Truman

  “There is nothing like that”: PP, HST, September 30, 1948, 650.

  “Now, whatever you do”: Ibid., October 1, 1948, 664.

  “The early morning haze”: Quoted in Goulden, The Best Years 1945–1950, 399.

  “We made about a hundred and forty”: HST to MJT, October 5, 1948, HSTL.

  “classic unities of politics”: Redding, Inside the Democratic Party, 202.

  “Another hell of a day”: HST Diary, September 14, 1948, Off the Record, 149.

  selections from Dewey speeches: Goulden, 400.

  HST campaign movie: Redding, 254.

  “He paused dramatically”: Barkley, That Reminds Me, 204.

  “If we could only get Stalin”: Memoirs, Vol. II, 215.

  “every possible precaution”: Ibid., 216.

  “There is much confusion”: Ayers Diary, October 6–7, 1948, HSTL.

  “He got up and went out”: Daniels, 29.

  “If Harry Truman would just”: Goulden, 414.

  Dewey with blind drawn: Smith, 536.

  “I grew up on a farm”: PP, HST, October 11, 1948, 737.

  If HST called Bess the Boss; Truman, Bess W. Truman, 330.

  “If you don’t want to go”: PP, HST, October 11, 1948, 736–37.

  Willard, Ohio, stop: Willard Times; Joseph Dush, author’s interview; materials supplied by Harlene Staptf Palkuti.

  “I have had the most wonderful”: PP, HST, October 11, 1948, 740.

  “I have lived a long time”: Ibid., 743, 747.

  “And there it was!”: Clifford, author’s interview.

  “So I walked in”: Ibid.

  “I was with Truman”: Douglas, In the Fullness of Time, 138.

  “I just wonder tonight”: PP, HST, October 12, 1948, 760.

  “Now, I call on all liberals”: Ibid., October 13, 1948, 774.

  “a lot of surprised pollsters”: Time, October 25, 1948.

  “I think he’s doing pretty well”: Ross, The Loneliest Campaign, 215.

  “The only way to handle Truman”: Patterson, Mr. Republican. A Biography of Robert A. Taft, 424–25.

  “That’s the first lunatic”: Time, October 25, 1948.

  Boston Post editorial: October 27, 1948.

  “If you’re winning”: Clifford, author’s interview.

  “Strain seemed to make him”: Daniels, 361.

  “He was not putting on”: Elsey, author’s interview, and Oral History, HSTL.

  “For years afterward”: Clifford, Oral History, HSTL.

  “We’ve got them on the run”: HST to MJT, October 20, 1948, HSTL.

  “The airlift will be continued”: Tusa, 245.

  “Say you don’t look so good!”: PP, HST, October 23, 1948, 839.

  “The newspapers had convinced them”: Douglas, 138.

  attack on Dewey: Ross, The Loneliest Campaign, 235.

  “An element of desperation”: Clifford, author’s interview.

  “They have scattered reckless abuse”: Smith, 536.

  “The confetti, ticker-tape”: The New York Times, October 29, 1948.

  “There is one place”: Quoted in Ross, The Loneliest Campaign, 237.

  “Such a weak and vacillating”: Lash, Eleanor: The Years Alone, 153.

  “There never has been a campaign”: The New York Times, November 1, 1948.

  “I became President”: PP, HST, October 30, 1948, 934.

  “pullet poll”: Life, November 15, 1948.

  “Were it not for all”: Ayers Diary, November 1, 1948, HSTL.

  “We all, of course, stayed awake”: Gerard McAnn, author’s interview.

  Maloney and his men: Smith, 40.

  “We waited and waited”: Sue Gentry, author’s interview.

  “We couldn’t believe it”: Ibid.

  “What a night”: Truman, Souvenir, 242.

  “And all of a sudden”: Jim Rowley, author’s interview.

  “his first case of nerves”: Letter from Jerome K. Walsh to Morris J. Ernst, undated, HSTL.

  “He just seemed the same old”: Lyman Field, author’s interview.

  “He displayed neither tension”: Letter from Jerome K. Walsh to Morris J. Ernst, undated, HSTL.

  “Thank you, thank you”: Time, November 8, 1948.

  Bankhead telegram: Goulden, 421.

  “I think the mistake was”: Clifford, author’s interview.

  “shook the bones”: Baltimore Sun, November 7, 1948.

  “The farm vote switched”: Thomas Dewey to Henry Luce, undated, L. C.

  “You’ve got to give the little man”: Vandenberg, Private Papers, 460.

  Taft comment: Steinberg, 332.

  Republican Policy Committee Report: December 17, 1948, HSTL.

