Truman Library - Robert L. Dennison Oral History Interview, October 6, 1971

Graduate of U.S. Naval Academy, 1923; Assistant Chief of Naval Operations, 1945-47; Commander of the U.S.S. Missouri, 1947-48; Naval Aide to President Harry S. Truman,1948-53; Commander in Chief of the Atlantic Command, Commander of the Atlantic Fleet, and Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic, 1960-63.

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.

Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview.

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HESS: All right, Admiral, before we continue on with where we left off last time, I have a couple of other items I would like to insert. One deals with an item in the Forrestal Diaries, and it's the events surrounding the resignation of Henry Wallace in September of 1946. In the Diaries there's a memo on page 207. It's from John L. Sullivan, who was Under Secretary of the Navy at the time, describing the events of a meeting at the office of the Acting Secretary of State Will [William L,] Clayton.

Now this was a meeting held on September 12th, the day of Wallace's speech in Madison Square Garden, and those at the meeting when it opened were Sullivan, Clayton, James W. Riddleberger (Acting Head of the Division of European Affairs), Loy Henderson (head of the Division of Near and Middle Eastern Affairs), and yourself as Assistant Chief of Naval Operations. Secretary [Robert P.] Patterson came in later in the evening at 6:20, but what do you recall of those events?

DENNISON: I don't remember how Secretary Sullivan and I learned about this speech. Perhaps we read the advance

draft. The grouping in Clayton's office would suggest that Clayton thought this matter within the competence of the State, War and Navy Coordinating Committee. That would account for Sullivan's being there, and my being there as his adviser, and Patterson, and some of the State Department people such as Loy Henderson.

But in any event, Sullivan and I were the only ones who seemed to understand and appreciate how serious this matter was, because obviously if that speech.were delivered it would represent a split between Wallace's views and the foreign policy of the United States. We expressed our views rather vigorously, Sullivan in particular. Patterson didn't seem to understand the importance of this at all. He either didn't understand it, or didn't think anybody was going to pay any attention to what Wallace said.

So, it was Sullivan who called up Charlie Ross to find out if there would be some way to get hold of Wallace and ask him to modify his speech to the extent that it wouldn't contradict U.S. policy. It was late at night, or late in the evening, and time was

running out. I believe that when all this hassle started we were almost up to the time when Wallace was going to speak. I forget what time he actually did speak, and indeed what he did say did represent a wide difference between his views and the views of the Administration.

President Truman had the speech in advance. He obviously had scanned it, probably very superficially, and, he told me, perhaps in the presence of others. I've forgotten. But having had the speech in his hand, he was responsible because he did approve it. His reason was that he trusted Henry Wallace. He couldn't imagine anybody would do the thing that Wallace had intended to do. Wallace felt that he had given it to the President, the President had approved it, so he had an open license. But in any event, I'm sure the President didn't read that speech.

DENNISON: Yes, the President said that he took it in there and handed it to him and left it with him.

HESS: All right. One other point of interest earlier on, before your White House days, was the nomination of Edwin W. Pauley to be Under Secretary of the Navy, and of course that nomination was withdrawn at Pauley's request in March of 1946. What's the story behind the nomination? Why was he nominated?

DENNISON: He was nominated because President Truman was carrying out the wishes of President Roosevelt. Roosevelt had made some kind of a promise to Pauley, or some kind of commitment, which he wasn't able to carry out because of his death. So President Truman looked on this as sort of a legacy, and he carried it out, or tried to. And then Mrs. Roosevelt had, as I recall in the hearings, said that her husband never would have made such a nomination. Roosevelt had written a memorandum addressed to Forrestal saying that he wanted, or intended, to appoint Pauley as some kind of an assistant to relieve, I believe it was [H.] Struve Hansel, although I'm not sure that was who it was, with the idea of later moving him up to be Under Secretary. And Forrestal had said something to Pauley about this.

An interesting point here is that at the time of Forrestal's death when I took the papers from the Defense Department that belonged to Forestal (at least they were his papers), Kate Foley and I went down to Forrestal's home in Georgetown. He had a large number of filing cabinets and in these filing cabinets (we could only take a sampling), were nothing but personal letters, people writing to congratulate him on something, and he'd write back and say, "Thanks very much," mostly trivia. But in the night table beside his bed (and this is all that was in the drawer that I can remember), was this memorandum from Franklin Roosevelt about Pauley. It must have weighed on his conscience. But in any event, he had that memorandum. He thought enough of it not to put it in his papers that he had in the Pentagon nor in his personal files. And I believe this was given to Ed Pauley. I think that he has that document.

And Pauley, being the kind of a man he was, was not about to contradict Mrs. Roosevelt or anybody else about whether or not her husband would have nominated him. And I think that Pauley, like many

of us, wanted some position, not so much for himself as for his family, his children. He certainly behaved like a gentleman in this instance.

HESS: Some historians have said that he was being nominated for Under Secretary to be put in line to take over from Mr. Forrestal as Secretary of the Navy, and that the reason for the apointment was his service with the Democratic National Committee from 1941 to 1945. During that period of time he was Secretary of the Committee, Assistant Treasurer and Treasurer and was well-known for his fundraising activities. Do you think there is anything to that?

DENNISON: Not so far as I know. I mean there could be, but this was not part of President Roosevelt's written intention in any event. And I think President Truman, although he thought very highly of Pauley, never mentioned in my presence anything beyond this nomination to Under Secretary.

He did appoint Pauley to handle the reparations problems in Japan after the war, and in China. And maybe your records show that Artemus Gates and Pauley and I flew to Japan, and later into China, to Chungking, to see Chiang Kai-shek, and left

Pauley out there to wrestle with these problems of reparations. Well, the President trusted him. I think his trust was well-founded, but I know nothing about this plan to make him Secretary of the Navy.

HESS: What were your impressions of conditions in Japan at that time? This was just after the war.

HESS: What were your impressions at the time, of the country, and of the people?

