Bess Truman Read online

  On this visit, Dad again discussed with Chief justice Vinson whether he would become his successor. He wanted to begin laying the groundwork for making him a viable candidate. He reminded Mother of Mr. Vinson’s loyalty during the ‘48 campaign, when he asked him to go to Moscow to see if he could make a breakthrough for peace with Stalin. “He didn’t want to go,” Dad recalled, in this letter. “But he said, ‘I’m your man to do what you want me to do for the welfare of the country.’ How many Congressmen, Senators, even Cabinet Officers would have said that?”

  The linkage in this hitherto unpublished letter between a conference with Mr. Vinson and the hint in the opening lines that Mother had joined “the critical side” convinces me that they were still debating the question of Dad running in 1952. With Mr. Vinson still on the fence, Mother was urging Dad to find another candidate. He was still hoping the chief justice would make up his mind.

  A few days later, the Key West sunshine had restored Dad’s optimism and energy. He wrote Mother another letter, noting that Styles Bridges of New Hampshire, a hitherto respectable Republican conservative, had joined the McCarthyite red-baiters. He had decided to answer these demagogues with another whistle-stop tour that would tell people the truth. “We’ll take them to town as we did before,” he promised her.

  Back in Washington, President Truman apparently settled the question of running again and ended the tension it was causing between him and his wife. A month before he launched his counteroffensive against McCarthy, he sat down at his desk and wrote one of those memorandums to himself that are the closest he came to keeping a diary. It is not only a significant document in the history of the Truman marriage and their political partnership. It contains some of Dad’s most profound thoughts on the presidency.

  I am not a candidate for nomination by the Democratic Convention.

  My first election to public office took place in November 1922. I served two years in the armed forces in World War I, ten years in the Senate, two months and 20 days as Vice President and President of the Senate. I have been in public service well over thirty years, having been President of the United States almost two complete terms.

  Washington, Jefferson, Monroe, Madison, Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson as well as Calvin Coolidge stood by the precedent of two terms. Only Grant, Theodore Roosevelt and FDR. made the attempt to break that precedent. FDR. succeeded.

  In my opinion eight years as President is enough and sometimes too much for any man to serve in that capacity.

  There is a lure in power. It can get into a man’s blood just as gambling and lust for money have been known to do.

  This is a Republic. The greatest in the history of the world. I want this country to continue as a Republic. Cincinnatus and Washington pointed the way. When Rome forgot Cincinnatus its downfall began. When we forget the examples of such men as Washington, Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, all of whom could have had a continuation in the office, then will we start down the road to dictatorship and ruin. I know I could be elected again and continue to break the old precedent as it was broken by FDR. It should not be done. That precedent should continue - not by a Constitutional amendment but by custom based on the honor of the man in the office.

  Therefore to reestablish that custom, although by a quibble I could say I’ve only had one term, I am not a candidate and will not accept the nomination for another term.

  I am sure Dad showed this magnificent statement to Mother, and I am equally sure that she glowed as she read it. That settles it, she thought. She could look forward to the next two years in the White House with something close to tranquility. She could anticipate a future in which she and her husband would finally have some time together to enjoy themselves as private citizens.

  The alert reader may have noted that I wrote that the statement “apparently” settled the question. History, Bess’ old foe, was about to unsettle it - and a lot of other things.

  The McCarthy-bashing whistle-stop tour was a happy expedition. Dad celebrated his sixty-sixth birthday on the train. Here’s a glimpse of that day from my diary.

  Monday, May 8, 1950. They gave Dad a huge cake at Ottumwa. He’s had 13 or 14 cakes today. We got off in the pouring rain at Lincoln, Nebr. I got soaked but it was warm anyway. The crowds have been tremendous even in the rain. They have smiling faces and are very enthusiastic.

