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
April 21, 1972
Jerry N. Hess
[Notices and Restrictions | Interview
Transcript | Additional Chapman Oral History
Transcripts]
NOTICE
This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for the Harry
S. Truman Library. A draft of this transcript was edited by the interviewee
but only minor emendations were made; therefore, the reader should remember
that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written
word.
As an electronic publication of the Truman Library, users should note
that features of the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview,
such as pagination and indexing, could not be replicated for the online
version of the Chapman transcript.
RESTRICTIONS
This oral history transcript may be read, quoted from, cited, and reproduced
for purposes of research. It may not be published in full except by permission
of the Harry S. Truman Library.
Opened 1980
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri
[Top of the Page | Notices
and Restrictions | Interview Transcript
| Additional Chapman Oral History Transcripts]
Oral History Interview with
Oscar L. Chapman
Washington, DC
April 21, 1972
Jerry N. Hess
HESS: All right, Mr. Secretary; to begin today, at the conclusion of
our last conference we were discussing Israel. Are there any other facts
that you want to set down on that subject?
CHAPMAN: I'd like to tell you of the incident coming in on the train
from the western tour we made at that time. I don't have the exact date
of that trip in my mind.
HESS: We call that the "June trip."
CHAPMAN: The June trip, all right. I don't remember the exact dates,
but it's in my files there.
HESS: I think that that trip terminated the 18th.
CHAPMAN: Mr. Clifford and I had a long conference on the train coming
through Ohio and Western Pennsylvania as the train was coming into Washington
from this long trip. We had about two or three hours there in which there
were no stops. We got in here, I would imagine, around 3:30. There was
a reception being given for Mr. and Mrs. Truman that evening over at the
Mayflower Hotel. He was going to be there at 6 o'clock or 7.
On the train, Mr. Clifford and I discussed the Israeli situation from
a basic point of view that first really had no relationship to the campaign,
per se. We agreed very quickly that obviously this would be a great political
asset, we felt, to the President's position, if he could endorse the State
of Israel immediately. But we had a basis that was more fundamental, more
basic than that, that will go down in history, in which President Truman's
image grows and improves on you as it's related from time to time, because
his approval of the State of Israel was not just for the political benefits
that he did get out of it, and he did get some real benefits politically;
but it was much deeper than that and went much farther than that. You
had the United Nations just getting underway. There were a lot of little
countries from all over the world clamoring to become a member of that
body and wanting to be a member of that body, feeling that it would offer
them some protection.
Now, the basis of the Israeli thing came out something in this order.
Here was a small country, and their people had been persecuted all over
the world, in fact, in every country to some degree, and they wanted a
homeland of their own. That was very deep and fundamental in the minds
and hearts of the Jewish people. I felt, and so did Mr. Clifford feel,
that if the president could set an example here and now, he had the opportunity
to influence the United Nations for one thing. We felt that if the President
could at this time give his approval and recognition to the State of Israel
immediately, without any delay, it would have a great influence in building
up the confidence of other little countries that knew they were going
to have trouble or anticipated some difficulties with their neighbors.
There were a lot of little countries that felt like, "This man is interested
in the little people, and not just the big power-play." It had a far-reaching
influence on the peoples of the world, particularly the people from these
small countries that had problems they wanted to get solved between themselves
and sometimes much larger countries. They felt the United Nations was
a good place to get them solved, so they wanted to be in. And yet, to
have one of the principal leaders of the major power bloc, if you want
to call it that, to come out and boldly endorse and give recognition to
the State of Israel so quickly after it had established its position legally
in the councils of the world, would be a lasting and growing influence,
we felt. We thought it would not be recognized at first in the headlines.
There wouldn't be much thought of it at first, until problems would come
up between other little countries and some larger nations, and they would
come to the United Nations with a sense of hope that, "Here's one of the
greater powers; they did this for Israel, and I believe we've got a friend
among these powers of the world that will help us solve our problems."
It would give them a great hope.
I could name you many of the little countries, which you know, many of
the little countries that have been helped by the United Nations. They
have been greatly helped by the President's position in recognizing Israel
as quickly as he did. It's been very helpful to these people, and it's
still helping the little countries. It will go down in history as one
of the things, when you get far enough away from the tree so that you
can see it in its proper perspective to the forest, the public will begin
to appreciate what that meant, more than just some political benefits
that he might have acquired through that action.
It was a basic thing to President Truman, and to Mr. Clifford, a basic
philosophy of theirs, thinking of laying the groundwork for the future,
of being able to say, "Well, we had a President who did this for a little
country," and if any injustices were imposed upon some other little country
they could live in hope that they would have a friend at the United Nations
to help them to get justice.
I wanted to make that detailed explanation to you because that got no
publicity at the time at all. Everybody was writing about the immediate
political impact this was having. It did have a beneficial political impact
on the campaign, very beneficial.
HESS: Did you also take that into consideration?
CHAPMAN: Absolutely. I discussed that wholly with Mr. Truman, and I found
that he was thinking about that more than he was of the immediate thing.
