used to say. It was great fun and you must not feel that I expect or want to be entertained when I come out. It is joy enough to see you and put all our thoughts on the table. And as for the missed dinner by reason of Vietta’s excessive social life while you were East, I understood and sympathized with her and you.

  Last Saturday we had a good evening with Margaret. She was very pretty and full of ginger. Her radio program, she told us, she is going to stop because it is so dull. This is a sure sign that she is getting too successful for words. I prescribe a few weeks in a law office to get her in the mood where even the commercials sound exciting. Stanley and Shirley were there full of eagerness for their trip with you this May and June. I don’t believe for a minute that this is going to turn you into a socialite, as you suggest, and know that when you get back we shall have the devil’s own time getting a halter on you.

  Adlai called me Sunday evening saying that he was being pressed to make some more statements on Israel and segregation. I urged him not to do so. Here are two matters which extreme talk can only make even more insoluble. The sensible people, and there are some, connected with Israel, the Arabs, the Southern Whites and the negroes are made to appear traitors when the field is left to the extremists. The press people here are all convinced that Ike’s decision to run has already been made and is only delayed in coming out by (1) his wish to appear to be forced to run and (2) by the battle between the anti-Nixon forces who are pushing Herter, and Nixon and the right wing. However, I am not ready yet to hedge my bet that he won’t run.

  In all the exchanges over the memoirs no one has put you second best yet. That’s pretty good going. I wish you had hit MacArthur harder. He never was a great soldier!

  Faithfully yours,

  Dean

  Truman reports that his daughter, Margaret, is going to be married. Her fiancé was E. Clifton Daniel, a New York Times journalist. Jonathan Daniels was a newsman and White House Press Secretary.

  March 26, 1956

  Dear Dean:

  Well, here you are a victim again. Margie has put one over on me and got herself engaged to a news man! He strikes me as a very nice fellow and if Margaret wants him I’ll be satisfied. He seems to be very highly thought of in newspaper circles and particularly the N.Y. Times people.

  The young lady told us about it just a week or two before the announcement and swore us to secrecy. In fact, she made me hang up while she told her mother. Did your daughter do you that way? I was forbidden to tell my brother and sister. Like a couple of amateurs they went to North Carolina to see his mother and father (nice people by the way) and then had dinner with Jonathan Daniels, of all people, hoping to keep a secret! The next day they called Daddy and wanted to know what to do. Well, Dad announced the engagement the next morning without a chance to tell his friends. Again, did your daughter do that?

  Well, we’ve had at least two thousand letters and telegrams and she’s had twice as many—serves her right. As every old man who has a daughter feels, I’m worried and hope things will work out all right. Can’t you give me some consolation?

  Sincerely,

  Harry

  Mary and Dave are Acheson’s daughter and son.

  March 27, 1956

  Dear Mr. President,

  Consolation is just what I can give. In the first plac
e about Margaret’s choice. She has always had good judgment and has shown it again here. Alice and I had dinner with them here on her birthday—just a year before we [had] celebrated it in Independence with you—I was completely captivated by Clifton Daniel. He has charm and sense and lots of ability. On the way home I told Alice that there was romance in the wind and that I was all for it. She somewhat acidly remarked that I had so monopolized Mr. Daniel that she hadn’t been able to get any idea of Margaret’s view of him, and that I was getting to be an old matchmaker. This only made my triumph all the sweeter when the announcement came. I stick by my guns and am sure that the man Margaret has chosen is first class and just the one for her. Marriage is the greatest of all gambles. But character helps and my bets are all on the success of this venture.

  Now as to the behavior of daughters and the position of the father of the bride. Daughters, I have found, take this business of marriage into their own hands and do as they please. So do sons—or perhaps some one else’s daughter decides for them. I explained most lucidly to Mary and Dave that they should wait until the end of the war to get married. So they got married at once. All in all, the father of the bride is a pitiable creature. No one bothers with him at all. He is always in the way—a sort of backward child—humored but not participating in the big decisions. His only comforter is a bottle of good bourbon. Have you plenty on hand?

  At any rate all this will take your mind off politics which seem to me royally mixed up—at least on our side. One thing I don’t understand. Some of the wise men say—and I hear you quoted to this effect—that the desirable thing is to have an open convention where the nomination can be worked out. But why isn’t this a pretty sure road to getting some one whom nobody trusts? The only real possibilities—good possibilities—seem to be Adlai and Averell. Adlai, if nominated, would seem to have the better chance to win—though not a very good chance. Averell, if nominated and defeated, might, as the Governor of the most important Democratic state, be able to maintain a vigorous party committed to liberal principles through the difficult years until 1960. But by then he might be rather old for another try—and not realize it. At any rate, isn’t that about the choice? And wouldn’t it be rather good to have it made before rather than attempt it in the confusion of the convention? If you ask me, made by whom? I don’t know. What I need from you is some political education. This is a fair exchange for consolation.

  Alice sends her love to Mrs. Truman and to you. Her exhibition in New York has been—at the half-way mark—a great success. She has sold nine pictures. The latest purchaser, Mrs. Herbert Lehman.

  Affectionately and sincerely,

  Dean

  On April 21, 1956, Margaret Truman and E. Clifton Daniel were married at Trinity Episcopal Church in Independence, Missouri—the same church where Harry and Bess Truman had been married thirty-seven years before. It does not appear that the Achesons attended the wedding.

  Stanley Woodward urged Acheson to provide material for Truman’s speech to the Pilgrims Society in London on June 21.

  May 3, 1956

  Dear Mr. President,

  Stanley asked me, as your agent, to make some suggestions for your speech to the Pilgrims in London. It has been done and is enclosed. I talked over the general nature of the speech with David and Charles. We agreed on the general approach here used. I am alone responsible for the execution.

