Oral History Interview with
Oscar L. Chapman
Assistant Secretary of the Interior, 1933-46; Under Secretary
of the Interior, 1946-49; Secretary of the Interior, 1949-53.
Washington, DC
February 9, 1973
Jerry N. Hess
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Transcript | Additional Chapman Oral History
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This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for the Harry
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Opened 1980
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri
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Oral History Interview with
Oscar L. Chapman
Washington, DC
February 9, 1973
Jerry N. Hess
HESS: Mr. Chapman, to begin this morning, let's discuss the events of
1952 concerning the election. When did you first become aware that President
Truman did not intend to run for reelection in 1952?
CHAPMAN: I think that it kind of developed in my mind, and strictly in
my imagination, as to what was taking place in the administration. I began
to feel it without any expression from Mr. Truman one way or another.
He at no time ever made any expression of whether he was going to or not
going to run. But I gathered from the--you get as much from a man's smile
as you do his words; but when he was talking to me one time, I got a feeling
that he was telling me something that he wasn't saying in words.
HESS: Do you recall about when that was, what date?
CHAPMAN: Yes, that was about less than 60 days before that dinner was
that night that he...
HESS: That's right, that was March the 29th of 1952 at the National Guard
Armory.
CHAPMAN: That's right.
HESS: So this was about two months before then?
CHAPMAN: Just about two months before that dinner.
HESS: What did he say...
CHAPMAN: I began to get a feeling that he was thinking in his own mind
of some new approach for his own life.
HESS: What did he say that led you to believe that?
CHAPMAN: Well, one comment he made during our little visit was a comment
about some of the--well, just for classification purposes, I'd call them
the more conservative group, some on the Hill that were critical of Mr.
Truman instead of openly taking the lead to support him and help him.
They were letting their feet drag and weren't really helping us as they
ought to.
During that conversation, as we were talking about this, he made a comment,
and he was looking at me when he said it, and I was looking him right
in the face, and as I said, a man's smile and his expression often convey
an impression of a man, more than what he's telling you, his words.
And I got an impression from him at that moment that he was thinking
of whether he should or shouldn't run. He made this comment when we were
both a little critical in our discussion with each other. We were a little
critical about a certain party who had been not helping us but handicapping
us a little bit, and we made a comment and he said, "You know, what they
don't know is I don't have to run for President." And he was looking
at me right in the face, and I caught a grin on his face when he said
that.
I said, "No, you don't have to, Mr. President, but you have an option,
in this case. Not many people will ever have a chance to have the option
that you have, because you have served, for all practical purposes, practically
all of Roosevelt's fourth term." You see, Roosevelt was elected on the
fourth term, but he served, what, up until April?
HESS: From January 20th until April the 12th.
CHAPMAN: Yes.
HESS: Two or three months, something like that.
CHAPMAN: Something like that, but Truman for all practical purposes served...
HESS: Just about eight years.
CHAPMAN: That's right, about eight years. And that law, the spirit of
that law was really carried out the way Truman did it, the fact that he
had...
HESS: Even though he was exempted.
CHAPMAN: He was exempted through a technicality here of a situation,
but...
HESS: The 22nd Amendment, was it not? I think it is.
CHAPMAN: I believe it was. Yes, that was a Norris amendment; don't you
remember that was a Norris amendment that changed the inauguration date.
HESS: I'm not sure, but the amendment that limited the times that a President
could serve and cut it down to two terms was passed during Mr. Truman's
administration, but he was specifically exempted in the wording of the
amendment.
CHAPMAN: Yes.
HESS: It said something or other; the present holder of the office is
not bound by this amendment or something like that. He could have run
if he had wanted to.
CHAPMAN: That's right, he could have run.
HESS: In your opinion why didn't he run?
CHAPMAN: Well, I think it was just one of those things where he had his
feet on the ground and was thinking solidly with the people. Why should
he take on another four years when his own party wasn't giving him much
help or trying to give him any help, and he was carrying the whole fight
and was very successful in helping the party to hold itself together.
Had we been able to get the more conservative group and some of
the so-called liberals; a few of the liberals were not doing too much
to help us.
Now, you see, lead that over into this problem that Stevenson was faced
with in '52. Here he had been living, and did live, in a community where
the Chicago Tribune was the dominant force of all the news media
in that area, and so he saw something critical about Truman in every issue
of the paper nearly. I think that he had been influenced to some extent,
enough to feel that if he publicly tied himself to Truman, too--if he
did it too openly and too strong, he might hurt himself with the reaction
of people who considered him a Truman man to the extent that Stevenson
didn't want to be considered as anybody's man. But he didn't understand
Truman. That was the whole truth of it there and it took him about four
years after that campaign before he began to understand Truman and what
his problem was; because Truman had served up through '52, and then when
President Eisenhower defeated Stevenson for reelection in '52, Stevenson
had time to do a little thinking, lecturing and writing some articles,
and he was doing some thinking. He was quite a thinker and quite a writer
and he was an extremely conscientious man, but he was--I was more or less
like a go-between, between one group of the party element here and the
other group.
HESS: Did you ever speak with Mr. Stevenson about his views on Mr. Truman?
Did he ever convey to you what he thought of Mr. Truman?
CHAPMAN: Oh, yes, we discussed it quite thoroughly, to a great extent.
I went out and I did this at President Truman's request, now. I went out
to Springfield.
HESS: About what time of the year was this?
CHAPMAN: I went out on Lincoln Day and gave the Lincoln Day address,
at a luncheon that day.
HESS: February the 12th.
CHAPMAN: That's right. I went out there that day and spent the two nights
with Stevenson at his mansion there. And Mark [Marquis] Childs was there
spending a weekend with him, and I had quite a fine opportunity for really
consulting with Stevenson and talking with him, going very deeply into
his thinking about this thing. And I talked with him about this and I
raised this question. I said, "Now, Governor, if you are thinking
of running for President;" I said, "I have not talked with you before.
Let me say to you, I would like very much to see you run and I will certainly
do everything in my power to support you, but," I said, "you've got a
problem here. You've got to find a proper way to approach it to the public."
I said, "Your expressions on Truman have been that you didn't entirely
agree with him on some of the things he handled. You didn't seem to be
in opposition to any particular policy that he was putting over; therefore,
that left it more or less a personality difference of opinions of people."
I made that statement to Stevenson.
He said, "Oscar;" he said, "my trouble is, he could get along with these
fellows like [Richard J.] Daley out here in Chicago, and," he said, "I
can't, I just can't get along with them. It isn't easy for me to get along
with them, but I have no feeling against Daley. It's just," he said, "I
find I let that run over into my thinking about Truman. I find it not
easy for me to be close to him in some way or another."