  “Labor Did It”: Ross, The Loneliest Campaign, 255.

  “The bear got us”: Smith, 543.

  “Far from costing Dewey”: Quoted in Phillips, 250–51.

  “I couldn’t have been more wrong”: Life, November 15, 1948.

  “What’s the matter with that fellow”: The New York Times, November 28, 1948.

  “I kept reading”: Goldman, The Crucial Decade, 87.

  “But when voting time came”: Ibid.

  “the common man’s man”: Life, November 15, 1948.

  “It seemed to have been”: Donovan, 438.

  “There was personal humiliation”: New Republic, November 15, 1948.

  “There has been a danger”: Ayers Diary, November 4, 1948, HSTL.

  Luce memo: November 11, 1948, Time-Warner archives.

  “His personality was against him”: Henry Luce memorandum, November 5, 1948, Ibid.

  “I think the press”: T. S. Matthews memorandum to Henry Luce, November 4, 1948, Ibid.

  “Of course, we did not intentionally”: J. J. Thorndike, Jr., memorandum to Henry Luce, November 5, 1948, Ibid.

  90 percent of the credit: Hardeman and Bacon, 342.

  “You have put over”: George C. Marshall to HST, November 4, 1948, HSTL.

  “I think that Harry Truman grew”: Ross, “How Truman Did It.”

  “I think Dewey’s whole campaign”: Clifford, author’s interview.

  “no desire to crow”: HST to the Washington Post, November 6, 1948, HSTL.

  Part Five

  15. Iron Man

  “Clearly he was conscious”: Washington Evening Star, January 20, 1949.

  “his day of days”: Truman, Souvenir, 255.

  “It is the President’s desire”: Seale, The President’s House, Vol. II, 1027.

  “I have the job”: Washington Post, January 20, 1949; Time, January 31, 1949.

  State of the Union message: PP, HST, January 5, 1949, 1.

  H. V. Kaltenborn impersonation: Ibid., January 19, 1949, 110.

  “I was not in any way elated”: Ibid.

  “Wonderful, wonderful”: Washington Post, January 21, 1949.

  Battery D reunion: Washington Evening Star, January 20, 1949.

  prayer service: Washington Post, January 21, 1949.

  inaugural address: PP, HST, January 20, 1949, 112–16.

  “How strange”: Washington Evening Star, January 20, 1949.

  “The clear sunlight”: The New York Times, January 21, 1949.

  “At the reviewing stand”: J. B. West, author’s interview.

  “There never was a country”: Payne, Report on America, p. 3.

  “The parade was the most fun”: Lilienthal, Journals, Vol. II, 448.

  “the fellow who was having”: Washington Post, January 22, 1949.

  “It can almost be stated”: Bohlen, Witness to History, 284.

  “fifty percent better”: Lilienthal, Journals, Vol. II, 527.

  “He looks more relaxed”: Ibid., 463–64.

  “He was great down in Key West!”: James Rowley, Jr., author’s interview.

  “The President is as close to being”: Time, May 16, 1949.

  “He won’t take hold”: Lilienthal Journals, Vol. II, 386.

  “No commentator”: T
ime, March 7, 1949.

  HST fair with Forrestal: Forrestal Diaries, 551.

  “The best boss I have ever known”: Truman, Bess W. Truman, 345.

  “a man who, while he reflects”: Forrestal Diaries, 529.

  “the mess we are in”: Eisenhower Diaries, 152–53.

  his “baffled” look: Washington Post, January 21, 1949.

  Forrestal was insane: Pearson, Diaries, 1949–1959, 42.

  “a very sick man”: Krock, Memoirs, 253–57.

  Secret Service Report: March 31, 1949, HSTL.

  “out of his mind”: Lilienthal, Journals, Vol. II, 506.

  Bess was “terribly shaken”: Truman, Bess W. Truman, 346.

  25,000 Pentagon employees: Time, June 6, 1949.

  “Unwittingly”: Bradley and Blair, A General’s Life, 503.

  “in high good humor”: Time, April 25, 1949.

  Cardinal Spellman: Goldman, The Crucial Decade—and After, 130–31.

  “Hysteria finally died down”: PP, HST, June 16, 1949, 294.

  “The military situation”: Acheson, Present at the Creation, 305.

  morning press conference: PP, HST, August 4, 1949, 408.

  “The unfortunate but inescapable”: Acheson, 303.

  “his general’s stars”: Time, August 22, 1949.

  “I do these people a courtesy”: Dunar, The Truman Scandals and the Politics of Morality, 70.