DENNISON: Well, in the first place, this was a trip that Forrestal was supposed to go on. We were to pick up Pauley in Honolulu, which we did; but at the last minute for some reason Forrestal withdrew and turned the job over to Artemus Gates. And we went to Japan. We went into China. We were in Peking, Chungking, Shanghai, and we talked to a great many people, including the Generalissimo.

In Japan we flew over and around Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was a startling sight. Each of these cities was devastated. You could see the shadow cast by buildings in this atomic explosion, which was

rather interesting. It hadn't knocked down some of the more substantial buildings, but the devastation in those two cities was not nearly so terrible as it was in Tokyo because of the fire bombings. There you could look for miles without seeing any chimneys or poles or anything where flimsy dwellings had been.

We landed in some airfield, I've forgotten the name of it, outside of Tokyo. The runways were filled with bomb holes and very few lights. Captain Vosler and I (I don't know what had happened to Gates), were in one car with a driver, a U.S. sailor, who was supposed to drive us to the railway station so we could go into Tokyo. Admiral [J. J.] Ballentine, an old friend of mine, was in Tokyo in charge of some mission or activity. But on the way in from the airfield to the railroad station it became clear that the driver was completely incompetent. He wasn't drunk but he drove as if he were. We went down a little dirt road which was only wide enough for a cart really. He sideswiped some poor Japanese's cart and drove on. On the right was a pretty considerable slope, and he went off the road, the right front wheel first, and then the car started to turn over. I was sitting

on the right hand of the rear seat, the door opened, the car checked, you see, when it hit the mud, and I was thrown out and down the hill. The others were held in the car. It was just dusk, or almost dark, and I looked up (I was not unconscious but I was stunned), to see this damn car turning over and coming down on me. Fortunately, it didn't hit my face. My chin was out. I was too stunned to raise my hand and arms to try to check the car. So I was pinned under the damn thing, fortunately in soft mud, and then the gasoline cap came off of the tank. And I thought, "What a hell of a way to die," after having gone all through the whole war and to have a damn automobile fall on me outside of Tokyo.

The people inside the car had been knocked out. I yelled and started to wriggle out and I said, "For God's sake, stay where you are, because if this thing rolls another few inches why it's going to crush me." And because the ground was soft I was able to squirm out of it.

Well, there we were. We all had 45's and a little bit of luggage and had to find our way to the railroad station. This was so soon afterthe war we had no

idea what the temper of the people would be. We got to the railway .station and we expected almost anything. The Japanese train, of course; was completely surrounded by Japs. Everybody recognized the U.S. uniform, obviously. We didn't know what was going to happen.

Well, what happened was that they realized we didn't know where we were and all we wanted to do was to get to Tokyo, and they couldn't have been more courteous or more helpful. They made sure we got on the right train and the right car and tried to explain to us where to get off, and it was almost beyond belief. There wasn't a trace of animosity or resentment. And it was true in our brief stay in Japan that there didn't seem to be any ill feeling at all. It's their idea that whoever wins is automatically great. But this went beyond just the feeling of you're right and I'm wrong. It was acceptance, graceful acceptance, of the fact that we did win the war, whatever winning meant then, and we were there.

In China it seemed almost unreal. When we flew into Chungking--no, first Peking--(I had been

there a couple of times before the war), the place was a shambles, mainly because the Japanese had let it go to hell, had taken all of the plumbing out of the hotels and things to make shells and weapons. The economy was completely shot. Everything was run down, most of the shops were closed and they were just getting back into business.

I went around to the British tennis club, a very old one that had been very exclusive, typical of British policy (which unfortunately we copied in the Philippines), of not admitting anybody but white people to the club. Japanese, of course, or Chinese, were completely excluded. Well, I thought I'd find this club burned to the ground. Instead of that, nothing had been touched. It was in beautiful condition. You'd think that somebody had used it just the day before. The only thing that was different in that club was in the lobby. There was a plaque that listed through the years the names of the presidents of the club, all, of course, English names. The last name on the plaque was a Japanese name.

DENNISON: And I went around to a shop where I had purchased some stuff before the war, just before the war broke out. I hadn't dealt before with this particular Chinese who was called "Old Friend," but a lot of Navy people had. He had the ability that many Chinese did of taking a catalog of pictures, for example, silver, and duplicating whatever you wanted, a pitcher, flatware or platters or whatnot, in sterling. The workmanship was superb.

So I said, "Well, how much is it?" And he told me. It didn't amount to very much money so I said, "Well, I'll pay you half of it and you send this order to Manila and I'll send you a check for the balance," which I think was $80. The exchange at that time was around twenty Chinese dollars to one U.S. dollar, which was quite high, relatively high, and I said, "What will we do if the rate of exchange changes?"

Old Friend said, "Well, you pay me in Chinese dollars and you take a chance and I take a chance, and we forget about the rate of exchange."

I sent him a check, I got the silver, and then the check never cleared because the war broke out.

So I went around to see Old Friend to pay my debt. The place was all shuttered up, dusty, looked as if nobody was there. I hammered on the door and Old Friend, who lived over his shop, came down, was glad to see me, and asked me up to have a cup of tea. I said, "I've come to pay my bill. How much is it?"

He said, "You'll have to wait for a minute." And pretty soon one of his men came in with a big ledger, all covered with dirt.

He said,"Well, I had to bury all my records because they had so many American names in them that I thought the Japanese might think I was a spy." And he said, "I am just opening up for business."

I said, "Well, look up my account." Well, I owed him sixteen hundred Chinese dollars, something like that. And the exchange then, there wasn't any, you know it was thousands to one. Chinese money was absolutely worthless. I had a lot of

Chinese dollars in my pocket and I was about to pay him (so he thought), sixteen hundred dollars, which was nothing. And when I saw that he was taking me seriously, that he intended to live up to his word, I said, "Now this is ridiculous. Neither one of us could foresee this kind of a catastrophe. So I'll pay in U.S. dollars what I would have paid you before the war."

