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Samuel A. Montague Oral History Interview

 

Oral History Interview with
Samuel A. Montague

Public Relations, Department of Agriculture Joint Commission in Mexico, 1948-50; Embassy Attaché, American Embassy, Mexico City, 1950-52; ran public relations firm, Mexico City, 1950-56; Special Projects Director, Hallmark Corporation, 1959-63; joined Potts, Woodbury Advertising Firm 1963; Director of Tourism for Kansas City 1963- .

Independence, Missouri
October 30, 1992
by Niel M. Johnson

[|Notices and Restrictions | Interview Transcript | Appendix | List of Subjects Discussed]

 


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.

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 It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.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 September, 1994
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

 

[Top of the Page |Notices and Restrictions | Interview Transcript | Appendix | List of Subjects Discussed]]

 



Oral History Interview with
Samuel A. Montague

 

Independence, Missouri
October 30, 1992
by Niel M. Johnson

Mr. Montague discusses his work in public relations and his background as a journalist and photographer. Other topics mentioned include the New York World's Fair, 1940; Louisiana State University; the University of Missouri School of Journalism; Dearborn, Michigan; the Panama Canal Zone; Bandera, Texas; public relations work in Mexico; the Press Congress of the World; the People-to-People Program; the Advertising Club of New York; the Hall Foundation; the Hallmark Corporation; the rededication of the Liberty Memorial Hall; the Sixteenth Anniversary of the United States Air Force; the Potts, Woodbury Advertising firm; and the Kansas City Tourism Commission.

Names mentioned by Mr. Montague include: Harry Darby, Bob Adams, Ilus Davis, Huey Long, Miguel Aleman, Dwight Eisenhower, Conger Reynolds, Walter Williams, Richard Nixon, Harry S. Truman, Inez Robb, John Colt, Joyce Hall, Roy Roberts, Henry Talge, Nathan Stark, Carl Spaatz, Rufus Burrus, Gene Zuckert, and Stuart Symington.

Donor:

Samuel A. Montague

[1]

JOHNSON: Mr. Montague, I want to start by asking you when and where you were born, your parents' names are, and perhaps the names of any brothers and sisters.

MONTAGUE: Well, I was born in New Orleans, Louisiana May 30, 1912. My father was George Montague and my mother was Teresa Bromowicz. My father was a native of New Orleans. My mother came from a little town in Texas called San Diego, which later came into national prominence because it was in San Diego that the ballot box that Texas election officials were trying to recount, when Lyndon Johnson was first elected to the U.S. Congress, was burned. They weren't able to get the recount. I have no brothers or sisters; I was an only child.

JOHNSON: So where did you get your education?

[2]

MONTAGUE: Well, that's a mixed bag, but I guess I would have to say that I started my education in the public schools in New Orleans, and then moved quite a bit. I spent some time in Pennsylvania, some in Texas, some in Mississippi, and at one time was a student in a two-room schoolhouse. Everyone has heard of a one-room, but this was a two-room. I went to high school in New Orleans, the old Warren Easton Boys High School. In those days the boys and girls were segregated by sex, not only by color. From there I went on to Louisiana State University and decided that I wanted to become a journalist.

JOHNSON: What was your father's occupation?

MONTAGUE: He operated one of the first truck lines that was authorized by the state to serve as a common carrier. And he pursued that until he had some other problems with the Government, because of me.

JOHNSON: The state of Louisiana?

MONTAGUE: I went to LSU [Louisiana State University]. I entered there in 1931. I left under a cloud, if you would, in 1934, because I was one of seven students in the school of journalism who had been expelled by

[3]

[Senator] Huey P. Long. He imposed a censorship on the school paper, The Reveille there. The seven of us, after we were ousted, finally ended up at the University of Missouri School of Journalism at Columbia.

JOHNSON: That was The Reveille, they called it?

MONTAGUE: Yes.

JOHNSON: So you came up here to Columbia, the University of Missouri's journalism school. Did you graduate from there?

MONTAGUE: Yes.

JOHNSON: In what year?

MONTAGUE: In '36.

JOHNSON: So now you're a journalist, at least trained to be a journalist.

MONTAGUE: Yes.

JOHNSON: What was your first job?

MONTAGUE: My first job was with the New Orleans Times-Picayune, as a general reporter. Then I was made a stringer out at the Tulane University campus, to cover

[4]

the activities out there. Then I went to work for the New Orleans Item-Tribune, which was then in existence. It was a morning tabloid. I was not completely content in just being a reporter, because one of the professors that I had at Missouri brought out a new fangled gadgets called a 35 millimeter camera. He said that anyone who was going to make it in journalism needed to know how to take his own pictures and should learn how to use one of these cameras. So, I took my first earnings and purchased a Leica camera. I should have kept it, because today is a collector's item.

I learned the hard way on the job how to take pictures. It was tough in those days, because they didn't have fine grain development or good enlargers that could cut down on the grain. I remember one time I went out to take a picture of Cornelius Vanderbilt as he arrived in New Orleans late in the afternoon, eventide, at the Union Station. As he got off the train, he stood there with a straw hat on, and in those days you had to take a camera like mine and open the shutter, flash and close it. When I got back to the paper and developed the film, there was Mr. Vanderbilt with two straw hats on. What had happened was that there was enough natural light that it exposed on the film and then when the flash came along, it made a

[5]

second one. I didn't know what I was going to do with it, but I was told, "Don't worry." It was taken up to the art department, the second hat was touched out and we used the picture.

JOHNSON: That was about what year then?

MONTAGUE: That was 1936.

JOHNSON: So we're still back in '36.

MONTAGUE: Or '37.

JOHNSON: Okay. You stayed with that paper then how long?

MONTAGUE: Oh, I was there for about a year or so, and then because I was not happy, just being a reporter. I wanted to use more of my training. I had majored in both news and advertising. Back in those days that was rather rare. I really didn't know where I fit, and didn't find out until much later, but it was essentially public relations.

I was able to use my advertising experience, my news experience, and my photography and do the thing that I enjoyed doing.

I left Louisiana in '37. This was during the Depression and times were tough. I was looking to get into something that would pay a little more money. I

[6]

had a roommate at the University of Missouri who lived in Dearborn, Michigan. So, he said, "Why don't you come on up here and maybe we can find something for you, more to your liking, in advertising, whatever." And so I did.

I moved up to Dearborn and it wasn't any better. I went in and tried to get jobs. I talked to some of the better advertising agencies and they all told me in so many words, "Look, you might be the greatest advertising man in the world, but we've got people that we've let off who we know are good. We told them that if there was an opening they'd be the first one we'd take back, so thanks, but no thanks." So I finally wound up in downtown Detroit, and got a job with the C.M. Hayes Photography Studio. At one time it was the number one portrait studio in the city of Detroit. They photographed all of the famous families in the automobile industry and so on. But they had neglected to do their own PR, I guess, and as a result, they sort of went downhill. A gentleman bought the company out, kept the name and decided he was going to rebuild it.