"Well," I said, "I think, maybe, if you will forgive me for saying so;
I think it's your approach to this, your method of handling it,
that has created that situation more than anything else." I said, "You
have known that Mr. Truman has spoken very kindly of you on several occasions,
and I'm talking with you today to say that Mr. Truman wanted me to tell
you that he was hoping you would run, that he'd give you every support
he could, to do whatever you wanted him to do to help you. And he would
help you, and he wanted you to run, and he told me that I could pass that
on to you and let you know."
HESS: One thing I want to clear up; this was before the announcement
at the National Guard Armory?
CHAPMAN: That was before the Armory thing.
HESS: Yes, see, the announcement at the National Guard Armory was March
the 29th.
CHAPMAN: That's right.
HESS: The end of the following month.
CHAPMAN: That's right.
HESS: And this was February the 12th.
CHAPMAN: That's right.
HESS: So, this was a good indication, was it not, that the President
did not intend to run?
CHAPMAN: That was one of the principal things that I put together that
he was not going to run.
HESS: When did he ask you…
CHAPMAN: He never once told me that he was not going to run, one
way or another.
HESS: What did he say to you when he asked you to go to Springfield and
speak to Stevenson?
CHAPMAN: Well, we were talking and I told him I had an invitation to
go out there to speak at the Lincoln Day luncheon at Springfield, within
a week or ten days or so, and asked if he had any message, anything he
wanted me to convey to Mr. Stevenson. I said, "The last time I spoke with
Stevenson has been probably six months before," and I said, "he spoke
in a friendly tone towards you at that time." And he did, but when I spoke
with him later, he had been worked on by somebody to get him away from
Truman, to get a break in between them, whoever it was. I couldn't tell
who was doing it, but there was also somebody influencing the President
to turn him against Stevenson, and they were doing the same thing to Stevenson,
some so-called friend.
HESS: Was it someone on Mr. Truman's staff?
CHAPMAN: No, I don't think it was anyone on his staff that was doing
it. I think it probably was one of the Senators, some Senator that I think
had a good deal of access to the President.
HESS: Who was the man?
CHAPMAN: I don't like to use his name; he's a sick man today, and I don't
want to name him, but that was Clint Anderson.
HESS: What did he have against Stevenson?
CHAPMAN: I don't think he had anything. I don't think he had anything
in the world against Stevenson. I think he really wanted Truman to run
again. I think Clint really wanted him to run again. Clint thought he
could make it.
HESS: He thought he would be reelected if he ran?
CHAPMAN: Yes, he really did. He thought he could. Now, I could be interpreting
that wrong. That's my own interpretation I'm putting on this; it's not
a direct statement from him that he said...
HESS: Did you ever hear him say that?
CHAPMAN: No. No, I never heard him say that, but what he did say, was
the opening with an option here for Stevenson and Truman to work the thing
out. He was quite fond of Truman, I thought, but Clint was a fast footworker,
when it came to the convention. He was a fast footworker, and he got around
among the delegations very well and being Secretary of the Agriculture
he made himself well-known and fairly well respected and liked among the
farm groups.
HESS: Then he'd run for the Senate in 1948.
CHAPMAN: Yes, that's what he did.
HESS: What was your opinion? Did you think Mr. Truman could have been
reelected in 1952 had he run?
CHAPMAN: I doubt it.
HESS: Why? What were the obstacles?
CHAPMAN: The obstacle was nothing but time. Time, and Eisenhower was
a world hero at that time, but that made him an extremely popular
man and...
HESS: One thing we ought to mention, too, is the Republican battle cry
during that particular election was "Communism, corruption, and Korea."
CHAPMAN: That was the theme song that the Republicans put across on us
pretty well.
HESS: The communism reference was to investigations about Communists
in Government at that particular time, particularly the State Department.
CHAPMAN: You see, [Joseph] McCarthy had stirred up the people to create
doubts in their mind. He had done a pretty good job of stirring up a lot
of people. He particularly had certain church elements very concerned
about this and of all the people in the world that could influence any
church element, Joe McCarthy was the last man in the world you would look
to to think that he'd be influencing a group of religious people. But
it fitted into their whole philosophy and religion. Let me go back a little
bit to clarify a little bit more of the importance.
We may go back to when Truman asked me to take that speaking date in
Illinois and have a good talk with Stevenson and see if "You can't get
him to announce himself as soon as he wants to, or whenever he wants to,
it doesn't matter to me. If he wants to wait until the convention, fine,
but if he'd give me a hint that he'd probably take a run at it, I would
be laying the groundwork to help him. And it's in an area in the party
where he needs some help." And that was so true. Stevenson needed help
badly from what I would call the conservative group, from them; he needed
help there more than he did anywhere else at the moment.
He had a liberal-tinged group that was supporting him, very strongly.
I was very fond of Stevenson, but he was the hardest man to work with
in terms of getting your guidelines from him to go forward on whatever
you were working on, whether it was on your program or the election, the
political phase of it. He was scared of politics; he acted like a man
that was really scared of politics, whereas Mr. Truman just enjoyed it,
like he was playing his last game of football or base ball or something.
He's going to play his last game. He was going to have some fun with it
and Truman was having the time of his life; he really was. He was enjoying
himself and he had made up his mind. And those were the two things there
that were . . .
HESS: But you didn't have the feeling that Mr. Stevenson enjoyed politics?
CHAPMAN: No.
HESS: He didn't like politics?
CHAPMAN: Not a bit. He didn't like politics at all.
HESS: Did he feel uncomfortable with politicians?
CHAPMAN: Yes. Oh yes, very much.
HESS: You mentioned that with Daley and others...
CHAPMAN: Yes, he was uncomfortable with them; he didn't feel like he
ever had a good rapport with the politicians.
HESS: Don't you feel that he viewed himself as more of a statesman than
a politician?
CHAPMAN: Yes. That was it; he was thinking of himself more as a statesman.
I said this to him once; I ran the risk of making him misunderstand what
I meant, but I said, "Governor, some people can be statesmen, but not
until they are elected to office, and after they are elected they can
then become statesmen. But you don't usually find anybody in America that
has become a statesman unless he has shown his political strength with
the people on certain issues and things of that kind and is able to express
himself to the people in such a way that he becomes a man that's considered
a leader."
HESS: What did he say, do you recall, when you told him that?