Well, that was real riches to have U.S. dollars. But I owed him that much money and I insisted he take it, and then I said, "I'd like to buy something. How about some carved ivory?"

He said, "Well, I don't know how much ivory is. I'll have to send somebody out to find out how much it would cost me to replace this ivory."

A man went out and came back in a little while and.told Old Friend something, and then Old Friend told me, "I can't sell you anything, because it isn't worth what I would have to ask for it, and furthermore I don't have any silversmiths or ivory carvers any more. They are all out pulling rickshaws. I don't know what I'm going to do."

No, he wouldn't let me do it. So then he gave me a beautiful carved rose quartz flask about three or four inches high.

But all this hasn't very much to do with what went on after the war, except to give you some idea of a few little facets of what life was like in China and Japan.

We did go to Chungking. This really was unreal. The idea was to talk to Chiang Kai-shek and some of his officials about reparations, mainly. We stayed at the palace compound. Chiang Kai-shek was living in what had been Sun Yat-sen's summer residence, but he had built in the compound several other buildings to house guests and his staff. We were all distributed among the two or three buildings around the palace. I was assigned a Chinese general as an escort. He had been in our country and spoke fluent English. The place where I stayed was absolutely crazy. It was two stories. The big central part of it had a fireplace at one end and a balcony all the way around it, with very narrow stairs going up

to it. Then off of this balcony were bedrooms and bathrooms. Back of the fireplace was a library. This central hall was tremendous. The library was about as large as this table we're sitting at. The stairs going up to the balcony were extremely narrow. So was the balcony. The bedrooms were minute and the bathrooms were tremendous. I said to the General, "What kind of a crazy design is this?"

He said, "Well, Chiang Kai-shek pulled out a pad and drew a sketch of the way he wanted these buildings, and the architects took their rules and laid this out exactly to scale."

Well, he had a banquet with some of his cabinet and Pauley and Gates and me, and then we met with Chiang Kai-shek and Madame, and an interpreter. The conversation got pretty deep and went into other things besides reparations. Finally Chiang Kai-shek threw the interpreter out and then Madame Chiang Kai-shek took over. She spoke with a great deal of eloquence and emotion. She was really extremely impressive. And looking back, it may have been a touch

of theater, but it really came through. She quoted facts and figures and one thing and another. Even Chiang Kai-shek was entranced by this performance. In the middle of the recital of some of these figures he broke in and corrected her Of course, we knew that he must understand English, but he wasn't about to admit it.

She said one thing that was quite touching. She said, "China can never be compensated for its lost youth," which of course is true, tragically true, in a good many countries.

HESS: What was their view on reparations? Did they want exorbitantly high reparations from the Japanese?

DENNISON: I don't--I got the impression--I mean it's been so long ago and I don't have a record of that, Pauley's papers must show it. They really didn't know what they wanted in anywhere near precise terms, because they didn't know, had no way of knowing, what any kind of compensation should be. They didn't know how much damage the country had suffered or what they needed. So I really don't know exactly what they were after, except that this was too soon after the war really to know, particularly sitting up at

DENNISON: Well, this was not the responsibility of Gates or me. This was entirely up to Pauley. We left Pauley there. He hadn't had time to really get down to pencil and paper and find out, number one, what was Japan's capability to pay anything. Remember Japan had been beaten to her knees, so her economy was absolutely shot. And some of us, including me, had felt that she was beaten well before the dropping of the atomic bomb and that certainly there would be no need for invasion. But it could also be shown that there was a loss of acreage in Japan, that she couldn't possibly raise enough rice to feed the people, let alone develop any kind of an economy. They depended for fuel on countries outside of Japan, notably Southeast Asia. That's why they started out for Southeast Asia in the first place.

So the ability to pay, before we got into this massive aid business, was almost negligible. To my mind, discussing reparations at that particular stage of the game was almost an academic exercise,

no matter what China needed or wanted. Even to talk about figures would be really dreaming. Now what Pauley finally reported I have no idea. But I'm sure that must be a,matter of record someplace.

DENNISON: Well, they had to do with disposition of Chiang Kai-shek's troops and tried to give the President a picture of what North China looked like, the relative distances between say Tientsin and Peking. It was crazy--I mean that part of the world--because when we went by train up to Peking in the various stations we found Japanese soldiers, Chinese soldiers, in some places U.S. Marines, all in the same group in these various important points. They weren't doing anything. They certainly weren't fighting each other. Everybody had quit fighting, and here they were all getting along just like pals.

Then later, of course, and not too long later, there was a great clamor because our Marines were riding trains down from Chinwantao to Tientsin, I believe, and they were shot at. I don't think they were shot at because they were U.S. Marines. I just

think there were a lot of bandits around that were shooting at anything like a train.

We were in the Shantung Peninsula. That was the Marine headquarters, and we could have stayed there until hell froze over. Nobody could possibly have thrown us out because we had a considerable naval force there and the position was such that they could only reach us by going over a long, narrow-necked peninsula. The whole course of history would have been changed had we just maintained a presence there. But remember, this was the time of the formation of the United Nations and our State Department was leaning over backwards to do nothing that would indicate that we were walking away from the Atlantic Charter. So it was a tragic mistake. But this was one of the things that we showed the President--where our forces were--and gave him some explanation about the feasibility of maintaining this position.

DENNISON: As I remember, he didn't comment very much at all. He may have asked a few questions but I wasn't sure that we had really gotten through to him on this

point about policy. I mean, obviously, as far as I was concerned I was talking as a professional military man. And when I bore down as heavily as I could on providing him with enough background so that if there were a policy decision to stay there it could be made with the belief that strategically and militarily it was completely sound.

HESS: In your opinion, what was Mr. Truman's level of understanding of strategic international politics about this time in his career?