My job when I went to work for them was to try to set up appointments with these old families, the Fords and the Dodges and the others, to see if we couldn't

[7]

get them back. I told my employer, "Hey, you know, these people have folks out in the front office to keep people like me out. This is going to be very difficult. He said, "Well, if you want the job that's what you're going to have to do." So I thought about it and then it occurred to me that maybe there was a better way. Since I was a photographer, reporter -- they call it photojournalist today -- I went over to the Detroit Athletic Club, which had a magazine that reached all of the "cream of the crop," quote unquote, in Detroit. I noticed that the photography in the magazine was not the best, and moreover the pictures that they ran of these members, who were the kind of people we were trying to reach, some of those pictures were ten, fifteen years old. They didn't look like the pictures of them at all. So, I made a deal with the editor of the magazine. We would take all of the activities of his club, at no cost, and in return the studio would get a credit line.

Also, whenever the magazine was going to run a picture of one of their distinguished members, and it was an old one, they would ask the person if they wouldn't come over to the studio for a new picture. They said they wanted something up-to-date, and there would be no cost for that. So we did it, and it

[8]

worked. What we would do later, after we got the person to come over and have his picture made, we would then go out to his office with a whole bunch of proofs and say, "Here's the pictures. They're all good, and we don't want to be the one to pick it; you pick it." When I arrived the secretary would shoot us right in. The members would look at them. He'd say, "Well, they are good. Do you mind if I show these to my wife?" "Not at all." Then the next question was, "Well, if my wife likes them can I buy them?" I'd say, "Well, I don't know, but I'll ask. Of course, you can figure the rest of it out. Made some pretty good sales.

As a result of that experience, I got a phone call from the Ford Motor Company, the head of the photo department, asking if I'd come out for an interview. He had seen my work in the Detroit Athletic Club News and they were looking for somebody that they could trust to send to the New York World's Fair.

JOHNSON: In 1940?

MONTAGUE: In '38 was when I went. I guess the fair was '40.

JOHNSON: World's Fair, yes.

MONTAGUE: So, I worked in Detroit, in Dearborn in the old

[9]

engineering lab for about six months doing much of Henry Ford's personal photography, and photography at the Greenfield Village. They found out that I was acceptable, so they sent me to New York and I opened up the office in the photo department there. But the clouds of war were floating pretty heavy then as far as I was concerned. I could see it coming. And I had been a graduate of the ROTC from Missouri, where I had lot of my training. At that time they had what they called the Thomason Act. It was an Act of Congress introduced by Congressman [R. Ewing] Thomason, and it authorized the government to select a thousand of the best ROTC graduates who wished to apply, to serve for a year in the Regular Army. At the end of the year it would offer regular commissions to the best 10 percent. I hadn't applied before, but because I could see what was coming, I just said, "I don't know whether I can make this or not," but I did apply. Much to my surprise and pleasure I was accepted. I went on duty as a second lieutenant infantry, in 1938, late '38. Of course, it wasn't long after that that Hitler moved into Poland and the result was that the entire class that I went in with was kept. None of us were released.

So I went into the military service, and in 1941 I

[10]

was transferred from the Infantry to the old Army Air Corps, and given training for what they then called a Combat Observer. That was a person who was sort of a jack of all trades. There was a three-man crew on an observation plane -- pilot, observer, and gunner -- and my job was to serve as a safety pilot in case something happened to the pilot. I was the navigator, handled the radio operation, and also the photographer to take pictures from the air, so military intelligence could use them for their combat troops below.

I went through the war, and wound up spending 30 months in Panama, because it was felt at the time that after Pearl Harbor the canal was going to be the next place that was going to be hit. So I went down to help protect the canal. When I came back, I was scheduled to go to Okinawa. Then the bomb was dropped and that precluded my being shipped out again.

JOHNSON: So, you spent most of the war then in the Panama Canal Zone?

MONTAGUE: Yes.

JOHNSON: When did you first hear about Harry Truman, Senator Truman? Or did you hear anything about him.

MONTAGUE: Yes, I heard about him because he was making a

[11]

name for himself as the Senator who was making investigations on...

JOHNSON: The Truman Committee.

MONTAGUE: The Truman Committee, yes.

JOHNSON: Did you ever see the committee, or Truman, prior to him becoming President?

MONTAGUE: No.

JOHNSON: Or did you see him while he was President?

MONTAGUE: No. I was out of the country most of the time.

JOHNSON: You mentioned that you got involved with this commission to...

MONTAGUE: Yes. When I came back after the war, I wound up in Louisiana and again, I was still involved in trying to find myself. By that time public relations became a name and I had found a home. It was part of the business of journalism, and in this connection I had an experience with Mr. Truman.

I went to a little place in Texas called Bandera. Bandera is a small dude ranch community, oh maybe 55 to 60 miles northwest of San Antonio. It's in the hill country where Lyndon Johnson came from, the Perdanales

[12]

and all that. Well, anyway this little community had about a dozen dude ranches. There was a working ranch where maybe it would have six guests, and you had to actually work in order to be a guest there. Or dudes could go to million dollar spreads. One of them was owned by the Chairman of the Board of Texas Oil Company. It had a landing strip, swimming pool, was real plush. I went there actually to take some western photographs, color pictures at the time.

Since I'd never heard of the place, and being a public relations type, I asked the people who lived there why they didn't have some kind of a program to promote the community. The ranches were advertised but nobody ever heard of Bandera; at least I hadn't. I convinced them that they ought to have a big promotional campaign to really get their name on the map.

They bought the idea, and I returned to Bandera to get the program started. What we did, we decided we were going to "stompede," not stampede, but stompede; that was the name they used. We were going to stompede out of the country, out of the nation. We were going to set up our own Free State of Bandera.

According to Texas law, Texas can be divided into seven different areas, because that was part of the

[13]

conditions that were agreed upon when they became a state as the Republic of Texas. The reason we were going to stompede out of the Union was because there was a Mother's Day, and Father's Day, and sweetheart's day, and pickle day, and you name it, but there was nothing ever done for cowboys. The cowboy had settled the West; he had brought law and order out there, and he rode for the Pony Express and delivered the mail. He did all of these things and nobody ever gave him any recognition.

So we drafted an ultimatum to President Truman which was released to the press and we demanded that he authorize a day recognizing cowboys within 48 hours or we were going to stompede. Well, we knew he wasn't going to do it, but it gave us the hook that we were looking for. Then we could come back and say, "Well, Mr. Truman, you had your opportunity, and you didn't comply, so we are therefore now, as of this moment, the free state of Bandera, and we have appointed Tom Connally as our Ambassador to Washington." (The message was signed by Zeke, a fictious cowboy, who represented Bandera.)

JOHNSON: Tom Connally?

MONTAGUE: Yes.

[14]

JOHNSON: He was the Senator from Texas at the time.

MONTAGUE: And he accepted, and we had a ball. We just had all kinds of good things going back and forth. When President Truman was having trouble with the railroads at the time, remember the question about nationalizing.