He was more concerned about what it would mean in offering encouragement
of leadership to the little people of the world, small countries, who
wanted to be equals with us in the United Nations.
HESS: But it was also discussed that this might be a way of obtaining
Jewish votes and contributions?
CHAPMAN: Oh, yes. I raised that, and I told them that there wasn't any
question in my mind that it would be extremely beneficial for the immediate
time being, to help us in the campaign. It would mean votes and contributions.
But I felt that his philosophy and his feelings of it went so much deeper
than that.
HESS: By the way, do you have a 1948 edition of the Public Papers
of the President?
CHAPMAN: I have a copy at home,
HESS: The date of the recognition of the State of Israel has slipped
my mind.
CHAPMAN: May 14.
HESS: May 14. That was what I was thinking. So that had taken place before
the June trip.
CHAPMAN: That's right.
HESS: So what you were discussing was after the fact?
CHAPMAN: That's why you've got to clarify that point; there was some
confusion there.
HESS: There were two recognitions, the de lure and the
de facto.
CHAPMAN: That's right, but I still have in my mind that we had made a
trip in May, then one in June. The one in May was not a political trip.
The one in June was; it was a political trip. Now, that's my recollection
of that, and I don't have the papers to correct my memory here of them,
and I want to check that.
HESS: That we can check on, because this was coming back from the trip
to the West, on which you were the advance man?
CHAPMAN: That's right.
HESS: That was in June.
CHAPMAN: That's right.
HESS: I don't recall a trip in May, but we will check on that and see.
CHAPMAN: You can check your dates, because May 14 was the date of the
recognition, and he sent that cablegram off about 5:30 in the afternoon,
sixteen minutes after it was published over there.
HESS: But when you were discussing these matters with Clifford was before
the recognition.
CHAPMAN: Oh, yes.
HESS: Before the recognition?
CHAPMAN: Oh, yes. This was before the recognition that we discussed it.
HESS: What should be done, not what already had been done?
CHAPMAN: Oh., no, we were discussing what ought to be done in this.
HESS: That's what I was thinking, because the trip, I'm positive, was
in June, and I thought that the recognition, the first recognition of
Israel, did come in May. Now, I'll just read a short quote from Patrick
Anderson's book, The President's Men. This is on page 118, and
he says:
In May, 1948, Clifford and Chapman persuaded Truman to override State
Department objections and grant immediate recognition to the new state
of Israel. They hoped a dramatic gesture of support to Israel would
be repaid by Jewish votes and campaign contributions that fall. Eventually,
Truman agreed...
That's what Mr. Anderson has to say.
CHAPMAN: That is correct; that is, we both, Clark and I, were absolutely
together in our thinking about what was the right thing we felt the President
ought to do.
But I want to give you a little sort of clarification on that, because
so far it's always been referred to as the immediate political thing,
and when I talked to Truman, I immediately caught that he had in his mind,
"What values does this have for the future of the little countries of
the world." The man was fantastic, Truman. When I talked with him he was
fantastic about his long-range thinking on this thing.
HESS: I want to discuss one word of Anderson's: He says "eventually."
"Eventually, Truman agreed." What were Mr. Truman's views at first when
you proposed this to him?
CHAPMAN: Well, this is the way we handled it. This is why when you're
doing teamwork with another fellow you can check things pretty carefully.
Clark would see him and talk to him about it, say one thing--this is just
before we left for the West, now--and talked to him about it, or raised
this question with him. He usually pulled me in on this, and then I would
follow up by seeing the President the next day on something else, and
I would raise the same issue with him again, discussing the ramifications
of what this meant, and also discussing the idea that the State Department
was not sympathetic to this.
HESS: What were their main objections? Oil? British influence?
CHAPMAN: I think it was the British influence a great deal, and the British
influence tied with the interest of the oil people who had their interests
involved in this, and they naturally got their friends talking around.
HESS: In this matter, were there leaders of the Jewish community that
came in to speak to you or to Mr. Clifford, or who communicated with you
in some way?
CHAPMAN: That was done so consistently from coast to coast. I don't believe
there was a stop that we made on that train anywhere from New York to
California that some leader of that group didn't take advantage of the
opportunity to get their story told, their needs expressed for our help.
They were very persuasive in the presentation of their case, at least
I thought they were, and I felt they had done a very fine briefing job
in putting down the facts of history there in its proper perspective of
what was going on in the world at that time.
HESS: Do you recall any names, any particular leaders in the Jewish community,
who may have spoken to you on this matter?
CHAPMAN: I can't think of any that didn't.
HESS: They all had.
CHAPMAN: To tell you the truth, I can hardly think of one that hasn't.
They either talked to me or Clifford and usually both of us.
HESS: What about David Niles? He was Administrative Assistant in charge
of minority matters at that time.
CHAPMAN: That's right.
HESS: Did you work with Mr. Niles on this same matter?
CHAPMAN: Yes. Oh, I talked to a dozen or so people that had any entree
into the White House at all. I talked to them about it.
