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Oral History Interview with
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Stenographer to James F. Byrnes , Office
of War Mobilization, during World War II and from July to November,
1945 when Mr. Byrnes was Secretary of State.
September 19, 1989
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[ Notices and Restrictions | InterviewTranscript | Appendix | List of Subjects Discussed]
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NOTICE Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview RESTRICTIONS Opened March, 1992
[Top of the Page | Notices and Restrictions | InterviewTranscript | Appendix | List of Subjects Discussed]
Oral History Interview with Clarion Iowa
JOHNSON: Mrs. Bernhardt, would you give us your full name, including your maiden name, and your birthplace and the date of birth. BERNHARDT: My maiden name is Kevan, Lois Kevan Bernhardt, and I was born at Dow City, Iowa, on November 22, 1919. My parents were Jay and Golda Kevan. JOHNSON: Did they happen to be Irish in background? BERNHARDT: Scotch. I've seen the name in Ireland, so it could have been. One grandfather was from Scotland, and his wife was from England. JOHNSON: How about brothers and sisters. BERNHARDT: I had one brother and two sisters, who are all deceased now. JOHNSON: Are you the youngest? BERNHARDT: No, I wasn't the youngest. I had one sister that was younger. She died just a short time ago, so they are all gone. I went to school in Dow City, but graduated from Schaller, Iowa, where I met my husband. We were high school sweethearts there, but it took us eight and a half years to finally get married, but of ourse, there was a global war in there. JOHNSON: The only one that took longer was Harry and Bess Truman. BERNHARDT: Right. JOHNSON: What was your father's occupation? BERNHARDT: He was a farmer. My mother was a schoolteacher before she married him. JOHNSON: So you were raised on a farm. BERNHARDT: Most of the time. My father passed away when I was only seven years old, so my mother had the problem of raising four children during the Great Depression. JOHNSON: By herself, schoolteaching. BERNHARDT: Well, she was a nurse then. JOHNSON: Well, I guess at least nursing was in demand so that she was . . . BERNHARDT: She was never without work. JOHNSON: Then you graduated from high school. BERNHARDT: The Depression was just slowing down, but money was very scarce, and I had a scholarship to a business school in Des Moines, the American Institute of Business. So I attended that. JOHNSON: That would have been what year? BERNHARDT: I graduated in '37. And after I graduated from there I was in an insurance office in Des Moines. Through my mother's insistence, I took a Civil Service test. I was not interested. In fact, I put on the Civil Service test that I did not want to go out of the state of Iowa. I did not pursue any job at that time with the Government. But by the time I got the telegram from Washington--I didn't accept the first one because I wasn't interested--but then I had advanced as far as I could in the job in Des Moines, and so the third telegram was very attractive and I went to Washington all by myself. Didn't know a soul; didn't have a place to live. JOHNSON: What office in Washington was offering you a job? BERNHARDT: The War Department. JOHNSON: What year? BERNHARDT: This was 1940. JOHNSON: Before Pearl Harbor. BERNHARDT: The year before Pearl Harbor. JOHNSON: Do you remember the name of the person, or the boss, the first boss that hired you? BERNHARDT: No. I was in the G-3 division of the War Department, which at that time had the job of troop movements and troop training. So, that job became more of a secret nature as the possibility of war became a reality. So we were highly investigated, and at the time troop movements were very, very secret. I had made a trip to Fort Dix to see a friend who was among the troops that first went to northern Ireland. No one on that base knew where they were going, but they knew that I knew where they were going. So, don't anybody ever tell you that a girl can't keep a secret. JOHNSON: This would have been after Pearl Harbor then, in 1942. BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: And you were still single. BERNHARDT: Oh, yes, still single until after the war. I rather skipped over Pearl Harbor a little bit there. In Washington I wanted to go to visit Congress. As we were working all day, I took advantage of an evening session to visit Congress. And that night was when Congress was voting on the extension of the draft law. The draft law had been passed for only one year. JOHNSON: That's right. This would have been just a few weeks before . . . BERNHARDT: They were voting on an extension. It was August, four months before Pearl Harbor. And that passed by one vote. So, the extension of the draft was voted in by one vote, four months before Pearl Harbor. JOHNSON: Now, were you in there to see the vote taken? BERNHARDT: Yes. That was a very interesting, timely time to be in the Congress. JOHNSON: Where did you live when you were working at that point, '40-'41? BERNHARDT: Close to DuPont Circle, at 1533 New Hampshire, in a boarding house. When I got to Washington, as I say, I didn't know anybody. I went to the YWCA to get a list of residences. I just happened to go to this boarding house, and the reason I took the room was there was a girl there that was home that day that had the prettiest smile and the most sparkling brown eyes, and I thought, "Oh, I need a friend." I was never sorry, because we are still friends with that girl. Nina Nicholson was her name then; Nina Collins is her name now. JOHNSON: She was working for the Government too? BERNHARDT: She was working in the War Department too, and we used to walk to work together and I really enjoyed her. JOHNSON: Where did you work exactly? BERNHARDT: In the old Munitions Building. Remember those buildings . . . JOHNSON: Is that on the Mall, facing the Mall? BERNHARDT: Yes. They were temporary buildings in World War I, and were still there. JOHNSON: I think they were there until what, ten, fifteen years ago. BERNHARDT: I think so. I think they still used them. JOHNSON: Yes, that was just up from the Smithsonian, I think. BERNHARDT: Right. JOHNSON: You worked in that office for how long? BERNHARDT: Well, at that time, if you worked for the Government and war was just starting, you were not permitted to change jobs unless you acquired a skill that you were not using, and then you could apply for another job. So, I went back to the Washington School for Secretaries to be able to use the stenotype fluently. So then I could say, "I can use a stenotype now; I'd like to have another job." So then they assigned me to the Price Adjustment Board. This was still in connection with the War Department. The Price Adjustment Board was in the new Pentagon. Now, that Pentagon was the largest office building in the world, and was built in one year. JOHNSON: Amazing. BERNHARDT: However, the roof was not finished, and every time it rained, water just came down the walls. You might be working at a desk, and when you came to it you might be surrounded by water. JOHNSON: What was your job title of the first job you had? BERNHARDT: I was a clerk, clerk-typist. JOHNSON: Then you went back and got this additional training for stenotype. Then what was your title? BERNHARDT: Clerk-stenographer. JOHNSON: Clerk-stenographer in the Pentagon. BERNHARDT: Right. JOHNSON: Do you remember the room? BERNHARDT: Oh, no. In fact, they really didn't have individual rooms yet. They had this big, long corridor and I was assigned to be a secretary to Donald Russell. He had never dictated to a stenotypist before. This was my first experience at taking dictation, so all these people in this long corridor stopped their work and watched us. I didn't do very well on that first letter, I'm sure. Mr. Russell and I talked about it a year later when I had worked for him a while, and he said, "Now that was pretty bad, wasn't it?" But anyway, they didn't have the partitions in yet. We were only in there a short time though, because Mr. [James F.] Byrnes was on the Supreme Court, as Justice of the Supreme Court, and Roosevelt needed him as his assistant. So, he asked him to leave the Supreme Court and come to the East Wing of the White House; that was where our office was. And in turn, Mr. Byrnes asked Mr. Russell if he would come because Mr. Russell had been a law partner of Byrnes in South Carolina. They were good friends, for a lifetime. So, Mr. Russell therefore went to the White House. JOHNSON: Well, when did you go to the White House? BERNHARDT: Well, shortly after, because I was pretty anxious to see if I couldn't get there too. So, Mr. Russell gave me the nod and I got there. JOHNSON: I think that started off as the Office of Economic Stabilization. BERNHARDT: Right. JOHNSON: Then it was changed to Office of War Mobilization, and eventually ended up as the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion toward the end of the war. BERNHARDT: They created that office for Mr. Byrnes to be in the White House so that he could be an assistant to Roosevelt. Also, they had this myriad of ABC offices. There was a lot of bickering between the agencies, each one striving to be the most important agency. And Roosevelt had, oh, you could call it a failing or what, but he did not want to put anybody out of office and so he just created another office over them. You know how that's pyramided. JOHNSON: Is this G-3 that you are in, in the Pentagon? BERNHARDT: No. No, it was completely out of the G-3 Division then. JOHNSON: And you were in the Pentagon. BERNHARDT: The Price Adjustment Board. JOHNSON: Oh, the Price Adjustment Board was in the Pentagon at that point? BERNHARDT: Yes. The Price Adjustment Board was. JOHNSON: So, it was through Russell that . . . BERNHARDT: That I came to the White House. JOHNSON: And that got you into contact with Jimmy Byrnes. BERNHARDT: Jimmy Byrnes needed somebody to take his conference reporting, and also to take his official dictation. So my stenotype really served me well to do that. JOHNSON: And what is stenotype? BERNHARDT: Machine dictation, like court reporters use. JOHNSON: Oh, okay. BERNHARDT: Now, Jimmy Byrnes had been a court reporter. He had a very interesting past. You probably have all of that in your notes. He was born after his father had passed away. JOHNSON: That's right, he didn't have a college degree, and he studied law in a law office. BERNHARDT: He worked for a judge and passed his bar. Of course, Truman didn't have a college degree either. JOHNSON: He had two years of law school, evening law school. Both of them were very much self-educated. BERNHARDT: Yes, very much so. JOHNSON: Read an awful lot. BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: I suppose that's true of Jimmy Byrnes. Do you have any idea of his reading habits? Was he a voracious reader, Jimmy Byrnes? BERNHARDT: At that time, he was so busy trying to keep up with things, that a lot of his reading was recreational reading. He loved mysteries and things like that, to relax him. He did do that. JOHNSON: Sort of like Bess Truman. And now, Margaret writes them. BERNHARDT: He was very much on top of things. One day he was dictating to me and he made the remark about some rumor being "all over the lot." I looked puzzled at him and he said, "Lois, you don't know what I mean do you?" I said, "No," and he changed it because he said, "Well, if you don't know what that terms means, then maybe the people that are going to read this won't know it either." Well, it meant that all over Government circles that . . JOHNSON: It shows that he was alert to his audience. BERNHARDT: Oh yes. Oh yes. JOHNSON: The people that were going to read or hear what he had to say. BERNHARDT: Very much so. JOHNSON: Would you say that that made him an effective communicator? BERNHARDT: Yes, everybody felt at ease with him. He had that quality that he was a very kind, observing person. JOHNSON: Do you recall anything about the relationship between Franklin Roosevelt and Jimmy Byrnes? Did you ever see them together? BERNHARDT: Oh, yes. JOHNSON: You saw them together. In what situations? BERNHARDT: Really not that much at the White House, because anytime in the White House that the President needed him, Jimmy Byrnes, of course, had to go to the Oval Office because the President was completely a cripple. They were together at the international conferences more visibly than anything else. JOHNSON: Did you get into the Oval Office while Roosevelt was President? BERNHARDT: Yes, we had the Manhattan Project file in our office in the East Wing and whenever this was under discussion at the Oval Office, I was the one that carried it