  Although Dad made over fifty speeches in ten days, there was none of the tension, the frantic pace of the 48 campaign train. Mother had a smile on her face most of the time. But she did not consider Joe McCarthy a laughing matter, and she heartily approved the way Dad went after him. So did the people who cheered and clapped.

  I won’t blame it on the birthday cakes, but something in the food or water got to me and Mother toward the end of this expedition. We returned to the White House and took to our respective beds for several days. I recovered first, and Mother threw me into the social breach, ordering me to play hostess for a luncheon she was giving in honor of Perle Mesta, whom Dad had just appointed ambassador to Luxembourg. I fled back to New York after this chore, convinced that I had the better deal, even if I never got another break in show business.

  The TV impresario Ed Sullivan took me to lunch at Sardi’s and invited me to appear on his “Toast of the Town” in the fall. It would be my national TV debut. Mother was impressed. She remarked in her wry way that I might actually turn out to be able to make a living after all.

  Grandmother Wallace and Vietta Garr flew to Independence for the summer. Mother took the train out to get things settled at 219 North Delaware. Whenever she could manage it, Mother preferred to travel on the ground. Flying was torture to her. Grandmother Wallace did not seem to mind it, and the shorter trip meant less strain on her fragile health.

  Dad pursued Mother with cheerful letters. He reported that he had had a physical examination, and Dr. Graham pronounced him in good shape. “[1] hope to stay that way for at least another two years, six months and twenty days. Then the millennium.”

  He was still pursuing his plan to retire at the end of the term. He went on to describe a ceremony in the Cabinet Room, in which he presented Vice President Barkley with a gold medal from Congress for his many years of public service. Significantly, Chief Justice Vinson was there, and he made a “nice little speech” about how thoroughly the Veep deserved the honor. The chief justice was an old friend of Barkley and a fellow Kentuckian - but it was also a chance to make him feel part of the Truman administration.

  Most of Dad’s and Mother’s thoughts were on American politics that spring. The midterm elections were coming up in November, and they did not want to lose control of Congress. That was the only reason Dad decided to accept a degree from the University of Missouri – to gain a platform to help Democratic candidates in the state. Mother remarked in her acerbic way that the university had only taken six years to get around to honoring Missouri’s first president. Dad agreed that she was “right” about them “in every particular.” But he had “other fish to fry” - in particular the Republican senator who was up for reelection, Forest O’Donnell.

  The political skies seemed to be brightening. After his trip to Missouri for the degree, Dad told Mother he had read all the New York, Baltimore, and Washington newspapers that had accumulated in his absence, and there was “not a mean remark in them.” He was even more amazed by cordial editorials in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Globe Democrat. “I am sure I’m slipping,” he joked.

  He was proud of his speeches in Columbia and in St. Louis. “They made a complete resume of the foreign policy of the United States. No one can misunderstand it or garble it. . . . It has taken five years to get to this point. I am hoping two more will wind it up” (italics mine).

  Notice the reservation in those last words. I am sure Mother noticed it. Dad was convinced he was fighting for peace in the world, and there was still a part of his mind where he was ready to risk his health and his partner’s wrath, if necessary. “It’s an awful responsibility,” he wrote
. “That’s what I was thinking when I looked down on those two thousand young people . . . on Friday.”

  In this upbeat frame of mind, Dad flew to Independence on June 24 to celebrate his thirty-first wedding anniversary. It was, in keeping with Mother’s wishes, to be the quietest of quiet visits, if possible. The White House issued a statement all but admonishing the public to leave the president and his family alone. This reduced the number of spectators outside 219 North Delaware to a mere 100 when he arrived.

  Later in the day, Freddy and Chris and their children joined the rest of the Wallaces and the Trumans for another family reunion (I had arrived on the 19th). After dinner, we sat out on the back porch, which Mother had had widened and screened-in earlier that year, chatting about everything and nothing in particular. About 10:00 p.m., we decided it was chilly and retreated to the library. We were barely settled there when Dad received a call from Washington.