HESS: Did Mr. Eddie Jacobson, who was of course Mr. Truman's old haberdashery
partner, did he have a hand in, or any influence in Mr. Truman's decision
to recognize the State of Israel?
CHAPMAN: Decidedly, I'm quite sure he did.
HESS: Could you tell me about what influence he may have had?
CHAPMAN: I think he had this influence. You know, President Truman's
principles of standing by a friend, and he knows you, and knows of you.
He's going to listen to you with an open mind, and in Jacobson's coming
to see him, or seeing him whenever he was there--now, I did not know when
he saw him, or anything of the kind, but I know he did talk with him about
it. Jacobson had been his partner and they were friends, and he tried
to help without injecting himself, let's say, into the picture. He didn't
want to project himself in the eyes of his own people that he was trying
to take advantage of his relationship with Truman, assuming a leadership
role in what they were doing. He was very sensitive about that, and he
was very good about it.
HESS: If I recall correctly, there was a time when Dr. Chaim Weizmann
came over from Israel. He wanted to speak to President Truman; he had
spoken to him on occasion, and then Mr. Truman decided that he did not
want to speak to him on this occasion, and Mr. Jacobson intervened in
Dr. Weizmann's behalf, and Mr. Truman did speak to him. Do you recall
that?
CHAPMAN: Yes, that's a correct analysis of what took place. But Jacobson,
as I say, was very careful not to leave impressions among his own people
that he was trying to impose himself upon his friendship with Truman.
HESS: On this same subject, Mr. Truman did recognize Israel, the
election came along, and Mr. Truman did win. How important do you believe
that the Jewish vote, Jewish support, for Mr. Truman was to his victory
in November?
CHAPMAN: I believe it had a very definite impact, favorable to the President,
in that campaign. It was an influence that went far beyond just the Jewish
vote on this, and part of that came about on the basis of what I just
explained to you awhile ago, this long story I have you, these smaller
countries. That began to be discussed among these people in this country,
these minority people, a lot of minority people. You know, you're surprised
when you find out how many minorities we have in this country, so many
different races and issues.
HESS: We are supposed to be a melting pot, but sometimes we don't melt.
CHAPMAN: That's right.
HESS: We're just a bunch of minorities.
CHAPMAN: That's right. We look like we're lumps that don't melt. That's
true.
I looked at Mike Douglas' show last night. He had this Negro man and
author on there who is quite a writer, who had traced the history of his
family back to his village in Africa. The book will be out in May, I think.
He's been working on it for four or five years. It will be a fascinating
book, because he traced the log of the ship that brought his grandfather
over here as a slave on an English ship. It was a very fascinating thing.
That was just a little incident that I throw in, but it shows you how
that feeling had a way of spreading among so many different people, and
for different reasons, you see.
I had worked rather hard on this particular subject in my mind to try
to relate it to the future relationship of the President in this country,
this country's own reputation as a whole, with the rest of the world,
the little countries of the world. I couldn't help but believe that it
would have a lasting, beneficial effect on our relationship with these
little countries. I think it has surfaced in several issues in the United
Nations, where it would get no particular publicity. At that time, they
were not issues that showed up as a real issue, in some of those little
countries.
HESS: One further point on this; you mentioned that you and Mr. Clark
Clifford brought this issue to the President. Just a question about Mr.
Clifford. How valuable a man is he to have on your side in something like
this?
CHAPMAN: Well, if I'm going to get into the in-fighting, I want him on
my side.
HESS: He's a valuable man.
CHAPMAN: You bet he is. I soon found that out. If you're going to get
into an in-fighting, I want him on my side. You know, Clark is a very
unusual man, and I don't want to belabor the question, but he's a very
unusual man. First, he has a wonderful memory, remembering things; second,
his word is so completely accepted as being absolutely bona fide and accurate
when he tells you something. You can depend on him. You can depend on
Clark Clifford's word, whatever he told you.
HESS: How would you evaluate Mr. Clifford as a political adviser?
CHAPMAN: Well, I soon came to believe that Mr. Clifford was one of the
very top advisers to the President in his value to advising him on political
matters. It came about this way: He knew so well how to select out from
the conversation he would have with me, we'll say, or somebody else that
was active in the political arena; he knew how to select out from them
just really what they were thinking and interpret their story, or what
they wanted to tell him, to the President. He could do it so well that
he became invaluable to the President on that; I felt that his judgment
to the President on political matters was being proved very fast. I thought
he was already at the top when we started working together on those things.
Now, we worked on many things, for the Government I mean, regular business
matters. I found the same thing there in his thinking and in his mind.
His mind worked so systematically. If he'd tell you something, he did
it in sequence and in order. If you think back over your conversations
with him, it will come back to you when you least expect it, "Clark Clifford
told me that when I saw him," and it was quite a while before the event,
maybe. He knew about it, and knew how to relate it. He could relate. For
instance, let's take the State of New York. There are always, as there
are in every state, other differences of opinion, different factions,
and that's part of democracy and it's very healthy. The differences of
opinion that will sometimes arise also sometimes will get very bitter.