CHAPMAN: Well, yes, he said, "Well, my trouble is, Oscar, I think you
put your hands on it; that's one of my troubles. Now" he said, "I
have nothing against Mr. Daley. Daley is--he's a typical example of my
trouble;" he said, "I don't have anything against him at all. But," he
said, "somehow or another he has created an atmosphere, and has created
a surrounding of himself, a psychological thing among the people, the
public, that think of him as a politician, something that's evil and bad."
"Well," I said, "how are you going to change that unless you change our
system of government, and I'm not for changing our system of government;
I like it like it is. I think it's pretty good; needs some changes here
and there, but it's pretty good as it is and I like it."
He himself was his own worst enemy, Stevenson was; he really had a spark
of greatness in him. He had a spark of genius, and a philosophy of concern
for the poor man and the working man, but he didn't quite know how to
approach them. He never quite--for instance, at no time did he ever reach
the depth of love for him by the poor people, as the poor people did for
Truman. He never reached that point, at any place. Now, when I have said
you've got to be elected and show your ability to do something before
you can become a statesman, and people ought to remember that when they
are trying to be a statesman before they run for office once, try it out.
HESS: At the time that President Truman was debating this in his own
mind, whether to run, whether not to run, and he spoke to you about talking
to Stevenson, were there others under consideration by the President?
If he didn't run, was he thinking about other people who would be good
men to run on the ticket, other than Stevenson?
CHAPMAN: I didn't get any firm statement from him as I did on
Stevenson. There were others, no doubt, in his mind...
HESS: As you will recall, at the convention Senator--Vice President at
this time--Vice President Barkley, even though age was against him...
CHAPMAN: That's right.
HESS: ...he wanted the nomination in '52.
CHAPMAN: He did want it badly.
HESS: And there were others; Estes Kefauver, who went up to New Hampshire,
ran in the primary in New Hampshire and out-polled Mr. Truman. And the
New Hampshire primary, of course, was before the President's announcement
that he was not going to run.
CHAPMAN: That's right.
HESS: There were those in the party that held it against Estes Kefauver
for doing this, for openly opposing the President before the President's
announcement that he did not want the renomination. So, there were others
who would have liked it. Did you ever hear Mr. Truman say anything about
Estes Kefauver's running against him in New Hampshire?
CHAPMAN: He thought it was an unfair political cut at him, and it was.
HESS: Because he hadn't announced that he wasn't going to run.
CHAPMAN: He hadn't announced. Kefauver lived three doors from me up there
on Hillbrook Lane. And I saw a lot of Senator Kefauver, and I liked him
very much, because he was quite aggressive in fighting for issues. He
did a good job in the Senate on legislative matters. He worked hard and
I give him a lot of credit on some of those good things that we did get
through up there on the Hill; he helped them. But I know Mr. Truman had
a right to feel that this was a little bit of an unfair cut from
his own party to do this at that time. Now, he should have waited until
Truman made his statement, and then he would at least have kept the door
open for himself for friendship with that group when and if the time did
come, you see.
HESS: You didn't hear President Truman speak favorably of anyone other
than Stevenson?
CHAPMAN: Not favorable in a sense that he made any outright statements
for some particular person running for President. Now, Jimmy Byrnes, he
always thought Jimmy was still holding it against him from previous conventions,
I think, and...
HESS: '44 in particular.
CHAPMAN: Yes. So, he had no--he didn't have that following with him in
the party; Truman didn't, because whatever following Byrnes had--he didn't
have as much as he thought he had, not by any means.
HESS: Was Richard Russell's name ever mentioned in 1952?
CHAPMAN: Only mentioned in a mixture of expressions of sentiment, "A
southerner that's real conservative couldn't be elected anyway." And he
never discussed it with any firmness that he thought he really...
HESS: Because even though Richard Russell was from the South he would
have liked to have had the nomination.
CHAPMAN: He wanted it. That's the first time I ever knew he really wanted
it. But he wouldn't have been elected either; he couldn't have been elected.
You have to take things as they are and as you meet them. Now what you
can do one year, you can't do a year later. Now if--here's what happened.
Truman's situation fell almost in the same category as Johnson's fell
in his category. Truman was nominated for Vice President with Roosevelt;
Roosevelt was a smart political man, I don't care what anybody says, he
was a smart politician, and he did like Truman.
HESS: I don't think you'll get too many arguments on that count.
CHAPMAN: I don't think so either. Any man who gets elected four times,
you can't argue with that. Well, he liked Truman, Roosevelt did, and I
knew this. I knew he liked him and I had a very good relationship with
Roosevelt. I had an excellent relationship when I was Assistant
Secretary of the Interior, all the time I was in there under Ickes. He
always helped me. Anytime anything came up that looked like there would
be some problem for me, I would just go in and talk to Roosevelt. And
I could talk with him on anything I wanted, and he was most helpful to
me all the way through; he was helpful. I found out that Roosevelt was
very fond of Truman; he liked him. He thought Truman had done a masterful
job and a faithful job in that Senate committee, that he was carrying
that investigation on.
HESS: Did you hear why he did not speak directly to Senator Truman in
the entire time that they were selecting a vice-presidential nominee?
I've always thought that was rather odd.
CHAPMAN: It was; it was odd from my reaction of playing the game, and
how you would do it, guessing; but I did not take that as a feeling
against Truman. Knowing Roosevelt as I had I am positive he would have
said, "Well, I don't want Truman." If he didn't want him he would have
said so to me; now, because he did say so about two men that he didn't
want and I knew that.
HESS: But he did take him as a running mate in 1944 without speaking
directly to him about the prospect, right?
CHAPMAN: That's right, but he wrote the letter; now you see he wanted...
HESS: I've understood that Roosevelt phoned Bob Hannegan when Truman
was sitting--it was in a bedroom, and Truman supposedly was seated on
a bed.
CHAPMAN: That's right.
HESS: ...right across from Bob Hannegan and Roosevelt phoned Hannegan
to ask Hannegan if he had Truman lined up. And Hannegan said, "No,
I haven't, sir, he's something like a contrary Missouri mule and he's
sitting right here," but still Roosevelt didn't say, "Well, put him on
the line. Hand him the telephone. I want to speak to him." It was all
indirect and through a third party.
CHAPMAN: That's right.
HESS: That to me seems odd.
CHAPMAN: It was very odd. Knowing how smooth Roosevelt handled his politics,
I was surprised that he hadn't cleared that out of the way before Chicago
and let them be working; but you will find, if you check back through
history then, that no Presidential candidate--well, very seldom, I wouldn't
say any, but very seldom does the candidate want to pick the Vice President
or want to be known to have dictated the Vice Presidency openly. He’d
like to do it quietly, but he doesn't like to do it openly. Now a lot
have been like that.