over there. JOHNSON: What kind of clearance did you have? BERNHARDT: Well, of course, at that time, I was not aware what I was carrying. If I had known it was the atom bomb file, I still wouldn't have understood what it was because at that time I didn't know what an atom was, you know. JOHNSON: Was this a sealed folder then, or . . . BERNHARDT: No. JOHNSON: You could have flipped it open and read it? BERNHARDT: It was kept secret; it was in an office in an unlocked file, in an ordinary file. JOHNSON: It was? BERNHARDT: Yes. So there was nothing to call attention to it. JOHNSON: Did they stamp it "Secret?" BERNHARDT: Not the outside of it. I never opened it because I thought this was none of my business. JOHNSON: Did you have any particular clearance? BERNHARDT: Well, we were cleared to be employed in the White House itself. JOHNSON: And that was considered adequate clearance. BERNHARDT: Yes, because the Secret Service went back to our home town of Schaller and went up and down the street asking people, "Does she use alcohol? Does she talk too much? Is she morally okay?" JOHNSON: But you were sworn to secrecy. BERNHARDT: Oh, my yes. JOHNSON: You were told not to breathe a word of this project. BERNHARDT: At that time, everybody in any kind of work was very aware of keeping their mouth shut, because of the danger to our own troops and everything. JOHNSON: Had posters up, even had them in the White House did they? BERNHARDT: Yes. You bet. JOHNSON: Such as "Loose lips sink ships," and that sort of thing? BERNHARDT: "I Mean You," all these things. So we were very aware. We just forgot what was in our office when we left it. Even when we'd type a letter, they took the carbons and burned them, in case someone would see that carbon. JOHNSON: Exactly where was the office in the White House? BERNHARDT: In the East Wing. It's very different now. We were there several years ago. JOHNSON: Now, the Oval Office is in the West Wing the southwest corner. In other words, you had to go a ways. BERNHARDT: We had to go down through the middle part where the President's swimming pool was, and then go upstairs to the Oval Office then. JOHNSON: How come he was so far away from the Oval Office? I would think he would have had an office closer to Roosevelt himself, considering . . . BERNHARDT: That was where there was room. We were a Government agency, with nine people. JOHNSON: Nine people now working in this Office of Economic Stabilization, which becomes OWM? BERNHARDT: Right. People would come in and say, "Well, where's the rest of your office?" That was it, because Mr. Byrnes did not want a large, unwieldy agency. JOHNSON: Do you remember the names of the people? BERNHARDT: Sure. JOHNSON: Who were those nine. BERNHARDT: Besides Donald Russell; there was Ben Cohen, you've heard of him. Ben Cohen was a person without personality, but a very brilliant person. He was with the atom bomb at the very beginning. He was at Dumbarton Oaks and all the way through, working with the atom bomb. And, of course, Walter Brown was the press agent, and Samuel Lubell was there for a while; he was an economist. JOHNSON: A political scientist I think. He is noted for his book, The Future of American Politics. BERNHARDT: Yes. A pretty dry book. Then the women: Cathy Connor was Mr. Byrnes' personal secretary, and had been for 25 years, an administrative assistant. There was a good friend, Anella Robinson, who lived in Silver Spring. She was secretary to Walter Brown. And Francis Leibel was secretary to Ben Cohen. I don't know if she is still living. I haven't heard from her for years and years. Then at different times, different people were called in, like Fred Searles. Do you know that name? JOHNSON: I know the name. BERNHARDT: He was there, a very fine, very fine person. He was one of those people that was very, very wealthy but hadn't lost sight of the ones that weren't. JOHNSON: Yes. He was a dollar-a-year man too, I think, wasn't he? BERNHARDT: Right. Yes. And General Clay. JOHNSON: Lucius Clay was in the office there too. BERNHARDT: Yes. He was in the office for a while, not long. He was just one of those that was in for a while. JOHNSON: In fact, didn't he become an assistant, really sort of the assistant to Jimmy Byrnes? BERNHARDT: For a while, and then he was commander of the forces after V-E Day in Europe. JOHNSON: Went over to become Military Governor. BERNHARDT: Right. Then did you ever hear of Edward Prichard? JOHNSON: Prichard? [Edward F. Prichard, Jr. Mr. Prichard's name is sometimes misspelled in the secondary literature.] BERNHARDT: He's still around, but there is an interesting fact on him. He was a young person with an unsatiable curiosity, and when Mr. Byrnes came back from the Yalta Conference--Mr. Byrnes took shorthand, and he put his book on his lap and took notes at these conferences--he came back and dictated them off to me. Well, this was a highly secret conference, of course, but Mr. Prichard knew I had those notes and was typing them. He stood right at my shoulder, reading it line for line, as I was typing it. I knew he shouldn't be doing this, so I went in to Mr. Byrnes and told him what was happening. He took me down the hall with my typewriter and my stenotype and locked the door. And Mr. Prichard didn't get to have his curiosity satisfied. JOHNSON: Yes, we need to bring that up again, you know, these notes from Yalta, because they are an important part of the story. But that comes a little bit later, so we'll work on that when we get to it. Were you on the first floor of the East Wing? BERNHARDT: Yes, we were on the first floor. JOHNSON: And there was a basement floor underneath? BERNHARDT: Right. I don't know if the basement was under the whole White House or just under the middle part, I'm not sure about that. We were down in the basement, only for blackouts and drills. We were issued gas masks. JOHNSON: There was a bomb shelter under there. BERNHARDT: There was a bomb shelter. There was an elevator down there so the President could go down by elevator. JOHNSON: Was the swimming pool in the basement, or was that on the first floor? BERNHARDT: No, it was on the first floor. JOHNSON: So, it was easy for Roosevelt to use. BERNHARDT: Easy for Roosevelt to use. JOHNSON: That was built for Roosevelt's use, wasn't it? BERNHARDT: Yes. He could do that exercise. JOHNSON: He could swim. BERNHARDT: Yes, and that was what was good for him, for his polio. The swimming pool isn't there anymore; I understand they took it out. JOHNSON: That was boarded over. BERNHARDT: And one day we met Mrs. Roosevelt just coming out of the pool. JOHNSON: Oh, is that right? BERNHARDT: She was dripping wet and . . . JOHNSON: So she did some swimming too? BERNHARDT: Yes. But she stopped and I introduced my friends to her and she was very gracious. JOHNSON: You saw Byrnes and Roosevelt together. Of course, we have Byrnes' own account of how much respect there was between the two. Did they seem to have a lot of rapport then with each other? BERNHARDT: Oh, yes. Until after the 1944 election. JOHNSON: Yes, that's another episode. BERNHARDT: Another big story. JOHNSON: You say you noticed a little chilling? BERNHARDT: Oh, my yes, with good reason. JOHNSON: Well, you mentioned some of these names. What are your recollections of Donald Nelson? Do you have any recollections of Donald Nelson? BERNHARDT: Not very much. He was in the office only once in a while. JOHNSON: Did there seem to be much interaction between Byrnes and Donald Nelson? You say they didn't visit very often, is that your recollection? BERNHARDT: Not often. Oh, boy, that really goes back. JOHNSON: He was chairman of the War Production Board. BERNHARDT: Mr. Byrnes' job was to settle differences between all these other agencies, and Donald Nelson was one of them that was having difficulty. I'd have to read up on what the difficulty was anymore; I just don't remember that. JOHNSON: Well, apparently, Donald Nelson and Charlie Wilson, Charles E. Wilson, who was chairman of the Production Executive Committee of the War Production Board, were on the outs with each other. Did you know Charlie, or did you ever see Charles E. Wilson? BERNHARDT: No, I don't remember that I did. I could have, but I don't remember. JOHNSON: How about Paul McNutt. BERNHARDT: Yes, I knew him. JOHNSON: Chairman of the War Manpower Commission. BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: What were your impressions of him? BERNHARDT: Oh, my, now you're going back. He was a handsome man, I remember that. Maybe I didn't look any further than that at that time. JOHNSON: You didn't notice him visiting Byrnes very much? BERNHARDT: I knew he was in there, but not a lot. No, not a lot. JOHNSON: And Henry Wallace. Did he ever come over to visit? BERNHARDT: Oh, yes, Wallace was there until after the episode when, oh, what was he doing when Byrnes was overseas, trying to make agreements, and Wallace made some . . . JOHNSON: He made a speech on foreign policy, which was in conflict with Truman's policy. Of course, that came later on. BERNHARDT: Right. JOHNSON: And Jesse Jones, chairman of the RFC. Did he come in to visit Byrnes? BERNHARDT: He and Jesse Jones, and who was it that had the conflict with . . . JOHNSON: Oh, Wallace and Jones were in a conflict with each other. BERNHARDT: Yes, quite a feud. That was leaked out to the newsmen. The media was really on top of that. JOHNSON: Apparently, many of the corporations under the control of the RFC, which would have been Jones' organization, were at odds with Wallace's Board of Economic Warfare. BERNHARDT: Right. JOHNSON: There's an account of that in Byrnes' book, All in One Lifetime, of that feud. BERNHARDT: It's been quite a while since I read that. Kevin [son of Mrs. Bernhardt] has it now, so he's probably read that. JOHNSON: I notice that Byrnes did have the two of them meet in his office on June 30, 1943, but couldn't quite get them reconciled with each other. Do you have any recollections of that at all? BERNHARDT: I remember when they came, and I remember the big hub-bub about it. But I did not have anything to do with it. JOHNSON: You didn't type up a report or anything on that? BERNHARDT: No. That was not recorded. JOHNSON: Well, Byrnes reacted to this by drafting an Executive Order for Roosevelt creating a new Office of Economic Warfare, and replacing both men with Leo Crowley, who was former head of the FDIC, and was Alien Property Custodian at the time. Is that typical of the way that Byrnes operated, that if there was a problem, like a personality conflict, he would simply create some new offices, or reorganize, and . . . BERNHARDT: That was Roosevelt's way. JOHNSON: That was Roosevelt's way. BERNHARDT: That was Roosevelt's way. And probably Byrnes' to a certain extent therefore, too. JOHNSON: Sort of copied that style, you think? BERNHARDT: I wasn't aware of that very much at the time. I was aware of how Roosevelt did it. But Roosevelt was trying to get rid of conflicts, because he had all he could do to keep track of the war. JOHNSON: Yes, military and political things. BERNHARDT: Right. JOHNSON: Well, in fact, Byrnes was referred to as "The Assistant President" in one of Roosevelt's letters to him. Do you recall that term? BERNHARDT: Yes, he was referred to as Assistant to the President. JOHNSON: That's the way the media referred to him. BERNHARDT: That's the way they referred to him. JOHNSON: And I suppose he didn't mind that label? BERNHARDT: Well, the title that he preferred all through this was "Justice." JOHNSON: Justice. BERNHARDT: Justice Byrnes. He liked . . . JOHNSON: Did you address him as Justice? BERNHARDT: Lots of times. JOHNSON: Mr. Justice, or Justice Byrnes? BERNHARDT: Either way. Yes. JOHNSON: Not many called him Jimmy? BERNHARDT: Well, at my level we didn't call him Jimmy. But a lot of people did. JOHNSON: I'm sure Roosevelt would. BERNHARDT: Oh yes. Oh, he always did. It was always "Jimmy." JOHNSON: Do you have any recollections about another feud between Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles? BERNHARDT: No, I don't remember that at all. JOHNSON: Apparently Hull was telephoning Byrnes rather frequently about this problem. BERNHARDT: For a while. JOHNSON: Welles' problem. Welles was apparently making speeches without clearing them with Hull, and there were some variations in his policies that conflicted with those of Hull. BERNHARDT: And they were supposed to clear them absolutely before they made things public. There was supposed to be unity in any information that was put out. JOHNSON: Yes, what kind of instructions did you have, or did you notice on clearing speeches, communicating with the public? Everything and anything had to go through Byrnes? BERNHARDT: It was supposed to. It was supposed to so that there was unity on the home