I hated to see them get personal and bitter, and of course I don't think
it was ever necessary. I think you accomplish more if you have a quiet
approach and keep talking, because you lose your case when you show your
temper and your outrage in talking with another man. You've lost your
case already. So, Clark had that down to perfection. When he talked to
somebody, Clark would come across and just let him say what he wanted
to say, and Clark would go on and do what he wanted to do about it.
In answer to your question, a short answer, I'll say that I think he
was one of the most effective advisers on political matters with the President.
HESS: His name will probably come up several times more when we get back
to the '48 campaign.
CHAPMAN: It will come up on that.
HESS: It certainly will, but let's move back now to the events in 1944.
You mentioned last time about your discussion with Mr. Truman before he
left for the convention in Chicago, and that you had spoken to the President.
One reason I want to mention that again is because, as you know, there
is some disagreement among historians as to whether or not Mr. Truman
knew for sure that he was under consideration by Mr. Roosevelt. His name
was in the press a good deal as a prospective candidate, but there's some
disagreement as to whether or not he had received definite information
that Roosevelt was thinking of him, too.
CHAPMAN: Let me give you my interpretation of that era, that short period
there. Say two or three months before the convention, along in that period,
I was seeing Truman some. I'd see him quite often--not often, I didn't
see him too often--but I had a feeling, and I came away with that
feeling every time I talked with him, that he knew what Roosevelt wanted;
but he also knew that being President of the United States, Roosevelt
knew enough about politics not to handle this in a crude, smoke-filled
room for picking a Vice President, that Roosevelt knew enough about politics
that he wouldn't do it that way. That's what kept him from commenting
to a lot of people on whom he would rather have. He saved his ace card
till the last minute, and played it. That's exactly what I was expecting
him to do.
I went up to see Senator Truman for this reason: I wanted to be sure
that I was in the clear with him on my position, my not having any word
from Roosevelt one way or another. Roosevelt never told me whom he wanted
at all. I got a feeling from Roosevelt that he would rather have Truman,
and that's why I would want to comment on that. I had a feeling that he
would be more than just satisfied to have Truman. I think he felt that
Truman would really add something to his campaign, and he admired Truman's
loyalty. That's one thing you always remember about Truman and give him
credit for, because there was a man who would stand by his friends regardless
of what the situation was. He would stand by his friends and wouldn't
let them down. I don't mean by that that he condoned or tolerated crookedness;
he didn't at all. You'd soon find that out if you got to working with
him.
Let me make another comment on Truman at this point here. You referred
to my record as to how long I served in the Department and when I was
appointed Assistant Secretary and Under Secretary and then finally Secretary.
I want to correct the statement that someone made reference to, that Truman
offered me Secretary of the Interior to succeed Ickes. That's not quite
correct. It would leave the wrong impression. I want to correct that statement,
because you'd have to go into that in long detail to get it straight,
because it developed over a period of time, and also involved some people
who are still living who were quite upset about it. So, I don't want to
stir up anything by a statement like that. So, I'd like to leave that
statement out of my interview about Truman offering me the Secretaryship
when Ickes went out.
HESS: Would you like to tell me a little bit about the resignation of
Harold Ickes, and your involvement or what you recall about these matters?
CHAPMAN: They were pretty hot days for a while. The Secretary wrote one
of his famous letters to the President, which I regretted to see written,
because I didn't want to see the President and the Secretary break; I
wanted them together, because as a matter of fact, they were more together
on basic issues than they themselves realized. They were not as far apart
as they thought they were.
The problem that brought this to a head was the appointment of Mr. [Edwin]
Pauley to be Assistant or Under Secretary of the Navy, I believe. Secretary
Ickes had some differences with Mr. Pauley which he had had some time
before that, and he didn't think he ought to be an Assistant Secretary
of the Navy because oil companies have such a large purchasing program
of petroleum and its byproducts. He just didn't think a man from the oil
industry ought to be in that particular place. So they were differing
over not necessarily an issue but over a personality. The President liked
Ed Pauley; he liked Ed, and Ed had been awfully good to him, but Secretary
Ickes did not like Mr. Pauley. He didn't like his operation generally.
Now, when his name was sent up to the Hill, I don't know how that corresponds
with the date as to when the President received that letter, but Ed Pauley's
name was already before the Senate. I think it was already up there for
hearings. Now, the Secretary wrote such a letter to the President. The
Secretary showed me a copy of the letter that he had sent on Saturday
(he usually worked on Saturday as a rule; nearly all of us at that level
did), and I saw it; he let me read it. I told him that I regretted his
writing it, because I said, "You're leaving the President no option but
one thing." I said, "You're going to get either a call or a very quick
note, short, telling you he's accepting your resignation." I said, "I
think he's going to do it for immediate action."
Well, as a matter of fact, that was on a Monday when he let me read this
letter, and we talked for a little bit, and on Wednesday, because Ickes
had said in the letter, "If I don't hear from you by 11 o'clock Wednesday
morning, I'm going to have a press conference and give this letter out
to the press." You don't tell a President of the United States something
like that.