  I am rushing to get this off so that you and David can look at it together.

  As ever,

  Dean

  Acheson writes to Truman in New York City, where the Trumans would soon board ship for Europe. The two books were Harold Sinclair’s The Horse Soldiers, a Civil War story about a Union raid behind Confederate lines during the Battle of Vicksburg, and L. E. Jones’s A Victorian Boyhood, a reminiscence of Victorian England. May 8 was Truman’s birthday.

  May 9, 1956

  Dear Mr. President,

  The 8th eluded me. So birthday greetings go off to you today a little late but no less warm for all that. We send, also,—Alice and I—every wish for a wonderful trip. Do not let people impose on your good nature to go to dreary functions and make speeches to every kind of group. Mrs. Truman is the perfect answer to all these requests. This is her trip and you just can’t do any of these unwanted things as you have a date with her. And a mighty good one it is, too—both answer and date.

  Our affection goes with you, as do a couple of books we are sending to the ship. They are good ship-board reading and won’t immerse you in problems. Please give our warmest greetings to Margaret and her nice husband.

  Most sincerely,

  Dean

  Harry and Bess Truman, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Woodward, departed for Europe on the liner United States on Truman’s seventy-second birthday, May 8. Their seven-week grand tour took them to France, Italy, Austria, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and England. Crowds of admiring and curious people greeted Truman everywhere; reporters followed him; he had an audience with the Pope; he visited all the great monuments, historical sites, and museums along the way; in England, he received from Oxford University an honorary doctorate, met with Winston Churchill at his country home, had lunch with Queen Elizabeth, and delivered the speech Acheson wrote for him for the Pilgrims Society meeting. The Trumans sailed for home on June 28. Their grand tour of Europe was the best vacation of their lives.

  Acheson had plunged into presidential politics. The Democratic National Convention was only about a month away. In this letter he comments on Stevenson’s and Harriman’s candidacies.

  July 15, 1956

  Dear Mr. President,

  The trip was clearly a great success. One could see that you were having the time of your life and it was a fair inference from this that Mrs. Truman was, too. We have not seen the Woodwards but, when they get back, shall look forward to all the details. Oxford and the Pilgrims dinner seem to have been a great success. In fact, even The Washington Star, under the delightful alliteration “Harricum Heads Home,” said that you both were the best ambassadors we have. I hope you have not been tired out by all your experiences.

  We are spending a quiet summer. In fact for the next two days it will be excessively quiet for me since I am having a check up to see why some of my machinery doesn’t work better than it does. But some work goes on, too. I have been working with a group here to get up some suggestions on a foreign policy plank for the platform committee. In a day or two I shall send you the latest draft for your comments.

  Averell was here last Friday and seemed in good health and spirits, though inclined to believe that during his time in the hospital Adlai had gotten a bandwagon started. I like Averell’s fighting attitude and his good knowledge and judgment about foreign affairs. It seems to me that he is deceived about his chances by the talk of some of the politicos. He wants you to come out for him privately now on the theory that this would stop a pure bandwagon performance and allow a more deliberate consideration and choice. I told him that I thought you were wise in remaining neutral at this time in order to be effective later if the necessity arose in a deadlock. I recognize that this at the moment helped Adlai more then Averell, but I thought one who produced a deadlock, rather than resolved one, was assuming quite a responsibility.

  Alice and the children and grandchildren are all fortunately well. We send you and Mrs. Truman affectionate greetings and a warm welcome home

  Most sincerely,

  Dean

  P.S. One of my principal purposes in starting this letter was to send you my thanks for the handsome and inscribed copy of Volume Two of your memoirs. I am most grateful and appreciative. It will be preserved and treasured in its place of Honor.

  Sherman Adams was Eisenhower’s chief executive assistant.

  July 20, 1956

  Dear Dean:

  Your letter of the 17th [sic] was as highly appreciated as your letters always are. I was afraid I’d let you down at Oxford but apparently I didn’t.

  Our trip was fantastic. A
t the ship going and coming we were treated as if we still lived at 1600 Penna. Ave! At LaHarve [Le Havre], Paris, Rome, Naples, Assisi, Venice, Vicenza, Salzburg, Munich, Bonn, the Loire Valley, Brussels, The Hague, Amsterdam, Harlem, London, Oxford, Chartwell, 10 Downing Street, Buckingham Palace, Southampton we were overwhelmed with kindness.

  Paris, on our arrival from the ship on the way to Rome, they mobbed us. There were 2000 people at the station and only four police, two gendarmes, and one security officer. The Boss and Mrs. Woodward were squeezed out and almost mashed. I had to send a policeman for them. Rome same way, same experience.

  We went to the Greek temple area at Paestum and the ladies’ hair dos were as now and so were they in Pompeii. My sympathies were with the slaves of the time, most of whom knew more than did their owners.

  Back in Rome we looked over some of the art of Michelangelo. His David, about which there are ravings, is not a Jew at all. He is not circumcised!

  At Assisi the old priest who ran me upstairs and down, with a sprained ankle, kept asking me what St. Francis had done for me and I told him nothing but give me a sore throat and a stomach ache in his town of San Francisco. Questions stopped after that.

  In Venice, we had a very highly educated young lady who took us through St. Mark’s Cathedral [Basilica] and when I asked her where the Venetian Doges had stolen this article and that she was very much embarrassed. When I’d ask her which Doge authorized the great painting in the palace she could not tell me. She knew all about the artists and I was somewhat familiar with the men who made the artists possible—She wasn’t but I didn’t tell her!