front. Because when this office was created, there was much disunity. JOHNSON: Now, these phone calls that came to Byrnes, like from Hull, did anybody ever take notes of phone calls? BERNHARDT: No. JOHNSON: There was no record of what was said in those phone calls? BERNHARDT: No. JOHNSON: There were no tape recorders. BERNHARDT: Not that I knew of. JOHNSON: No bugging going on. BERNHARDT: No, not that I knew of. JOHNSON: That comes later perhaps. BERNHARDT: Right. We were pretty honest and straight-forward; we didn't have any devious ways. JOHNSON: Cassie Connor, you mentioned her name. What was her role, do you recall? BERNHARDT: She was an administrative assistant to Mr. Byrnes and his personal secretary. A wonderful person. JOHNSON: So she was in the office, in Byrnes' office. BERNHARDT: Right. JOHNSON: She would have been able to overhear many things. BERNHARDT: Right. She was in on everything. She really was. She was a very diplomatic person. Oh, I remember one time when a Russian minister had an appointment with Mr. Byrnes, and he came, and right at that time the President also called Mr. Byrnes, and so he couldn't see the minister right then. Our dealings with the Russians were such that we didn't want to antagonize him. Cassie said, "I'll take care of him." She brought that guy into her office and sat him down and chatted with him. She had him eating out of her hand. He would have done anything for her. She was a wonderful person. JOHNSON: Was she the one you reported to? Who did you report to? Who was your immediate supervisor, or superior? BERNHARDT: Well, Mr. Byrnes had charge of all of us, but of course, he didn't have time for personnel things, so Cassie handled that a lot. When she was gone, I was her substitute, but I didn't want her to be gone very often. JOHNSON: Well, when you substituted for her, were you in the office then with Byrnes? BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: Okay, you took her place in the office, so you could overhear the things that were going on, the conferences, phone calls and that sort of thing? BERNHARDT: The conferences were taken verbatim, and I took those. Phone calls, I closed the door. JOHNSON: Okay, your notes on the conferences, where did they end up, do you know? BERNHARDT: I didn't have to transcribe all of them. He wanted them down. Like the Yalta Conference, I took those minutes down from him, and as far as I know, they're still in the State Department untranscribed. They may have been transcribed, but he did not want those transcribed unless they may have had need for them. JOHNSON: Are they still in shorthand form? BERNHARDT: Stenotype form, as far as I know. Somebody may have transcribed them later. JOHNSON: Okay, but he wrote in shorthand. BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: Was that Gregg shorthand? BERNHARDT: Pittman. JOHNSON: Pittman shorthand. BERNHARDT: But no one else could read his scribbles. JOHNSON: You took his shorthand and put it into a stenotype, so it's still untranslatable to most of us; a foreign language. BERNHARDT: Right. And he didn't want that transcribed, because he didn't want anybody else to read them unless they needed it. If he felt they needed it . . . JOHNSON: And he read those to Harry Truman, I think. BERNHARDT: Then maybe they were transcribed later, I don't know. JOHNSON: I think they must have been. BERNHARDT: Because anybody that knows stenotype could transcribe those notes. But I didn't transcribe them; he didn't want it done. JOHNSON: So you don't know if they were put into standard English. BERNHARDT: No. I don't know. JOHNSON: Again, on this business with Welles, and Hull, apparently Byrnes used that occasion, or the occasion of Welles' dismissal, to merge the Lend-lease office and Director of Economic Warfare into a new agency, the Foreign Economic Administration, under Leo Crowley. And he appointed former Lend-lease director Edward Stettinius as Under Secretary of State. Did you meet or know much about Leo Crowley, or Edward Stettinius? BERNHARDT: Ed Stettinius, I did, because he became Secretary of State during the first United Nations Conference. JOHNSON: What were your impressions of Edward Stettinius? Another handsome fellow? BERNHARDT: Another handsome fellow, but do you know how he became Secretary of State? At the time Cordell Hull resigned because of ill health, many people around Washington wanted Jimmy Byrnes as Secretary of State. So they were telephoning FDR and trying to get appointments with him to ask for Jimmy Byrnes. FDR wanted to be his own Secretary of State. He wanted to run the foreign office the way he wanted to, and he was a very powerful person, a very able person. So, he appointed Ed Stettinius and then when people objected, he said, "Oh, why didn't you let me know; I didn't know." Doesn't that sound like the way he would get around that? But Ed Stettinius was not a decisive person. In fact, he had a telephone in the bathroom in the Secretary of State's office, and when a major decision was coming forth, he would excuse himself and call the President. Now, I don't know how often he did this. But as soon as Truman became President, Truman appointed Byrnes as Secretary of State. JOHNSON: Now, the Secretary of State had his office in. . . BERNHARDT: The State Department. JOHNSON: The State Department Building. BERNHARDT: Right west of the White House, at that time. Not the new State Department Building. JOHNSON: The one just west of the White House at that time. BERNHARDT: The State Department was on the west side, and the Treasury on the east side. There was another person that was in our office a lot, and that was Bernard Baruch. JOHNSON: Oh, yes. BERNHARDT: You know, his office was a park bench in Lafayette Park. JOHNSON: Oh, he was offered a position, and he kind of dilly-dallied around. BERNHARDT: He didn't want an official capacity. JOHNSON: I wonder why? BERNHARDT: He was doing very well the way he was; he was advising everybody. JOHNSON: He sat on a park bench in Lafayette Park and waited for them to come to him for advice? BERNHARDT: Well, I wouldn't think that, no. He was in our office a lot, but he was a good friend of Mr. Byrnes. JOHNSON: What were your impressions of Baruch? BERNHARDT: I liked him. I liked him very much. He was a very kind man. JOHNSON: Truman didn't like him too well. BERNHARDT: No. JOHNSON: Do you think Roosevelt really liked him? BERNHARDT: It was hard to tell. He called on him a lot, or had him call and come to his office a lot. He was a brilliant person and had things under his thumb pretty much. He was called "the adviser to Presidents;" that was his media name. JOHNSON: In a letter to Roosevelt on January 26, 1944 Byrnes complained that Roosevelt had released a message to the Congress on a National Service Law without notifying Byrnes of an apparent change in policy from views expressed by the President the preceding August. I think this is sometimes called the "work or fight" bill. Byrnes favored an anti-strike law, but felt it inadvisable to seek a national service law. Roosevelt also had announced that the Federal subsidy program would cost about 1 percent of the annual cost of the war, and Byrnes had figured it would be 1-1/2 percent. There also had been some confusing signals from Roosevelt on appointing Will Clayton as U.S. representative to an international food conference. And it appears that Roosevelt had asked Byrnes to handle the soldier's vote bill, but then, later he dealt with Sam Rosenman on this, leaving Byrnes, I guess as we would say today, out of the loop. First, do you recall any incidents of Byrnes complaining about being left out of important decisions? BERNHARDT: I don't recall any, no. I'm not surprised, but I don't recall any. JOHNSON: In other words, who would have typed up this long letter in which he was listing all these complaints. BERNHARDT: I probably did. JOHNSON: In diplomatic language. That could well have been yours? BERNHARDT: I probably did. JOHNSON: In fact, would you recognize your typing if I showed it to you? Let's see, this one, like I say, is a rather lengthy letter, and here is a memorandum for the President. The memorandum is dated January 31, but the letter itself is January 26 of '44. You may be interested in some of this correspondence that I received from the Roosevelt Library. You might like to look at it. You didn't have to put your initials at the bottom of the letters you typed like you do now? BERNHARDT: Must not have. JOHNSON: Of course, it could go on the carbon, the initials and so on. BERNHARDT: I wish I had. When I went through the Library down there, there were several things I suspected I had typed, but didn't have any proof. Here's Baruch. Harry Hopkins was right down the hall from our office. JOHNSON: Just down the hall. BERNHARDT: Just down the hall. He was not a well man though; he was ill a lot. JOHNSON: What corner were you in there in the east wing? BERNHARDT: The northeast. JOHNSON: The northeast corner. BERNHARDT: You just went in the door and turned to the right, down that hall. It was a very small area. In fact, in order to make an office for Cassie Connor, they just took the end of the hallway. JOHNSON: Now there's the East Room there, a kind of a ballroom. BERNHARDT: It was upstairs. JOHNSON: That was above you. That was the next floor up. BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: Now, there's an implication in this letter that Roosevelt was dealing directly with Rosenman on some things that Byrnes seem to feel that he should have been dealing with Byrnes himself. Do you recall any contention, or any controversy at all involving Roosevelt's relationship with Rosenman? BERNHARDT: Any controversy? JOHNSON: Any conflict between Rosenman and Byrnes at all? BERNHARDT: I remember Judge Rosenman being in the office. JOHNSON: Was he in very often? BERNHARDT: No. Not any more often than anyone else. No one was in there real often. JOHNSON: Apparently Roosevelt was making some decisions with Rosenman's advice and not informing Byrnes about it. BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: But you're not aware of how that worked. BERNHARDT: That was 40 years ago, remember? JOHNSON: In other words, there seemed to be some tendency of Roosevelt, sometimes, to work outside of channels. BERNHARDT: Oh, yes. Oh, yes, right, and then tell what had been done after he had already done it. JOHNSON: Fait accompli. BERNHARDT: Especially in his fourth term. In his fourth term, President Roosevelt was not well enough to be cognizant of what he was doing a lot, which was sad. JOHNSON: And, of course, not able to get around on his own so that . . . BERNHARDT: He depended on somebody else. JOHNSON: He always had to have the person come to the Oval Office. Perhaps he would never circulate to any other offices. Did you ever see him, Mr. Roosevelt, come into your office? BERNHARDT: Well, they had ramps all over the White House, and they had a ramp to our office. JOHNSON: With a wheelchair? BERNHARDT: Right, but we were not allowed to see him in his wheelchair. If we were going through the White House and the President was going through, coming down the hall or anything, a bell would ring and Secret Service men would usher us to a side room until the President had gone by. You were not allowed to see him in his wheelchair at all. I only recall once when he actually came to the East Wing, and he didn't come right to our office then. The theater, the projection room, was right close to our office, and they brought war films right directly from the front to this projection room to show. JOHNSON: He would come to the theater to see these war films. BERNHARDT: Right, or to a press conference. JOHNSON: You never saw him in his wheelchair? BERNHARDT: No. I saw him behind his desk, but they would take the wheelchair away. In fact, I was in a movie with him once, Pathe Newsreel. They wanted a picture of him getting a war bond, and at that time, I was the youngest person in the White House, so I got chosen. So I got to hand him his war bond and I was in the Pathe Newsreel. JOHNSON: You were? BERNHARDT: My husband was in South Carolina at the time. We weren't married yet, and he happened to see this newsreel. He saw me come on the screen and he stood right up in the theater and said, "Hey, there's Lois." JOHNSON: Just like anybody else cared. BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: I don't suppose you ever got a copy of that. BERNHARDT: Of the newsreel. No, I had wanted to, but I've never been able to find where it is. Oh, I wish I had it. I don't even know where to write to anymore. JOHNSON: Write the National Archives, I suppose the audiovisual department. It might be in their newsreel material. Of course, some of that burned up. BERNHARDT: Yes, I have been