So, I regretted to see that very much. I was standing there by the Secretary's
desk; I'd been talking to him for nearly an hour, and he was waiting for
a call from the President. Sure enough, he had a call--the President's
secretary calling Secretary Ickes, "Do you know where Secretary Ickes
can get Secretary Chapman?"
He says, "Yes, he's right here."
I got on the phone and his .secretary says, "The Boss wants to see you
right away. Can you come over right now?"
I said, "All right, I'll be over right away."
I turned to the Secretary and I said, "Mr. Secretary, I think I know
enough to know just what this is going to mean. What would you do if you
were in my place? If I walk into that office, and if he should ask me
to take the Secretaryship, what would you do if you were in my position?"
I said, "Can't you see what would happen to my appointment?"
All of the liberals of that period, who were at that convention, know
that I was supporting Henry Wallace in the convention, and that's what
I had gone up on the Hill to tell Senator Truman about, to explain to
him that I was under commitment because I hadn't gotten any word from
the President. Lacking that word, I would have to keep my commitment,
and he assured me he was not a candidate and for me to go right ahead
with anything I wanted and he would understand. He said, "I believe every
man ought to keep his commitments." He couldn't have been more decent.
I said, "Don't you see, Mr. Secretary, all the conservative people in
the convention, including Bob Hannegan and a few other people, would not
like my appointment because I wasn't supporting the President in the convention,
and they know it." I said, "Now, the liberals will all think that I have
done an underhanded job on you at the President's level to talk to him,
to cut your throat, to discredit you with the President. It would throw
me open to all kinds of criticism. If I should take it, it would be almost
impossible for me to do a decent job with a reasonable chance for success
on my part. That's the way I feel about it."
HESS: What did he say?
CHAPMAN: He said, "Well, I'd take it, and I think he ought to appoint
you."
I said, "He has no obligations to me whatsoever, Mr. Secretary, none
whatever."
HESS: What did the President want to talk to you about when you got to
the White House?
CHAPMAN: Now, that brings in the part of this question, the part I was
going to suggest that we leave out.
HESS: We can close it for any length of time that you want.
CHAPMAN: Let's go ahead with this and I'll tell you what he said. I didn't
even sit down, because this had to be done quickly because Secretary Ickes
was calling this 11 o'clock press conference. He had called it already.
We got a short, one paragraph letter from the White House saying, "Your
services will be terminated at 5 o'clock. Dispose of business for today."
And that's all. It didn't say anything else. I walked into the President's
office; it was about a quarter of 11, I guess by that time.
As I walked into his office he was standing up, and he had a letter in
his hand--I don't know what the letter was--but he had a letter in his
hand. He said, "I want you to go back to that Department, take it over,
and run it."
Now, under the circumstances, you could interpret that to mean an offer
of appointment, or you could take it that, as a practical matter, that's
the only thing he could do for the moment.
HESS: Sort of an Acting Secretary.
CHAPMAN: It could be that.
HESS: Maybe not even with that title.
CHAPMAN: That's right. You see, he could have done several things at
that point. But he said, "I want you to go back, take that department,
and run it." He said, "You've been running it anyway and I want you to
run it."
I said, "Mr. President, I appreciate this; it's a great honor," something
like that. "Naturally, it's something a young man with desire would like
to have, but if I ever have the opportunity to be Secretary of the Interior,
I do want it under circumstances in which I have a reasonable chance of
making it a success. If this was intended to be an offer of appointment,
I don't think it's wise at this point. I would find some new person. I'll
be glad to serve as Under Secretary under whomever you want to pick; I'll
be glad to serve as Under Secretary. In thirty days we'll find somebody,
but I'll go back and start running it now and we won't have any problems."
I said, "Don't be concerned about the stories in the press that Ickes
said there would be resignations in mass, that every bureau head was going
to resign. You won't have a single resignation, except perhaps a personal
stenographer or secretary." And that's what we had; that was all. That's
the only one we had. Every bureau head came to me that afternoon and offered
me his support and assurance of his loyalty to me, saying they hoped the
President made this appointment. They were most loyal to me, and during
that thirty days we didn't have a single resignation.
About the end of the thirty days Mr. John Snyder and Barney [Bernard]
Baruch went into the White House and Cap Krug was in Snyder's office when
they left to go over to the White House, and they talked about his being
Secretary of the Interior--Snyder and Barney Baruch. Mr. Krug had been
chairman of the War Production Board; he had a record to go on, he'd been
with TVA, and so he had quite a nice record to go on there.
That was the way I left it. I said, "Mr. President, I'd be happy to do
it, and I consider it an honor to be asked to take this for the time being,"
and I kept it on that basis. I don't like to put it on a flat statement
that he offered me Secretary of Interior. He may have and he may not have.
I don't know. I wish I did know. I don't know yet whether he actually
intended that to mean an offer. It could have been, or it could have been
the other.
HESS: He didn't clarify it.
CHAPMAN: He didn't clarify it. That's all he said, because he was very
quick with these things, you know. He did them just like this. To him,
it was just another job you had to do, so "Go ahead, let's get busy with
it," and he didn't take a lot of time with anything like this, talking
about it. He'd handle things quickly.