JOHNSON: Yes, in '46 probably talking about, aren't you?

MONTAGUE: Well, we sent him a telegram saying, "Dear Mr. President, Even though we have stompeded and are no longer part of the United States Government, we hold no ill will or hard feelings. So if you decide that you need help in keeping the mail going, we'll continue to do it like we did back in the days of the Pony Express because we never thought that the iron horse was going to stay around very long anyway."

So that was an experience that I had. I'm sure he didn't remember it, and he didn't know who I was.

JOHNSON: Did you get a reply from Truman to that?

MONTAGUE: No. We did go over and see John Nance Garner, who was the former Vice President.

JOHNSON: In Uvalde.

MONTAGUE: Uvalde; it's not too far from Bandera. We tried

[15]

to recruit him into the program. We had everybody in it. But the reason I've told this story is because it was such an interesting one in Texas, and everyone was talking about it.

On my way back from Bandera to New Orleans I stopped off to see a public relations friend of mine in Houston by the name of George Kirksey. He said, "Sam, you've got to go to Mexico City." I said, "You're crazy; I just finished a job here in Bandera, and I have my family and my business in New Orleans. What in the world would I do in Mexico City?" He said, "Your country needs you." Well, those were the magic words, I diverted from New Orleans, took the plane on down to Mexico City, and was interviewed by General Harry H. Johnson, who was the Undersecretary of Agriculture of the United States, and was the co-director of the Mexico-United States Commission for the Eradication of Foot and Mouth Disease. Now, this was a cattle malady, or a malady that affects all cloven-hoofed animals, and could be devastating to it.

JOHNSON: That foot and mouth disease?

MONTAGUE: Yes. It could be devastating to the cattle industry, and the dairy industry. The U.S. wanted to be sure that it was kept in Mexico and eradicated so it

[16]

couldn't spread north. No country had ever before eradicated it. They were able to contain it, but they never were able to get rid of it.

The problem, according to what I found when I arrived in Mexico, was that they couldn't find anybody who could handle the information department because (a) they didn't understand the people, and (b) they didn't speak Spanish. As a result there were all kinds of internal problems. There were other problems, too, because they hadn't come up with a vaccine that was satisfactory to protect the animals from infection, nor had they been able to find other ways to keep it from spreading.

JOHNSON: Did you speak Spanish?

MONTAGUE: Yes. So, anyway, after listening to the problem, and what the General had to say, I said, "Okay, I have to go home, back to New Orleans, and I'll have to close down my business, sell my home, get my wife and child, and we will come down. So, we did it.

To tell you how bad that situation was in Mexico, on several occasions there had been violent attacks on people working on the commission. In one place they ambushed nine Mexican soldiers. There was really a strong opposition to the campaign.

[17]

Just before I arrived, there was a real international incident that occurred. One of the commission planes, which was owned by the U.S. Government, I guess, a DC-3, crashed into a mountain in Mexico and killed everybody on board. Without anybody's authorization in Mexico, the United States Air Force, and the Army, sent some paratroopers down there and they had them jump and surround the plane. They wouldn't let anybody approach it, including the Mexicans. This was, in effect, an invasion of their country. The Mexican press was furious, and the people were infuriated. There is an Article 33 in the Mexican constitution which says that any foreigner that's in the country that's not desirable, must be kicked out of the country within 48 hours. Anyway, the Mexican people demanded that that Article be implemented, and the headlines in the national press were that Article 33 was to be imposed on all foreigners connected with this commission, all of the Americans.

JOHNSON: Are we talking about 1948? What year?

MONTAGUE: It was 1948.

JOHNSON: Okay, '48. This was the year after Truman had made his visit to Mexico.

[18]

MONTAGUE: Yes. So, I arrived right after this headline showing Article 33. It was my job to turn this around. That was in August. In October the same papers were carrying headlines, "Mexico Is The Focus of the World for the Eradication of Foot and Mouth Disease." That was due much to the fact that I was able to communicate with my Mexican counterparts and new programs to inform the Mexican people. I also was able to communicate with the Mexican press, and the foreign press and I developed a feeling of trust, so that if anything happened in the commission and they came to me, they got the straight story." As a matter of fact, we had another problem with a plane while I was there and I told them right off the bat, "We've got a problem. We don't know the facts, but as soon as we find out, you're welcome to have them." I knew if they found out that we were trying to cover up, keep something away from them, they're going to find out anyway, and it's just going to create problems all over again. Before I left the commission, there was another ambush. It was in one of the small towns north of Mexico City. A Mexican and an American information man -- everybody in the commission had a counterpart -- the two of them rode into this little town to try to find out what the

[19]

conditions were there. They couldn't see anybody, find anybody. It was rather strange. Then all of a sudden, people all rushed out and dragged the American off of his horse and stoned and stabbed him to death. The Mexican escaped to another village. We knew something was wrong, because we had an internal radio network, and we received information indicating something wasn't right.

In the meanwhile, the Mexican showed up in this next village, where there was no problem. He called in and told us what had happened, and so I said, "Well, we've got to notify the press." The reaction from the Mexican was, "We don't want to do that because we don't want the people outside of Mexico to think we're savages that will take people and stone them and stab them without warning." They pleaded with us not to release the story. My counterpart took it up to his boss who was the Mexican co-director, and we had a meeting of the co-directors and ourselves to talk about this thing. I said, "Look, they're going to find out about it anyway; you might a well let them know the facts now and let's get it over and behind us." They said no that wouldn't work. Since we could not agree that meeting broke up.

I remained with General Johnson, who was the

[20]

American director, and we talked about it again. He agreed with me. He decided the only way to get a problem solved was to create a crisis. The U.S. was spending about 9 million dollars a day down there trying to fight this disease -- however many millions, were spent I've forgotten now. So he called the Mexican co-director back and said, "Look, I understand the problem. We're guests in your country, and we don't want to do anything to offend you, but this is a story that's going to be exposed one of these days, sooner or later. We think it ought to be done now. But if you can't agree, then I guess the best thing for us to do is to just pack up and go home."

Well, then the Mexican director went back and talked to his people, and pretty soon he returned and there was an agreement that we could release the story.

JOHNSON: Why was this program so unpopular with the villagers?

MONTAGUE: You have to understand the culture of the people, plus other pressures. If you've ever been into the interior of almost any Latin-American country, the possession of cattle and other animals are symbols of wealth. These animals are so closely identified with the people that own them, that in many cases they even

[21]

sleep right in hut where they are. They have names like Mary and Jo, Sam, Marie, whatever they want to call them. They become very personal to them.

That was one thing. Another problem was that if they were destroyed, which is what they were doing at the time the commission started, they had what they called the "Sanitary Rifle." All infected animals, were put together in a location, they would bulldoze a trench which was yea long and so deep, and then they'd move all of the cows down into the trench, and then they'd shoot them, bury them, disinfect them with lime and other chemicals. Then they would disinfect and inspect the property every six months, and if no more disease was found, they would then restock the place with new cattle.