told that. JOHNSON: Apparently, photographers observed the rule not to photograph him with his braces showing. BERNHARDT: Right. JOHNSON: Can we say they were vain about anybody seeing him in a wheelchair. BERNHARDT: Well, it was also PR. While the nation knew that he had had polio, at that time they were not aware completely that we had a completely crippled President. They were not aware of that. He did not want them to know that, of course, either. And he was very conscious of it. As any of us would be. JOHNSON: A visual image. BERNHARDT: Right. JOHNSON: In other words, we're talking about the image Presidency now, but we had that in the '30s, and late '40s. BERNHARDT: Yes, we did. Yes, we did. Now, in his first two terms, he could get behind a rostrum with the help of his two sons that would help him to the rostrum, and leaning on it then like this. But after his first two terms, he had become so involved with Government and with the war, that he did not take time to take his exercise in the pool as much. I don't know if that was the cause that he got worse and could not go to the rostrum anymore. JOHNSON: He also smoked quite a bit, didn't he? BERNHARDT: Yes, with a holder. JOHNSON: Do you think he was a chain smoker? Do you recall? BERNHARDT: Pretty close. I would say so. He and Churchill, both were; you never saw either one of them very much without it. JOHNSON: But Churchill just smoked cigars. BERNHARDT: Oh, yes. Big, fat cigars. JOHNSON: Now, in this letter that you have here, Byrnes concludes that the heads of the various agencies you had been dealing with no longer could believe that he had Roosevelt's "unqualified support," because he had not been consulted about these things. Byrnes wrote, "I want to leave, but I want to leave in such a way that I will not give comfort to your political enemies." Byrnes recommended to Roosevelt that the OWM be terminated and that demobilization policies be transferred to the War Production Board. Byrnes said that if the reorganization was not approved, he wanted to be replaced within a week. Byrnes said that he would urge Roosevelt's nomination and reelection because it was necessary for "the welfare of this country," and "out of personal affection." Now, this is early 1944, of course, this letter we're referring to. Did you notice any change in Byrnes' attitude towards Roosevelt, even before the convention? Of course, after the convention there certainly was, but did you notice any change after the time of this letter? BERNHARDT: No. JOHNSON: He doesn't put this in his autobiography. This doesn't appear in his book. He may have censored it, so to speak, to avoid negative things. But you didn't notice any change in their relationship then before the convention in '44? BERNHARDT: No. I do know that Jimmy Byrnes put the welfare of the country first, before his personal welfare. And if he felt that it would be the right thing for him to resign his position because of any disagreements with Roosevelt, he would have done so without any thought of his own self. JOHNSON: I haven't seen the follow-up on this, but apparently Roosevelt talked him out of quitting. BERNHARDT: Oh, yes. I remember that. He occasionally wanted to get out of Federal Government. He was not one to be at the head, telling people they were wrong and issuing these hold-the-line orders that made no friends, that type of thing. JOHNSON: I haven't seen any of the memos or whatever in which Roosevelt talked him out of doing what he said he wanted to do, that is, wanting to resign. But I notice a memo to Byrnes from Roosevelt in June, 1944, in which the President said, "As you know, you are indispensable on the handling and the actual settling of scores of problems which are constantly arising. You have been called, 'The Assistant President,' and the appellation comes close to the truth." Now, this is the first time I've seen that in the literature, and we've mentioned this before, that is, this label "Assistant President." You'd heard that term used? BERNHARDT: Oh, yes. JOHNSON: Even earlier than June. BERNHARDT: When he first came to the White House he was referred to as the Assistant President. JOHNSON: Did Byrnes ever say anything about that? Did you ever hear Byrnes ever refer to himself or talk about being Assistant to the President? BERNHARDT: No. JOHNSON: So he didn't necessarily apply that to himself. BERNHARDT: No. Byrnes was very concerned about the health of the President in 1944. In fact, when General Clay came to our office he had never met the President, so Byrnes made an appointment and took him over there. Roosevelt did all the talking, and General Clay wasn't able to say anything. So, when they came back why Mr. Byrnes just jokingly said, "You talk too much General." And General Clay made the remark; he said, "If he had asked me to, I couldn't have said anything because the President looked so bad." JOHNSON: Do you recall any plan to replace Frances Perkins by a man during the war? BERNHARDT: Well, the men didn't want Frances Perkins there. She was a very able person, but she was an abrasive person. JOHNSON: What was her relationship with Byrnes, as you recall? Did they get along? BERNHARDT: Well, not close. Byrnes' conference board was composed of several of the Cabinet members, and Frances Perkins was one of them. I can't remember all of the others that would go to some of the conferences that I had to report on. I know she was there. Sometimes they resented her because she made too much sense. Maybe that's one lady taking the part of another one, I don't know, but she was very practical and to the point. She didn't go around the bush like a lot of these politicians do. JOHNSON: Direct. BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: She also was a woman. BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: And was there sexism, noticeable sexism? BERNHARDT: Right. Still, she had a lot of respect. She gained a lot of respect of those people too, but she was a little abrasive. Maybe she was on the defensive too, I don't know. JOHNSON: But do you recall rumors or any kind of campaign, rumored campaign, whatever, to try to replace her? BERNHARDT: Not definitely, no. No, I don't. There probably were, but I don't remember that. JOHNSON: But you just recall that some of the men that you knew, or maybe some of the women, too, felt that she was . . . BERNHARDT: There weren't any women in there; in these meetings. She was the only woman. JOHNSON: And she was not a shrinking violet. BERNHARDT: Oh, no. Not in any way. JOHNSON: She made her point. BERNHARDT: She made her point, you bet. She was good at her work; she was very good. JOHNSON: They did show respect for her? BERNHARDT: Yes. Yes, they did. JOHNSON: There is an episode mentioned in his book. In 1943, after a long session involving the miner's strike for higher wages, Frances Perkins apparently was willing to raise wages for the miners, whereas Byrnes, you know, wanted to treat them like anybody else. Byrnes came out to his desk and apparently didn't realize that Frances Perkins was right behind him and said to Cassie Connor that, "Fannie has ants in her pants." BERNHARDT: Oh, my dear. I don't know that one. JOHNSON: Did he call her Fannie? BERNHARDT: Oh, yes. I'm sure he was embarrassed. JOHNSON: Then he turned around and there she was. He said she took it pretty well. You weren't there to hear that? BERNHARDT: No. JOHNSON: And Cassie never talked to you about it? BERNHARDT: She probably did at the time, but I don't recall it. JOHNSON: Well, how did Byrnes deal with the routines and the pressures that came with his job? For instance, what kind of appointments would he usually honor, and what role did interest groups, pressure groups, play? BERNHARDT: He necessarily had to make his appointments with only the top people of the organizations. The other ones were referred to his assistants as much as possible. JOHNSON: Who arranged his appointments? BERNHARDT: Cassie. JOHNSON: Okay, so she's the one that had to deal directly with them and Byrnes. BERNHARDT: Yes, and we had to limit very severely the time that they spent with him. If we wanted to get somebody out of the office, one sure way we could do it was to tell him that the President was calling. And then they knew that they had to leave, so he could talk to the President. It was a lot easier for him if the secretary would do that, because he couldn't tell some of these people, "Well, you've got to go now." JOHNSON: But now, when Cassie Connor wasn't there, you said you filled in. BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: So, did you have to take some of those calls? BERNHARDT: I had to do that, yes. JOHNSON: And decide whether he could make an appointment or not, whether the appointment should be made? BERNHARDT: Right. There was never an appointment made without consulting him first, because we never knew what he may have . . . JOHNSON: In other words you referred them to Brown or to . . . BERNHARDT: Bill Russell, or Ben Cohen. Ben Cohen took a lot of them. Now, one day, you would be interested in this; Mr. Byrnes had a houseboy, a little black boy by the name of Truman--I don't know his last name. He was a boy that apparently didn't read or write because we wrote a lot of his love letters for him. But he was a cute little black boy, anyway. He was a person that would bring Mr. Byrnes' his lunch, because Mr. Byrnes ate his lunch in his office quite often, or bring his mid-morning coffee. And one morning he was ready for his mid-morning coffee and he didn't know that Senator Truman had come in for an appointment. He just hollered out, "Truman, come here." So, here came Senator Truman and set his cup of coffee down. JOHNSON: Did the one Truman get acquainted with the other Truman? BERNHARDT: They were all pretty surprised. JOHNSON: Did he take vacations, Byrnes, or was he always on the job, what, six days a week? BERNHARDT: During the war everybody was. JOHNSON: You worked six days, six full days? BERNHARDT: Often it was six full days, yes. Very often. JOHNSON: And he was there on Saturdays. BERNHARDT: Very often. Occasionally not, of course. Bernard Baruch had an estate down in South Carolina, and occasionally he would have Byrnes down there for a rest. So, he would take advantage of that. Of course, he went on these international conferences, and while they weren't restful, at least it was a change of pace. JOHNSON: Did his wife ever come over to the office, Mrs. Byrnes? BERNHARDT: Oh, yes. JOHNSON: Come in to visit? BERNHARDT: Not to visit. If she wanted to see Cassie about something she would come in. They had us out at their home several times. Oh, we were out there for dinner. Like when he went to the Yalta Conference, he knew that we all were very curious about the conference and his stories about the front, so he had a dinner party and invited us all to the dinner party and told us as much as he could about the conference. JOHNSON: Was that a Saturday night? BERNHARDT: I don't remember what night it was. It was during the week. Bob had been up there and we had gone bicycling in the afternoon. At the dinner that night-- they had cocktails before dinner--Mr. Byrnes recognized that this little girl from Iowa wasn't used to cocktails. So when the maid came to pass the wine, he just said, "Miss Kevan won't have any." JOHNSON: Going to keep you sober. BERNHARDT: Yes, right. So I didn't have to tell them. JOHNSON: Did they have children, Byrnes? BERNHARDT: No, Byrnes did not have any children. He had one sister, Frances Fuller who visited us after the war in Ames. Do you remember when she came [speaking to her husband]? You had the measles and were sick. Frances Fuller came and visited us. Frances had a couple of children. She had a grandchild that was born without a hip bone, I think it was, and so was crippled, and had many surgeries. Many times I sent checks to the hospital from Mr. Byrnes so that the family would not know, and he requested that the hospital not tell the family. The bill would just be lowered. He did a lot of that. MR. BERNHARDT: Dr. Johnson asked about his relationship with pressure groups. You better tell him that he never accepted any presents. BERNHARDT: Oh, yes, that was a no-no. People would send in neckties or a bottle of whiskey, or whatever, and we were given strict orders, no matter what it was, that we had to return it. He would send a note of personal thanks saying, "I cannot accept it, because a gift would involve an obligation and I have to be free to do my job. I don't want to be under obligation." How many of your politicians will do that now? JOHNSON: Well, he was "clean Gene" as far as you could tell. BERNHARDT: That's right. JOHNSON: Was there any particular person that he seemed to be the friendliest with? Now, of course, he was a