DENNISON: Well, at that particular juncture, remember this was still back in 1945, and this is a long look backwards, I think he was learning and I think it was very much like the same situation that faced President Kennedy when he took over the terrible Bay of Pigs responsibility. He had inherited, or thought he had, a lot of things from the previous administration, not necessarily political commitments, but strategic commitments. You see, Potsdam was President Truman's first appearance in this particular arena, and here was Roosevelt going through this whole string of conferences. Admiral Leahy was invaluable to President Truman because he had been there at

And about the invasion of Japan, for example, one of Roosevelt's great concerns was how many casualties we would suffer. I was then, as you know, on the Joint War Plans Committee, and sat through some sessions of the Joint Chiefs of Staff where this was discussed. Leahy would transmit this kind of a question to the Chiefs. Well, the estimates ranged from a complete slaughter of our forces to no problems at all. The invasion of Japan had to be done within a very narrow bracket of dates on account of weather. Either we did it then or we didn't do it for months. I forget the critical dates. I think they were some time in October.

HESS: The code name for that proposed invasion was Olympic Coronet, if I recall correctly.

DENNISON: Well, I had forgotten that. But it started with an invasion of Kyushu, as you remember.

DENNISON: Yes. And as it turned out it was completely unnecessary. But the orders were to mount this operation whether we were going to do it or not, because if you weren't ready you couldn’t just decide

at the last minute to do it. It was a tremendous undertaking and thankfully it never came off.

But to get back to when the war was on, and this may be a Navy viewpoint, but Leahy believed firmly, and so did a good many of us, that Japan was on her knees because she had no oil. She was completely cut off. The food problem was acute and they had to cave in. We didn't have to bomb them. We didn't have to invade them.

DENNISON: No, I don't, but perhaps for a different reason than you may be thinking. It probably had a long term effect that would never have occurred if other means had been used to give dramatic evidence of how overwhelming this weapon was. And remember we're only talking about 18 thousand kilotons, not megatons. But had we not done it, no amount of test firing, pictures and what not, could ever have driven home the lesson of how devastating a weapon this was and the great need to control it, or maybe someday eliminate it.

So, for that reason, I think that it was a wise decision. I think also this was a case where there had been so much momentum built up that President Truman

felt that this decision was almost inevitable. Now I wasn't with him when he made that decision so I don't know. I never asked him what led up to it. I was with him when he made the decision to proceed with the development of the H-bomb, which was a different matter, but an extremely courageous and wise decision.

I don't know, but the dropping of these bombs, although militarily unnecessary, turned into a demonstration that the world damn well had to have and maybe he was farsighted enough to see this.

HESS: You mentioned the H-bomb. There were quite a few people against that. Several of the people on the Atomic Energy Commission themselves did not think the bomb should be developed. Some of them on the Atomic Energy Commission, I believe Admiral Strauss for one, thought that it should be. What do you recall about that decision and the pressures on both sides?

DENNISON: Well, there was a great deal of discussion on this point, and the President had some competent advisers on opposite sides. This may be over-simplification, but the people who said we shouldn't

go ahead with it were saying that it would take a baggage car to carry the damn thing, that you couldn't deliver it, it had to be too big, we didn’t have any idea of building any delivery vehicle because you couldn't with such a massive thing, it was just impractical and probably wouldn't work anyhow.

There were no arguments on the strategic side that the thing was not desirable. It was all based on infeasibility. The thing wouldn't work, or you couldn't deliver it, or it's too big, too heavy, or too something. The other side pointed out, and this was just one of the reasonings that President Truman followed, that if we didn't do this, and they felt it could be done, we were going to lose the race before it began because the Soviets surely would develop it.

And again he did some real soul-searching on this one. He held a press conference, released a statement, and explained why he did it, in very simple but very clear terms. I got a copy of this statement and it had this one paragraph typed out where he gave his reasons for doing it, based entirely on national security, and it appeared to be a gamble

because here were these eminent scientists saying it's ridiculous. But it wasn't a capricious decision, believe me. I took this in to the President and said, "Mr. President, I have never done this before, and I promise you never to do it again, but I think this is so significant, would you mind signing this?" And he did and gave it back to me. I gave it to the Naval Academy museum, I think. But this was an extremely courageous decision because the people who had views didn't base them on political reasons at all. They were basing them on scientific background and beliefs, and these were all reputable people. Nobody had any axe to grind or selfish interests anywhere.

The A-bomb decision, of course, was made, as I recall, aboard the Augusta, at sea.

The other decision was made in his office at the White House. But Bohlen, who was an Ambassador and is now retired, was at many of these conferences, including Potsdam. And I've heard the President and others tell so often about a discussion that came up where Churchill or somebody was pointing out the tremendous influence of the Catholic Church on some of

the strategies we might wish to adopt. Stalin, according to President Truman and others, was supposed to have said, "How many divisions has the Pope?" Well, I asked Bohlen once, "Please tell me, I've heard this so often, exactly what was the context, why was it said, and all about it."

And Bohlen said, "Well, Bob, it never happened." He said, "I was there every minute of every conversation and it just never happened."

DENNISON: Yes. It was a hell of a good story anyhow, but I don't know where the President picked it up.

HESS: You mentioned there was some discussion as to whether the bomb would work. I believe Admiral Leahy didn't think the atomic bomb would work. Have you ever heard that?

DENNISON: Oh yes, I know that. No, he didn't think it would because--as he said in his own book, I Was There--he was basing this opinion on his experience in ordnance.

DENNISON: Yes. But this was a different field and it wasn't the kind of explosives that he knew much about. No, he was convinced that this thing was a dream. It

HESS: All right. At the conclusion of our last session we were discussing Mr. Truman's victory in 1948. What was the atmosphere around the White House in the few days following that election? Mr. Truman went down to Key West and he was at Key West from the 7th to the 21st. Were you back at the White House between the election and the time that you left for Key West, do you recall? I think that the election was on the 2nd.

DENNISON: Oh, I think I had to be. There wouldn't be any other place because I was with the President when he went to Key West, and I was in Washington when the election occurred. As a matter of fact, I.had lunch the day after at the Carlton Club. The members of that club are practically one hundred percent Republican.