HESS: In 1940 Roosevelt sent a letter to the convention stating something
to the effect, "If you don't put Henry Wallace as the second man on this
ticket, I won't run."
CHAPMAN: That's right.
HESS: Very open. He said, "If you don't give me Henry Wallace I won't
run."
CHAPMAN: That's right.
HESS: And then four years later...
CHAPMAN: He wouldn't say a word.
HESS: Wouldn't say a word, seemed disinterested as to who the party picked.
CHAPMAN: Well, you know there's a possibility that a good deal of that
was in his mind, that he didn't care an awful lot. That is he had gotten
tired of the opposition about his running and about whether he
should run or shouldn't, and he was getting tired of all that, I think.
HESS: But he still didn't make an announcement that--similar to the one
that Stevenson made in 1956...
CHAPMAN: That's right.
HESS: ...when Stevenson said to the convention, "I'm going to leave it
to you to pick the second man." That brought on the fight between Kefauver
and Senator John Kennedy.
CHAPMAN: That's right, exactly.
HESS: But Stevenson at that time made it known very plainly to the convention
that it was up to them to pick the Vice Presidential nominee and he would
take whoever they picked.
CHAPMAN: And that was a good way to do it.
HESS: You think that's a good way to do it?
CHAPMAN: I think it's a good way to do it. Let it be known, "I'm not
going to try to pick the Vice President." Now, sure as the world, if I
were running, I would want to let my friends and the leadership know that
I didn't want John Smith to be elected Vice President.
HESS: Well, in 1952 the man who ran with Stevenson was Senator John Sparkman
of Alabama.
CHAPMAN: That's right.
HESS: Why was he chosen as second on the ticket in 1952, and who chose
him; did Stevenson choose him?
CHAPMAN: No.
HESS: Who did?
CHAPMAN: Sam Rayburn.
HESS: Sam Rayburn.
CHAPMAN: Yes.
HESS: Why?
CHAPMAN: Sam Rayburn was obviously the turning point in the selection
of John Sparkman. And he made the statement in my presence that he thought
John would get more votes than anybody else for that. He had turned to
me, Sam had, and he said, "Oscar," he said, "you'd have too many of these
southerners on your neck before you even started; that's the trouble with
your being the..."
HESS: Would you agree with that observation?
CHAPMAN: Yes. Yes, he was right, and there wasn't any question about
it; I knew it. That's why I didn't try to push myself; I didn't.
HESS: Do you think you would have had a pretty fair following from the
West?
CHAPMAN: Yes, I'd have had a good following.
HESS: Yes, since you were from Colorado and you were Secretary of the
Interior, and the Interior is probably the most important department when
you get out to the Western part of the United States.
CHAPMAN: I'd have carried Virginia, too.
HESS: You'd have carried Virginia?
CHAPMAN: I really would.
HESS: Since you were born there.
CHAPMAN: As a matter of fact, Byrd would have nominated me, or he would
have seconded it.
HESS: Did you always have a pretty close relationship with Senator Byrd?
CHAPMAN: Yes, always.
HESS: Wasn't he usually known as the arch conservative; he was
a fiscal conservative, isn't that right?
CHAPMAN: He was at that point; he was a fiscal conservative. He was a
financial expert in working out fiscal policies, and that was his field,
really that he was an expert in. Now, I came in...
HESS: Would you find him a social conservative?
CHAPMAN: Oh, yes, he's a social conservative; he's not...
HESS: Because he's from Virginia.
CHAPMAN: Yes, he's a social conservative, too, and not just a fiscal
conservative; he was a social conservative. For instance, he couldn't
support Truman's liberal bills on...
HESS: Civil rights and...
CHAPMAN: None of those. He wouldn't support it, where Johnson I knew
would. I knew Johnson would do that. It happened that Byrd and myself
never had a cross word the whole time when he was in the Senate
and I was in the Department of the Interior. Only once he came to me to
get me to not change a park concessionaire in the Smoky Mountains up here
in the ridge--what do you call it?
HESS: The Blue Ridge.
CHAPMAN: Blue Ridge, where we had those cottages, things.
HESS: I believe there's a mountain down there called "Old Rag" that was
his favorite place. He used to climb it.
CHAPMAN: That's right, that was his favorite mountain.
HESS: He used to climb it every year on his birthday.
CHAPMAN: Yes, he'd go up there every year and climb that mountain. Now,
Byrd and I were very good friends; he was like Bill [William Munford]
Tuck and myself. There wasn't a closer friend I had in the House then
than Bill Tuck, but never once has there been any public issue on which
he and I would be together.
HESS: Where was he from?
CHAPMAN: Virginia, my district. He was in my...
HESS: Southern Virginia.
CHAPMAN: Southern Virginia, Halifax County. He was right in there.
I had a client in here yesterday, and the boys brought him in. They had
been working on his case for him and they brought him in to see me yesterday,
and this fellow was talking to me and he started talking, and I said,
"You are a Virginian aren't you?"
He said, "Yes, how did you know?"
I said, "You're a tidewater Virginian, anywhere from South Boston to
Norfolk."
He said, "By God, you've hit all but the address. What made you think
I was a Virginian?"
I said, "You look like a Virginian." He just looked like one. I said,
"You belong to the changing group of aristocracy of the South, and your
father was one of the aristocracy of the South, Virginia. You inherited
that good will of his and you're doing it well." I said, "That's why I
recognized you as soon as you started talking. I recognized your tidewater
brogue; it's totally different from up here around Fairfax County, anywhere
else in Virginia, because the tidewater brogue is totally separate and
different from any of the rest of the state. And if you're used to it,
familiar with it in your younger days, you could recognize it." And I
did. But it just buffaloed him. Well, anyway, he was talking to me just
day before yesterday. He was in here and he talked with me about the possibility
of the campaign.
"Well," he said, "we didn't have a chance in the last election to carry
anything down in Virginia, not for the Democrats." He said, "As a matter
of fact, I voted for Nixon myself." He said, "I don't know what was the
matter with our candidate; he just couldn't get off the ground." He said,
"Nixon got him down in the first round and never let him up. He just kept
him down during the whole fight." And he did, that's just what he did
do.
Well, now, let's lead to something else.
HESS: I believe the convention in 1952 was held in Chicago.
CHAPMAN: Chicago.
HESS: What do you recall about that convention?
CHAPMAN: Well, that convention held some very interesting sidelights
of history. First, you had a President there that had announced
that he would not be a candidate for reelection, although he could have
under the law run again. He was qualified, and was not disqualified because
of that act of Congress which limited Presidential candidates to two terms.