friend of the President, and with Russell, who worked with him. BERNHARDT: Yes. He was a friend of the Trumans too. JOHNSON: As a Senator, Truman came in to visit Byrnes during the war years when he was the head of the Truman Committee. Did he come in very often? Do you recall him visiting very often? BERNHARDT: No. I wouldn't say once a week or anything like that, but fairly often. Yes, he did. JOHNSON: And they seemed genuinely to like each other. BERNHARDT: Oh, yes, they were good friends. They were good friends, until later. JOHNSON: Do you recall Roosevelt's majority leader Barkley being on the outs . . . BERNHARDT: Alben Barkley? JOHNSON: . . . over Roosevelt's veto of a tax bill, and Byrnes trying to help heal the breech? Do you remember him ever trying to patch things up between Barkley and Roosevelt? BERNHARDT: He was a mediator in a lot of things, but I don't recall that. JOHNSON: Did Barkley ever show up? BERNHARDT: He was there once, I can remember. JOHNSON: Of course, he became Vice President under Truman later on. Were you at the Democratic Convention in 1944? BERNHARDT: No, I had to stay in the office, but I vividly remember it. JOHNSON: What do you recall of Byrnes' expectations that he would be the nominee? BERNHARDT: Well, Roosevelt, you see, had asked Byrnes to run as his running mate in 1940, and Byrnes turned it down because he didn't think the country was ready to elect a southerner. But when he asked him in 1944--and Roosevelt talked him into it, Byrnes turned it down at first. I can remember his fighting with himself whether he should accept it or not, and finally he did say "Yes," he would run. And then they got to the convention, and Truman had his nomination in his pocket. FDR said, "Clear it with Sidney," and Sidney Hillman was the head of the labor union. Hillman said, "No, we cannot accept Byrnes because of his hold-the-line orders" that kept our country from run-away inflation, and also because of the Black vote that wouldn't vote for a southerner. JOHNSON: Now, according to Byrnes' book, the biggest fly in the ointment appeared to be Ed Flynn, who was political boss in New York. He was telling Roosevelt, apparently, that he would lose the Black vote in New York and he lived in New York and needed New York. Well, he apparently didn't need it really to win, but it wouldn't look good for a President to lose his own state. BERNHARDT: That's true. JOHNSON: There were these meetings between FDR and city bosses or city Democrat Party leaders in early '44. First of all, the bosses didn't want Wallace. BERNHARDT: No. No, Wallace was anathema to them. JOHNSON: They didn't want Wallace, and then they decided that Byrnes had too many handicaps. BERNHARDT: Why didn't they decide that in D.C. instead of waiting for the convention, the night before he was to be nominated? JOHNSON: Well, my impression is they were trying to convince Roosevelt of this for months and months, and yet, Roosevelt kept stringing Byrnes along, even though Roosevelt was being told that he was not the best candidate. According to Byrnes' book, Roosevelt wrote to him just a few days before the convention saying that he was the best qualified candidate. You say Byrnes was wrestling with this business. BERNHARDT: Byrnes was not anxious to take over any other Government work. He was rather anxious to return to his own private law practice. But he felt that his experience--see, Byrnes was probably the only person that I can ever recall that served his country in all three branches of the Government, because he was Congressman, he was Senator, he was Justice of the Supreme Court and he was in the Executive branch. So he thought that with his experience, he could serve his country very well in that capacity. So, he finally consented to do it. JOHNSON: Yes, but you know, this mention about a southerner being difficult to elect in '40 could apply also to '44. South Carolina was not a labor-union state. It was considered anti-union, so in addition to what you mentioned, the hold-the-line, I think it was just that reputation, wasn't it, that South Carolina would not let unions organize. Didn't that then reflect on Byrnes, and Byrnes had to carry that burden? BERNHARDT: I'm sure it did. JOHNSON: And it didn't hurt that Truman was from a border state. BERNHARDT: No. JOHNSON: It was kind of a tradition that the Vice President, if they could, would be selected from a border state where he could get southern votes and still also get northern votes. BERNHARDT: Well, now, at that time also they knew that whoever FDR picked, there was a good chance of winning the election, because FDR was very popular. JOHNSON: Byrnes called Truman in Independence before the convention, and asked Truman if he would promote his nomination, give his nomination speech. BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: And Truman said he would. BERNHARDT: Yes, he had his speech in his pocket for Byrnes. JOHNSON: But Truman apparently was still not aware just how things were going to work out. BERNHARDT: No. JOHNSON: Things were different then weren't they? Now they spend two or three years running for the office. BERNHARDT: In Roosevelt's fourth inauguration, he spent $2,000 for his inauguration. Of course, he didn't really have any great expences. JOHNSON: So you didn't go to the convention, but you recall, you said, the kind of change in attitude of Byrnes after that convention. BERNHARDT: Toward Roosevelt. JOHNSON: Yes. He came back and took up where he left off, so to speak, after a little time off. He came back to the office and resumed his work. BERNHARDT: The convention was in, what. JOHNSON: In July of '44. But after he came back, did you notice then a change in his attitude? BERNHARDT: Oh, yes. Yes. JOHNSON: What did you notice? BERNHARDT: He was very badly hurt. He really was, at that time. Now, he backed Truman totally. He really rallied behind Truman. In fact, he wrote the speech that Truman made to Congress after Truman became President. JOHNSON: Oh, you mean that first speech to Congress? BERNHARDT: Yes. He and Ben Cohen. JOHNSON: He and Ben Cohen wrote that speech? BERNHARDT: And he rehearsed with Truman for his delivery, because Truman did not have any experience with this. So he rallied behind Truman completely. But there couldn't help but be a coolness with Roosevelt then, because he felt betrayed. He didn't trust him anymore. He really didn't trust what he would do. It was very, very hard for him. JOHNSON: Were you in the Oval Office after that convention when Byrnes was there? BERNHARDT: No. JOHNSON: So, you didn't actually see Byrnes and Roosevelt together after that? BERNHARDT: No. JOHNSON: But whenever Byrnes referred to Roosevelt, it wasn't with the same enthusiasm? BERNHARDT: Well, of course, he wasn't obvious about it, but I wrote many, many letters to close personal friends who backed Byrnes and who felt betrayed too. So his attitude was shown through that. JOHNSON: Through these letters to friends. BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: Did he dictate directly to you these letters. BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: He didn't write them in shorthand. BERNHARDT: No, he dictated them. JOHNSON: You had to go into his office to take dictation. Couldn't Cassie Connor do this too? BERNHARDT: No, she didn't take any dictation. I took all of it. JOHNSON: Have you seen any of that correspondence since then, or where those papers might be? BERNHARDT: No. I have no idea. JOHNSON: Well, some I suppose are in the Roosevelt Library. BERNHARDT: Of course, lots would be personal, and personal letters wouldn't be anywhere else. But another thing he did on letters was, when he went overseas to these conferences, every service man that he met, he asked them their home address and their parents' or wife or sweetheart's name. And when he came back in the office he dictated letters to everyone of them to let them know that he had seen their son and he was well. Wasn't that a nice thing to do? JOHNSON: Yes. Now, you mentioned Hillman. Were you at any conferences in which Hillman and Byrnes were together? BERNHARDT: No. No. JOHNSON: Did they kind of refuse to see each other? BERNHARDT: Not that I know of. I don't think there was any occasion for them to get together, especially after . . . JOHNSON: But you knew that Hillman and Byrnes were not friends? BERNHARDT: No, I wasn't even aware of that. I just know that the cry of the convention almost was "Check it with Sidney." "Clear it with Sidney." That was the cry of the convention. JOHNSON: CIO [Congress of Industrial Organizations]. BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: As far as you can tell did Byrnes remain friendly with Truman after the convention? BERNHARDT: Oh, yes. JOHNSON: Must have, because . . . BERNHARDT: Truman's first appointment after he became President was appointing Byrnes as Secretary of State. JOHNSON: Al Whitney was president of the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen, and he apparently supported Byrnes' candidacy. He was a labor leader who was very much in favor of Byrnes, friendly to Byrnes. Do you recall them ever meeting? BERNHARDT: No, I remember him, but I don't know that I ever met him. JOHNSON: In September '44, Byrnes visited the front in Europe with General Marshall. But I suppose you didn't go. BERNHARDT: No. No, I went to Potsdam. JOHNSON: And then he made some speeches late in the '44 campaign at the behest of Roosevelt. I guess this was just the last few days that he made some speeches. Did you type up his speeches? BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: You typed them up. BERNHARDT: Yes, typed them on half sheets of paper, double spaced. JOHNSON: And he claims he gave an excellent speech around October 30 of '44 and got a phone call right away from Roosevelt saying he had done such a nice job. Maybe trying to patch things up. But a lot of phone calls would come in without you knowing about them? BERNHARDT: Oh, sure. JOHNSON: They'd go from the switchboard directly to Cassie Connor? BERNHARDT: Well, no, we answered them. Between Anella and I we answered the phone. But he had a private line too, and if they came in on that line then we didn't answer it of course. JOHNSON: Okay, so then you just switched them to him. BERNHARDT: We'd switch them to Cassie. JOHNSON: There was no switchboard as such, then. BERNHARDT: No, not a switchboard. We had these different lines. JOHNSON: Just push a button. BERNHARDT: Just push a button and you could switch the call. JOHNSON: Okay, in September of '44 Secretary of State Cordell Hull recommended that Byrnes be appointed to oversee the economic control and reconstruction of Germany with the rank of Ambassador. Roosevelt said the idea, "Hit the bull's eye, but it was premature to consider it and Byrnes was needed equally on the Home front." Did you ever hear a discussion, or prepare correspondence, relating to the idea of Byrnes being U.S. High Commissioner in Germany? BERNHARDT: Not that I recall. No. JOHNSON: Well, apparently Byrnes turned it down. He said he didn't speak German. BERNHARDT: That sounds like him. JOHNSON: But it seemed like a pretty good reason. Also as a private citizen he said he could lobby in the Senate for laws to preserve the peace in Germany, and he might be more effective as a lobbyist with the Senate. BERNHARDT: It makes sense. JOHNSON: You mentioned Lucius Clay. What do you recall about Lucius Clay? Do you have any impressions of Lucius Clay? BERNHARDT: I liked him very much. He had a secretary, a long-time secretary, and he learned before he was going to Germany, that she had cancer. She didn't know it and her death was eminent. He requested that he not be sent to Germany until her death, so that he would not have to tell her. This was granted and she died shortly afterward. And when we were in Germany, we visited in his home, his home over there. JOHNSON: Lucius Clay? BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: You mean this was during the Potsdam Conference? BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: In fact, we're up to the Yalta meeting in early '45. Now, Byrnes did not want to go to Yalta. BERNHARDT: Not very bad. JOHNSON: And he said there were issues at home such as the "work or fight bill," this national service bill. But he did go. BERNHARDT: He did go. JOHNSON: Roosevelt insisted that he go. Of course, you didn't go on that one. BERNHARDT: No. JOHNSON: But he was back on February 13, and held a press conference right after he got back. Did you take notes at any of these press conferences? BERNHARDT: Byrnes'? JOHNSON: Yes. Or did you sit in on them at all, take any notes? BERNHARDT: No. No, I don't remember taking any press conferences. JOHNSON: Byrnes recommended Fred Vinson or Lucius Clay