DENNISON: Well, if I had wanted to bet and make money, I could have gotten odds of a hundred to one that President Truman wasn't going to be elected.

DENNISON: I could certainly tell these men were wealthy. I didn't have any money, but I could have bet maybe a couple of hundred dollars. But I just didn't like to bet because I really knew that he was going to be elected. I felt I would be betting on a sure thing. But when I went into the lobby of the hotel where the club met, here was this edition of the Chicago Tribune.

DENNISON: Yes, and I got one and took it up to the club. Well, God, they couldn't believe that Truman had won. By that time it was certain. I mean he had been elected.

HESS: Showing them an issue like that was more or less like rubbing salt in the wounds, was it not?

DENNISON: Oh, kind of a dirty trick, but they had been picking on me for so long about my being a Democrat. Hell, I'd never voted while I was in the Navy. But I was sure when I did vote I would vote for the Democratic Party because of President Truman.

HESS: What was the atmosphere in Key West when you arrived down there? Was it any different from any of the other trips? Was Mr. Truman more elated, more relaxed?

DENNISON: No. I told you about this talk we had aboard the Williamsburg, I think, before he went back to vote.

DENNISON: Yes. As he said, "I'm elected." And he told me then, too, just to refresh your memory, that he wasn't concerned about being elected. He was concerned about the terrible four years ahead. So he didn't feel jubilant or relaxed. He had been working like hell. It was no surprise to him that he was elected. It wasn't, "Oh, gee," I mean, "All of a sudden I'm President of the United States." I don't know what the rest of the staff thought, but I think they must have thought very much as I did, that this was inevitable. It wasn't some startling present out of the blue. So far as I can remember there was no difference in that particular trip than any other he made.

HESS: We have Commander William Rigdon's logs and among the people who came down later were the new Vice President [Alben] Barkley, Leslie Biffle, J. Howard McGrath, William Boyle and Mon Walgren. Do you

DENNISON: Oh, yes. And remember it was an interesting list because it was pretty heavily loaded on the political side. All of them were political friends of Truman.

HESS: All right. About Key West in general, just how was business conducted when you were at Key West, not only on this trip but on all trips? What was the procedure in Key West?

DENNISON: Our visits at Key West really followed a pattern. The President was quite methodical. He wanted a routine. He wanted the same thing done every time--the same time every day...

DENNISON: So that's why it is difficult to recall these individual visits because they were all in the same pattern. I think I have told you, maybe I haven't, about the illusion he had that this was a great holiday. Have I gone into that with you?

HESS: I don't think so. We may have off the tape, but I don't believe we have it on tape.

We couldn't see the water because of the administration building in front of it. The grounds were fairly large. We weren't hemmed in, but we were completely protected, or he was, being in a naval base. Access was completely controlled and the press were housed some distance away. He wanted to put on a sport shirt the minute he got there. He was on a vacation. He didn't bring down any personal secretaries. Rose [Conway] never went. My Chief Yeoman, who in the end was with me something like thirteen years, took all his dictation, did all his work for him. He was completely trustworthy and, of course, the President knew that. He wasn't ever going to open his mouth, not even to me. I'd have shot him if he ever tried. I don't think he ever would try.

DENNISON: His name was Bernace L. Winkler, Chief Yeoman. He's now retired and working in Saigon for Standard of New Jersey. He is a fine man. Except for me, with Winkler, nobody had any secretaries down there so we didn't have instant communications anywhere. We had our own switchboard. A lot of business had to be done by telephone and we had to work like hell

and still not give the appearance of working, because the President didn't want that. So it really was hell for all of us but we had our reward in knowing that he was really having a great time.

I remember one trip that we made by sea in the Williamsburg. As soon as we got aboard, the President's holiday began. He was a hell of a poor sailor, but the weather was good. It had been predicted good and was good. So we cruised down to Key West. One time the President came out on the afterdeck and saw Wallace Graham with a table full of papers and books, working like hell, writing things in longhand. And the President did something that really shocked everybody. It was, it seemed to us, so uncharacteristic. He walked over to the table, picked up this load of papers and threw the whole thing over the rail. I wish I had a picture of Graham's face.

DENNISON: He just gasped. I think he finally came out with, "Oh, Mr. President!" But if we needed any further instruction that gave us the word that by God as far as he was concerned this was a vacation. But it was an illusion, and it's one that we tried

Just to show you the pattern, every morning at whatever time it was, I think 10:30, everybody would walk down to.the beach to go swimming. And our meals were exactly at the same time every day. It was a military routine. Well, of course, my whole life has been in that pattern and it doesn't bother me a bit. I prefer it that way myself. And then he loved to play cards, and I don't know how many thousands of dollars passed across that poker table.

In fact, the game we played was a strange one. In the first place, the President never won. He didn't want to take money from his staff. He was an excellent poker player, but he never played that way. He always stayed until the last card. He always wanted to be in on every hand. When we went down there we'd each put $50 or $75 in the pot and we'd get chips. We'd play a $2 limit so you could lose your stack pretty fast. But when you lost your initial stake the banker (we took turns being banker), who had been taking chips out of the pot every hand, would give you $10. If you lost that you'd get another $10 which you didn't have to pay back. So all the

amount of money that went back and forth across the table in the end represented only $50 or $75 per person. Well, at the end of these games, maybe two weeks or ten days or whatever, I don't think anybody ever won or lost more than $30, except the President. Maybe he had $10 when he ended up because everybody got that when they lost everything.

HESS: I believe that you've been instrumental in the last few weeks in obtaining that table for the Truman Library. Is that right?

DENNISON: Well, I hope so. I have the promise that it's on its way, but I haven't checked into it lately.

DENNISON: Yes. But the thing that makes it possible, I imagine, is because, as I understand it, they're closing that base. But I haven't checked into it lately. I hope it's on its way because the President got so much pleasure around that table. And it wasn't playing cards for money. It was a friendly session. Everybody played as if they were playing for a hell of a lot of money, except the President, and he didn't throw money away. He just stayed on foolish hands and

then in stud games he always wanted to see the last card unless the hand was hopeless.