There were two other problems. One was the Mexican meat blackmarket. Buyers didn't want all of these cattle killed; they wanted to get them and sell them on the market cheap and make more money off of them. They didn't care whether they were infected or not. So they were trying to disrupt the program. Then, of course, the third one was the fact that this was a joint commission between Mexicans and Americans working in harmony. In those days Communism was still pretty much in vogue, and they didn't want this program to succeed

[22]

because it would show the two countries working together for a common cause.

JOHNSON: The disease had spread to the United States?

MONTAGUE: No.

JOHNSON: Well, that's what we're afraid of though.

MONTAGUE: We tried to keep it out. It had been in the States once before, and they had had to kill cattle and whatnot. It had affected deer, sheep, goats, anything that's cloven hoofed. They were trying their darndest to keep it out. In the countries that have it, they still have it; it's endemic. But in Mexico they were able through inspection, vaccination, quarantine, disinfection and extermination to get rid of it.

JOHNSON: So it was a successful program then in the long run?

MONTAGUE: Right.

JOHNSON: How long were you with that?

MONTAGUE: Three years.

JOHNSON: So that brings us up to 1950?

MONTAGUE: Yes.

[23]

JOHNSON: You're working really for the Embassy there?

MONTAGUE: No, I was working for the joint commission, and that joint commission was part of the Department of Agriculture.

JOHNSON: Did you have to be a Civil Service employee?

MONTAGUE: Yes.

JOHNSON: Then after that was done, you started looking for something else?

MONTAGUE: Yes. I was out of a job, and out of the blue came a call from the Embassy. They invited me over there to visit with them, and out of that visit came an offer that said they liked the way that I had handled my role in the commission and would I consider becoming the press attache at the Embassy?

JOHNSON: You're living in Mexico City all this time, with your wife and child?

MONTAGUE: Well, by that time I guess we had three children.

JOHNSON: You were living near the Embassy in your own home, or an apartment or how...

MONTAGUE: All of us down there were given living

[24]

allowances, and so we rented, and we had a house in the upper part of the city called the Lomas.

JOHNSON: So this would mean you wouldn't have to move. You could just remain living where you were, and take a job in the Embassy, as a press attache?

MONTAGUE: Right. And that was kind of an interesting offer because I'd made lots of good friends there in the press and the media. They all knew me and seemed to have a regard for me that indicated that I could probably do a good job. My wife was happy because we had a lot of good friends in both the Mexican and the American community.

JOHNSON: So how long were you at the Embassy then as a press attache?

MONTAGUE: Until 1952. I took on my duties in the Embassy just about the time that they were trying to bring in William O'Dwyer, the New York mayor, as the new Ambassador. The current Ambassador, who was very popular at the time, was Walter Thurston. People thought that he was being railroaded out to make room for this political newcomer. There was a lot of resentment, so I had a real problem trying to get the new Ambassador in, and the old out. That worked out

[25]

very well.

JOHNSON: Was this blamed on Truman, that this was a political plum that he had to give O'Dwyer?

MONTAGUE: I don't know exactly why he picked O'Dwyer, but O'Dwyer was quite contentious as the Mayor of New York. He had done a lot of things that some didn't like, and at one time he had been the District Attorney or something, of New York and was involved with Murder, Incorporated. It was sort of a shady background. The Kefauver Commission was hot on his trail. One night they were trying to get O'Dwyer back to the states to testify and I was very deeply involved with that. A statement was to be made to the U.S. and Mexican press concerning his return. Some high-powered PR men came down from New York, to talk about this whole situation and what O'Dwyer should do. I was privy to the conversations, and finally, O'Dwyer looked over at me and said, "Well, Sam, what would you do?" I said, "Well, I've listened to everything that was said, and if it were me I would tear up whatever was going to be said, and give me twenty minutes at a typewriter and I'll come back and give you a statement." So they did, and I came back and I said, "If you're going to release this to the press, you better do it now." This was on

[26]

Thursday, I believe, or maybe it was Friday. Anyway, it was a day before MacArthur was due to return from the Philippines in World War II, and "Mac is back."

JOHNSON: In April of '51 President Truman fired MacArthur and MacArthur came back to the United States for the first time since before the war, apparently.

MONTAGUE: Well, that was it.

JOHNSON: So, it was right after the firing or MacArthur in 1951.

MONTAGUE: It was. There were big headlines about O'Dwyer and his problems, and the press was trying to get a response. If he didn't get it [public statement] in before MacArthur returned, he'd be buried in page 28. They agreed that the release I wrote was the one they wanted. It said something like, "By inference, insinuation, innuendo, I've been accused, I've been examined, and cross examined, and every time I've been exonerated -- nine times -- and if you want me to come back I'll be back to testify." Anyway, it did make the front page of the New York Times. The next day they had the big headline, "Mac Is Back."

JOHNSON: Did that get him, O'Dwyer, off the hook, this

[27]

statement?

MONTAGUE: I think so. The main reason I think O'Dwyer got off the hook was (a) he had a beautiful, young wife. His first wife had passed away and he had married Sloan Simpson, and she had been a very attractive fashion model. Another one was -- and this was something I didn't know until I got acquainted with him -- he had studied Spanish in the Alhambra in Spain, and he was completely fluent in Spanish. A third thing in his favor was that he was the kind of a guy that if there was no one to ride with him when his chauffeur was to take drive in the Embassy car, he rode up front with the chauffeur. On another occasion he was walking down the street in front of the Del Prado Hotel in Mexico City and he saw the Mexican policeman who had just gotten his first billy club with thongs. You know how they can spin them. Well, he was having a heck of a time. O'Dwyer went up to him, took it away from him and spun it all around, and then gave it back to him. When he was a younger O'Dwyer had been a cop. He knew how to handle it.

But the people in Mexico loved him. I attended many of the Embassy parties where the guests would be up in front with the Ambassador. Later he'd be back in

[28]

the kitchen with the drivers of the cars, the limousine chauffeurs, making friends there. Did a great job.

JOHNSON: Grassroots politician?

MONTAGUE: Yes, he was. And he did us a lot of good in Mexico.

JOHNSON: So how long were you there as attache?

MONTAGUE: I was there until '52.

JOHNSON: So Truman hadn't left office yet when you left. He was still President.

MONTAGUE: The State Department decided they wanted to transfer me to La Paz, Bolivia. My wife hadn't had our last child yet, and my father, who had been living with us in Mexico, had just returned from the states where he had a kidney removed. He was recovering back home with us. La Paz is up about 13,500 feet, and I talked it over with the doctors and they didn't think it was a very good idea for me to go up to that altitude with a pregnant wife and a father with one kidney.

So I debated about it and decided well, maybe the best thing for me to do is to remain in Mexico, if I could. Of course, I was not a native and I was not an immigrant; I was there on diplomatic status. Anyway, I

[29]

talked around for a while to see if I could find a way that I could get a job and open up my own business or do something. I got a lot of encouragement to open up my own public relations firm. I was at a cocktail party one night, and the Secretary to the President of Mexico cornered me. He said, "I understand that you're thinking about remaining in Mexico." I said, "Yes." "I understand you're going to open up a public relations office." I said, "Well, if I can get some clients." "Okay," he said, "how would you like to have the President as your first client?" I said, "I could live with that."