  “an expression of friendship”: Time, September 12, 1949.

  Was it true, asked McCarthy: Ibid.

  “Ross and I”: Ayers Diary, August 12, 1949, HSTL.

  “After all I am”: Abel, The Truman Scandals, 42–43.

  “I think that Mr. Truman”: Barkley, That Reminds Me, 212.

  When Vaughan offered to resign: Dunar, 64.

  “a whole box of trouble”: Lilienthal, Journals, Vol. II, 569.

  “as if I frequently found him”: Ibid.

  “The President was reading a copy”: Ibid., 570–71.

  “I believe the American people”: PP, HST, September 23, 1949, 485.

  “We keep saying”: Lilienthal, Journals, Vol. II, 577.

  “this grim thing”: Ibid., 584.

  “We can never tell”: HST to EWT, June 29, 1949, in Ferrell, ed., Off the Record, 158.

  “Never in my wildest dreams”: HST to EN, September 8, 1949, ibid., 163–64.

  rats in the White House: Floyd Boring and Rex Scouten, author’s interviews.

  “Very discreet”: West, with Kotz, Upstairs at the White House, 111.

  “Had dinner by myself”: HST Diary, November 1, 1949, Off the Record, 168–69.

  “a fine man”: HST to Jonathan Daniels, February 26, 1950, unsent, ibid., 174.

  “It was a great thing”: Dean Acheson, Oral History, HSTL.

  Acheson descriptions: Time, February 28, 1949; The New Yorker, November 12 and 19, 1949; The New York Times, October 13, 1971; Clark Clifford and George Elsey, author’s interviews.

  “You owe it to Truman”: Isaacson and Thomas, The Wise Men, 547.

  “a peculiar organization”: HST to David H. Morgan, January 28, 1952, Off the Record, 235.

  “At lunch at the Capitol”: Acheson, 107.

  “You know all of us”: HST to EN, September 24, 1950, Off the Record, 194.

  “deeply loving and tender nature”: Sevareid, Conversations with Eric Sevareid, 73.

  “Well, this is the kind of person”: Ibid.

  “It was good of you to see us off”: HST to Dean Acheson, November 28, 1949, HSTL.

  “And then he was so fair”: Sevareid, 74.

  “He was not afraid of the competition”: Acheson, 732–33.

  “not pretending to be better”: McLellan, Dean Acheson, 19.

  “Today you hear much talk”: Ibid., 173–74.

  “Acheson is a gentleman”: Lilienthal, Journals, Vol. II, 565.

  “I told Kennan”: McLellan, 176.

  “How can you persuade”: Isaacson and Thomas, 487.

  “The day will come”: Time, January 23, 1950.

  “Today, by the grace of God”: PP, HST, January 4, 1950, 3.

  “I should like to make it clear”: Acheson, 360.

  “I think anyone who has known”: Ibid.

  “This newspaper has felt”: New York Herald-Tribune, January 27, 1950.

  “wonderful about it”: Acheson, 360.

  “I look at that fellow”: Quoted in Goldman, 125.

  “blow them off the face of the earth”: Lilienthal, Journals, Vol. II, 585.

  “Like a patient”: Time, January 30, 1950.

  an “atmosphere of excitement”: Lilienthal, Journals, Vol. II, 628–29.

  “eloquently and forcefully”: Acheson, 349.

  “We must protect the President”: Lilienthal, Journals, Vol. II, 630.

  he felt he must express: Ibid., 632.

  “Can the Russians?”: Quoted in Donovan, Tumultuous Years, 156.

  “It is part of my responsibility”: PP, HST, January 31, 1950, 138.

  “I hope I was wrong”: Lilienthal, Journals, Vol. II, 633–34.

  “General annihiliation beckons”: Quoted in Goldman, 137.

  “How much are we going”: Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case, 507.

  “The air was so charged”: Block, The Herblock Book, 144.

  205 “known communists”: Reeves, Life and Times of Joe McCarthy, 224, 237.

  “When this pompous diplomat”: Bernstein and Matusow, eds., The Truman Administration, 407.

  “I will not turn my back”: Washington Post, June 25, 1950.

  “keep talking and if one case”: Reeves, 263.

  “top Russian espionage agent”: Time, April 3, 1950.

  “In an age of atomic energy”: Krock, In the Nation: 1932–1966, 145–46.

  “One of the happiest sessions”: Lilienthal, Journals, Vol. II, 635.

  “You see everybody”: Truman, Bess W. Truman, 351.

  “What has made me so jittery”: Ibid.

  “a ballyhoo artist”: Donovan, 166.

  plunged to 37 percent: Time, April 24, 1950.

