Harry Truman (55 page)

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 allies 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.

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.

One Washington event I made sure I didn’t miss was the March visit of Mr. and Mrs. Churchill. Dad gave a dinner for them in the dining room of Lee House, which is the twin next-door neighbor of Blair House. Churchill was in marvelous spirits. The Labour government was steadily losing popularity in England, and he told Dad he was planning to stand for reelection as prime minister and was sure he would win.

The small size of Blair House, as I have said, made entertaining doubly difficult. Large dinners had to be given at the Carlton Hotel. At official small dinners, we usually had cocktails in Blair House, then crossed to Lee House for dinner. When I gave a dinner, the White House workmen stripped Blair House of carpets, moved all the furniture, and polished the floor for dancing, while we dined in Lee House. At dawn the next day, Blair House was put together again.

When my friend Jane Watson, the daughter of Thomas J. Watson of IBM, became engaged and asked me to be a bridesmaid, I gave a small dinner at Blair House for her. We got talking about the problem of people stealing spoons and knives from the White House. Tom Watson, Jr., thought this was absolutely terrible, and he held forth for several minutes on the subject with surprising vehemence. Later that night while Tom and I were dancing, I slipped a spoon into his pocket. It was fiendish of me but great fun for the rest of us. Poor Tom was mortified when he discovered the stolen goods the next day. Only when I confessed that I was the practical joker did he calm down.

Throughout 1949, I had to cope with a rash of engagement rumors. They amused Dad, but most of the time they annoyed me. I felt sorry for the various male friends with whom I was being linked - always without a shred of truth. Moreover, it cut down on my available escort supply. Once someone was touted as my intended, he got very leery about taking me out thereafter.

My double life and my ferocious practice schedule wore me down, and a heavy cold, which I tried to ignore, developed into bronchitis. Dad put me to bed at Blair House and kept me there until I got in a very rebellious mood and decided to change my hair style. I cut my hair off until it was almost a shingle. Dad was horrified by the result, but I liked it. The poor man didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t like his awful bow ties, which we could torment him into changing. Every time he looked at me, he had a funereal expression on his face, as if I had contracted a fatal illness, or something.

He got a little revenge by suggesting I arise at dawn and take a morning walk with him. I was away so much, he protested, he hadn’t really talked with me for months. What better place for a father-daughter chat than a brisk dawn stroll? I had my doubts, but I was feeling a little guilty about being away, and I acquiesced. The scenario on the following morning went something like this.

The President sets out from White House at his usual 120 strides a minute. He pauses at the corner to find out why daughter is thirty feet behind him. “Come on, Margie,” he says, “what’s holding you up?”

“Where’s the fire?” asks his gasping daughter.

Two more blocks at 120 paces per minute and the President pauses again. His daughter is now sixty feet behind him. “What’s the matter with you, anyway?” he asks impatiently.

“I’m wearing high heels,” explains daughter weakly.

“Why don’t you buy some sensible shoes?”

End of father-daughter chats on morning walks.

I escaped from Dad’s frowns by returning to the musical salt mines in New York. By the end of the summer, my voice coach pronounced me ready to tackle the concert circuit again. Reathel and I took off on October 2, and I sang my way across a lot of the United States. Atlanta, Georgia; Raleigh, North Carolina; St. Louis, Missouri, with Vice President Barkley in the audience; Columbus, Ohio; and Battle Creek, Michigan. I ended my tour on November 26 at Constitution Hall. Dad and my voice coach sat side by side in the presidential box. He turned to her and said, “Don’t be upset if I start tearing up programs during the concert. I always do that when I’m nervous.”

“I do the same thing,” my coach said.

Between them they tore up at least four programs, but the concert was a great success. I sang three encores, and Dad looked so pleased you’d almost think he had been reelected all over again.

Along the concert trail, and in nationally syndicated columns, there had been an inevitable number of nasty comments about me exploiting my role as the President’s daughter to make money on my supposedly mediocre voice. I never claimed I was one of the great singers of all time. But I did feel I had achieved professional competence. I was pleased when the
Saturday Evening Post
asked me to write an article telling my side of the story. I pointed out, among other things, that I had gone to New York early in 1944, before there was even a hint of Dad becoming vice president, and submitted my voice to the judgment of professional coaches to see if I had the necessary potential. They assured me I had the vocal equipment, if I was willing to put in the hours of practice it would take to reach professional competence.

The
Post
article was called “Why Shouldn’t I Sing?” and when Dad read it, he was impressed by the amount of down-to-earth Truman-style facts I had managed to get into a magazine he regarded (with good reason) as hostile to him. He was so pleased he read the article twice and wrote me the following letter:

While I was out singing for my supper - and dreadful suppers they usually were on the great American road - my best friend Drucie Snyder, daughter of Dad’s Secretary of the Treasury, was doing something a lot more important: falling in love. She became engaged to Major John Ernest Horton, one of the White House aides, late in 1949, with the wedding scheduled for January 26 in the National Cathedral. This was one of the major events of the Washington season and there was a whirl of parties connected with it. I think Dru’s marriage gave Dad something of a shock. We had always been so close we were practically sisters in his eyes, and it made him realize we had
really
grown up. On January 15, 1950, Dad and Mother went to a party for Drucie and in a philosophic mood, he penned the following note on his calendar:

Four days later Dad wrote an interesting combination of an obituary and reminiscence for General Arnold. In the light of coming events, the last sentence is notable.