JOHNSON: What was his name? Who was the President?

MONTAGUE: Miguel Aleman.

JOHNSON: He was still President.

MONTAGUE: Yes. So, I got the government, my first client, to put out a newsletter, called Dateline Mexico. There were other services I performed on call, or when I saw something that needed to be done. Then here came another incident I think that's interesting. The peso was devalued over an Easter weekend I guess in 1954, and created quite a bit of turmoil. It happened over the weekend when nobody was available to answer

[30]

questions or do anything about it. It was just done. What happens when the peso is devalued is that the dollar is worth more and the peso is worth less. So, the first thing they said was the Americans did it; the peso didn't go down, the dollar went up. It got to the point where the feeling was so strong that even the taxi drivers wouldn't pick up American passengers. It was depending upon Americans. They had machineguns and sand parapets around the Chancery to protect it. So, all of the publicity being emanated was that it was all the Americans fault. Well, I knew better. And I knew that there were a lot of other Americans that knew better, but nobody was saying anything, including the Embassy.

So, I decided that this would be a chance for somebody to really show whether they were good PR people or not. My idea was, well, if we're going to be accused of causing dollars to flee the country and create this crisis, why don't I get a group of the leaders in the community to organize the American colony, those of us who live there, to support a plan that would bring dollars back and show that those of us who live there and made our livelihood there -- really cared about Mexico, and weren't going to take this sitting down. So I formed an organization called

[31]

Comite, North Americano Mexico -- the American Committee for Mexico. We called it Operation Amigo. What that was, was an organization of civilians only; no one from any government agency could belong. A member could be someone who is American and living there. We got General Motors and Ford and Monsanto and a few others to come up with a budget, and we ran a campaign for four months which encouraged all Americans who could to come to Mexico to enjoy a vacation or a business meeting or a conference or whatever, that now is the time to do it because you've got a real bargain. Prices hadn't yet caught up with the devaluation. Bring dollars.

JOHNSON: Yes.

MONTAGUE: As I recall, we turned that situation completely around, and by the end of the year we brought in something like $500,000,000 -- more than they'd ever had in travel before.

JOHNSON: So the tourists came flocking down to Mexico?

MONTAGUE: Yes.

JOHNSON: American tourists.

MONTAGUE: We wrote our friends individual letters and

[32]

telling them everything's fine, come on down. That provoked an invitation from the Public Relations Society of America to have me come to Los Angeles and talk about this program, because it had never been done before. The Excelsior newspaper in Mexico City had a front page story. It said that no foreign colony who ever lived in Mexico ever did anything like this before to help improve [relations]. It was just great.

Well, anyway, I delivered my talk in Los Angeles, and after the talk a member of the PR group said, "Hey, this is great. Why don't you come back and start something like that up here?" I said, "Look, I've got a family and a business; I'm going to go back to Mexico." That was really the beginning of the "People-to-People" program.

JOHNSON: I read where President Eisenhower had brought up this idea in 1956, but you're saying this is before Eisenhower?

MONTAGUE: I have "documentation" that leads me to believe that this idea was picked up [from what we did], because of some of the language that appeared later on. They talk about People-to-People getting more done, diplomatically, on an individual basis, rather than government to government. In my talk I used telephone

[33]

language, and said "person to person," rather than "station to station."

JOHNSON: Whose slogan was that to start with? That was your slogan?

MONTAGUE: My slogan as I just said was that we could do more person-to-person rather than station to station, or nation to nation. Anyway it's documented. So I heard that Eisenhower was going to have a big meeting at the White House and start the People to People program, which was fine with me. I wasn't interested in that; I was doing my thing in Mexico. But anyway, by that time, I also figured after eight years in Mexico it's time to come home. So I came back.

JOHNSON: What year was this?

MONTAGUE: In '56.

JOHNSON: Okay.

MONTAGUE: After eight years in Mexico, I went to Orlando, Florida, to resettle, and I sent a telegram to Conger Reynolds, who was then running the People to People program, to let him know that I was back in the states and that I was interested in his program. I told him I had had some experience in the field and if he would

[34]

like to contact me, why, I would be happy to visit with him.

I got one of these "thanks but no thanks" letters.

So, I decided at that point in time that I was going to go into the business of professional fundraising. I had become involved in a campaign in Mexico City. I was impressed with what I had seen and learned, and thought that I could do it, and so I did.

JOHNSON: In Orlando?

MONTAGUE: No. I settled in Orlando, just to decide where I was going to go next. So I went into fundraising and did four or five several successful campaigns for a company out of Fort Worth, a national fundraising firm.

JOHNSON: Did you move to Fort Worth then?

MONTAGUE: My family stayed in Orlando, and then I took my first campaign and worked in Port Arthur, Texas. Then I went up to Oklahoma City and my family joined me there, and then I had another campaign in Chicago. But anyway, when I wound up in Sioux City, Iowa doing a campaign, I got a call from a friend of mine in New Orleans, who was head of International House. He said that the University of Missouri School of Journalism was going to have a 50th anniversary, and they wanted

[35]

somebody who was capable and qualified to direct it, but they wanted somebody who was an alumnus. They didn't want somebody that was not an alum. Would I be interested? I said, "Well, I don't know, I'm about winding up this campaign here, so I wouldn't feel badly if I had to leave. I wouldn't be leaving my employer in a lurch." He said, "Let me contact the University." A couple of days later I got a phone call from the dean. I thought it was an exciting challenge, and so I said, "Yes, I'll take it on."

So, I went down to the University of Missouri in '58, and spent a year planning the program and then a year implementing it, directing it. One of the things that I think I can take credit for was the fact that Walter Williams -- who was the first dean of the school of Journalism, and later became president of the University of Missouri -- had started what he called Press Congress of the World. He held three of them.

JOHNSON: Press Congress.

MONTAGUE: Press Congress. And then it was dropped for maybe 30 years. So during the '50s I decided well, I'm going to revive it. We got an agreement from the executive committee, and went ahead and did it. We got the Ford Foundation to give us funding and others to

[36]

help underwrite it. This was the first Congress that involved the electronic media; all of the others always had been print. This time we had the head of the British Independent Television System, and the National Television System of Japan among others, and we had all of the major newspapers, the London Times, Chicago Tribune, The Times of India, Kansas City Star, New York Times, you name it. They all converged in Columbia, Missouri. I used part of my people-to-people technique in putting this together. The way it worked was that each foreign publisher or newscaster, who agreed to travel to the United States at our expense. Their expenses were all paid; they'd spend one week with their American counterpart in his community. Let's say that the delegate was from India and his counterpart was in Denver; they'd spend a week in Denver, and then the two of them would come together in Columbia for the actual Congress itself. Then, once the Congress was over, the Indian could go anywhere he wanted to in the United States for another week. It was not like if they went to Russia and had to be escorted. They were free to go anywhere they wanted, still at our expense. At the end of the third week they went home.