HESS: Did you go with the President on his trips to Shangri-La and also aboard the Williamsburg usually?

DENNISON: Yes, always, because--and remember, obviously the Williamsburg was part of the Navy installation and so was Shangri-La run by the Navy and both were really command posts.

HESS: I understand one time Commander Rigdon had to get his boys to cut down some of the trees up there and, as he told me, it was a rather odd task for sailors, but he had them do it anyway.

DENNISON: Well, the reason back of it was that Roosevelt had had this setup and it is an odd place for sailors. Sailors are pretty talented--some of them, most of them--and they can do anything.

DENNISON: You're so right. Incidentally, Shangri-La is not just one place. It's a series of small cabins and they are related to some project of Roosevelt's having to do with national parks or something like that. The main cabin was three or four of these smaller ones put together to make a galley, a

living room and, as I recall it, four bedrooms and two or three baths, not large. The elevation is somewhere around 1800 feet so it was cooler than the valley floor. We had a pool but it wasn't heated and the water was icy cold. But the cabin was a miserable place because there was no outside terrace. The trees were grown up so you couldn't see anything. You looked into a dense bank of foliage.You couldn 't breathe in it. So I asked the President if he would mind if I changed it a little bit.

And, as usual, he said, "Sure, go ahead." so I had them strip out all the underbrush and open the place up. We put in a terrace so you could sit out there and look over this beautiful valley, and we opened up the front of the property so we had quite a large lawn down to the edge of trees that you could look over from where you sat. It was delightful. We did quite a bit of, you wouldn't call it landscaping, but clearing out underbrush and all that kind of stuff to open it up.

The President didn't use Shangri-La nearly as much as he did the Williamsburg, but quite a bit. He was extremely generous and if any of the staff

wanted to use it for a weekend or something, they'd come and tell me. The President had already told me that anybody who wanted to use it (any of the staff, not anybody), it would be fine with him.

HESS: Did President Truman also like to play cards at Shangri-La and aboard the Williamsburg?

DENNISON: Not to my knowledge. I doubt very much if he did. He didn't play golf. He had no interests whatever except playing cards and walking. He was a terrible swimmer and, of course, he wore his trifocals in the water, which just shook me the first time I saw that. He loved to get in the water. We used to go down the Potomac and anchor at the mouth and everybody went swimming. We did that many times. He did a great deal of reading (I forgot to say that's another interest he had). I never saw a man who read more than he did and I certainly never saw anybody who remembered more of what he read than he did.

but he took me on trips in the Williamsburg when he did play poker for high stakes. .He wouldn't let me play because he said I couldn't afford it, and he was so right. He played a really stupid game. It wasn't terribly stupid, but he never won. I'd scold him a little bit and say, "You're really such a good poker player, why don't you win occasionally?"

He said, "Well, how can I invite my friends down to play cards with me and then take their money?" He said, "I can't do that."

I said, "Well, for God's sake, don't make it so apparent that you're not trying."

DENNISON: But I was allowed to participate in one thing and I made quite a bit of money on that. Before they played, everybody made out a list of the order in which he thought people would finish. It was who was the greatest winner and who was the greatest loser. Symington and Clark Clifford (usually those two were tops), really played a wonderful game of poker. They were great people to play with, but they really knew that game and played it very well. Vinson played almost as bad a game as President Truman,

and Clinton Anderson, and a few others in between. Well, invariably all these men, when they put in their list, would put down the President as number one, two or three. Well, he never was anyplace near that.

So I'd be more realistic and figure out which one was going to be worse, Vinson or President Truman, and put them down at the bottom, and then the only other choice I'd have to make was which was going to be better that night, Clifford or Symington. So I'd make out my list and I knew--I'd watched these people play so often that I knew pretty much how they were going to come out and I don't think I ever lost. We each put in $10. The President liked to have seven in the game. I think five or six is better, but he didn't, and it was his game. So I'd win $70 every trip.

But he did this on weekends and this was an illusion too. The reason that I was along was not to play cards, but again, to stand between him and communications. The Williamsburg was really a floating command post and somebody had to be there, somebody trusted, to handle matters. Of course, he knew that

we had this communications facility and that it was a good one. It had to be, and it was tied in to part of our emergency planning of "where does the Government go in case of an atomic attack?"

I had to do with the Executive Office, or Executive Department plans, related to the President. Dave Stowe was the head man in arranging for all the other departments. We had places all over the countryside for various parts of our Government to go. Greenbriar, for example, tied into where Congress would go, not the executive branch, obviously, and we had a very sophisticated, for that time, microwave communications link all over the place. There was a bomb shelter in the White House and I had to do with that.

HESS: Were you also in charge of what records would be removed from the White House and taken to wherever the President was going to go?

DENNISON: Oh, I suppose I was because there was nobody else to do it. The problem in any of these temporary command posts was to have facilities for the President to communicate on some kind of a broadcasting system--television if you could do it--and radio certainly. The laying of cables and all of these

matters was a very, very complicated problem, and also the interconnection between the President, the Vice President and the Cabinet. This had to be pretty secure and pretty good. But we had the Williamsburg. We had railway trains on either side of the river and plenty of automobiles. We had a number of different options for evacuation. I was appointed by the President to handle this end of it. We had as sophisticated a plan as we could conceive, and I worked quite closely with Stowe, of course, and on paper our plans looked pretty good. We never had a drill because it would have thrown the country into a complete uproar if the whole damn Government had moved out of Washington.

But one day the President told me something which is so characteristic of him. He said, "Of course, you've got to go ahead with all of this planning and all of these arrangements, but I want to tell you one thing. If a situation ever develops where execution seems to be indicated, I don't intend to leave the White House." He said, "I am going to be right here."