as his successor. How about Fred Vinson? Did you get acquainted with him, or see him very much? BERNHARDT: Slightly, yes. He took over after Mr. Byrnes left. He took over that office. So we met. And he was in our office quite a bit before he took from Byrnes. JOHNSON: They apparently had been close friends. BERNHARDT: Yes. They were very good friends. JOHNSON: Byrnes resigned on April 2, 1945 from OWMR. So what did you do then? Did you stay on with his successor? BERNHARDT: Well, before Byrnes had resigned, he had called me in and wanted to know if I would be interested in going into the law office as one of his secretaries with Cassie Connor, and I did. So I had planned to do that. Well, there was a lapse of time there, before he was going to open his law office, so I applied to go to the United Nations Conference at that time, and was accepted. So I went to San Francisco. JOHNSON: For the U.N. Charter Conference? BERNHARDT: Right. JOHNSON: Before we pick up on that, I want to back up a little. When Byrnes came back from Yalta, he had these shorthand notes. BERNHARDT: Right. JOHNSON: When did he give them to you to put into stenotype form. BERNHARDT: Right after he came back. JOHNSON: And then you had this party, this dinner, at which he talked to you about or told you people about his experiences there. Do you recall anything about that, what he had to say? What his impressions were of Stalin or of Molotov or Churchill? BERNHARDT: I don't recall then, because my impressions would be overshadowed by the impressions of Potsdam. I don't recall. At the Yalta Conference, we in the White House got word that President Roosevelt died, and we weren't surprised because he was in such--oh, he looked terrible at his last inauguration. We found out later it wasn't Roosevelt that died; it was General [Edwin M.] Watson who died. But we were not surprised when we heard it was Roosevelt. JOHNSON: So you were there on the front lawn of the White House at the inauguration in January '45? You were one of the few that were invited. BERNHARDT: Yes. I have my invitation even. JOHNSON: So Byrnes tells you about the Yalta Conference. Did he seem to feel it was a good conference. Did it do what it was supposed to do? Was that the impression that you got, that he felt it was a success? BERNHARDT: Well, not necessarily. He felt that the ill health of the President could have caused him to make decisions that he would not have made otherwise. JOHNSON: In other words, was Byrnes indicating a harder line toward the Russians, towards the Soviet Union than the President was? Was that the impression you had then? BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: Of course later on, you know, this becomes a factor. But you're saying that in February '45, it appeared that Byrnes would have taken a harder line? BERNHARDT: Well, he just felt like the President was not making some of those decisions that he would have made at an earlier time when he was well, that his mental capacity was not on top of everything, that he signed some things that he wished he hadn't signed, things like that. His signature was hardly legible compared to what his signature had been before. JOHNSON: Did he have Ben Cohen there with him? BERNHARDT: I don't remember that Ben was there, but he could have been. JOHNSON: Now getting back to the U.N. Conference. You did go to San Francisco? BERNHARDT: Right. That was quite a good experience. JOHNSON: And this was after Mr. Truman was President. Had you been introduced to Truman when he came in, as Senator, to visit Byrnes? BERNHARDT: Oh, yes. JOHNSON: So, you had seen him several times. You had talked to him. BERNHARDT: Right. JOHNSON: What were your impressions of Truman the first few times that you met him? BERNHARDT: I liked him. He was a very personable man, and very friendly; didn't look down on you. JOHNSON: Set you at ease. BERNHARDT: Right. Very friendly. Yes. JOHNSON: So when did you meet him first after he became President? BERNHARDT: At Potsdam. I was at San Francisco and was planning to come back and have a vacation. While I was at San Francisco, Mr. Byrnes was appointed Secretary of State. JOHNSON: Right at the end of the Conference wasn't it? BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: Because [Edward] Stettinius was still Secretary of State. BERNHARDT: He was still Secretary of State during the Conference. I took dictation from him there at the conference. JOHNSON: From whom? BERNHARDT: Stettinius. JOHNSON: You took dictation from Stettinius at the conference. BERNHARDT: I took a conference between him and the Australian delegate one day, and I was wishing the Australian delegate had an interpreter. They are hard to understand. JOHNSON: Had a strong accent. BERNHARDT: Yes. Byrnes had been appointed Secretary of State and the night before I was going to leave San Francisco I got a telegram from him saying, "Rush back to Washington immediately." Well, that was quite an experience too, because you know, transportation was at a premium. But he was Secretary of State, so I could show the telegram, and the way was cleared. JOHNSON: Well, apparently Byrnes had already met Truman on the day after Truman became President, at Truman's invitation, and went to Roosevelt's funeral. Were you up there at Hyde Park for the funeral? BERNHARDT: No. No. I was in Washington. JOHNSON: Then on April 15, Truman said he wanted Byrnes to become Secretary of State, but he left Stettinius on just to get through the conference. What were your impressions of Stettinius? BERNHARDT: Well, he was a very nice person, but I don't think he was a very decisive person. JOHNSON: On July 3, 1945, Byrnes was sworn in as Secretary of State. But wasn't he also a delegate at the . . . BERNHARDT: No. JOHNSON: He wasn't in San Francisco. Byrnes was not. BERNHARDT: No. He was not there. JOHNSON: And it was only, what, three days later that he went on board the Augusta with Truman. BERNHARDT: After the Conference. JOHNSON: Yes, after the U.N. Conference he went to Potsdam. BERNHARDT: Right. JOHNSON: This would be July 6th when they got on board the cruiser the Augusta. Truman, Cohen, Freeman Matthews, . . . BERNHARDT: Yes, Doc Matthews. JOHNSON: Charles Bohlen. BERNHARDT: Right, Chip. JOHNSON: Were you on the boat? BERNHARDT: No. We wanted to, but the Navy didn't allow girls on board ship. That was under the Navy. JOHNSON: Even for this? BERNHARDT: No way. We were bad luck. So we had to fly. JOHNSON: You and who? BERNHARDT: Cassie Connor. JOHNSON: You and Cassie from the office, the only two from the office? BERNHARDT: From our office. There were others. There were four other State Department girls that went. I didn't know them at the time. JOHNSON: Okay, are you in another office? Are you in the State Department Building? BERNHARDT: We're in the State Department now. When I came back from San Francisco. JOHNSON: They transferred you to the State Department Building? BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: So you no longer have an office in the White House; you're in the State Department building. Where is this? Was he on the top floor, or where was the Secretary of State in that building? BERNHARDT: Mercy, I don't remember which floor it was. JOHNSON: But you were right outside the door of the Secretary of State? Was that where your office was? BERNHARDT: That's where our office, yes. JOHNSON: And Cassie was in the same area. BERNHARDT: Mr. Byrnes was here, and Cassie was in the hallway again. Well, they didn't provide a private office for her, and it was necessary that she have a private office, so she just made do with what there was and put it in a hall. And we were just right next door to her. JOHNSON: How was it that you got over to Europe, you and Cassie? BERNHARDT: We flew in a C-54. JOHNSON: On a C-54, with other personnel. BERNHARDT: State Department people. JOHNSON: Do you remember what date that was? BERNHARDT: We landed on Friday the 13th in Germany. But we landed in Paris first, and we were in Paris for three days. Then we went on to Germany and landed on Friday the 13th in a temporary airfield, because the main airfield had bomb craters. JOHNSON: Gatow. Would it have been New York that you flew out of? BERNHARDT: Flew out of Washington to Newfoundland. JOHNSON: To Newfoundland. BERNHARDT: To the Azores and then Paris. JOHNSON: Azores, Paris . . . BERNHARDT: And then Germany. JOHNSON: And then Berlin. That was quite a ride. BERNHARDT: Oh, yes, it was. JOHNSON: You won't forget that will you? BERNHARDT: No. JOHNSON: Paris for three days? BERNHARDT: Three days over and three days coming back, we stopped again. JOHNSON: What did you do in Paris that first time? BERNHARDT: We went sightseeing and tried to get some perfume, but it was too expensive because they didn't have hold-the-line orders. So one of the servicemen said, "Well, if you can get me a package of cigarettes, I'll get you some perfume." So, while we were there we were attached to the Army and we were given the same ration of cigarettes as the servicemen were. So I gave him my cigarettes and I came away with some Chanel #5. JOHNSON: Do you still have the bottle? BERNHARDT: I believe I do. Yes, I believe I do. JOHNSON: A little keepsake. BERNHARDT: Yes, I never thought about that. MR. BERNHARDT: Tell him what happened on the plane on the way back with all of your perfume. BERNHARDT: You know at that time, they didn't have pressurized cabins and the perfume leaked. We landed in Washington, they knew where we had been. We were well perfumed. JOHNSON: On the way back it had leaked out. Well, it apparently made a fragrant atmosphere in the plane. While you were in Potsdam, where did you stay, at the conference? BERNHARDT: We stayed at Babelsberg. Potsdam had been ruined in a 22-minute bombing, so we stayed at Babelsberg, which had been the Hollywood of Germany. JOHNSON: That building that Truman was in was called something like . . . BERNHARDT: The Little White House. JOHNSON: The Little White House. Were you in that same building? BERNHARDT: No. We were in another requisitioned house. This was all in the Russian zone, and the Russians had taken over this area and had given the Germans about an hour's leave, to take what they could. And then they turned it over to our Army to get ready for us. So they were getting furniture from wherever they could. JOHNSON: Was this still kind of a mansion home that you were . . BERNHARDT: No, it was a very ordinary kind of home. And, it was all in one area. The first night we had to eat with the servicemen. Do you know how they served meals? Tomatoes on top of potatoes, and eggs on top of that and, you know, all in one dish. Well, the girls were very sensitive; we just didn't eat. So then they prepared our own messes. They had somebody in each house that would prepare food for us. And Cassie and I and John Russell and Ben Cohen all ate in one house. JOHNSON: How many Americans were there would you guess? BERNHARDT: Oh, I had a picture of them. There were quite a few. JOHNSON: Oh, they took a group picture? BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: I don't think I've seen that. Do you have an 8 x 10 of that? BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: We may have it, but I haven't seen it. I've seen the buildings; we have pictures inside the buildings and so on. BERNHARDT: At Babelsberg? JOHNSON: Yes. But I don't think I have ever seen this particular one. BERNHARDT: We were right on Lake ? . Oh, I played croquet with Averell Harriman and a lot of the others. JOHNSON: They let their hair down. BERNHARDT: That was their recreation. JOHNSON: What were your duties when you were there? BERNHARDT: Well, I was secretary, again, with Mr. Byrnes. One of the communiques that I typed was a letter to Japan telling them that we had the means to annihilate their cities. JOHNSON: The Potsdam declaration? BERNHARDT: Well, this wasn't the declaration. This was a letter to Japan. JOHNSON: This was not the press release that was put out at the end? BERNHARDT: No. JOHNSON: This was a letter, a communique? BERNHARDT: A communique that Mr. Byrnes wrote for the President, and I typed it. JOHNSON: You typed for the President's signature, to go to the Japanese, I think through the Swiss. BERNHARDT: Through the Swiss. That we had the means to annihilate their cities if they did not submit to unconditional surrender immediately. And they didn't believe it. So we had to drop the bomb. JOHNSON: So that letter I presume is in the National Archives. You haven't seen that letter in any publication since then? BERNHARDT: No. No, I haven't seen any of it. JOHNSON: Were there any other letters that you had to take while you were there? BERNHARDT: We were working all the time, but I don't remember. JOHNSON: Did you have a camera with