HESS: In his Memoirs Mr. Truman mentions an effort that he made
to get Justice William O. Douglas to leave the Court and head the Interior.
Do you recall that?
CHAPMAN: Who said that?
HESS: Mr. Truman has in his Memoirs that he phoned and talked
to Justice Douglas and asked him if he would leave the Court and run Interior,
and of course, it was turned down.
CHAPMAN: Truman made that statement?
HESS: Yes, in his Memoirs.
CHAPMAN: I remember the timing of that, and Bill Douglas missed being
President of the United States because he listened to somebody else and
didn't have as good a political sense as Clark Clifford had. When you
asked me about Clark's judgment on political matters, that was a case
where the stakes were high. Bill Douglas could have been President.
HESS: When?
CHAPMAN: In '44.
HESS: In '44.
CHAPMAN: He could have been in '40.
HESS: In '40. Just a question about '44. There was the so-called "Truman-Douglas
letter," in which Mr. Roosevelt said he would be glad to run with either
Senator Truman or Justice Douglas. Neither man really put himself out
to try to get the nomination. Do you think if Justice Douglas had been
a more active candidate, shall we say, in 1944, that Mr. Roosevelt would
have taken him rather than Mr. Truman?
CHAPMAN: I'm not sure about that. I've thought of that several times.
I was confident that Douglas would not resign from the Court to run with
Truman. He was given serious thought for the Vice Presidency by Roosevelt.
HESS: In '44.
As you know, Truman also asked him in '48 to run, and he turned that
down too.
CHAPMAN: Yes. I told him that he was going to turn him down.
HESS: You told Mr. Truman that Douglas would turn it down?
CHAPMAN: I did. I said he was going to turn it down. And that's exactly
what he did. He took the advice of Tom Corcoran.
HESS: It seems that in '44, in speaking of the Vice Presidential spot,
we have active candidates: Henry Wallace and Jim Byrnes, and we have inactive
candidates, Truman and Douglas.
CHAPMAN: That's exactly what you had. You had just that. Now, during
that period I admired Truman so very much, because, to me, a man's political
word is just as sacred as his own business. Your word is your word, and
I admired him for that, but I got to like him and know him better during
that period, that short time there. I went up as soon as he got to Chicago,
and I went up and told him what I had done. And he said, "I know it. Bob
Hannegan has told me all about it."
Well, I said, "It's true, I did do all I could for Henry Wallace to keep
my commitment, but I can assure you that not one word was said by me to
discredit you in any sense of the word," and I didn’t. I never once made
a statement about him that was a discredit to him.
Jim Farley wanted that pretty bad. He was very hurt.
HESS: The second spot?
CHAPMAN: He wanted the first spot, but he would have been tickled to
death if he could have been given the second spot.,
HESS: He would have liked to have had the first spot in 1940, too.
CHAPMAN: 1940 was when he wanted the first spot, and he tried to get
it. I saw him work on it, and I know. In '44 he would have been pleased
to have taken the Vice Presidency.
HESS: What did Roosevelt think of Farley at that time, after their falling
out in '40?
CHAPMAN: I don't think it would be appropriate for me to comment on that.
HESS: One brief question about Mr. Farley. Where would you place him
on the scale of chairmen of the Democratic National Committee, taking
into consideration William Boyle, J. Howard McGrath and Frank McKinney
and Stephen Mitchell, and all the chairmen of the Democratic National
Committee that you have known; where on that scale would you put Jim Farley?
CHAPMAN: At the top. As a campaign manager, chairman of the Democratic
Party, he was absolutely at the top. Now that means that you've got to
understand the events of the day; if he had been in the same position
ten years later, no, but when he served, the time was right. He served
as dutifully and did as fine a job as chairman that I think I've ever
seen.
HESS: One brief question about Mr. Corcoran. You mentioned that in 1948
when Mr. Truman asked Justice Douglas to take the second spot, that Mr.
Corcoran advised him not to take it that year.
CHAPMAN: Right.
HESS: Do you recall; did Mr. Corcoran think that Mr. Truman would lose?
CHAPMAN: It was generally known that he and Ickes were very close together--Tommy
Corcoran and Secretary Ickes--and it was believed that they both were
advising Douglas on what to do.
HESS: In 1948?
CHAPMAN: In 1948, this was. Douglas was out in Oregon and it took them
a day before they could get him on the phone and I think that frankly
they didn't think that Truman could win.
HESS: Do you think that that might be one of the reasons that Justice
Douglas turned him down also, that he thought he would be a member of
a losing ticket?
CHAPMAN: Yes, I think that was one of his reasons.
HESS: What other reasons would he have had, the basic reason, the fact
that he just wanted to remain on the Court?
CHAPMAN: No, Bill Douglas wanted to be President of the United States
very much, and he thought the timing was an essential element. You had
to time it right, and it was rumored that his two principal advisers were
telling him that the time wasn't right; he had to wait. Now, they made
a serious mistake for Bill Douglas when he didn't take it in '40 when
Roosevelt was running for the third term.