It turned out to be an extremely great media event, one of the best we ever had, and it was there

[37]

that we got Mr. Truman to come over and greet all these people. Eisenhower was then President, and he was honorary chairman of the Congress and Nixon was vice-chairman.

JOHNSON: You say that Truman came down to Columbia, and gave a talk?

MONTAGUE: Yes, talked with the delegate.

JOHNSON: But he didn't meet with Eisenhower.

MONTAGUE: He wasn't there. Eisenhower said, "If you want just to use my name, go ahead."

JOHNSON: That was the first time you had met Harry Truman?

MONTAGUE: The first time I'd ever seen him.

JOHNSON: In 1959.

MONTAGUE: Yes.

JOHNSON: Okay, at Columbia, at the University of Missouri in Columbia.

MONTAGUE: Yes. I'm confused on these dates. There was another involvement of President Truman in the anniversary, but I think it was after the Congress. The President [Truman] had a very, very low opinion of

[38]

Madison Avenue as you know, and I got the idea, "wouldn't it be great if we could have him come and talk to the Advertising Club of New York during our anniversary." We had major events all over the country, and the reason we wanted to do that is because most people had no idea of the importance of the University of Missouri School of Journalism and its influence, its impact, throughout the nation. In New York City alone, the chairman of the Board, of NBC at that time was an MU graduate; the president of CBS radio was an MU graduate; the publisher of the largest daily newspaper in the world, the New York Daily News was an MU graduate; the head of the New York Newspaper Publishers Society, was an MU graduate. The editor of Advertising Age magazine was an MU graduate. Inez Robb, who was a very famous columnist, was an MU grad.

Well, anyway, President Truman agreed, and we packed that place. He sat up at the head table, and then he got up and said, "I'm not going to make a speech. You all know what I think of you. But I just want to tell you something; I'm going to call some names." He introduced all the people at the head table, (these were all these people I got through naming), and he said, "I just want you people to know one thing. All these people at the head table that

[39]

I've just introduced are graduates of the University of Missouri School of Journalism." You could have heard a pin drop; it [the audience] was so shocked, so surprised. They didn't know. So that was another experience that I had with him.

JOHNSON: So that was the second time that you were in touch with Harry Truman.

MONTAGUE: Right.

JOHNSON: What year are we talking about?

MONTAGUE: 1959. In 1959 when the anniversary was over, I was again out looking for a job. Remember the old television play, "Paladin: Have Gun Will Travel?"

JOHNSON: Yes.

MONTAGUE: Well, I made myself a little card that said "Have Done, Will Travel." John Colt, who was then the managing editor of the Kansas City Star, was on my executive committee at the anniversary celebration. He called me and he said, "Have you found a job yet?" I said, "No, I'm still looking." He said, "Well, how would you like to work in Kansas City?" I said, "Well, I don't know. What would I do?" He said, "Well, Joyce Hall is interested in trying to do something for

[40]

President Eisenhower when he gets out of office, and Eisenhower has already announced that he didn't want to take a job in industry. So Hall is trying to decide if he couldn't do something with People-to-People." He said, "I know you knew something about it. Would that interest you?"

I said, "Oh, I'd be glad to come over and talk to him about it." He said, "Okay," and so he set up the appointment. I came over and met with Mr. Hall, and we got into the subject of People-to-People, and he said, "What do you think about the program?" I said, "Well, I think the concept is great, but I think the management's wrong." He said, "What do you mean by that?" I said, "Well, if a program is going to be 'people to people,' it has to be owned and operated by the people; it cannot be done as an agency of the United States Government." At that time it was under the United States Information Agency, the USIA.

I said, "You know, you don't think about it here, but if you are in a foreign country, and you go over and you say you represent 'people to people,' and they say, 'Well, what's that?' You say, 'Well, it's an agency of the U.S. Government,' and immediately it becomes suspect. It could be an arm of the CIA or whatever." I said, "It's got to be done by people for

[41]

people." He said, "Well, what do you think ought to be done." I said, "Well, what I think we ought to do if you're interested is get it out of Government and put it in the hands of the people." He said, "Do you think you can do it?" I said, "I'd like to give it a try." He said, "Well, when do you want to start?" "Whenever you're ready."

So, I went to work for Hall.

JOHNSON: Was this the Hall Foundation? And he agreed that they would fund it...

MONTAGUE: At that time, he didn't know what he was going to do. He just wanted to get something for Eisenhower that he could offer. When I was hired, there were no employees in the Hall Foundation. I was the first employee, and I got the title of Special Projects Director. Nobody knew what I was doing, including my wife. This was a delicate operation. If Hall would announce he was going to take "People to People" out of Government, and didn't do it, it would be embarrassing. So I had to negotiate that program quietly all the way through.

JOHNSON: Now, this was a not-for-profit civic organization. The Hall Foundation had been set up to do civic

[42]

projects, whatever?

MONTAGUE: The Foundation got so much money every year according to whatever was put...

JOHNSON: From Hallmark, the Hallmark Corporation?

MONTAGUE: Or Mr. Hall, or the family.

JOHNSON: For useful projects.

MONTAGUE: Do whatever you wanted to, legally.

JOHNSON: This was a not-for-profit, tax exempt corporation?

MONTAGUE: Right. The only other large project he had ever done with the foundation. I found out later, just by accident, when I went over to the University of Kansas with him that he gave money for a building for research. He named it after his mother, but very few people ever heard of that.

JOHNSON: That was the only grant they had made?

MONTAGUE: At that time, it was the only large one. The other grants he gave were small, you know, $1,500 for the symphony or whatever, but nothing of any great magnitude. It was just in the embryonic stage. I had to negotiate with all of the various entities within

[43]

People to People. They had all kinds of committees, like the letter writing committee, and the sports committee, and the sister city committee and all those. You've heard about our sister city, Seville. All of these were part of the people-to-people program, but they were separate, and each one of these chairmen were little "kings and queens;" they didn't want to give up their autonomy to run their little show. They were going to be in charge, but subject to USIA.

Anyway, I met with all these chairmen and finally got a committee of them together. They would negotiate this proposal. The big problem was to make each one of them feel that they were not threatened, to get them together and to have them say "okay." The point we made was, "Well, you know the government is not going to continue to run this forever, and Hallmark is prepared to come with a million and a half to do this, and do a lot of things that you didn't do before."

Anyway, we got it accepted. Then, Mr. Hall wanted to have the dedication, the announcement, the opening of People-to-People during a big program, which would be the rededication of the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City. They redecorated the Memory Hall; it was set so they could have board meetings and so on in there. They had all of the big name board members to come, and

[44]

of course, General Eisenhower was going to come to be appointed as the chairman of the board.

JOHNSON: To pick it up from there, you're working with Joyce Hall so to speak, and the Hall Foundation, to kind of rejuvenate the People-to-People program?