  Little White House press conference: PP, HST, March 30, 1950, 232–38.

  Federal Bar Association speech: Ibid, April 24, 1950, 269.

  “I think our friend”: Quoted in Donovan, 170.

  Maragaret Chase Smith: Acheson, 365.

  the “lure in power”: HST Diary, April 16, 1950, Off the Record, 177.

  “I am not a candidate”: Ibid.

  NSC-68: Acheson, 374.

  “bludgeon the mass mind”: Ibid.

  “with us for a long, long time”: PP, HST, May 9, 1950, 335.

  “a grand visit”: HST to Stanley Woodward, June 24, 1950, Off the Record, 184.

  “We would not build”: PP, HST, June 24, 1950.

  nation’s worst air disaster: The New York Times, June 25, 1950.

  “There are lots of places”: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 25, 1950.

  Dean Acheson call: Memoirs, Vol. II, 332.

  “My first reaction”: Ibid.

  “It would appear”: Memoirs, Vol. II, 334.

  “Dad took it”: Truman, Souvenir, 275.

  departure so swift: Memoirs, Vol. II, 332.

  Bess looking as she had the night FDR died: The New York Times, June 26, 1950.

  “By God, I am going to”: Quoted in Donovan, 197.

  “I remembered how”: Memoirs, Vol. II, 332–33

  Rusk had seen no likelihood of war: Rusk, As I Saw It, 161.

  Blair House meeting: Memoirs, Vol. II, 333.

  dinner meeting: Smith, “Why We Went to War in Korea,” Saturday Evening Post, November 11, 1950.

  a “darkening report”: Acheson, 406.

  “a dagger pointed at the heart”: Rusk, 162.

  “We must draw the line”: Bradley and Blair, 534–35.

  “Underlying these discussions”: Ibid., 535.

  “He pulled all the conferees together”: The New York Times, June 28, 1950.


  “I thought we were still holding”: Memoirs, Vol. II, 335.

  “the complete, almost unspoken”: Ibid., 334.

  “so as not to give him too much”: Bradley and Blair, 536.

  “It was our idea”: Donovan, 199.

  “as Hermann Goering”: Jenkins, Truman, 164.

  “Our estimate is that a complete collapse”: Memoirs, Vol. II, 337.

  adding “not yet”: Department of State Memorandum for the Secretary, June 30, 1950, HSTL.

  “We had no war plan”: Bradley and Blair, 539.

  “Everything I have done”: Phillips, The Truman Presidency, 289.

  “Too little, too late”: Washington Post, June 27, 1950.

  “The attack upon Korea”: PP, HST, June 27, 1950, 492.

  “Although the President”: Alsop, “Why Has Washington Gone Crazy?”, Saturday Evening Post, July 29, 1950.

  “These are days”: Washington Post, June 28, 1950.

  “We’ll have a dozen Koreas”: Eisenhower Diaries, 175.

  “You may be a whiskey guzzling poker playing”: Harry Abel to HST, June 27, 1950, HSTL.

  “I have lived and worked”: Time, July 10, 1950.

  “We are not at war”: PP, HST, June 29, 1950, 504.

  “The only assurance for holding”: MacArthur, Reminiscences, 334.

  “Must be careful not to cause”: HST Diary, June 30, 1950, Off the Record, 185.

  “Now, your job as President”: Sevareid, 74.

  “Memo to Dean Acheson”: Acheson, 415.

  16. Commander in Chief

  “There was nothing passive”: Elsey, “Memoir: Some White House Recollections, 1942–1953,” Diplomatic History, Summer 1988.

  “This is the Greece”: Quoted in Phillips, The Truman Presidency, 297.

  “walk with the weary man’s”: Time, July 10, 1950.

  Bradley meeting with HST: Time, August 21, 1950.

  “The size of the attack”: PP, HST, July 19, 1950, 538.

  as if a few troops of Boy Scouts: Ridgway, The Korean War, 17.

  “Guys, sweat soaked”: Knox, The Korean War, Pusan to Chosin, 71.

  “What a place to die”: New York Herald-Tribune, July 6, 1950.

  Acheson, however, disagreed: Acheson, Present at the Creation, 414.

  “Later when Robert Taft”: Heller, The Truman White House, 13.

  HST said he would “back out”: Memoirs, Vol. II, 340.

  her father’s anguish: Truman, Bess W. Truman, 357.

  telegrams and letters to White House: White House Correspondence File, HSTL.

  “The influence of Louis Johnson”: Joseph Alsop, author’s interview.

  July 14 meeting: Acheson, 421.