I’m still a little under the weather, seventy-eight is not twenty-eight—so—I’ll have to stop. Don’t you stop writing me those wonderful letters. My best to Alice. The “Boss” joins me.
Most sincerely,
Harry
Truman refers to a speech Acheson gave at Berkeley, California, on March 13, 1963, titled “Europe: Kaleidoscope or Clouded Crystal.” Acheson argued that, despite France’s unwillingness to be a cooperative member of the Western alliance, the United States’ European defense policy “was right and should be continued.” Truman’s enclosure is apparently the article about de Gaulle enclosed with his March 9 letter but may have been slightly different or in a different format. Truman mentions the theft from the Truman Library of a very fine collection of coins, including a type set of every American coin made during every presidency. The coins have never been recovered.
March 18, 1963
Dear Dean:
It was with great pleasure and satisfaction that I read your Berkeley, Calif., speech on the “Great” De Gaulle. In return I’m sending you a release I made for the North American Newspaper Alliance on the same fellow.
Yours was much better than mine because it is a character analysis and mine is a historical statement of some years back.
Luckily I have kept those documents of that period—and they are available to you and anyone you suggest for any use you want to make of them. There were two sets of all these important reports of those important meetings in 1946–47–48–49 & 50. I’ve no idea what the State, Defense, Commerce and Agriculture did with their copies—but I have mine and expect to keep them for the use of my friends—you at the top of the list!
I said two sets—there were two official sets and copies for all the others interested. Every effort has been made by the General Services and some department to obtain my copies. Those copies are in an Archives Building for which I raised $1,750,000.00 to construct and for which Independence gave me a 13 acre site. I turned over 4,500,000 documents and more than $300,000.00 worth of presents which had come to me as President from Heads of State. They are now the property of the people and Government of the U.S.A.
But you understand the said Govt. of the U.S.A. doesn’t take very good care of the articles. A short time ago $50,000.00 in coins and engravings of the Presidents’ pictures in whose time the coins were made disappeared from this Government Institution and have not been heard of since. The whole FBI has made an attempt to catch the thieves and are still working on it. They may catch the thieves but they’ll never find the coins nor the pictures.
Looks to me as if the President of France is way out in field left of 3rd base and nothing to catch!
Sincerely,
Harry
Acheson had recently been working on a report on the United States’ balance-of-payments problem for President Kennedy. He submitted the report, titled “Recommendations Relating to United States International Payments Problem,” to the President on February 25.
March 20, 1963
Dear Boss,
Two letters from you in quite short order give me the comforting assurance that you are moving on to complete recovery from your recent operation. You please me very much by liking the Berkeley speech. I worked very hard on it, trying to cull out any distracting and troublesome statements, such as got into the West Point speech and prevented the main theme from coming though. As a result, it seems to have forced a good deal of attention onto the substance of what was said.
Your own historical review of your discussions with the General were most interesting to me. I do not remember having known at the time what you two actually talked about, so it had all the interest of new discovery.
You must have been very distressed at the theft of that most unusual collection of coins, which—as I recall—John Snyder gave to the Library. The whole thing, as framed, was so large that it seems almost impossible that it could be taken away without any alarm at all. The guards surely do not suffer from insomnia.
I have, at the President’s request, been doing some work for him to get agreement within the Administration on a matter which might be regarded as outside my field of competence. But one can understand even unfamiliar subjects as no one knows better than you, if one works at them. So I went to work and soon was able to report that the departments concerned would go along happily with a paper I had prepared if the President crushed the first sign of revolt which all good bureaucrats try on just for luck. A big meeting was held, the rebel standard was raised, but the President did nothing. In no time at all the cell block was in a riot, and we are starting anew. I suppose it takes time to learn that just as there is a time to permit discussion, there is also a time to end it. Don’t delay in reading the riot act too long or no one will hear it!
Alice sends her most affectionate greetings to you and the Boss, as do I.
As ever,
Dean
Truman was asked by the president of the Yale Club of Montclair, New Jersey, to provide a message for a ceremony at which Acheson would be honored. “The judgment of history …,” Truman replied, “will mark Dean Acheson among the top three or four of the great Secretaries of State. No one has had a clearer sense of the times or the direction of the course this nation had to take in her relations with its friends and allies, as well as to meet the threat from the new enemy.”
March 29, 1963
Dear Dean:
I’m enclosing you a copy of the letter which I have received from the Montclair Yale Club of Montclair, New Jersey, and a copy of my reply to them.
Sincerely yours,
Harry S. Truman
A. Whitney Griswold was president of Yale. Acheson was the senior member of the Yale Corporation.
May 6, 1963
Dear Boss:
All hail to the 8th of May and your coming of age! I claim that you are a youth yet, and have two more years of your seventh decade. I, who have just turned seventy, am only completing my sixth. But we still aren’t as young as we were, when we struck blows for liberty, are we? Alice and I send you—and Bess, who makes it all possible—our love, affection, admiration, and all wishes for years of usefulness to the nation and joy to your friends.