He was exempt from that, because he was President when the bill was passed.
Now that convention gave you a lot of history and watching the change
take place from a middle-of-the-road, a liberal middle-of-the-road man,
like Truman, against a fellow whom you couldn't place to save your life--Stevenson.
He'd make a speech one week that you could kind of take as a guide for
this direction, and the following week he'd make another speech that would
look like he was leaving that road and going to another. And he didn't
follow consistently with his public announcements--pronouncements, on
policy of what he wanted to do. He wasn't consistent following through
with them, not that he meant to be, he wasn't trying to be deceitful;
it was one of the things that he had the right of a candidate to change
his mind if he was given evidence and information to justify a change
of his position.
HESS: What could the Democrats have done to have won that year, in 1952?
CHAPMAN: Nothing. You couldn't have won that year. You see, you had up
against us that year--I first said that Truman couldn't have been reelected;
I want to hedge on that a little, because a man in office as President
of the United States goes into the campaign with one leverage in his favor
against the other candidate who's never been a candidate before, and he
would have had an edge there that people never stopped to think very much.
In the beginning, you see, they started a lot of wild rumors and wild
talks against Truman, but that wouldn't have lasted through the campaign.
I think Truman's method of campaigning in the previous election, '48 election,
proved to me that with his method of campaigning he could have taken it
again.
HESS: His give 'em hell type of campaign, and...
CHAPMAN: Yes.
HESS: ...taking the issues to the people.
CHAPMAN: Yes, and he would make no campaign against Eisenhower at all.
Eisenhower was a military man, had served his term and retired. Truman
had given him every cooperation that he could and supported him in his
work, to help him close the war in Europe. I'm not so sure that Truman
wouldn't have been elected. If he had taken the same type of campaign
that he did in '48, I believe he would have done it, because Eisenhower
did not fit that type of campaigning at all. He didn't fit it; he couldn't
do that kind of campaigning and make any headway.
HESS: Still the election was held and Eisenhower won.
CHAPMAN: By a big majority.
HESS: By a big majority.
All right, how would you evaluate the handling of the transition from
the Truman administration to the Eisenhower administration; was it a smooth
one, was it not smooth?
CHAPMAN: Well, I didn't think it was very rough.
HESS: Who replaced you; who was the Secretary of the Interior for Eisenhower?
CHAPMAN: The Secretary's name who succeeded me was--the former Governor
of Oregon. He died a few years ago, a couple of years ago.
HESS: We can add his name.
CHAPMAN: He was the Governor of Oregon and he was appointed Secretary
of the Interior. He was Douglas McKay.
HESS: Did he send in delegates, or his representatives, ahead of time
to work out a smooth transition?
CHAPMAN: He came himself. He spent nearly five weeks in my office, sitting
there with me. And I let him sit in with me on every conference that I
held about anything. I said, "Now, I want you to see what I have to do.
Some of these things being done, based upon the policy that's been established
and thoroughly approved by the President, and that's what you will get
as you go along here." I said, "You could get a great deal of feeling
for this department if you sit in and watch the people who come in and
see me and what they talk about, and I'd like for you to hear them, what
they talk about."
Well, one committee of five people from Oregon came in to see me to get
me to change the boundary lines of a reservation that we had set up and
withdrawn that land in Tule Lake from public entry; that is so nobody
could settle on it. We were planning to divide it up; we had come to an
agreement with the Park Service and the Reclamation Service that part
of this should go into Reclamation land and the rest of it should go into
the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Well, I had gotten that case absolutely closed and had so notified them
in my previous conference with them. I was going to approve the recommendation
that the two men had agreed on, the two directors. I was going to approve
it, as I thought they were as near right as they could get, and it's a
question of arguing about where the boundaries should be; how much of
this should you put in Reclamation and how much should you put in Fish
and Wildlife Service.
Well, I didn't want to open that thing up, because it was like opening
up a beehive anyway; there was a bitter fight going on out in the state
on that.
The Governor being the Governor of the State, never had anything to do
with that kind of a thing at all; he didn't have anything to do with it,
so he never had any experience with it. And when he heard me talk to those
people; he heard what I said to them, and I said, "Now, Governor, I want
you to know that I've made my mind up after very much conversation about
this thing that this should be the line that we draw there and I wouldn't
open that thing up for another hearing, because if you do you're going
to have them coming here by busses and you'll fill the auditorium down
here for an all day hassle. That's all it will be, because you'll never
settle it that way anyhow, but still there will be a whole crowd come
in here and demand a day of your time in the auditorium down here." And
I said, "I wouldn't open that up again if I were you. Now you're coming
in; I'm not going to open it between this and the 20th of January, I’m
not going to open it. So, it's up to you and I'm going to leave that up
to you, but I'm warning you this is absolute political dynamite, but it's
not Republican or Democratic politics." I said, "I'd warn you not to open
that up, because you are from Oregon, and they'll crucify you." Well,
they damn near killed him; they liked to have crucified the man. He made
a mistake of saying out there on a visit one Saturday that he was going
to give them another hearing. And so he did.
HESS: He opened up Pandora's box.
CHAPMAN: He opened up Pandora's box and all hell broke loose on him,
and the conservationists just went after him from that day on. They never
let up on him. Now, they hadn't bothered me; they had settled down to
the fact that I was banking my reputation against theirs, and I was just
as much of a conservationist as they were.
HESS: When he first came in he did want to cooperate?
CHAPMAN: Yes, he did.
HESS: Did you think that it went fairly smoothly in the other departments?
CHAPMAN: I didn't hear of any that was particularly disturbing. Certainly
in mine, the Department of Interior, the transfer of mine couldn't have
been easier.
HESS: Did you hear anything about Sherman Adams during this particular
time?
CHAPMAN: Yes, I did. I heard...
HESS: He was concentrating his efforts, I believe, mainly around the
White House...
CHAPMAN: That's it.
HESS: ...but I wondered if he had come in to see you or if you had any
dealings with him.
CHAPMAN: No, he never saw me. No, never called me. I knew Eisenhower
very well, I knew him when he was in the Philippines over there, when
he was the shoeshine boy for MacArthur, and MacArthur treated him just
like a shoeshine boy.
HESS: Did he?
CHAPMAN: He was so insulting I wouldn't have worked with him for five
minutes! I wouldn't have worked with him, but MacArthur treated
him like a messenger boy, that's all he was. Not that Eisenhower didn't
have some ability, he did, but MacArthur didn't want his ability
and his type of mind on his work. He was considering himself
the father of all military strategy; he was the top military strategist
in America, of the world.
