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

by David McCullough

  Alice is trying to get Clifton to come down this fall to speak to the Women’s National Democratic Club. To this end she is hoping to induce Margaret and Clifton to stay with us. I pointed out that this is a delightful idea but leaves out one member of the family of the greatest possible importance.

  With warmest greetings.

  As ever,

  Dean

  Truman asks Acheson whether he should accept an invitation to speak at Yale University, Acheson’s alma mater. The NANA article concerned the Eisenhower Doctrine and the Middle East.

  August 21, 1957

  Dear Dean:

  I am enclosing you a copy of a letter I received from the Yale Political Union.

  If you think it is a good thing, I will do my best to fit it into my schedule.

  I am a little vague about the meaning of a “tri-partisan” debating society. “Bi-partisan” is, of course, within my scope of comprehension.

  Your letter of the 14th was more than appreciated, and I read your message to Lyndon with the greatest interest. You told him exactly what he ought to hear.

  I just happened to have a copy of my latest article for NANA which I will enclose. It covers the pending situation in the Near East, which, between you and me, I think we have lost.

  Sincerely yours,

  Harry

  My best to Alice.

  The new book that Acheson was working on was eventually titled Power and Diplomacy. He chides Truman for some too-simple argumentation in his recent NANA article. Truman, now as earlier, was more willing than Acheson to advise Congress to give the President the powers he was requesting to commit American forces to the Middle East.

  August 28, 1957

  Dear Mr. President:

  Alice and I are off tomorrow for a vacation of three weeks visiting children and seeing friends—not that the children are not friends.

  I am hastening this note in answer to yours of August 21st before we leave. My advice would be to pass up this invitation from the Yale Political Union. You have far more important things to do, and some day I want you to come to Yale for a stay of some days, under the auspices of the University itself and not of a particular under-graduate group.

  The “tri-partisan” idea puzzled me too. However, my son, David, offers illumination. The Political Union did not exist in my day, but he seems to have been President of it in his. I gather from him that there are three parties in the Union, covering the spectrum—the Conservative, the Liberal, and the Labor parties. So I think that neither of us need feel—at any rate we won’t feel—that our intellectual powers are slipping because we did not know what the writer meant.

  The letter to Lyndon, slightly recast to put it in the form of an article, will appear in The Reporter issue of September 5th (to go on sale August 29). In the next issue I have another article—a frivolous one, but I think you and Mrs. Truman will get a chuckle out of it.

  Today I am in a state of exhaustion, having finished the first draft of my lectures at the Fletcher School, which will come out in book form in the spring. The title might be—but probably won’t be—“An American Looks at the World.” It is an attempt to survey the world situation as it is, the two opposed systems which are in process of formation, and what we are called upon to do economically, militarily, and politically, if the free world system is to be viable and defensible. It is quite a mouthful. When I get a revised clean draft, sometime in September, I shall send a copy on to you.

  I have read with great interest your last article, which you were kind enough to send to me. It lays down some truths which need to be said and resaid. Its abbreviated form necessitated stating some things as absolute, which I hesitate to think are quite so clear.

  Our love to Mrs. Truman.

  Sincerely yours,

  Dean

  Truman mentions that he is still settling in to his new office at the Truman Library. He would report for work to that office essentially every day for nine years when he was not traveling or ill.

  August 31, 1957

  Dear Dean:

  Your letter of the 28th was most highly appreciated, and just as soon as I can get straightened out in my new office, I will sit down and write you a real letter.

  Thank you for that information on the “tri-partisan” situation. When something of that kind puzzles my Secretary of State, who is never puzzled by anything (except, perhaps, the supposititious inclusion of an issue of the Milwaukee Journal in the library cornerstone), my confusion no longer troubles me.

  I will try to get copies of the September 5th and immediately following issue of the Reporter. I may ask the old man to send it to me all the time. I used to get it when it was first started and I was making contributions, but he cut me off when I had to stop.