HESS: When Wallace did.
CHAPMAN: That's right.
HESS: When John Nance Garner went out.
CHAPMAN: Yes, he went out, that's right. Garner was in there.
HESS: He was there the first two times. He was also opposed to the third
term.
CHAPMAN: That's right; that's why he said he wouldn't run.
HESS: He wouldn't run, so in '40 they got Henry Wallace.
CHAPMAN: Well, I think Garner was perfectly sincere on his views about
that. I don't think he believed that a man ought to go for a third term.
HESS: No one had ever done it before. There were a lot of people opposed
to that.
CHAPMAN: There were a lot of people opposed to it and I ran into that
coming and going. You see, I was doing advance work all over the West
then.
HESS: As a child in Kansas, I remember two main stickers: "Win With Willkie,"
and "No Third Term." And of course, Kansas went for Willkie that year,
too, as you will recall.
CHAPMAN: Yes, it did.
HESS: Kansas usually is a Republican state.
CHAPMAN: But you know the thing that was, in politics, so amazing; Roosevelt
came on the wave of a tremendous depression, and it was very serious and
very deep. People were suffering, and there were a lot of them, too. And
Roosevelt was busy wanting to help them; he was trying to work out some
domestic program to help the poorer people to get jobs, and he created
all these jobs like WPA and all that to create jobs. Then he got money
for the Federal Works Program under Ickes. See, Ickes was named by Roosevelt
as Public Works Administrator.
HESS: The Civilian Conservation Corps, the old CCC.
CHAPMAN: You remember all those things were created because they created
jobs for different groups of people.
HESS: They built the lake for my hometown,
CHAPMAN: There were a lot of things done then which you couldn't have
done at an earlier date or a later date. If you hadn't done them right
then, you would have never done them. Timing is so important in Washington
as to accomplishing anything. This you have to do. You've got to be on
time, be there at the exact moment. If you're on the scene at the right
moment, the chances are you can accomplish what you may have ambitions
to do. If you're not there, you may not. You may never get it. You may
never get the chance again. Look at Bill Douglas. That was his last chance,
that '48 thing. In 1948 I went to the convention backing Senator Joseph
C. O'Mahoney, of Wyoming, for Vice President. We had enough delegates
to get Senator O'Mahoney nominated for Vice President. However, Howard
McGrath, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, recognized Senator
Alben Barkley, of Kentucky. Senator Barkley made such a stem-winding speech
that he cinched the nomination for himself as Vice President with Truman.
I was up at the convention in Philadelphia that week in 1948 and they
kept Truman sitting up there in the moonlight on the back...
HESS: Sitting out on that balcony.
CHAPMAN: Yes, sitting up there in the moonlight. It was nearly 2 in the
morning; it was really late, before they would let him get on to make
his speech. He just chatted and laughed, didn't let it bother him a bit,
because he knew he had his campaign wrapped up; he knew exactly where
he was going and what he was going to do. Truman really had a keen eye
for timing, and for mapping out things, and for doing them in an orderly
way.
HESS: Did you speak with him out on the balcony that night?
CHAPMAN: Yes, I did. I had a nice chat with him out there on the balcony
that night.
HESS: What did he talk about out there on that balcony while he was waiting
to go in?
CHAPMAN: I said, "Mr. President, we've got to get ready and get our campaign
underway here. We can't let these boys sit around too long, because they've
got to move."
He said, "you’re darned right we’ve got to move; we’re all going
to move; we are going to move, and we’re going to win, too." He said,
"We’re going to win."
I said, "Somehow or other I believe you. I believe we’re going to
win."
I must be honest. I didn’t believe it as strongly at that time as I did
later. I’ll tell you when I was convinced he was going to win: The 15th
of October.
HESS: The 15th of October?
CHAPMAN: I was as certain he was going to win that day as anything in
this world.
HESS: What happened on the 15th of October?
CHAPMAN: I was in the West. I was covering the west coast and making
my third coverage. I had made it twice, but I was making the third trip
over the west coast, and there were seven or eight states that I covered,
in which I spent some time with each of the political leaders. Now when
I made my first trip to the West, I couldn't find the national committeemen,
the state chairmen or the county chairmen; they didn't want to be connected
with a loser.
HESS: Was this in June?
CHAPMAN: Yes, one of them. Then there were other trips that I made by
myself. But I couldn't find any of them in town and Truman will be there,
we'll say, Monday night.
HESS: They had appointments elsewhere?
CHAPMAN: Yes, they had appointments somewhere else. But by the 15th of
October I could have gotten anybody to come; "Truman will be here so-and-so,"
and so they'd come down to the meeting. By that time they were looking
me up; I didn't have to call any of them. They were calling me. Now, that
was the difference which I recognized.
On the 15th of October I was leaving the hotel in San Francisco, seeing
a group of people, and they were from down in the central valley. I said,
"You folks, some of you don't think we're going to carry California. You
want to know something, we're going to carry California."