HESS: He wanted some "yes men" around...
CHAPMAN: Exactly.
HESS: ...not some original thinkers.
CHAPMAN: He didn't want anybody to waste his time by arguing with him.
HESS: Just say "yes" and move on.
CHAPMAN: That's all. Say "yes" and move on, that's a very good one.
HESS: All right, in recent times some of the historians and revisionists
have been finding all of the roots of present-day troubles back during
the Truman administration. They see the roots of the difficulties we've
had in Vietnam; they see the roots of the difficulties we have had with
Communist China, with our views on communism. What is your opinion of
that general line of thinking?
CHAPMAN: I don't think that that's hurting Truman a bit. I think there
are more people today that think Truman was right on his major policy
positions that he had to take, and there are more of them that support
him today than ever did before.
HESS: Some of those revisionists say that when the United States employed
such programs as the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall plan and point 4, that
to marshal public support behind those programs, the Government purposely
set out to frighten the American people by invoking visions of Communist
world conquest; and that the only reason we wanted to restore Europe and
the other nations of Europe was to restore markets for our products. In
other words, if Europe failed our markets would dry up and unemployment
and depression would result; self interest in other words.
CHAPMAN: Well, let me look at it, point it up this way. Had I been President
of the United States at the time Truman had it (God forgive that I would
punish the people for that when they got a good man)--Truman thought these
things out very carefully, very carefully; he was not, he didn't take
any "yes man's" position on anything. He would talk to different people
and get different points of view on a given thing. Now, when he made his
decision to support the Marshall plan, I talked with him, and I supported
him strongly in it; I felt very keenly. Now, I said, "This is a terrific
load for the American people to carry, but what's the alternative; I think
it would be worse."
HESS: What did you see as the alternative?
CHAPMAN: I said the alternative would be the industrial life of the European
countries, being industrialized as they were, would go to pieces; they'd
go down. Their markets would be taken from them anyway, not by us particularly,
but the Japanese would have taken a lot of it, and your powerful enemies
in the war would have taken a lot of it back, and they would have gotten
a lot of that market. In the meantime Russia would have pushed in and
gotten a foothold in Europe to such an extent they would change the whole
picture, the whole future, for Europe and they would be in time, straddling
the horse, riding him right through the field, and they would be, in time,
the controlling factor almost in that area. You once give them control
of power of one area, or let them get it, and they expand it very fast
with a machinegun or anything else they need to, just like they did Hungary.
They had planned that for a long time.
HESS: Did you see our efforts in Europe as being along the lines of a
containment of communism?
CHAPMAN: There was some degree in that, but I didn't think of it or take
that too seriously as being something they could succeed with 100 percent
anyway; because you can't contain intellectual ideals, whether good or
bad; you can't necessarily contain them in a geographical area.
HESS: Can't fence in an idea.
CHAPMAN: You can't do it. You can't do it. Now you may dislike it, fight
it, but you can't fence in an idea and you can't contain it. Now Truman
saw that just as plain as you did just then; you expressed it just right.
It was an idea that you could not contain in the sense that the people
were trying to think of it. The Republicans were particularly trying to--some
of them were trying to lead the parade to turn the American people against
Truman on communism, and that is why you couldn't get any of the usually
more level-headed Republicans to take on Senator McCarthy and answer his
stuff themselves, because they knew it was not true. They knew it wasn't
true. Half of the stuff he was giving in his speeches on the floor of
the Senate, they knew was false.
HESS: But most of them didn't want to speak out.
CHAPMAN: They didn't want to speak out because they saw a possibility
that we may be the defender of America against communism that's growing.
It's growing.
HESS: If you'll recall, one person did speak out at first--Senator Margaret
Chase Smith of Maine...
CHAPMAN: That's right.
HESS: …in her famous "declaration of conscience."
CHAPMAN: That's right. That's right.
HESS: Did you ever hear President Truman speak of that?
CHAPMAN: Yes, he did. He thought it was very fine.
HESS: He appreciated her support.
CHAPMAN: He appreciated her support. She was supporting the principles
for the American people, and he didn't take it as a personal thing; he
took it as a matter of conviction of this woman, and he appreciated it
very much, he liked it.
HESS: In your opinion, what were Mr. Truman's major accomplishments during
his administration and what were his major failings?
CHAPMAN: I think as we have been around and watched--you and I have been
around here, now, since Mr. Truman left in '52 or '53.
HESS: '53, 20 years ago.
CHAPMAN: Twenty years ago this...
HESS: Last month.
CHAPMAN: . . . last month. That's right. January
the 20th.
HESS: January the 20th.
CHAPMAN: Now, we've been around here 20 years; we have seen the wheels
change--it's gone almost 180° around, in circling around in favor
of Truman as compared to being against him at that time. Back in '52 there
was Eisenhower's campaign, and it was totally negative in every respect;
it was a negative campaign. He had nothing but a few cliché’s;
"my crusade in Europe,"...
HESS: "I will go to Korea."
CHAPMAN: ...and, "I will go to Korea." Now, you see, Nixon was trying
to take that phraseology and put it into his capsule that he was working
on here with the Vietnam war, and he was trying to time the Vietnam war
effort to his campaign, and he did. He more nearly...
HESS: Just about like clockwork wasn't it?
CHAPMAN: Oh, he fitted it; every move he made was for his campaign. We'd
have had the same offer we've got today right down to the last dot on
the "i" that we could have had a year ago, had he taken it, but had he
taken it he would have been defeated for reelection. Now he kept the war
going, that's cruel to say, and I hate to have to say it, but he did.
I think he was conscientious about it; I think he really felt that that
was important, but he also felt that it was important for him to be reelected
than anything else, and so he was working to that end. And he timed those
things so carefully, and it looks like the public had lost all interest
in their public officials and whom they sent to Washington; it just looks
like they had lost all interest and weren't taking much interest in it.
HESS: What would you see as Mr. Truman's major foreign accomplishments
and then his major domestic accomplishments?
CHAPMAN: Well, lets take it this way: First, he was picking up the pieces
to put together a great economy that had gone through a world-shaking
experience of the expenditure of money in amounts unknown before in history.
And he had to spend it to bring an end to the war. They closed the war
down, and Truman, in the sight of history, will sit in the focus of that
conference to close the war; he will rise to be as big a man as any man
who sat at that table, even including Churchill.
Now, they're far apart in their method of approach, but their hearts
were pretty much beating the same. Truman had one thing that kept him
on the straight and narrow path at all times; his heart was always with
the little people of the country. He tried to help them. So, first he
tried to do something to shift the changing economic situation from a
war base to a peacetime base, and mesh them.