  I am looking forward with longing and tremendous interest to the publication of your series of Fletcher School lectures. I see no reason why you should not call it An American Looks at the World.

  The Boss was highly pleased to have an opportunity to read your letter, and she joins me in the hope that you and Alice will have a wonderful vacation.

  Sincerely yours,

  Harry

  Truman tells a story on himself that features Senators Rufus C. Holman of Oregon, Owen Brewster of Maine, and Monrad Wallgren of Washington. The “PBY” was a flying boat, “PB” standing for “patrol bomber.” Truman also bemoans the damage the United States is suffering internationally from Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus’s use of the National Guard to prevent nine African American students from attending Central High School in Little Rock.

  October 7, 1957

  Dear Dean:

  I’ve been thinking about you and present developments. Just received an invitation to attend some lectures you are giving at Tufts U. in Medford, Mass., Oct. 23rd, 24th, 25th. Wish I could be present. Will you send me the lectures? I’ll read them and some day those back brain cells of mine may come up with a plagiarism!

  I can’t be in Washington on the 19th and 20th. The daughter of Mrs. T’s favorite cousin is to be married that Saturday and we must be present.

  You never in your life, I’m sure, have seen the like of invitations. Tomorrow I must go to Texas for Sam Rayburn’s library dedication: As you know he came to mine and so did you. One of my cousins made a colored picture of you out in front of our old house. It was a good one.

  November 1st I’ve accepted a trip to Los Angeles to “draw” So[uthern] Cal[ifornia] Democrats to a $100 dinner for the purpose of raising funds to put that great Crackpot State in a corner where it has always belonged. I’m like Sen. Holman when he went to Attatuck [perhaps Adak, or another of the Aleutian Islands] with Mon Wallgren and Brewster on an investigation which I was making in Seattle. The three went in a PBY and were shot at by the Japs. Sen. Holman in his high pitched voice said to Mon—“Ain’t a man a damn fool to do this when he doesn’t have to?” Well, “Ain’t He.”

  The Russians and Arkansas seem to have the Chief Executive, Mrs. Dulles and the country over a barrel propaganda wise. It sure beats hell how things happen.

  Wish I could sit and talk with you for an hour or thirty minutes or even for five minutes. My morale would go up 100%. When will I get one of your good, uplifting letters?

  My best to Alice. Hope you won’t throw this in the “Round File.”

  Sincerely,

  Harry Truman

  The dedication of the Sam Rayburn Library in Bonham, Texas, which Truman attended, was on October 9, 1957. Thomas G. Corcoran (“Tommy the Cork”), an official during the Roosevelt administration, was at this time a Democratic Party operative. The “renegade Democrat” Acheson refers to was Secretary of the Treasury Robert B. Anderson. Acheson looks forward to presenting a foreign-policy statement to the Democratic Advisory Council later in the month. He worries that Eisenhower’s inattentive and ineffectual leadership, as demonstrated in the Little Rock crisis, could eventually cause the country to stumble into war. For the first time in this correspondence, Acheson seems tru
ly concerned about the drift of foreign policy in the face of a serious worsening of foreign relationships.

  October 8, 1957

  Dear Mr. President,

  Your good letter tells me that you are off to Sam Rayburn’s Library opening. Tom Corcoran asked me to go on a company plane, but I passed it up. Why did Sam have to get a renegade Democrat to be paired with you as a speaker? If he was going to have a Republican he might have had the real thing, as you did with Uncle Herbert Hoover.

  I shall miss you at the Council meeting on the 19th but approve your choice of a wedding to a wake. For me it will be another Post week-end. At least my role of presenting the Foreign Policy statement will have the merit which John G. Johnson found in staying at the bar instead of accepting Cleveland’s offer of a place on the Supreme Court. “I would rather talk to the damned fools,” he said, “than listen to them.”