MONTAGUE: Well, I wouldn't exactly say rejuvenate it. The problem, as I indicated earlier, is that it was under government auspices and it shouldn't be. It should be in the private sector, and so we moved it out of government into the private sector. It involved the big rededication of the Liberty Memorial which was supposed to be one of the big news events of the city, at which point they had invited here the Ambassadors and Consuls and dignitaries from all the foreign countries to Washington, and so on. The announcement was going to be made of the reorganization in the private sector, and ostensibly the purpose of People-to-People was to get individuals from different countries to communicate with each other, so that you could engender greater understanding. Well, with all of the activity and events that were going to occur, that was a big spectacular event.

JOHNSON: That was scheduled for November 1961.

[45]

MONTAGUE: Right.

JOHNSON: But in the meantime, you apparently had visited the Library, visited Truman here in the Library...

MONTAGUE: Yes, for other reasons, I've forgotten what they were.

JOHNSON: Well, you mention here, in a letter, on August 15, 1959, that you had visited Truman again "this morning," and you said you would be able to use some things seen in the Library in regard to a proposed "International Village." That was part of the People-to-People program?

MONTAGUE: Yes. That was an idea that Mr. Hall got which I thought was pretty good. He felt that it might be implemented. Mr. Hall was very enamored and taken with Tivoli Village over in...

JOHNSON: Denmark, Copenhagen?

MONTAGUE: Yes, Copenhagen. Penn Valley Park was sitting there right next to Hallmark [corporation headquarters], you know, and nothing was happening there. He saw an opportunity of putting up typical buildings from each of these countries, get each of the

[46]

countries to supply and get them over here. Hallmark would then become responsible for having them erected and managed and supervised and maintained, and he was going to have foreign students from these countries serve as the inhabitants of these places, and serve as hosts when people came to visit.

JOHNSON: Did you talk to Truman about that idea when you were here?

MONTAGUE: I was the one that talked to him about it.

JOHNSON: That was one of your first visits here at the Library, and you brought this up? How did he react to that?

MONTAGUE: He thought it was pretty good. As a matter of fact, I wound up going to Washington, to the State Department, and the State Department invited the representatives from these various countries that we were talking about to a big meeting, and the consensus was that, well if we wanted to go ahead with the project, they thought they could get the buildings for us.

JOHNSON: This is in connection with Joyce Hall's politics?

MONTAGUE: Joyce Hall was unquestionably a Republican and I

[47]

think that he believed very much that the Republican conservative philosophy -- the least amount of government is the best amount -- worked pretty well. He and Roy Roberts, and several others were very instrumental in getting General Eisenhower to decide to run as a Republican. As I indicated earlier, when Mr. Hall heard the General say that when he left the White House he did not want to take a job in industry, that was what motivated him to take a look at People-to-People. He felt that this would be something that Eisenhower would like to do. And, of course, it entailed very nice income for the General as chairman of the Board.

JOHNSON: Do you know how much General Eisenhower was paid for this position?

MONTAGUE: I have no idea. But I'm sure it was something that was satisfactory. It was interesting to me in negotiating these roles that I had, in getting the People-to-People program out of the Government and into the private sector, that I finally reached the point where everybody would agree. I had to go to Washington, and get the final green light from the White House. At that time [John F.] Kennedy was President. When I got to Washington and tried to get an appointment at the White House, they wouldn't see

[48]

me, and I couldn't understand why not, because they knew what I was doing. Then I got the word, that they didn't want to talk to any Republican, they wanted a good Democrat. So I went over and saw [Senator] Stuart Symington and I said, "I've got a problem." So Stan Fike, who was Symington's administrative assistant, and a good friend, called over to the White House and said, "What's the matter with you guys? Sam Montague's a good loyal Democrat, and you ought to talk to him."

So I got over there [to the White House] and we began negotiating. We finally got an agreement that they had no problem with General Eisenhower becoming chairman of the board. But there were two conditions: one they had to see the list of who all the other board directors were going to be. But more importantly, when it came time for the General to be named Chairman, they wanted Kennedy to be the one who invited him to serve. And that's the way it worked out.

JOHNSON: Eisenhower became honorary chairman?

MONTAGUE: Oh, no. Kennedy became the honorary. From then on, the President, whoever he was, would be the honorary.

JOHNSON: By the way, and Joyce Hall came over here to the

[49]

Library, several times during the late fifties, in '59 and in '60, '61. Did you ever accompany Joyce Hall when he came to visit Harry Truman?

MONTAGUE: I can't remember. I don't think so.

JOHNSON: So you were never in the conversations with Truman and Joyce Hall, the two of them together.

MONTAGUE: I don't think so.

JOHNSON: So, now you're planning this rededication of the Liberty Memorial, and the other part of that was the Truman-Eisenhower feud.

MONTAGUE: Right. Well, what happened as I indicated earlier, the People-to-People movement was to try to get people to develop better empathy and understanding between people. Here, we were going to have all these foreign dignitaries coming here to hear about this great program and somebody was sure to bring up the fact, "Well, what's this all about? We're trying to get people to people to get together so they'd have better understanding, and we've got two Presidents of the United States that won't even talk to each other. That could be very embarrassing to the whole program."

I went to Mr. Hall and I suggested to him that we

[50]

had a problem. He said, "What's the problem, and I just laid it out to him and he said, "Well, that is a problem. What do you think we ought to do?" I said, "I think we ought to try to find some way to get them together." So he said, "Let me think about it." "Fine," I said, "I've done my part." Having presented the problem, explained it to him, and showed him what the consequences were and what needed to be done, I proceeded to continue on with what I had to do for the next couple of days.

Finally, I got a call to come down to Mr. Hall's office and the question was raised to me, "Are you a good Democrat?" I said, "Yes, sir." He said, "Well, would you have any problems about going out and talking to President Truman about the possibility of getting him and General Eisenhower together so we wouldn't have this situation?" Truman had indicated that he didn't want to talk to those Republicans. So, I said,...

JOHNSON: Truman didn't sound that friendly toward Joyce Hall then, you're saying?

MONTAGUE: I don't know whether he was...

JOHNSON: You didn't know at the time.

MONTAGUE: No. He just didn't want to talk to any

[51]

Republicans. It turned out that Nathan Stark, who I think was a Democrat, I'm not sure, and Henry Talge and I [went out to see him]. They were both very close friends with Truman. Talge is the one who put on the Truman birthday breakfast for years. They wanted somebody from Hallmark, and Stark was from Hallmark. Why they wanted me I don't know, but anyway, I was asked if I would come out and talk to the President. So, I said I'd do it, and I did I came out...

JOHNSON: You came out by yourself?

MONTAGUE: No, I came out with Stark and Talge.

JOHNSON: Okay, the three of you. Was that two or three months before November, '61?

MONTAGUE: It was probably just before it happened.

JOHNSON: Okay, just a few weeks earlier, we're talking about.

MONTAGUE: Well, you've got a July date, that it was in July, on my letter.

JOHNSON: Of '61?

MONTAGUE: Wasn't that a July 14th letter?