He said, "I would like to be as sure as I can that there's some way that I can get on the air to talk to the people of the United States, to assure them that I am here, that I'm not up in the hills some place, and to tell them what I can of the situation." Of course, I never told anybody that because we had to take this.planning seriously.

HESS: Was it ever discussed with President Truman that it might have been the best thing for him to leave town?

DENNISON: Look, I knew President Truman better than that. Actually, there was no point in my ever bringing up that subject, to say, "I believe that you, as Commander in Chief, ought to be protected." In his mind, and I'm not one to say that he's wrong, the primary requirement was for the people of this country to realize that he was not going to run any place, that he was doing business so long as he could, right where he always had. If he survived the first attack, fine. If he didn't, the whole thing was academic anyhow, but if he did the chances were that there wouldn't be a recurring attack, at least so we thought in those days. Even now I doubt, if this horrible thing ever came to pass,

that there would be waves of attack on the same target. I don't think it would be necessary. The lethal radius of these hydrogen bombs is tremendous.

But at any rate, that's the way he believed, and by God, you had better believe along with him.

HESS: Where were the points out of town that had been selected for him to move to?

DENNISON: Well, Shangri-La was one. The Williamsburg, of course, was another. Those are the only two in this area. We had other places. I've forgotten now where they were, probably the Homestead, or some place like that. But it was a very complete plan, and of course, if you're interested in that, the whole executive branch part of it, Dave Stowe has it.

I had a tape, which I think I sent to the Truman Library, of a briefing that Stowe gave, and if I recall it's based in part on my part of this plan. I was there anyhow, and I think that's in the Truman Library. It's a seven inch reel or whatever the standard size is.

But all these plans of moving by train or by car, or by ship, or whatever, really didn't appeal

Well, nobody was going to leave him in the White House, but he wanted to be sure that somewhere, somehow, the Government was going to continue. But as far as he was concerned, he looked on himself as being expendable, provided the machinery for operating the Government still existed somewhere.

HESS: In several of the interviews I have had, I've heard something like the following: "Even though Admiral Dennison was the President's Naval Aide, he did not confine himself to merely the duties of that office, but was very helpful to Mr. Truman as an all around adviser, particularly in the field of foreign affairs." Do you think that's a fair appraisal?

DENNISON: I find a couple of things wrong with it. In the first place, you mentioned my confining myself or not confining myself. I never volunteered anything. Any lack of confinement was doing exactly what the President wanted. When Admiral Leahy left and I took over the receipt of all of the papers he was getting from the Atomic Energy Commission, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Department of State, and other agencies,

I didn't assume his principal role as adviser to the President. After all, he was Chief of Staff. I wasn't. So I looked on myself more as a means of communication than anything else. Obviously the President couldn't get this mass of stuff that came into the White House every day and make any sense out of it. So I'd have to select those things that I realized were important enough to be brought to his attention to keep him informed.

Now, other than that he would ask me occasionally for my views on something, and advising the President is a pretty touchy thing because everybody, including myself, is bound to be influenced by personal prejudices or feelings. And when you talk to a President you had better know what you're talking about or say you don't, if you don't. I never had anything to do with politics, number one. And in the field of foreign affairs he had people who were real experts whom he trusted, such as Acheson, who was very close. So it would be presumptuous of me to ever volunteer anything. I never looked on myself as an adviser to the President in these matters.

I'm supposed to be an expert in that field, and I have, in that field and related fields, been consulted by him and he acted in almost every instance in accordance with my recommendations to him. But foreign affairs are a different matter. Sure, I know something about foreign affairs, or did. That's not to say I was an authority like Acheson.

So, number one, I never volunteered in fields I had no expertise in, and never looked on myself as being an adviser. A friend, yes. I feel that the President and I worked closely. It took me two years before he really trusted me, not that he distrusted me, but he just didn't know me well enough, nor did I know him. He had this impenetrable shell that he put around himself that was almost impossible to break through. You couldn't break through it. I mean he had to take you into his confidence. You couldn't break in. It would have been stupid to try.

HESS: Did he often ask your advice on matters of foreign policy, foreign affairs?

DENNISON: Rarely. Sometimes he'd pull my leg when we were talking on political matters with other people by asking me for my non-political advice on the matters

HESS: You told me one time about an incident involving General Bradley and the morning reports, the morning security reports.

DENNISON: Now this is typical of two things; one, General Bradley's attitude, and two, the President's. Shortly before Admiral Leahy left the President called both of us in and explained exactly what he wanted; namely, that all the letters, dispatches, documents, anything that Admiral Leahy had been getting from all sources, some of them very, very highly classified, were to come to me. General Bradley had become, by law, first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He didn't know me. I certainly didn't know him. We were in different theaters during the war. He wondered why a naval officer would be put in this position of briefing the President on what the Joint Chiefs of Staff were doing--not only a naval officer, but a very junior one. Naturally he didn't think it was a good idea.

So he came to see the President and the President sent for me. The General pointed out that he was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, it was his responsibility to keep the President informed, and

this he would do, with the President's permission. Well, the President said, "Well, fine. Why don't you and Bob go into the Cabinet Room and come to some kind of an agreement and come back and tell me what it is?"

We did and it turned out that Bradley would see to it that I got all the politico-military information, and all the intelligence and things like that, but on military matters he and he alone would advise the President, or inform him.

So things went along for a couple of weeks. He sent for me one day, and he didn't scold me, but as always he was very, very gentle--too gentle. He had read something in the morning newspaper about Korea, on what was going on, and said, "How does it happen that I didn't know about this?"

And I said, "Well, I didn't know about it either until I read about it in the paper." I said, "Don't you remember the agreement that we had with General Bradley?"

Well, of course it did. This time he sent for me and said, "Please call General Bradley and come in here with him when he comes."