Friends report that you are disappointed that it has taken longer to regain your strength after the operation than you had hoped. I can imagine you fretting to get at those morning walks again and cussing fate. But the first article of my faith is that you are indomitable and that the day will come. When it does, compromise a bit with the army regulations. A hundred paces a minute is enough for a while.
The death of our friend, Whit Griswold, of Yale, was a hard knock for all of us at Yale, but especially for me, since I had been so close to him, worked at his side, and had come to be devoted to him. We spent the afternoon before he died together, his last clear hours. He was a gallant and most lovable man.
You were most kind to write to the Montclair Yale Club so warmly about me on the occasion of their dinner to me. You always touch me by your faith in me. There are times now-a-days when I have a longing that together we might take the wheel and the bridge just long enough to set a firm course and get the crew standing to quarters, confident in the course and the command. I do not believe that the situation is as puzzling as the Administration appears to think. Germany is the present key to movement in Europe, and, I think, is ready to act with us. Instead Rusk spreads suspicion with his futile talks with the Russians, and we continue to negotiate with ourselves in Geneva over a nuclear test ban which the Russians have no intention of accepting.
Every good wish!
Affectionately,
Dean
Truman has apparently not fully recovered from his mid-January operation.
May 14, 1963
Dear Dean:
I understand that you are presiding at the dinner of the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs, on May 28th. I certainly wish I could be with you but I just can’t make it, much to my regret.
As you know, I
am just as interested in what goes on now as I was when I was in the center of things but that old lady “Anno Domini” has been chasing me and I have to slow up a bit, particularly since she has a partner in Mrs. Truman.
Please remember me to Mrs. Acheson.
Sincerely yours,
Harry S. Truman
Truman presided over the twenty-second Truman Committee Anniversary Dinner in Washington, D.C., on June 13. He had headed the Truman Committee—or, more properly, the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program—from March 1941 until he was nominated as the Democratic Party’s vice-presidential candidate in the summer of 1944. Acheson was invited to the dinner, but did not attend. Nor did he and Truman have an opportunity to visit together while Truman was in Washington.
May 26, 1963
Dear Dean:
I have been reading again your good letter of May 6th a couple of days before I became within twenty one years of one hundred. If, as you suggest, I finish this 7th decade, as I hope, I am sure I can do the other twenty.
It reminds me of one of my old political stories, which my old Uncle for whom I’m named told me seven decades ago.
It seems that there was a contest as to who could eat the greatest number of roasting ears off the cob. Well, one old fellow ate thirteen. He had to send for his doctor and his doctor told him he should send for his Baptist preacher to pray for him. His preacher told him he’d have to pray for himself. The old fellow said, “I’m not in the habit of addressing the Lord, you do it.”
“No,” said the preacher, “you’ll have to ask Him for relief yourself.”
Well, the old fellow got out of bed, got on his knees and made the following petition to the Almighty: “O Lord, I’ve eaten too many roasting ears—thirteen in fact. I’m not like these Damned Methodists, if you’ll relieve me of seven ears I’ll try to rastle around the other six.” Wasn’t that a fair proposition?
Now I’d like very much to trade Him two for twenty—can you help me?!
I was very sorry to hear of the death of President Griswold of Yale, because I knew of your close association. But, as you know, we have to meet them head on and you know how to do it.
At 79 you go to funeral after funeral of your friends, most of whom are younger than 79—and you sometimes wonder if the old man with the scythe isn’t after you. I’m trying to out run him.
Your suggestion about a take over intrigues me. Wish we could try it. I’m egotistical to think the two of us together could do some good for the country. You could do it by yourself and I hope you will. It’s always a pleasure to hear from you. Glad you were pleased with my letter about you. It wasn’t as good as it should have been.
Sincerely,
HST
It looks like I’m stationery stingy—but I couldn’t help stop! [Postscript written vertically in left-hand margin of letter. The last line of the letter and Truman’s signature are squeezed tightly and awkwardly on the last bit of paper on the bottom of the page.]
I’m hoping we’ll have a long time “get together” on June 13th. I’ll be at the Mayflower all day. Get in the evening of the 12th rather late.
Truman suffered a serious fall in the upstairs bathroom at his home on October 13, 1964. He appeared never to recover fully from this fall. He grew thin and came to the Truman Library less and less often. The “bewhiskered prelate” is Archbishop Makarios III, of the Greek Orthodox Church, president of the Republic of Cyprus at this time. The Greek and Turkish populations of Cyprus had been fighting over the future of the island all through 1964, and the United Nations was attempting to mediate a peace between the two sides. Acheson spent the summer of 1964 in Geneva, where the United Nations–sponsored negotiations were taking place. Although he had no official role in the negotiations, through the strong support of the Johnson administration and the force of his personality, he came to dominate the talks. They collapsed in late August, and Acheson came home. Greece and Turkey were both NATO member states, and the problems in Cyprus threatened to weaken NATO’s southeastern flank.
