An Original from Missouri
GRAFF, HENRY F.
An Original from Missouri Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman Edited by Robert H. Ferretl Harper & Row. 448 pp. $15.00. Reviewed by Henry F. Graff Professor of History,...
...But she didn't have the nerve to do it...
...I told Bess [the First Lady] if she'd trip [Ohio Republican Senator John] Backer up so he'd sprawl on the floor in front of us, I'd give her the big diamond out of the scimitar the Crown Prince of Arabia gave me...
...It had reached its apogee in 1948, around the time he told his diary: "I don't believe the USA wants any more fakirs—Teddy and Franklin are enough...
...In the midst of the unprecedented complexities involved in demobilizing the nation and getting a handle on the strangely altered international climate, he reminds Mamma and Mary to keep 35 pounds of air in the tires "and you'll have no trouble...
...Some of his most acidulous pieces were letters he wrote and decided not to send, a tribute to his self-control and personal balance...
...he forcefully insists that he has "no desire to have roads, bridges or buildings named after me...
...His successors can envy him but, in the age of cosmeticized politics created by television, they cannot emulate him...
...That these autobiographical pieces do not provide a fresh view of the shrewd accidental Chief from Missouri does not prevent Off the Record from being a celebration of his virtues and shortcomings, and a reminder of how a "good" strong Presidency functioned...
...In his ability to seem a colorful original and at the same time a striving everyman lies the main clue to Truman's enduring attractiveness to his fellow citizens...
...Mayor O'Dwyer of New York "met me for the first timel He's either been sick, out of town, or too busy before...
...The joy in reading these pages comes from knowing that Truman himself is here, requiring no further documentary freight and, above all, no psychoanalytic gloss...
...It will beanov-elty—and it will win...
...Truman's elegant touch was gone by then...
...It may be doubted that Truman was persuasive with the rising generation of operatives—like Lyndon Johnson, who was beginning to make a career out of consensus politics...
...He came to office just in time to preside over the greatest victory of arms any nation has ever enjoyed...
...Writing to them about his daughter Margaret, for instance, he declares: "She's one nice girl and I'm so glad she hasn't turned out like Alice Roosevelt and a couple of the Wilson daughters...
...Reviewed by Henry F. Graff Professor of History, Columbia University Harry Truman had immense historical luck—the indispensible ingredient of a successful Presidency, transcending program, eloquence and ideology...
...Young or old, Truman knew who he was and never pretended to be someone else...
...The news jerks didn't know what to make of it—so they just lied about it...
...In the same letter he chats about a reception for the members of Congress: "There were 760 paws to shake...
...Still, he did so with vigor and sincerity...
...had exclusive possession of the atomic bomb, giving his words an awesome authority no Chief Executive's utterance has enjoyed since that brief monopoly ended...
...Lastly, Truman, who used to aver that he never held a job he really wanted, could honestly maintain that fate had pushed him into the "Great White Jail" against his deepest wishes, a marvelously helpful ploy that few of his predecessors and none of his successors could ever dare to use...
...Though gaudy and badly organized, it contains many items not reprinted in OfflheRecord, including a remarkable fragment of an autobiography that deserves to be remembered...
...He never set out to fool the people into thinking he had answers when in fact he had none...
...In that striving he too often oversimplified America's problems and the means of solving them...
...The most appealing letters here are those he addressed jointly to his mother and his beloved sister, Mary Jane Truman, whosecurls he had made so expertly when she was a baby...
...This delightful book, composed of portions of Truman's diaries, letters and other private memoranda hitherto buried in the Truman Library, sharpens the portrait already imprinted in the mind's eye of his world and achievements...
...These are impressive words, profoundly American even though they appear fecklessly provincial...
...So I'm going to make a common sense, intellectually honest campaign...
...Nobody need imagine that we will never know the real Truman...
...He also knows that a President is "a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway...
...By the end of that July he knew he was on the right track because, he recorded...
...Like many other successful men, Truman was a mamma's boy...
...Truman was often Foxy Grandpa, saying mischievous things for their own sake, and shadow-boxing with enemies, Nixon in particular and the Republican party in general...
...Nevertheless it offered the public the first glimpse of Truman's private papers...
...He would rather be anything, he says, than President...
...As he grew older his letters and diary entries became more uninhibited...
...It is about 5 carats...
...and he turns down honorary degrees because they are not earned...
...and the inability to win in Korea did not sink his Administration because the architects of the debacle were among the unassailable heroes of World War II...
...A closing word: In his Introduction Professor Ferrell dismisses William Hillman's 1952 Mr...
...At the funeral of John F. Kennedy he was overheard discussing the government's arrangements for burying Presidents and ex-Presidents with Dwight D. Eisenhower (the two former Chief Executives were again on speaking terms): "I don't care about the details of my funeral, as long as they put me back into Missouri...
...Some might even use the old-fashioned word "sissy...
...Yet in the letters home and to others there is never a word of braggadocio...
...Robert H. Ferrell, the United States diplomatic historian at Indiana University, has edited the selections just enough to link them without distracting the reader from Truman's own words and intelligence...
...In addition, during most of Truman's time in office the U .S...
...President as a coffee table book—which it was...
...Early in October Truman wrote his sister about the success of the whistle-stop campaign: "We had tremendous crowds everywhere...
...He assures them that he is doing the right things, too: "Big money has too much power and so have big unions—both are riding to a fall because I like neither...
...the predicted postwar depression that would have delighted and encouraged the Communists failed to develop...
...He caters to their whims and prejudices and casually, almost indifferently, tells them about the rarified atmosphere in which their boy now conducts himself...
...It's a good sign because he's a bandwagon boy...
Vol. 63 • December 1980 • No. 23