  We have worked out a pretty good statement with some sense to it. But I suppose your brethren will want to clutter it up with a lot of words about peace, disarmament, Israel, Poland, etc., to produce the old futile attempt to appeal to nationality groups—like the 1956 platform.

  We are, I think, getting in bad shape internationally. The combination of distrust of Dulles, our defense policy, which more and more rests on a relative nuclear position which we do not have and can never have, and no economic policy for the undeveloped countries is isolating us. It could easily pave the way for a quite unmanageable international situation.

  This frightens me because of the lesson of Little Rock—a weak President who fiddles along ineffectually until a personal affront drives him to unexpectedly drastic action. A Little Rock with Moscow and the S.A.C. in the place of the paratroopers could blow us all apart.

  My lectures try to get at the inwardness of our predicament and suggest lines of policy. Sometimes I am frankly over my head. But as I study I become increasingly depressed. The escape from Götterdämmerung will take vigor of mind and leadership which I do not see in either party, even on the distant horizon. And for three years it seems impossible to do anything at all. God rest ye merry gentlemen!

  This is hardly a gay letter. But you are proof against depression.

  Our warmest greetings to you and Mrs. Truman.

  As ever,

  Dean

  Acheson discusses an invitation to Truman from a Yale University professor to speak to students and faculty. Acheson had written this professor in 1954 about Truman’s coming to Yale: “Mr. Truman is deeply interested in and very good with the young. His point of view is fresh, eager, confident.… He has learned the hard way, but he has learned a lot. He believes in his fellow man and he believes that with will and courage (and some intelligence) the future is manageable. This is good for undergraduates.… It is not what he says but what he is which is important to young men.… [He is someone who could] give our undergraduates more sense of what their lives are worth … than anyone I know.”

  October 21, 1957

  Dear Mr. President:

  Some time ago you wrote me about an invitation you had from a student organization at Yale to speak there. I advised that you should not do this, but that if the University authorities should ask you I would most earnestly hope that you could go. During my last visit to New Haven President Griswold spoke to me most enthusiastically about your coming, and I have just had a talk over the telephone with Mr. Thomas G. Bergin, the Master of Timothy Dwight College, one of the under-graduate residential sections of the University, asking me whether you would consider coming for the inside of a week as what is known as a Chubb Fellow. I told him that I would immediately write you about it, preparing a way for his invitation which will follow soon upon my note.

  Two years ago I went to Yale as a Chubb Fellow. It is an ideal way to meet and talk seriously with college students without getting into the big prepared lecture, which, unless one wishes to put it later into book form, is a trial and a nuisance.

  The Chubb Fellow receives a pretty good honorarium and his travel expenses. He is given a suite in Timothy Dwight College—bedroom, bathroom, sitting room—he has his meals in the College and usually dines with the Master in the Master’s house. A schedule is arranged for him, which is entirely subject to his approval.

  When I was there I met with the boys who live in Timothy Dwight after dinner one evening. There are about 250 of them. We met in the common room, and this is very informal. The boys sit on the floor and stand against the wall. I talked for about ten or fifteen minutes to start them off, and then had questions until the Master had to break it up. Another evening, after dinner, we met in the Fellows’ room with those members of the faculty who are attached to the college. We sat around with a drink in one hand and had a fine evening’s talk. During the day I met on occasions with somewhat smaller groups who were studying government or foreign affairs, often with foreign students, for informal discussion. Once or twice I went to the larger classroom and discussed the subject which the boys were studying. On one occasion it was the influence of Europe on America, which gave a fine chance to talk about ideas, good and bad, received in the colonial period, the effect of our long isolation during the peace of the nineteenth century, and our abrupt awakening to the facts of life in this century. You can do as much or as little as you like. The boys are eager for informal conversation, and I think you would feel, if you did it, that you had had a contact with the younger generation which will give you a good deal of satisfaction in return for the very great help which you will give them.

  If you want to talk with me more about this when they write you, please do.