  He returned with a grim look on his face. “That was Dean Acheson. The Communists have invaded South Korea.”

  “Oh Harry,” Mother said. She seemed to sense, instantly, what it meant.

  “I’m going to stay here tonight. It may not be as serious as it sounds. Tomorrow I want everyone to pretend it’s business as usual.”

  I don’t think Dad got much sleep that night. Nor did Mother. She could see the havoc this Communist foray would create in American politics, with Senator McCarthy yammering in the wings. Nevertheless, the next day we were all good soldiers. We went to Trinity Church and chatted with neighbors as if it was just another sleepy summer Sunday in Independence. Dad drove out to the family farm in Grandview (he had repurchased part of it during his first term) to see about putting a new roof on the house. All of this play-acting was motivated by Dad’s desire to prevent the news about Korea from creating a panic.

  At 11:45 a.m., as we were about to sit down to an early family dinner, the phone rang again. I can remember the pain on Mother’s face as Dad went to answer it. This time, Dean Acheson said there was no doubt that it was an all-out invasion of South Korea. Seven tank-led divisions of the North Korean Army were smashing south in a bid to conquer the whole country. Dad returned to the dining room, sat down and, with that amazing calm that he could muster in a crisis, began eating dinner. In a matter of fact voice, he told us the bad news and said he was going to return to Washington immediately.

  So much for Mother’s hope for a quiet anniversary. It was gone - and so were the sunny political skies of 1949. So was the president’s peace of mind. So was that promise to retire in 1952. Everything was up in the air, whirling around almost as horrendously as the world on April 12, 1945, when Franklin D. Roosevelt died.

  As the news spread throughout Independence (and the rest of the country, of course), people leaped into their cars and headed for North Delaware Street to see if they could get some clue to what was happening from the president’s conduct. Soon there were twenty-five cars a minute crawling past our house, thickening the humid air with their exhaust fumes. Mother and I drove to the airport with Dad and watched him take off. He was so impatient, he ordered the pilot aloft without the navigator. He appeared at the last second, racing beside the taxiing plane in a car, and leaped out and crawled into the cockpit on a rope ladder. This did nothing to assuage Mother’s usual anxiety about Dad while he was airborne.

  Knowing this, Dad somehow found time to write her a letter the next day from Blair House. “We had a grand trip after we were in the air,” he reported. He also told her that the conference with his cabinet officers and advisers in Blair House on the night of June 25 had been “a most successful one.” He thought there was a chance “that things may work out without the necessity of mobilization.” Then he admitted (as usual, to her alone) the impact of the crisis on him. “[I] haven’t been so badly upset since Greece and Turkey fell into our lap. Let’s hope for the best.” He ended the letter with: “Lots and lots of love and many happy returns for the thirty-first year of your ordeal with me. It’s been all pleasure for me.”

  Korea annihilated most of the summer and fall of 1950 from Mother’s point of view. It was constantly on Dad’s mind. She had little to contribute to this morass of troop commitments, strategic worries in Europe, the Middle East, the question of rearming the country, and keeping a lid on inflation. Although she was worried about her mother, who was having another sinking spell, she spent most of the summer with Dad, sharing his anguish as the North Korean Army defeated the first poorly prepared American troops rushed from Japan and drove them into a defensive perimeter around the port of Pusan.

  One worry that Bess could and did share was the president’s relationship with General Douglas MacArthur, the commander of the United Nations forces in Korea. Dad had never been fond of him. They were almost totally opposite personalities - one indulging in flamboyant self-promotion, the other abhorring it; one given to elaborate rhetoric, the other to blunt truths; one the quintessential professional soldier, the other the prototype of the citizen soldier.