you? BERNHARDT: Yes. Here is a picture. Oh, it even gives the names. JOHNSON: This is a snapshot here. And you've got them identified here too. Freeman Matthews, Will Clayton. BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: Oh, did you meet Will Clayton? Do you have any impressions of Will Clayton? BERNHARDT: I played croquet with him too. JOHNSON: Did he impress you as a brilliant person? BERNHARDT: Oh, I don't think I had much of an impression. I don't remember having any. Here's the plane we went on. JOHNSON: The C-54. BERNHARDT: And our pass to the conference. You see this side was signed by the British, but not by the Russians. JOHNSON: Some of these are official photographs and some of them are just snapshots. BERNHARDT: Right. These are just snapshots that I took in Paris. JOHNSON: While you were in Paris. BERNHARDT: Here's General Clay and the house that he lived in, the day we went to have lunch with him. JOHNSON: Well, you're going to be coming to the Truman Library sometime aren't you? BERNHARDT: Oh, sure. JOHNSON: Why don't you bring these along; maybe we can copy some of those. [Photos in this album have been copied and the copy prints are in the Truman Library's audiovisual collection.] BERNHARDT: And there's the Little White House. JOHNSON: Here are State Department personnel that I see in this snapshot. This group. BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: Including Judge Rosenman, Ben Cohen, Ambassador {Edwin] Pauley, Ambassador [Joseph E.] Davies, Assistant Secretary [James C.] Dunn, Assistant Secretary Clayton. Yes. I don't know that we have these pictures. It would be good to have them. Will you be coming to the Library? BERNHARDT: Sure. We're going to be down through there in October. JOHNSON: Please bring that along. BERNHARDT: All of these, Clayton, Dunn and all--they were meeting on the lakeshore. JOHNSON: [W. Averell] Harriman and Isador Lubin, General Lucius Clay; another candid snapshot of those three. BERNHARDT: They had their minor conferences. JOHNSON: What was it that Byrnes told you about China? BERNHARDT: Oh, we always wanted to get pictures of the Big Three, but we weren't allowed to take them, and Mr. Byrnes knew this. And one day he called into our office--he was at the Palace--and he said, "Bring out the paper on China." Well, we knew China wasn't even on the agenda, so we suspected that since all phones are bugged over there, that he was telling us to come on with your camera. So we took our camera out and that's how I got some of the pictures of the Big Three. Now, these are the people that ate together in the house I was telling you about. JOHNSON: Ben Cohen, Cassie Connor, Walter Brown, Colonel Jones, Donald Russell and you. Yes, that's a good picture. BERNHARDT: And believe it or not, that is me. I don't know who took it. This serviceman gave the picture to me, so he must have had somebody take it. JOHNSON: One of his cohorts, I guess. BERNHARDT: Because he has this written on the back. JOHNSON: Yes, that's interesting. Now that's an official photograph I suppose of the Big Three, but did you take a snapshot? BERNHARDT: I took some snapshots, but these the Signal Corps took. JOHNSON: Yes. BERNHARDT: These are the ruins. JOHNSON: These are from your own camera? BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: Do you remember what kind of camera you had there? BERNHARDT: Ansco. It was very hard to get film. This book [album] came very close to being burned. We had a house burn down, and you can see how close it came, by the edges [which are browned]. JOHNSON: I'm glad you rescued it. There are some things you can replace, and other things you can't, and this is one you couldn't. BERNHARDT: Here's Anthony Eden. This picture I took. JOHNSON: Oh, yes. July 25th. You, of course, glimpsed Stalin. Is that an official photograph? BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: Do you have any particular impressions of Stalin? BERNHARDT: Well, he was always immaculately dressed, and he always smiled and spoke to us. I hope it was something good; I don't know. JOHNSON: What was it he said, kind of under his breath? BERNHARDT: Oh, at the end of the conference President Truman said that he hoped they would meet in Washington next year. He heard somebody say, "God willing." And it was Stalin, an atheist. So that was different. Now when the President had his dinner to entertain the Big Three, Stalin came first and he came in this big limousine with the windows all real dark so you couldn't see in, with Russian guards all the way around the car. And when they stopped at the Little White House, why a Russian guard took his place beside each of the American guards. About two minutes later, here came Churchill sauntering down the street all by himself. JOHNSON: I guess Truman did expect to meet with Stalin again the next year in Washington. BERNHARDT: They were hoping so. Unless it was one of these host-like things that you say: "I'll be seeing you next year." JOHNSON: Here's Attlee, and here's the Big Three again, and you're off to . . . BERNHARDT: Here's me, and that's why I had to have that picture in there. England had their election you know while we were over there, and Attlee was elected. JOHNSON: That was really something. Churchill had to go home. BERNHARDT: The picture I missed was one day when three generals were walking down the street, General [Dwight D.] Eisenhower, General [George S.] Patton and General [H.H.] Arnold, and I didn't have my camera. Well, we weren't allowed to take pictures. Here's one where . . . JOHNSON: You were fortunate to get what you did. BERNHARDT: There's General Clay. JOHNSON: Is that you? BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: That's a nice picture. BERNHARDT: It's a good picture to have. I like this one, Truman and Byrnes. I like that one. JOHNSON: That's a Signal Corps photo, I suppose. BERNHARDT: This is Cassie Connor. JOHNSON: Oh, on the steps there. And is that you? BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: Now, is that an official photograph. BERNHARDT: No. JOHNSON: We ought to make a note of those so that we can copy some. Potsdam, of course, was one of the highlights of Truman's administration. BERNHARDT: Oh, yes. And he did a very good job. He had never been exposed to the Big Three before, and he did a good job. This is Byrnes signing a document. That's me too. Mr. Byrnes gave me away at our wedding, on condition that that young man [Mrs. Bernhardt's husband] go back to school. And he did. JOHNSON: According to your son, you typed up the surrender terms for Germany and Japan. The terms of surrender were typed up in your office? BERNHARDT: For Japan, but not Germany. Germany surrendered when we were in San Francisco on May 8th. At San Francisco that didn't mean much; this is a big country. The Japanese war was paramount there. JOHNSON: Sure. BERNHARDT: Yes, I typed up the surrender terms in the office in the State Department, when we came back, and that was interesting. Mr. Byrnes was a very direct person. When he wrote a letter, he just said what he meant to say and that was it. We had to submit this to the Office of Protocol, and get it all couched in State Department language. When I came back and showed it to him, he said, "Lois, are you sure this is the way ...." But that's the way we had to do it. So then we had to submit them to the Swiss minister, and we had three days before we got the reply. During that three days photographers and newsmen were in the office at all times, wanting to question me, all of us, and so we stayed in the office. Well, when the Swiss minister did come, Mr. Byrnes called us all into his office so we could witness that the war was over. Oh, that was great! And then we didn't dare go out in the hall because they could read it on our face that we had gotten the news, and it was up to the President to tell the world. They had thought they should wait until that night, about 7 o'clock, because the people in offices could be home by that time. So, we had to keep that secret again until 7 o'clock that night. JOHNSON: Any other recollections about Potsdam before we put that behind us? BERNHARDT: Can you think of anything? JOHNSON: Impressions of Stalin? And the Russians insisting on equal numbers? BERNHARDT: Oh, at the conference table there were supposed to be ten people, I think, from each of the three powers, and one day two more Americans inadvertently were seated. Immediately, two Russians were ushered in. JOHNSON: This was at that big round table there at Cecilienhof? BERNHARDT: Right. JOHNSON: Did you get to observe any of those meetings at the Cecilienhoff? BERNHARDT: No, oh heavens, they would have ushered in two more secretaries if I'd been in there. No, and they didn't allow any verbatim notes to be taken of those conferences either. JOHNSON: Oh, did you get into the banquet for instance where Eugene List played the piano for entertainment? BERNHARDT: No. No, that's the one that where we saw them arrive, but no, we were not on the guest list. JOHNSON: That snapshot in the book, the three walking on the sidewalk, was that when they were going in? BERNHARDT: No, they had just posed for the Signal Corps pictures, when I took that picture. But we weren't allowed at those [functions] at all. JOHNSON: So, you didn't actually see the conferences themselves. BERNHARDT: No. We saw the conferees coming and going but not the conferences themselves. JOHNSON: Now, who was keeping minutes? BERNHARDT: No one did of those meetings. No one did. They agreed right off that there wouldn't be any official minutes taken because it was thought that they would all speak more freely if there were no minutes. JOHNSON: Cassie Connor, was she attending any of those conferences? BERNHARDT: No. No women. No women from the State Department anyway. I can't remember whether there were any Russian women or not. JOHNSON: Well, who would have been Byrnes' right hand man there do you think? BERNHARDT: Well, it was between Ben Cohen and Donald Russell I would say. JOHNSON: One of those two. BERNHARDT: They were both very helpful to him. JOHNSON: Did you tour Berlin when Truman arrived? Stalin came a day late. BERNHARDT: Right. We had been there for two days, I think it was, before that. We flew in and they came by ship. So, we toured Berlin for a couple of days before the President and Mr. Byrnes arrived. We came upon all this rubble. JOHNSON: Did you see that scene along the Autobahn where they had all those troops and equipment lined up, and there was a review by the President, of American forces there near Berlin? BERNHARDT: The Third Army? JOHNSON: It probably was the Third Army. BERNHARDT: The Third Army review; I have a picture of that. JOHNSON: Were you there to see that? BERNHARDT: Briefly, just briefly went by it. Yes. JOHNSON: There was a flag-raising ceremony, also, in which Patton and Truman were involved. Did you get invited into the Little White House? BERNHARDT: Yes, we were in there just to see it. JOHNSON: But no parties, no functions? BERNHARDT: No. We had our own. There was one night club in Berlin that was open and, oh, we were extremely popular over there. These boys in the service had been there for three years and had never seen an American girl in that time. So, you see, we would have to be pretty well duds if we couldn't be popular in that situation. JOHNSON: Treated like celebrities I suppose. BERNHARDT: Of course. JOHNSON: Surrounded by them. BERNHARDT: Yes. And they thought we were German girls, because we weren't in uniform, until they heard us speak American. And, oh, then the word would just buzz around, "Hey, it's American, it's American." But at this night club there were Russians, Americans and British soldiers, all with big combat boots on, and their guns over their shoulders, trying to dance. And the British girls had a dinner for us American girls. So, we were entertained there too. JOHNSON: And, of course, you speak the same language. More or less. BERNHARDT: Well, in a way. In a way. JOHNSON: How long were you there? BERNHARDT: From July 13 to August . . . JOHNSON: August the 2nd was when they ended the conference. So you were there right to the end then? BERNHARDT: Yes, and then we went back and stayed in Paris for three more days before we flew back. JOHNSON: So you flew back the same way, the C-54? BERNHARDT: Right, but we went by way of Bermuda though, so we could see Bermuda on the way back. When we were over there, a lot of the other State Department employees got a trip to go to Copenhagen. We could have gone but Mr. Byrnes talked to us and he said, "These other people can go, and that will never reach the papers of the United States. If you go, as from my office, that's going to be in the United States papers." So he let us decide if we