HESS: Right, reconversion to a peacetime economy.
CHAPMAN: That's right, and that's not an easy job; that is a hard job.
Now, Mr. Nixon is going to find out that that's a much harder job than
just letting the boys get killed over there; and they still take it and
go with him for a while; they did, and he knew that; he timed them just
right.
Now, Truman was having to manage a change over from a war base to a peacetime
base with our economy. That meant he had to do something without farm
production right away. Our farm problem made its entrance very quickly.
Now, I felt that Charlie Brannan made a good Secretary of Agriculture,
and he didn't get the; kind of publicity that I thought he was entitled
to, about some of his proposals. I'm not an economist in the sense of
dealing within agricultural commodities, and I don't feel that I'm capable
of judging his situation on that, but I felt that Charlie had made an
honest effort, a real effort there.
HESS: All right, Mr. Chapman, what is your favorite memory of Mr. Truman?
CHAPMAN: My favorite memory of Mr. Truman is his constant thinking and
talking about the farm problem, and conservation. He was far more conservation-minded
than people realized. One of my great memories of him was that he supported
me on my conservation program and I was considered right at that time--a
little bit of a liberal on conservation, and Mr. Truman supported my program
absolutely 100 percent.
One of the things that I ought to tell you about is something that I
discussed with Mr. Truman, and this was about the time he appointed me
Secretary. The Kerr gas bill passed, and I had been fighting it. I had
been opposing it right along, and, so, I knew who at the White House was
supporting it, who were not. But I played a very cautious hand there,
and I got Mr. Truman one evening when about 10 of us were having dinner
and they were playing poker; I don't play poker. Now, I just visited around
with a few who didn't play like I did, but Mr. Truman enjoyed a good game
of poker once in a while.
They had us all at the Statler Hotel and we had a suite up there. Clint
Anderson was there, and he principally set the thing up, Clint did, because
Clint liked to play poker, very much. I got a chance to talk to the President
that night by himself for a few minutes when some of the crowd wasn't
all there; I got a chance to talk with him. I said, "Mr. Truman, Mr. President,
I haven't talked with you quite fully enough to give you the benefit of
whatever my ideas may mean to you on that Kerr gas bill." I said, "I want
to let you know that I personally am opposed to it, and I don't think
it's a good bill. I don't think it's really a good bill, and I hope it
won't pass, but I think it will. If it passes they can't pass it over
your veto, and I don't know what position you're in on it."
He said, "Well, are you recommending to me to veto it?"
I said, "I certainly am Mr. President; I will give you a justification
memorandum for your reasons for vetoing it, which I think will be very
strong and you will see then the reasons why it should be vetoed. I've
got an economic memorandum prepared on it, and it will give you the benefit
of protection for your reasons why you do it."
"Well," he said, "is this another one of those give-aways to the boys?"
I said, "This is not only a give-away, Mr. President, but they've got
it limited down to just a few of--one of your friends, out there in Oklahoma."
"All right, don't tell me who he is; you just don't tell me who he is;
you just send me the veto message at the bottom of the bill."
So, when the bill got to the White House, the President always sent them--as
a rule, he would send an important bill back to a department head to look
at before he approved it or vetoed it. So, he sent this bill over to me
that morning as soon as he got to his office; he had it sent right to
my office. I got it, and I sent this memorandum I had already prepared.
I sent this memorandum, which in effect was his veto message; he'd carve
it up to fit and--I laughed, because Clark and myself are good friends,
I'm very fond of Clark, and I think Clark made a great contribution for
helping Truman.
HESS: Clark Clifford?
CHAPMAN: Yes. Clark Clifford really was a great help to Truman. I knew
he was for this bill; he wanted it approved, and I didn't, and he knew
I didn't want it approved. But you know I...
HESS: What was his connection?
CHAPMAN: He was a pretty close friend of Kerr's. He got to be pretty
close to Kerr; and he was supporting anything like that for Kerr, if he
could he would support it--and there was grounds to support it if you
had that philosophy about it, but it didn't have the economic soundness
for the mass of the smaller producers, you see.
HESS: It was slanted for the benefit of a few bigger producers?
CHAPMAN: It was only good for about ten companies, I'll tell you that.
HESS: Kerr's oil company being prominent among those?
CHAPMAN: Kerr-McGee was among them.
HESS: Kerr-McGee being prominent among those.
CHAPMAN: That's right. They were the leader in that. They were the leader
that would have gotten the benefit from this bill, and they were...
HESS: And it was vetoed.
CHAPMAN: He vetoed it. I was so pleased with that because he had talked
about that to me. And he remembered, when the bill got over, he had...
HESS: Do you think Mr. Clifford was giving him advice contrary to your
advice?
CHAPMAN: I don't know that he was.
HESS: What I was speaking about was this particular measure, but you
don't know if he was?
CHAPMAN: No, I don't know if he was; I just know how Clifford personally
felt about the bill.
HESS: Because he spoke to you about it, did he?
CHAPMAN: Yes, he had talked to me about it; and I had told Clifford that
I was going to oppose it. I'd have to oppose the bill, and hope we could
stay together on it.
Well, he said, "We'll either stay together, or out of each other's way."
Well, he did; he stayed out of my way, but he was for the bill. How much
he did on it, I don't know.
HESS: Do you think this might be an indication of an instance in which
a President received advice from a White House staff member, certain advice,
and then he received contrary advice from a Cabinet member, and accepted
the advice of the Cabinet member? Might this be an indication?
CHAPMAN: Well, that's an indication, of course, of what Truman did with
me. I can't name you a single case in which he went over my head, or my
recommendation, when I put it on the record, and wrote him this--well,
Clark I think rewrote the veto message, but it was all right; it was going
to be vetoed, and how much he talked with Truman, I don' t. know.
HESS: Can you think of any indications in which your advice was not accepted
by the President, perhaps because the President was receiving contrary
advice from White House staff members? In other words, the Kerr-McGee
was something you won; can you think of an indication of something that
you lost?
CHAPMAN: This other occasion that I had in mind concerning conservation
of a large area that I wanted to save if I could, I didn't win, but I
didn't make the kind of a crusade, or the kind of a dead-end fight--you
could go so far on certain things, you either have to resign or something,
you can't work for...
HESS: What particular project was this?
CHAPMAN: This was out in California where I wanted to build this dam,
and...
HESS: What was the name of the dam?
CHAPMAN: ...it was that one on King's River.
HESS: We can add it in later.