  In the meantime, let me give you a laugh for the day. When the Advisory Council was discussing the statement on foreign affairs which you very helpfully approved, it was opposed by Mr. Adlai E. Stevenson, who said that it was far too restrained and thoughtful, that no part of it would be published, and that it had no voter appeal. He was ultimately overruled, and turned out to be slightly in error about its newspaper prominence. However, the last touch was furnished by the New York Times editorial this morning, which begins, “The Democratic Advisory Council, employing a style greatly influenced by one of its members, Adlai E. Stevenson …” I am waiting with some interest to see how adaptable Adlai’s mind really is. Perhaps in a few days he will imagine that he did write the statement, or I may get a note saying that his judgment is not infallible. Which side of the bet do you want to take?

  With warmest regards.

  Sincerely,

  Dean

  “Our friend the Governor” is Adlai Stevenson, whom Acheson playfully maligned in his letter of October 21.

  October 29, 1957

  Dear Dean:

  Your letter of the 21st was most highly appreciated, and I hope that I can arrange a visit to Yale as a Chubb Fellow. After our correspondence on the subject, it seems to be the proper way to meet the situation. You will hear from me a little later on.

  Never having been able to comprehend the attitudes of our friend the Governor, I cannot with certainty determine his reaction to the reception given your statement on foreign affairs. Painful prejudice, however, tempts me to believe that he might be willing to assume authorship.

  Sincerely yours,

  Harry Truman

  Acheson reports on an attempt by John Foster Dulles to co-opt “our Peerless Leader”—Adlai Stevenson—into doing the Eisenhower administration’s bidding. Christian Herter was now Undersecretary of State, as well as a noted internationalist and former governor of Massachusetts.

  November 1, 1957

  An Eyes Only Message

  Dear Mr. President:

  You were very kind to telegraph the Fletcher School as you did. I deeply appreciated what you said about me, as, indeed, I always do. It caused no little comment, too, and for this reason. Ike had promised one of the Trustees of the School—his host on his last fishing trip to New England—that he would send a message. Word then came that he would not. The trustees at once got in touch with their former
Governor, and an alleged friend of mine, Chris Herter, who agreed to oblige. He did. He sent a message praising the School and Will Clayton, but omitting reference to the lecturer. So, when your warm reference was read, there was both applause and well bred chuckles at Chris Herter’s awkward predicament. It seems to me that he is too much of a gentleman to have been a party to discourtesy of this sort without orders from above—he, also, has not enough backbone to disregard them.

  (I now shift from office to house and a change of paper.)

  Yesterday our Peerless Leader came to see me and later talked with me from New York. Since he is contemplating an act of unusual folly—even for him—I want you to know about it (how confidentially, I leave to you—the newspapers are already full of rumors). Dulles, he said, has asked him to come on, and had talked with him the previous evening. The Peerless Leader (P.L. to us) had with him when he saw me two pieces of paper. The first a copy of the Eisenhower-Macmillan press release on which Para. 5 had underlined three numbered “policies or purposes” according to the P.L. They were (1) that all of our allies who wish to should know more of the capabilities of security, which we had, in being and prospect, (2) a “greater opportunity should be provided to assure that this power will, in fact, be available in case of need for their common security” and (3) “that it will not be misused by any nation for purposes other than individual and collective self-defense, authorized (sic) by the Charter of the U.N.”

  Also a sentence was underlined that we and the U.K. regard our possession of nuclear weapons as held in trust—(for purposes which I forget).

  The other paper was a draft press release announcing that a Mr. X, which the P.L. reluctantly admitted was supposed to be none other than his peerless self, would become a special assistant to the President to devise and negotiate, internally and externally, policies to carry out the underlined policies (1), (2) and (3). The problem, it had been explained to him, was that for some reason our allies had lost confidence in our capacity and intentions. The P.L. was to be given the job of restoring their confidence in both.