Harry Truman Page 50

  Ironically, while the know-nothings in Congress ranted and raved and made some people think the government was about to collapse from internal subversion, my father was calmly directing a sweeping reappraisal of America’s relationship to the Communist world. It flowed directly from the H-bomb decision, which had called for such a study. This could have been a perfunctory performance if the President had chosen to rely on weapons of terror. But Dad meant it when he said he hoped no nation would ever use atomic weapons again. Moreover, he was dissatisfied with a foreign policy which limited itself merely to checking Communist ambitions. This was much too negative and ultimately defeatist for a man who thought as positively as Harry S. Truman.

  Although few of his biographers have noted it, he specifically rejected the policy of containment. “Our purpose was much broader,” he said. “We were working for a united, free and prosperous world.” The Berlin airlift, the Russian retreat from Iran, their diplomatic collapse in the face of the Marshall Plan and NATO had confirmed the wisdom of Dad’s fundamental policy, to negotiate with the Russians from positions of strength. This insight was at the heart of Paper No. 68 of the National Security Council, NSC-68, for short, the policy review which he had ordered in January.

  Charles Murphy remembers vividly the genesis of NSC-68. “The President quietly set up a task force of State Department and Defense Department people to reexamine the strategic defense position of the United States and they came up with a memorandum toward the end of 1949. The President gave me a copy of this memorandum. I didn’t get to read it during the day - I was busy working on something else - and I took it home with me that night. What I read scared me so much that the next day I didn’t go to the office at all. I sat at home and read this memorandum over and over, wondering what in the world to do about it. The gist of it was that we were in pretty bad shape and we damn well better do something about it. So I recommended to the President that he put this into the machinery of the National Security Council where it had not been before. That is how it became the paper that got so well known as NSC-68.”

  In alarming detail, NSC-68 described the relative military weakness of the Western world, vis-à-vis the Communists. We were vastly outnumbered in terms of standing armies and our equipment, still World-War-II vintage, was rapidly becoming obsolete in the face of Russian advances in weaponry, planes, and tanks. Since the Communists were obviously determined to continue to build their military capability, while we maintained a status quo approach, the long-range project of Communist versus non-Communist strength was grim. By 1954, Russia would achieve a stalemate in nuclear weapons. This meant the Russians and the Chinese would have the power to deploy their vastly superior conventional forces and use them at will. The United States was therefore faced with three alternatives.

  One, it could withdraw behind the shield of “fortress America” and let the rest of the world slide inexorably into the Communist orbit.

  Two, it could attempt a quick preventive war, a combined atomic-conventional assault on Russia to eliminate the seat of Communist power.

  Three, it could begin a massive program of rebuilding the defensive potential of the free world. This program envisioned the United States as the dynamic center of a free world community, sharing its wealth and its military and scientific knowledge to guarantee the long-range survival of free societies everywhere. This, of course, was the alternative which the NSC-68’s authors recommended as the only reasonable policy for our nation.

  We have been following that policy for so long, it is hard for us to realize that it was based on some drastic revisions of fundamental assumptions. Until NSC-68, for instance, it was assumed we could not spend much more than $12 or $13 billion a year on defense without bankrupting the nation. The NSC’s planners reported we could devote as much as 20 percent of our gross national product to security without harming our economy. A military budget of $50 billion was recommended to implement the new goal of negotiation from strength. At the same time, NSC-68 placed on the President a new burden - the need to view the security of the free world as synonymous with America’s security. This required the most astute judgment to determine where a crisis situation in some distant part of the world threatened our security and where it did not threaten it.

  In implementing this policy, my father was faced with some very difficult choices, particularly in Asia. Japan was only beginning its economic revival; its government was wholly dependent on U.S. support. The other great power in that region, China, was now in the hands of the Communists. Elsewhere, local governments were weak or nonexistent, because for decades, and in some cases for centuries, the nations had been colonies. Korea, for instance, had been occupied by Japan since 1895. Divided in half by Stalin and Churchill at Yalta, it swiftly became a part of the cold war. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was created in the northern half of the country, and a large army was trained and equipped by the Russians. We in turn encouraged the people of South Korea to proclaim a republic, and when we withdrew our troops on June 29, 1949, we left 500 officers and men behind to help train a South Korean defense force of 65,000 men.

  On January 26, 1950, we negotiated a defense agreement with South Korea, committing us to continue military and economic assistance. My father signed the agreement with some reluctance, because he had no great admiration for President Syngman Rhee, who tended to be ultraconservative in his views and rather dictatorial in his methods. But his people were wholeheartedly anti-Communist. Millions had fled into South Korea to escape the harsh Communist rule in the north.

  A similar, even more complex situation existed in Indochina. There, Peking and Moscow had recognized the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, headed by Ho Chi Minh. On February 7, the United States extended recognition to the Emperor Bao Dai after finally persuading the French to grant Vietnam independence within the French Union. The complicating factor in Indochina was French colonialism. My father had rebuffed General de Gaulle’s attempt to re-establish French control of Lebanon and Syria immediately after the end of World War II. He was no happier about France’s attempts to regain control of Indochina, which began a civil war between the French and French-oriented Vietnamese and the followers of Ho Chi Minh.