So we went in and sat down. Bradley knew what was coming and he apologized. Well, it turned out exactly as anybody could have foreseen. You just can't drop in and talk to the President. You've got to have an appointment and all that. I could get in any time between appointments, or if it was a matter of urgency even if he had one. But if you're over in the Pentagon you can't do that. Not only was the President extremely busy, but so was General Bradley. There was so much going on and information just fell by the wayside. The President said, "Well, why don't we go back to the system we had before we had this arrangement?" In the meantime Bradley had found out that I wasn't motivated by anything except serving the President, and he readily agreed, so we fell out and fell back in where we were when we started the whole thing.

HESS: Earlier, before we started, you told me an interesting incident about the time that Louis Johnson took over as Secretary of Defense, cancelled the

contract for the U.S.S. United States, and John Sullivan resigned. Would you repeat that again for the tape, about John Sullivan's resignation?

DENNISON: Well, when this announcement was made by Secretary Johnson that the contract to build the U.S.S. United States, which was going to be a large aircraft carrier, was cancelled, Sullivan hadn't been consulted about it. He was in Texas making a speech when he learned about it, I think through the press. He came back to Washington and was absolutely infuriated. He called me at the White House and asked me to come down to his office. As I recall, it was about 6 o'clock or so in the evening. Several other people were in his office. I've forgotten who they were. Perhaps Marx Leva was one. He had been waiting to dictate to Kate Foley, and the minute I came in and sat down he started. Well, this was a letter of resignation addressed to the President, and it was a pretty strong letter.

The President had no part in this decision of Johnson's. I don't know exactly why Johnson made it. Perhaps it was because of budgetary considerations, but whatever the reason, Sullivan hadn't been informed

or consulted. There was something wrong with all of this, it seemed to me. I went into his outer office and called up Ross, and I forget whether Charlie came down or whether he talked to Sullivan on the phone. At any rate, he told Sullivan that he should not, or could not, send such a letter to the President, that if he was going to resign he should send a letter to Louie Johnson. Sullivan pointed out that Johnson hadn't appointed him. He was appointed by the President, which was certainly true.

Well, he was finally convinced that regardless of the legality of it, he could not send this to the President because, as Ross and I both pointed out, the President and Sullivan were good friends and nothing should happen to interfere with their personal relationship. This letter was bound to become public, and would represent a split between Sullivan and the President the way it was phrased. So Sullivan did resign to Johnson and then, of course, he must have had some kind of personal communication with the President. I didn't see whatever letter he wrote to him. But anyway the thing was irreversible. He

couldn't stay on. He didn't impair any relationship he had with the administration. He came out of it about as well as he could expect to, except of course we didn't get the U.S.S. United States.

HESS: How much responsibility should be borne by Louis Johnson for the reduction in the armed forces at this time, and for the cancellation of the aircraft carrier? Was that his action, or was it just something that was inescapable for him because of the budget limitations (and the Director of the Bureau of the Budget at that time, I believe, was James Webb), because of the limitations of the money and the finances that were given to the Pentagon?

DENNISON: Well, remember I was in the White House. I wasn't in the Pentagon, so I don't know what the budget figures were or whether this was indeed a factor. But it appeared from the way Johnson made these decisions, for example this one we've just been talking about, that if the decision were indicated by financial pressure of some kind, Sullivan should have been told about it. I just can't believe that the budget all of a sudden appeared and there wasn't enough money for the carrier. Obviously the preparation of the budget is a pretty tough operation. But

in these decisions that Johnson made he gave me the impression of being arbitrary. He was the one who was doing this. The damned armed forces were too greedy and he was very much opposed to the Navy. The Navy was really a terrible outfit because they were anti-unification, the whole damn Navy. His prejudices were very strong.

Well, I don't know how much he was influenced by considerations other than his own judgment, but without knowing in detail exactly what these prejudices were, I certainly had the impression that they were 99.99 percent Louis Johnson.

The case about the veterans hospital, or the naval hospital, is a similar kind of a decision where he decided to close down a hospital without any regard for the impact it would have on anything else encept that one particular hospital. The impact, of course, was tremendous. We discussed this earlier.

HESS: We're just about down to the end of this reel of tape; do you have anything else you would like to cover this afternoon?

February of 1949 we were living in the Westchester Apartments in Washington. We invited a small group of friends, including President and Mrs. Truman and Margaret. There were no photographers or reporters present and I had deliberately not advised the management that the President would attend. Quite understandably they were thrown into complete confusion when the advance guard of Secret Service showed up before the ceremony and when the President and his family left quite a crowd had gathered just to see him.

Our son's Godmother was Jane [Mrs. John B.] Veach. She was born in Pennsylvania, as was her husband. John and I grew up together until our ways parted when he went to Yale and I to the Naval Academy.

Jane Veach and Mrs. Truman had worked together side by side in the US0 here in Washington, washing dishes and doing similar jobs. They became friends in spite of the fact that Jane was a dyed-in-the-wool Republican.

After the simple but dignified Episcopalian ceremony by a Naval Chaplain, Mrs. Truman drew me aside to ask why Jane Veach was Robert's Godmother.

I knew exactly what she had in mind so I told her that Jane's father had taken my mother to her first dance. Mrs. Truman's typical response was, "Well, I guess that takes care of that."

Mrs. Truman was one of the most honest and most kind persons I ever knew. She was strictly a no-nonsense type although she had a good sense of humor. Several times after a large reception the Trumans and the Aides who assisted would go up to the President's library for a sandwich and a cup of coffee. Mrs. Truman's hand was so swollen she would have to keep it immersed in warm water, but she never complained. She never seemed to master the President's technique of shaking hands to avoid crushing handclasps of people he was greeting. His technique was to push his hand in as far as possible and grip first. In this position it was impossible for the other person to grip hard.

I also remember one particularly trying day in Missouri in mid-summer. This was an occasion at an open air ceremony under the blazing sun in a dead calm. The ceremony seemed endless and was almost unbearable. I was sitting next to Mrs. Truman and

apparently she sensed my distress and whispered to me not to think ahead but to think only of what was happening at this particular moment. This was her formula for enduring almost anything.

Oral History Interview with Admiral Robert L. Dennison

Oral History Interview with
Admiral Robert L. Dennison