October 16, 1964
Dear Boss:
Now that I have made a determined start on the decade of the seventies you have confirmed a night mare fear—the ever lurking menace of the bath tub. Far more dangerous than the submarine or the bomb, nuclear or otherwise, it is a trap set for us old codgers. It is as dangerous to get into as to get out of, or to stay in. Recently when we built a new bath room onto our guest house at the farm, I refused to have any bath tub at all. Instead a gleaming white shower cabinet with a rubber floor. But still the wretched things lie in wait for us everywhere.
My heart goes out to you, battered, black eyed, lung congested, all to pursue overrated cleanliness. Remember the Eskimo! Not a bath from the autumn to the spring solstice. And now you are having what is worse than a tub bath—certainly more humiliating—those dreadful hospital baths.
Sympathy, affection, constant thoughts—all go from me—and from Alice—to you. And to Bess. We had an interesting and very pleasant summer in Geneva trying to do in the bewhiskered prelate. I failed but Alice did some fine painting.
Poor Lyndon! What a blow from fate!
Yours ever,
Dean
January 12, 1965
Dear Dean:
I was confronted with such an accumulation of matters which required my attention, when I returned to the office after my mishap, that I had to put off replying to my important mail. I am just now getting around to answering the ones in the special folder. I had hoped to write you a longhand letter, but I will have to dictate this one, and will send you a handwritten letter a little later.
I did not fall in the bathtub, as was reported by the press. I was going into the bathroom, caught my heel on the sill which caused me to fall and hit my head against the washstand. I wasn’t satisfied with the one fall and proceeded to hit the tub on the rebound and broke some ribs as well.
It has taken me a while to come out of it but I am now getting along all right, although I must be careful for some time yet.
Best wishes to you and Mrs. Acheson for a Happy New Year in which Mrs. Truman joins me.
Sincerely yours,
Harry S. Truman
President Truman’s brother, John Vivian Truman, died on July 9. The meeting with President Johnson that Acheson describes took place on July 8. The day began with a series of meetings of several elder statesmen, called the “Wise Men,” with administration officials, who described the deteriorating situation in South Vietnam. At the end of the day the Wise Men met with Johnson. About three weeks later, on July 28, Johnson announced his decision to send American troops to fight in combat roles in South Vietnam. The Wise Men mentioned in this letter are former Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett, General Omar Bradley, and former Assistant Secretary of War and U.S. High Commissioner for Germany John J. McCloy. Henry H. Fowler was Johnson’s Secretary of the Treasury.
July 10, 1965
Dear Boss,
Just a line to say that my thoughts are very much with you these days. I know how close you and Vivian have always been and that his death has been a sad break with so much that you hold dear. Alice and I want to send you a special message of love and devotion—a message which goes also to Bess.
On Thursday a few of us, whom LBJ calls his panel of advisors, met with him for three hours to talk about Europe, Latin America & S.E. Asia. We were all disturbed by a long complaint about how mean everything and everybody was to him—Fate, the Press, the Congress, the Intellectuals and so on. For a long time he fought the problem of Vietnam (every course of action was wrong; he had no support from anyone at home or abroad; it interfered with all his programs, etc., etc.). Lovett, Bradley, McCloy and John Coutes were there with McNamara, Rusk and Fowler. I got to thinking about you and General Marshall and how we never wasted time “fighting the problem”, or endlessly reconsidering decisions, or feeling sorry for ourselves.
Finally I blew my top and told him that he was w
holly right in the Dominican Republic and Vietnam, that he had no choice except to press on, that explanations were not as important as successful action; and that the trouble in Europe (which was more important than either of the other spots) came about because under him and Kennedy there had been no American leadership at all. The idea that Europeans could come to their own conclusions had led to an unchallenged de Gaulle.
With this lead my colleagues came thundering in like the charge of the Scots Greys at Waterloo. They were fine; old Bob Lovett, usually cautious, was all out, and, of course, Brad left no doubt that he was with me all the way. I think LBJ’s press conference of yesterday showed that we scored.
I am reading the bound galleys of a biography of Roger B. Taney by a Walker Lewis, a very fine book on a man whom I have always admired. Houghton Mifflin is publishing it this fall.
As ever yours,
Dean
On July 31, President Johnson paid tribute to Truman’s attempt during his presidency to pass into law a national health-insurance program, by coming to the Truman Library to sign the legislation creating Medicare. He came back to Independence several months later to present to Harry and Bess Truman the first two Medicare cards issued by the government.
August 4, 1965
Dear Dean:
Thank you for your interesting letter of July 10th. I appreciate your sympathetic message regarding the death of my brother Vivian. His passing has meant a great loss to me, but we have to accept those things when they happen—and I try to console myself by the fact that he had lived a long and happy life and had performed his public service honorably and well.
I read with interest about the meeting you described and appreciate the interest you take in things in which I am vitally interested. I believe that Johnson is doing a good job.
You heard, of course, of his coming here to sign the Medicare Bill. There were about 3,000 people on hand to witness it. We could only seat about 300 inside but the rest of them were on hand to witness his arrival and departure and I believe they felt as though they had been a part of the ceremony.
Affection and Trust: The Personal Correspondence of Harry S. Truman and Dean Acheson, 1953-1971 Page 34