  In the files of the Truman Library, there are two telegrams which Ho Chi Minh sent to my father, on October 17 and October 20, 1945, asking for an opportunity to participate in the recently established British-American-Russian-Chinese Advisory Commission for the Far East, and declaring that the people of Vietnam were “determined never to let the French return to Indochina and will fight them under any circumstances.”

  Ho Chi Minh was a known Communist, and the cold war was already getting colder. Dad was certainly not inclined to deal with him if he could find a non-Communist alternative. He did not reply to this or subsequent telegrams from Ho Chi Minh. From the rigid, authoritarian Communist regime which Ho eventually imposed on North Vietnam, it is evident there would have been little point in Dad’s doing so.

  What my father was trying to do in both Korea and Indochina was buy time in the hope the seeds of independence and democracy could be planted and nurtured there. He did everything in his power to pressure the French into setting Vietnam on the path to freedom, as we had done with the Philippines. He had exerted similar pressure on the Dutch to free Indonesia. But it was a terribly delicate business to persuade allies that were badly needed in the defense of Europe to change centuries-old colonialist attitudes.

  The most important part of NSC-68 was its clear call for a strong, rearmed America. This is why Dad sometimes called it “my five-year plan for peace.” He was convinced that if he could persuade Congress to implement it swiftly, the Communists would never dare to launch an armed attack on a free world nation. Simultaneously, he saw a beautiful opportunity to turn the tables on the Communist witch-hunters in Congress. All right, he planned to say to them, you want to fight communism, you want to stop its onward march, at home and abroad? Then join me in making America and its allie
s so strong, we can frustrate communism’s dream of world conquest - and guarantee a century of peace in the bargain.

  With this in mind, in the spring of 1950, my father coolly announced he was planning a little train trip. He was going out to the state of Washington to dedicate Grand Coulee Dam on May 11. The news gave the Republicans a severe case of the jitters. The one man who could answer McCarthy, Taft & Company was going to take his case to the people, and they dreaded the prospect. On April 22, Dad wrote me light-heartedly, “I think you, your mother and I will have a grand trip next month. . . . The opposition seems to be scared stiff over what your dad will do on that trip and I’m going to fool ‘em as usual. It will be a dignified, really nonpolitical performance for the benefit of our foreign program.”

  On May 7, we headed west aboard the Ferdinand Magellan. By now, the planners had added two other dam inspections to our route.

  Again and again Dad told people he was not “politicking.” Instead, he was “reporting to the nation on its condition, on what it needs, and what I hope I can give it for its welfare and benefit, and on what I hope to contribute to world peace and what I hope to obtain for the welfare of all mankind.” At the same time, Dad could not resist getting in a few licks at what he called “the calamity howlers,” who kept saying the country was being ruined by the Democratic Party’s program.

  At Missoula, Montana, at 7:22 a.m., I listened half-awake while he came up with one of his best metaphors. He said the local congressman, who happened to be Mike Mansfield, was a man who could see into the future, who planned for the future, who thought about the welfare of the whole country. He was the sort of man who could look at an acorn and see a giant oak tree with its great limbs spreading upward and outward in the years to come. But there were some people in Washington, D.C., who “take a look at an acorn and all they can see is just an acorn. . . . Even give them a magnifying glass, or even a pair of spyglasses, or even a telescope, they just shake their heads and all they can say is ‘I’m sorry I can’t see anything but an acorn there.’” He urged the citizens of Missoula to do something about politicians who specialized in this kind of “acorn thinking.”

  At Gonzaga University in Spokane, Dad gave one of his most philosophic talks. This is a Jesuit university, and Dad was stirred by the religious atmosphere to speak in a deeply moving way about the goals and ideals of America.

  The same moral principles that underlie our national life govern our relations with all other nations and peoples of the world.

  We have built our own nation not by trying to wipe out differences in religion, or in tradition, or in customs among us, not by attempting to conceal our political and economic conflicts, but instead by holding to a belief which rises above all differences and conflicts.

  That belief is that all men are equal before God.

  With this belief in our hearts, we can achieve unity without eliminating differences - we can advance the common welfare without harming the dissenting minority.

  Just as that belief has enabled us to build a great nation, so it can serve as the foundation of world peace.

  It was a delightful trip. There was none of the tension of 1948. Dad celebrated his birthday along the right of way and got no less than eighteen birthday cakes. At small towns and in large cities, he was his usual forthright, hard-hitting self. The New York Times was impressed by the way he reduced the complex issues of world policy to “town size.” Carl W. McCardle of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin marveled at the “easy kinship between the President and the plain people of America.” He said there was little doubt Dad had succeeded in doing two things. “First, he has laughed off the cry of socialism that the Republicans raised against his Fair Deal.” Second, he has “tilled the soil and fixed things up generally for local Democratic Congressional candidates.” Another reporter praised the “smooth working Presidential staff, which makes it a business to know the interests of every community before it is reached, has a speech ready and keyed to local interest.”