were going to go, and we didn't go. MR. BERNHARDT: You made it pretty plain though that you wanted to go. BERNHARDT: Yes. At the end of the conference we came back in the Secretary's plane with him, or he came with us, whatever. JOHNSON: Just a few days later, on August 6 the first atomic bomb was dropped, and then the second one, on the 9th. When you were carrying this folder on the Manhattan project, were you aware that this was a super weapon? BERNHARDT: No. No, I was not. You have to remember, I was very young then, and I wasn't really vitally interested in that type of thing. I had never heard of the atom, you know, as being a powerful thing, so even if they had told me this was the atom file, I wouldn't have known what the contents were. So, I was a very safe person to carry it back and forth. JOHNSON: In other words, you were surprised as other Americans were when you heard about this weapon? BERNHARDT: Well, I knew about it when we were over at Potsdam. I found out about it then. JOHNSON: Oh, you did? BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: How did you find that out? BERNHARDT: Well, when I wrote this letter to Japan, and also while we were there Truman had to inform Stalin that we had the atom bomb, because they were our ally. Well, he sandwiched that in among other things they were conversing about. And either Stalin didn't understand what it meant, or he already knew about it, because he never, never referred to it. Never about that bomb. JOHNSON: We have a photograph on which Mr. Truman has written on the back; this is a photograph of the meeting in Potsdam. It says, "Here's where I told Stalin about the atomic bomb; he didn't seem to know what I was talking about." Well, of course, he did, I guess because there was a spy or two there at Los Alamos. But how did you know about it? That wasn't on paper, was it, when he told Stalin about the bomb; that was just verbal. BERNHARDT: It was conversation. I suppose that was through Cassie Connor. I would imagine that . . . JOHNSON: Was this right after that first test? The 16th of July, that was the first test. Truman waited until that was successful and then told Stalin about it. Then the word got around, even before the bomb was dropped? They knew that there was a super weapon? BERNHARDT: Well, you mean, who knew? JOHNSON: Well, the people there at the conference. BERNHARDT: At the conference. Well, . . . JOHNSON: Including yourself. BERNHARDT: I don't know if it was generally known. I think I probably found out because I wrote this letter saying that we had the means to annihilate their cities. JOHNSON: But it wasn't specific at all, was it? BERNHARDT: No. JOHNSON: Didn't mention the atomic bomb did it? BERNHARDT: No. But they were curious about what we meant. JOHNSON: So, you sort of by the rumor mill got wind of this? BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: Well, apparently . . . BERNHARDT: We were a very closed society over there then. JOHNSON: We think Truman knew more about the project than what is indicated in his memoirs. BERNHARDT: I don't think Truman knew very much about it until he became President. JOHNSON: Well, according to a couple of people who were on the Truman Committee, who worked with the Truman Committee, he knew more about it than was indicated by his memoirs. JOHNSON: Did he or did the people around there know the extent of the damage that it could cause? BERNHARDT: I don't think no one knew until it was dropped. JOHNSON: That it could destroy a whole city. BERNHARDT: No, I don't think anyone knew it until then that it was such a devastating thing. JOHNSON: So, you were back here when that happened. Now, Truman was still aboard the Augusta coming back. BERNHARDT: We were on our way. When we got to Washington here were the headlines, "Atom Bomb Dropped." JOHNSON: So you got back about the 6th or the 7th? BERNHARDT: Right. You see, we stayed three days in Paris. JOHNSON: You knew the war was soon going to be over? BERNHARDT: Hopeful. Hopeful. Oh my yes, we were all waiting for that word. JOHNSON: So, what happened on August 14th, V-J Day? BERNHARDT: You know, being a secretary, this was a little minor, extremely minor thing, but when V-E Day came up, Mr. Byrnes was dictating something about V-E Day and I went in and I said, "How do you want me to type that? VE or V-E, or how," and that is how it came to be V-E. JOHNSON: I think that was a good decision. BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: That was your decision, or his? BERNHARDT: Well, I just asked him, you know, if that was all right, and he said, "That sounds all right." And that's the way it was. JOHNSON: And it became "V-J" Day, too. When did you type the surrender terms for Japan? BERNHARDT: That was after we came back from Potsdam. We were back in the State Department. JOHNSON: How were these terms written up? BERNHARDT: These were not the terms that were signed on board the Missouri. They were not those terms. These were the terms under which we would accept the unconditional surrender, and they had to accept those before they could . . . JOHNSON: Okay, this was that correspondence going back and forth now, in which Truman. . . BERNHARDT: From the Swiss minister. JOHNSON: I think in this one letter, in particular, Truman ignored the Emperor; that was the sticking point I think. They still wanted to keep the Emperor, which would have been a condition. BERNHARDT: They didn't want unconditional surrender because they still wanted to keep their Emperor, and our premise was that the Emperor would have no influence, because we did not want that brainwashing to continue with the Japanese. And that's why they were hesitating about this unconditional surrender, why they didn't want to accept it. JOHNSON: So, in one of the replies he just kind of ignored that issue didn't he, and that's what made it acceptable to the Japanese? He didn't insist that the Emperor had to be eliminated entirely, but his power, of course, had to be eliminated. BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: So, you typed that letter which they accepted then? BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: As a preliminary surrender document, so to speak. BERNHARDT: Right. For their acceptance, and unconditional surrender was accepted. JOHNSON: Then, of course, comes the September 2nd ceremony aboard the Missouri when they signed these documents. But you didn't help prepare those. BERNHARDT: No. No, that was under Protocol and we didn't have anything to do with that. JOHNSON: Protocol, in the State Department. BERNHARDT: Right. JOHNSON: They had an office just for that function. BERNHARDT: Right. They had to have that. You wouldn't believe what they had to go through with the diplomatic language and so forth. It had to be just right. JOHNSON: Apparently, it was Byrnes' idea to hold Foreign Ministers conferences. After the Potsdam Conference, arrangements were made for Foreign Ministers conferences, conferences of the Big Four Foreign Ministers. The first one was in London, in September. It was not long after the war was over. BERNHARDT: Shortly after Potsdam. JOHNSON: Did you go to any of those Foreign Ministers conferences? BERNHARDT: No. I was married in November, 1945. JOHNSON: What day? BERNHARDT: The 25th. JOHNSON: To, Robert? BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: Had you just gotten out of the service, Mr. Bernhardt? MR. BERNHARDT: I was still on terminal leave actually. BERNHARDT: We had Army, Navy, Marine and civilian in our wedding party. JOHNSON: Where were you married? BERNHARDT: In Washington. JOHNSON: At what place? BERNHARDT: At St. Anne's Church. JOHNSON: And that's downtown somewhere? BERNHARDT: No, it's out towards Chevy Chase, out that direction. I can't remember just what street, but it was out that way. JOHNSON: You had a lot to celebrate in '45. MR. BERNHARDT: Oh, boy. JOHNSON: The end of the war, beginning a marriage. BERNHARDT: As I say, Mr. Byrnes gave me away at the wedding and Mrs. Byrnes even asked me if they could have the reception at their home. JOHNSON: I should ask you, now. When Jimmy Byrnes came back from that first conference, did he give you notes to type up? That first conference would have been concluded before your marriage. I think probably in October he would have come back. But you don't remember . . . BERNHARDT: I don't think I did because one of the other girls in the office had never been to a conference, and as I had just been to Potsdam, Dorothy Morgret went to London. So she probably did all of that. JOHNSON: What kind of work did you have to do those last month or two you were on the job there? Have you forgotten? BERNHARDT: Oh, I probably have. We were busy. I don't know what we were doing. Of course, we always had international callers in and out of the office. We always had that. JOHNSON: A lot of diplomatic activity going on. BERNHARDT: Right. Some of those conferences between Mr. Byrnes, when he was in office, and a foreign person were taken down by dictation. JOHNSON: Okay. BERNHARDT: And I took several of those. JOHNSON: So when an official of a foreign government came in to converse with Byrnes, in most, or almost all cases, you were called in to take notes of that meeting? BERNHARDT: Right. Right, stenotype. JOHNSON: And those became part of the files of that office. BERNHARDT: Those were all transcribed however. JOHNSON: They were transcribed. BERNHARDT: They were not left as stenotype notes. JOHNSON: Do you know if he took those as his own personal files, or whether those would have gone into official Secretary of State files, and be in the National Archives. BERNHARDT: I have no idea. JOHNSON: You haven't seen anything of them since then? BERNHARDT: I didn't want to see any more of those things. I was through. JOHNSON: They are probably still there. They sound important enough that they certainly would have been preserved. BERNHARDT: I would think so. MR. BERNHARDT: We've looked several times down at the Truman Library there, and she's never . . . BERNHARDT: Well, see, we didn't put our initials on anything. MR. BERNHARDT: And several things she thought she remembered typing. JOHNSON: And at the Roosevelt Library. Have you visited the Roosevelt Library? BERNHARDT: We visited the gravesite, but we didn't get to the Library did we? MR. BERNHARDT: Well, we had such a short time there, we didn't get to look very much. JOHNSON: They'd probably have some of your material there. So then on November 25th, that ended your Government career? BERNHARDT: That ended my Government career. That ended it. We came back here to Iowa so Bob could finish his school. We promised Mr. Byrnes we would do so. [See the Appendix for an account, written by Mrs. Bernhardt, of her career in the US Government, 1940-45.] JOHNSON: Finished what kind of school? MR. BERNHARDT: I was going to Iowa State--it was Iowa State College then. JOHNSON: Got your bachelors there? MR. BERNHARDT: Bachelors degree in dairy industry. JOHNSON: So you did what Jimmy Byrnes wanted you to do. MR. BERNHARDT: I did what he told me to, yes. I thought I'd have to give her back. Well, that's why I had such a wonderful impression of him too, because he was such a folksy person. He was interested in that little Iowa boy too. JOHNSON: So, when did you first meet him then? Was that at the wedding? MR. BERNHARDT: No, I'd met him several times before. I got in the gate there several times. You had to go out and get special clearance I suppose. I got to go inside there several times. JOHNSON: When did you first get into the White House, do you remember? MR. BERNHARDT: Oh, heavens, I don't know when it was. I suppose it was about midway through your career there; that was probably the first time. She could get me in. It was very limited about how far I could go. BERNHARDT: Oh, I took you through the White House didn't I? I must have. MR. BERNHARDT: Well, I suppose wherever other visitors could go. BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: So, Jimmy Byrnes walked down the aisle with you? BERNHARDT: Right. JOHNSON: Was this a Catholic Church? MR. BERNHARDT: Yes. JOHNSON: Yes, that apparently was another issue, I forgot to mention; that he had grown up Catholic but became Episcopalian. BERNHARDT: No he hadn't. No, he hadn't grown up Catholic. That's what a lot of people thought. But he had never become Catholic, and so he was not leaving the Church. JOHNSON: Okay, I guess the public perception was that he was Catholic and had become Episcopalian, so they thought, well, there are Catholics that won't vote for him. BERNHARDT: They thought the Catholics wouldn't. The Catholic Church has changed considerably since then--but at that time, if you left the Catholic Church they wouldn't recognize you. But that has grossly changed. |