This newspaper fellow on the Times there--he's a columnist, he's
a political writer, very good fellow, and very deep type of man. He said,
"I want an interview with you, and I want one that I can publish after
the election, and I want to say, ‘'This is the interview I had with Oscar
Chapman before election.’"
I said, "All right, I've never done this before, but I'm going to do
it. You've got to promise me that you're going to run it on the front
page, and you promise me that you're going to quote exactly what I say."
He said, "I'll give you my word. I'm going to write it down right now."
He did. He wrote it down on his long pad.
And I said, "Truman is going to win. I'll answer the $64 question first;
he's going to win. Now, you start in and ask me whatever you want."
"Well, you say he's going to win: Is he going to carry New York?"
I said, "No, he's not going to carry New York."
He said, "Is he going to carry California?"
"Yes, he'll carry California."
He said, "By how much?"
I said, "Now, that's stretching it awfully thin. Remember, you've got
two or three million votes in this state, and you're asking me by how
many is he going to carry it by when there is a three-cornered race going
on. But I'll tell you how much he's going to win by. He's going to win
by the number of votes that Henry Wallace lacks in getting 200,000 votes.
And Henry Wallace isn't going to get 200,000 votes; therefore, Truman
is going to carry California."
You know what, I've got this all written down, what we carried California
by. Henry Wallace got about 190,000 votes and we carried it by nearly
18,000.
HESS: That's pretty close, isn't it?
CHAPMAN: You can't get much closer than that.
HESS: You can't get much closer than that.
CHAPMAN: I don't know whether you ever knew Pete [Milburn Peter] Akers
or not? I asked you about that once before. He was out running the Sun-Times
in Chicago. He had been our public relations man in the Department of
the Interior. He was out running the Sun-Times when this came along,
and I stopped off there on my way back to New York; I was going to New
York to really close the show up there. I walked into Paul Fitzpatrick's
office about 5 o'clock in the afternoon; there wasn't a soul in there
but him and his press man, sitting back there with their feet on the desk
reading the paper. Not a stenographer, nobody. This was Friday before
election on the following Tuesday.
Now, just a few nights before that is when I spent the night in Chicago
and saw Pete Akers. I gave Pete Akers, state by state, not only what states
we were going to carry but by how much, and which ones we would lose,
and by how much. I only missed one state.
HESS: Which one was that?
CHAPMAN: It was the craziest thing. I missed the judgment on one state
that I thought we were going to carry, and we didn't. I had it marked
down on our side, but it goes to show you, you've got to do your homework,
and I had done my work in that state to give a real sound opinion about
it, and I hadn't done enough work in there. So, you asked me what state
it was and it's slipped my mind. I was just trying to think what state
that was. We lost it, and I said we would carry it. That's the only one
I missed. I can't remember what state that was. But in 1940 I've got that--my
wife has it all written down, my telegram that I sent back to President
Roosevelt in 1940. I sent a telegram back there to the White House on
Sunday before the election on Tuesday. I had a report on my western states.
I had to handle them, and he wanted an accurate estimate of what .I thought
we were going to carry each state by, or lose it. I started in with the
Midwestern States and we sent this telegram from Portland. We were getting
on the train in Portland and going back to San Francisco, because we were
leaving San Francisco by plane the next day to go to Denver to vote. I
told my wife that I forgot to send this telegram off to Harry Hopkins
and the President, and they wanted a telegram from me giving the states
we were going to carry and by how much. "Oh," she said, "don't stick your
neck out like that because you'll look foolish."
I said, "I would if I didn't know, but I happen to know."
She said, "I have confidence in you, anything that you do politically,
I have confidence in you, but this is too big a gamble for you to take."
I said, "No, it's going to be a gamble but it's one worth taking, and
I'm going to have it on record."
I sent Ed Flynn a telegram regarding the eleven Western States, and--I'll
tell you that state in 1948; it was Colorado. They had figures that Harry
had given me during the day, how much we were going to carry or lose each
of the Western States, and he wanted me to have that before I sent my
telegram off to him that night. They were wrong on half of them. See,
I took this Wallace thing; I analyzed this Wallace thing very carefully,
and having gotten my neck stuck with him in that convention because of
the commitment that I had to carry, I soon learned where Wallace's weaknesses
were.
HESS: What were his weaknesses?
CHAPMAN: His weakness was in communication with people. He just couldn't
communicate. He couldn't communicate with organization people at all.
Now, Truman could. Truman could always have communications with these
people, and that was one of the best things about Mr. Truman--that very
thing, and it was Wallace's weakest point.
You know, Adlai Stevenson had some of the same weakness. You couldn't
get him to communicate with the organization people. They were trying
to disassociate themselves. I want to save that story; this is a very
good story, and Truman told me to go to that convention in Chicago and
go and make Adlai Stevenson announce that he was going to run. "Don't
let them have to draft him," he said. "I want him to say he'll take it
if he's nominated. That's all I want him to say."
But I think that is enough for this morning.
[Top of the Page | Notices
and Restrictions | Interview Transcript
| Additional Chapman Oral History Transcripts]
|