  Dad was well aware that the general had political ambitions and was in constant communication with right-wing Republicans in Congress. That only intensified his irritation when MacArthur began acting as if he had his own foreign policy during the awful summer of 1950. First he made an unauthorized trip to Formosa to confer with Chiang Kai-shek, supposedly to see if we could use Chiang’s aging soldiers in Korea. Since one of the prime worries on Dad’s mind was the possibility of Communist China entering the Korean conflict, this was not only idiotic, it was flagrantly dangerous. Dad sent W. Averell Harriman to Japan to explain our policy to the general.

  At the end of August, MacArthur sent a statement to the annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, in which he condemned as defeatists and appeasers anyone who did not agree with his embrace of Chiang. Dad told Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson to order MacArthur to withdraw the statement. Instead, Johnson said it was just “one man’s opinion.” Neither he nor anyone else in the Defense Department had the nerve to differ with MacArthur. Furious, Dad sent the general a personal order and the statement was withdrawn. That was the end of Louis Johnson as secretary of defense. He was shortly replaced by General Marshall.

  Nevertheless, Dad gave his approval for General MacArthur’s daring plan to land two divisions at Inchon, far behind the enemy’s lines, to trap and destroy the North Korean Army. The operation was a brilliant success, and the Communists soon ceased to exist as an organized force. Remnants fled across the border into North Korea, and Harry Truman was faced with another fateful decision. Should they be pursued? Everyone from The New York Times to the United Nations Security Council to the U.S. Congress said yes. It looked like a perfect chance to obliterate North Korea and unify the country.

  Dad gave MacArthur permission to cross the border, but he hedged it with warnings and provisos about the danger of a Communist Chinese intervention. To underscore this concern, he flew to Wake Island to confer with “God’s right hand man,” as he called the general in a letter he wrote to Nellie Noland while airborne. The meeting was cordial, and MacArthur assured the president that he was confident the Red Chinese would not intervene. He also apologized for his statements about Formosa.

  Mother was hard at work first ladying throughout these weeks of political-military turmoil. On top of her usual schedule, she launched a series of afternoon parties for soldiers wounded in Korea that did wonders for the morale of these young men. Only 100 could be invited at a time, because of the size of Blair House. But Mother solved that problem by multiplying the number of the parties. Most of the time, she prevailed on Dad to join her in greeting the guests, many of whom were badly crippled. Early on, Dad noticed that only soft drinks and coffee were being served. He suggested adding beer, which proved popular.

  Somewhat to the consternation of the staff, Mother gave these special guests the run of Blair House, letting them play the piano, sit on the priceless antique furniture, and drink from the valuable china. She invited my numerous Wa
shington friends to help her play hostess.

  Whenever I was in town for a visit, I volunteered for duty without a word of complaint. It was agonizing for all of us to think that American young men were bleeding and dying again in a foreign war. We all shared Mother’s desire to show them how much we appreciated their sacrifices. None of us dreamt, as we smiled and chatted through these affairs, that the president and First Lady would soon be menaced by gunfire.

  I often was not available for such worthwhile chores. Most of my life was spent packing and unpacking suitcases during those trying days. I was a purple pin on the map my booking agent maintained to keep track of his singers, violinists, and pianists as they crisscrossed the country. My career was doing nicely, I thought, and apparently so did the audiences and critics, who continued to be kind to me, by and large.

  On November 1, 1950, I was in Portland, Maine, preparing for a concert that night. Dad spent an unnerving morning in the executive wing of the White House (that part of the mansion was still functioning) getting ominous reports of a Chinese Communist presence in North Korea. He returned to Blair House for lunch with Mother and Grandmother Wallace, then took a nap – a custom he had adopted to help him handle the sixteen-hour presidential day. Mother chatted with Grandmother Wallace in her bedroom, which she seldom left. She was eighty-eight and growing feebler.

  At 2:50 p.m., Mother and Dad were scheduled to go to Arlington National Cemetery to dedicate a statue to Field Marshall Sir John Dill, a British member of the Combined Chiefs of Staff during World War II. It was a gesture aimed at underscoring our solidarity with allies who had contributed soldiers to the United Nations Army in Korea.