CHAPMAN: King's River. I'll get the name of that dam. It was a very big
project, and I wanted to bring that water down from the curve up in Oregon,
the bend of that river out of Oregon, into California in that point, and
take it in California on down the coast of California; and we could have
carried it in the river bed without digging a ditch. We wouldn't have
had to have dug a canal 25 miles all the way to Los Angeles.
HESS: And Mr. Truman did not okay that?
CHAPMAN: He didn't okay it. Now, he wasn't opposed to it outright, but
he said if we approved that, "that's going to shake my budget pretty close,
because I'm pretty close on the budget and that's a pretty big one"--and
it was; we were talking about a 200 to 300 million dollar program that
would develop out of that. We wouldn't build it all in one year, of course,
but you'd be committing the Government to it; but that was why he expressed
himself in those terms to me.
HESS: Was he usually pretty budget conscious?
CHAPMAN: Not too much. Not too much. He was more conscious of the importance
of the project; did it contribute anything to the community and to people
as a whole? If he thought the bill was sound and had a contribution to
make for the benefit of the people, he was not budget conscious in those
cases.
HESS: His first consideration was the social betterment.
CHAPMAN: Absolutely! And I've seen him do that now, on--at least he did
it with three cases of mine that I had, that I was recommending which
he approved. Now that one, he couldn't approve and I didn't blame him
because we differed not only on the benefit of this project, but we differed
on the fact that I was willing to stretch the budget that much more into
a deficit budget than he wanted to for that year, because that was a pretty
good chunk of money for a civilian department. We didn't get the kind
of money that the military got. But that was a pretty good slug of money
to get into one bill in the Interior. He said, "I think we better lay
that off until next year and then put it in in the beginning of next year,
and hit that first." Then he said, "That will keep out some other projects
that are not, I think, as valuable or contribute as much to the benefit
of the people as this would. And so, let's put it in a different order,
and then I'll avoid for this year having to raise the deficit any more
than we have, and I wanted to cut it down," he said.
I understood that and I mean I don't consider that being against my project,
because later on he approved it; we got a--that's the only letter I ever
got from Senator Nixon. He wrote me a letter thanking me for that project,
putting it through. It was the canal connecting California with the Mexican
connection--make that connection. We had to get enough water to fill that
dam before we could make these contracts with the Mexicans down below,
to give them a chance to use their land, and then we had to deliver a
certain amount of water to Mexico that had a certain percentage of saline
water. It couldn't be above a certain amount, in the water. We were putting
too much salt water in the Colorado River already, and that was coming
out of the Arizona Central Valley project, the Arizona project. They had
drilled those wells in the project to bring up water, knowing it was salt
water and too salty to meet this treaty. And therefore, we destroyed their
crops for two years down there, down in the valley of Mexico. On the Mexican
side we destroyed all of their cotton crop. They had a good cotton crop,
some corn, and they were really destroyed by this salt water.
HESS: All right, Mr. Secretary, after sixteen long sessions, do you have
anything else to add on Mr. Truman, or your role in the Truman administration?
CHAPMAN: Let me say this, that I ended my public career with Mr. Truman's
termination of his office and I never enjoyed an association with anybody
in my life any more than I did Mr. Truman's. I never had better treatment
from anybody in my lifetime. Nobody treated me any fairer than
Mr. Truman did, in all of my dealings through the White House in every
respect. That went through political matters which we dealt with and which
I helped with a great deal. I tried to contribute something to the political
situation, particularly of the West. I was recognized as somewhat knowledgeable
about the western picture on that. And then Mr. Truman was the kind of
man that if you worked with him a little while--you had to learn him at
first--but if you worked with him a little while, you soon learned, you
soon found out that what he said was what he was going to do. There was
no pussy-footing with him, and he didn't try to kid you around; he didn't
try to pass me off to somebody else, to talk with them and get their support
for this or that. If I came to him for a project that required the White
House support, held make his determination as to whether he would support
it or not after he interviewed whom he wanted, and he would either call
me in, say, "I'm sorry, but I can't support that bill of yours," or he
would go ahead and say, " That's all right, I'm going to support that
bill for you."
This is something I maybe shouldn't say, sounds egotistical, but I don't
believe any man in the Cabinet, anywhere in his administration got any
more favorable approval of his work and helping him with his work, than
Truman gave me. I don't believe any man was any more lucky than I.
HESS: You had a good relationship with him.
CHAPMAN: I had a good relationship. I had one of the finest relationships
that a man could have. First place, I didn't make a rush in there to be
Secretary of the Interior when Ickes went out; as a matter of fact, I
didn't want it at that time. And if I took the time to explain it to you,
you would understand why.
HESS: I think we've covered that.
CHAPMAN: We've covered that and it proved I was right. And it worked
out just right. Now, Mr. Truman fitted the needs of the American people
just at that time, so definitely; he was the--I don't know of any man
that could have followed Roosevelt, and I was close to Roosevelt, and
I spent many weekends up there at Hyde Park. Rex Tugwell, Harry Hopkins,
and myself, were the three that were usually together up there. We worked
together on outside projects away from our departments, where the three
of us were working together on something for Roosevelt, a project of some
kind; and we worked together on that and I got wonderful support from
Roosevelt, but it wasn't the kind of support that I had from Harry Truman.
By that I mean, Roosevelt might change his position on you without calling
you, but Truman never did that.
HESS: Roosevelt would do that, but Truman would not, is that right?
CHAPMAN: Truman would not do that. But Roosevelt would feel that he had
the right to do it, and he did if he wanted to.
HESS: And let you find out about it later?
CHAPMAN: But that doesn't make for good cooperation, you see.
HESS: That's right.
CHAPMAN: Truman never once turned me down like that, never once left
me hanging not knowing where I stood. He was really a wonderful guy.
I told you how I was appointed. I think I gave, you that at the first
part of this history; and it was the most unusual thing you could conceive
of happening. Nobody but Truman would do a thing like that, do it that
way. Now, he had as much confidence in this as he thought was necessary;
he knew me well enough that he thought--I think I know him well enough--he
thought he didn't need anybody else. He went on and appointed me without
talking to anybody. That day--I'll never forget that day. Charlie Ross
called me from the White House; it was Armistice Day, which we used to
have then, instead of--now we call it what, Military Day or something?
HESS: Veteran's Day, and they've even moved it into October. It's not
even into November anymore.
CHAPMAN: And that's taking it out of context of history, because it was
at 11 o'clock on the 11th of November that they signed the cease fire
from the front lines.
HESS: And that's where they should have left Armistice Day.
CHAPMAN: They should have left Armistice Day there.
HESS: I think we had better shut it off.
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