  By the time Dad returned to the White House, he had talked to 525,000 people, and the Democratic National Committee was practically dancing on the ceiling. Everyone agreed the Republicans were in disarray, clinging to their phony Communists-in-government issue, without a shred of a positive program to oppose the economic opportunity at home and freedom’s strength abroad that Dad was offering the people. Joe McCarthy was flailing away with his empty accusations before a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wounding more reputations, but also sounding and looking hollower. A smashing Democratic victory in the fall elections would convince fundamentally sane Republicans, such as Senator Taft, that McCarthyism was politically bankrupt, and they would drop him.

  So the scenario went in the late spring of 1950. It was a beautiful dream, and it might have come true, if the cold-eyed men in the Kremlin and their allies in Peking had not decided there was a prize ripe for picking in the Far East - a peninsula that thrust itself from the land mass of Asia like a weapon at the heart of Japan - Korea.

  BEFORE THIS TRAGEDY struck, there are some happy moments to remember. As usual, the Trumans did not let the crackpots in Congress or elsewhere spoil their love of a good laugh. One of our favorites was the day in 1949 when Mother went up to the Capitol for lunch with the Senate ladies Red Cross unit. As she entered the building, who came wandering in the door as an ordinary tourist but the Duke of Windsor. One reporter got so excited he raced into the Senate press room yelling: “The Duke and Duchess of Truman are here!” Les Biffle promptly organized a lunch in honor of the Duke, and Mother went on to her Senate ladies.

  Down at Key West, the hijinks were funnier than ever. On December 8, 1949, the White House correspondents assembled in the press room of the bachelor officers quarters for a press conference. They had been relaxing in their usual style rather late the previous evening, and several were somewhat the worse for wear. But they woke up fast, when the President of the United States arrived flourishing his cane and wearing his white pith helmet and one of his wilder tropical shirts. Instead of taking his usual stance in front of the mob, he strolled into their midst and sat down in a chair. Only then did they notice he was armed with a pencil and a sheet of Western Union message stationery. Charlie Ross took the presidential position at the head of the group and solemnly announced: “Gentlemen, we have with us today as our guest a distinguished contributor to the Federal Register.”

  While Dad industriously took notes, Charlie proceeded to describe what the President had done so far today. It consisted largely of having breakfast and going down to the dock to see off two boatloads of fishermen.

  The distinguished contributor to the Federal Register then turned on the reporters and began asking them questions. One by one, he asked when they went to bed the previous night. There were hoots of laughter as they struggled to sound respectable, muttering replies such as “one o’clock, roughly.” Joe Fox of the Washington Star decided an outrageous lie was preferable to the truth, and solemnly answered, “Nine thirty, Mr. President.” Bill Hassett, Dad’s correspondence secretary, who was watching the show, said, “I’m glad they’re not under oath.”

  “How many of you have had breakfast this morning?” Dad demanded.

  A majority put up their hands. “Good. Good,” he said. “Just a small percentage have not had breakfast. How many have written to their wives at least once a week since you’ve been down here?”

  There was another show of hands, and Dad looked dubious. “Tony,” he said to Anthony Leviero of The New York Times, “you had better check up, because I have had several telegrams wanting to know what these fellows were doing.”

  After finding out where he could cash a check - the question every reporter asks the moment he arrives in a new locale - the contributor to the Federal Register departed.

  We also had a good time aboard the yacht Williamsburg. We spent the 1949 Fourth of July weekend aboard the old boat. Dad, Mother, a couple of my girlfriends, and I arrived early, on
Saturday, July 2. The next day, Clark Clifford, Oscar Ewing, George Allen, Stuart Symington, and other VIPs were scheduled to come aboard. We decided to burlesque an official reception, and we really did a job of it. From somewhere in the bowels of the ship we fished up a weary, tattered red carpet. Then we persuaded the commander of the Williamsburg to run up every single flag in his locker. The Filipino mess boys doubled as a Hawaiian band, for background music. As the guests came up the ladder, they were pelted with confetti, and ruffles and flourishes blasted from drums and bugles. They didn’t know what was happening. When they arrived at their staterooms, they found all sorts of ridiculous signs on their doors. George Allen had one saying, “Sucker.” I summed it all up in my diary: “We laughed ourselves silly.”

  I joined Dad and Mother for that vacation at Key West. But most of the time, during the second term, I was a working girl. I went to New York, not long after the inauguration in 1949, and tried to pick up the pieces of my singing career which I had all but abandoned during 1948 for the great campaign. I had found a new manager in the course of the year - Jim Davidson, a topflight professional who handled only a small number of first-rate singers. He offered to take me on if I would agree to devote nine months of concentrated effort to getting my voice in shape for concert singing. I quickly accepted, and on the last day of January I moved to New York, taking along Reathel Odum, Mother’s secretary - and previous to that Dad’s Senate secretary - as a friend and companion. I did my best to meet Davidson’s strict, very demanding standards. At the same time, I continued to be a part-time White House belle. Each weekend, I returned to Washington and performed various chores, such as christening new airliners for Pan American Airways. It was a rather schizophrenic existence - also rather exhausting.