[52]

JOHNSON: No, that was November 14th, that was after the event. When was it that Truman said to you, "Young man, if you want General Eisenhower here, you work it out." November 10 was when Eisenhower came out to meet Truman here at the Library, in 1961.

MONTAGUE: Well, whenever it was, it had to be almost before the actual dedication. I don't remember the date exactly, but I can tell you some incidents that occurred that made me think about it.

After we decided we ought to get these people together, I came out and I talked to the President...

JOHNSON: You, Talge and Stark?

MONTAGUE: Yes.

JOHNSON: The three of you came out here to talk to Harry Truman.

MONTAGUE: Right. The President was sitting behind his desk, in his chair and I was sitting in a chair across from him. Stark was off to my right, and Talge was sitting way off on the wall chair. He didn't say a word. But anyway, we went through the amenities with the President, "How are you," and so on. He said,

[53]

"Well, young man, what's on your mind?"

So I said, "Mr. President, we have a situation here in Kansas City that's coming up that could become quite a problem if you and the General don't get together." He said, "Well, that is a problem." I said, "Well, you know, here we've got all of these dignitaries coming from all over the country, different parts of the world, Ambassadors, and so on, and we're trying to encourage them to promote understanding between people, and the question comes up concerning this situation between you and the General." I said, "Would you be willing to invite the General out here?" "I will not," he replied. I said, "Well, would you be willing to go down to Hallmark and visit the General at his suite there." He had a suite in one of the top penthouses. "I will not." "Now, Mr. President, would you meet him in some neutral place, halfway?" "I will not." "Mr. President, you're making this very difficult for me." He said, "Young man, if you want to solve this problem, you work it out, I'm not going to organize it."

Then he said, "There have only been three Presidents in the history of the United States who didn't get along with their successor. The first was Jefferson and Adams." And you remember what happened

[54]

there. They finally became reconciled through correspondence in their famous letters." He said, "Then there was [Andrew] Johnson, who snuck out of the White House at midnight so he wouldn't have to be present at the inauguration. Then, there's Eisenhower and me and I don't want to have to go down in history as the third." He said, "When I go to New York for whatever reason, in the first place, I always go to the Waldorf Astoria and I pay a courtesy call on Hoover. He preceded me as President; he outranks me. And whenever Mr. Hoover came to Washington after he was out of the Presidency, my limousine always was there to meet him at the station, and when he came up he always had a room in the White House." Then he said, "Since President Eisenhower took his oath, I have never once been invited back to the White House. So if President Eisenhower wants to come out here to the Library and call on me, I'll be very happy to receive him with all cordiality and hospitality." I said, "Well, thank you very much, Mr. President." That broke up the meeting.

On the way back to town, Talge said, "We didn't do very well, did we? We didn't get an invitation." I said, "As far as I'm concerned we got an invitation." "What do you mean?" I said, "Well, fortunately I spent quite a number of years in the military, and there's an

[55]

old custom in the military, that whenever a junior officer calls on a new post, or goes somewhere where there's senior officers present, it's up to the junior to call, to make a courtesy call on the senior. What normally happens is, you go to a new post, you go around and make your calls. There's a silver tray on a table in the hall. If the person that you're calling on is present, you visit, and when you leave you leave your card. If you call and he's not there, then you take the card and you double the corner up and you put it on the silver platter and leave. But he knows when he comes and he sees that card with the corner up, that you've made your call." So I said, "What President Truman was saying to us was that Eisenhower is junior to him, so if he's coming to his community, it's incumbent upon him to make the call."

JOHNSON: Did he ever say anything about having made a call to Eisenhower's suite, or the hotel he was in, and someone there told him that Eisenhower was booked up for that afternoon? There's a story that he did call Eisenhower here in Kansas City at least once and got the word back that Eisenhower would not be able to meet him because he already had scheduled that time.

MONTAGUE: Was this during the anniversary?

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JOHNSON: No, this was before their meeting here at the Library. He never mentioned having been turned down by Eisenhower at any time?

MONTAGUE: He talked about the history, told us about why...

JOHNSON: Well, my understanding is that after Eisenhower heard about this, he said that was a big mistake, that the one who received the call, I suppose an aide or somebody, made a mistake. That was sometime before the meeting out here at the Library.

MONTAGUE: That could have happened. I don't know. I know when I got back to Hallmark, I went in and I reported to Mr. Hall. Mr. Hall said, "How did you make out?" I said, "Well, we have an invitation. But this is how it's going to have to be." (Incidentally, before we go any further, President Truman said, "If the General decides to come out here, if there's any publicity beforehand, I won't see him.") So I relayed this information to Mr. Hall. I said, "Now, what he said in so many words was that if President Eisenhower comes out, since he's the junior in the line of the Presidency, it is incumbent upon him to make a courtesy call on the President just as Mr. Truman does when he

[57]

goes to see Mr. Hoover." Mr. Hall said, "Well, let me think about that."

Hall is the kind of person that never does anything without checking with a number of people. So he called General Schultz, and he called Eisenhower's secretary, and he called Jim Hagerty, and others, and they all pretty much concurred with my analysis. So he finally said, "Well, I'm going to call the General."

He called the General and talked to him and told him what Truman had said. Eisenhower said, "Oh, that's interesting, let me think on it." So the next day Eisenhower called and said, "I will go see him, but if there's any press leakage beforehand, I won't go." So the two of them had agreed on that.

I'm trying to reconstruct this -- the event. I was getting calls from the AP and Life and everybody, "Are Truman and Eisenhower going to meet?" I said, "Hell, I don't know." Originally, the travel plan was that Eisenhower was going to come, and his military plane would land at Richards Gebaur. So we released this information to the media about what was going to happen. We announced this.

JOHNSON: This is all in connection with the rededication of the Liberty Memorial. In other words, the public knew

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that Eisenhower was coming out to be in that program?

MONTAGUE: He was going to be the...

JOHNSON: The speaker on November 10.

MONTAGUE: And he was going to accept the chairmanship of the People-to-People program.

JOHNSON: Was it already known at that time that Truman would be the main speaker on the next day?

MONTAGUE: No.

JOHNSON: Okay, that was not yet known.

MONTAGUE: So, on the day that the General was to arrive, I'm still getting all kinds of calls from people, "Are they going to meet?"

JOHNSON: This is November 10th.

MONTAGUE: The arrival was changed from Richards Gebaur to Municipal. So I got to the media and said, "Get down to the Executive Aircraft at the airport, because that's where the General will land." One television crew was already on its way out to Richards Gebaur, and we tried to get them to come back; they thought it was a ruse and they wouldn't. Well, anyway, Eisenhower

[59]

arrived, and all the press was asking me, "Are they going to meet?" So I said, "Well, let me just say this. All of you who have your own wheels, you get in the procession and you follow the limousine and if it goes straight to Hallmark, you'll know that they're not going to be meeting, but if the cars happen to turn east on 15th Street, I'd go to the Library." Well, of course, the cars did turn on 15th Street, and when they got here, of course, Sam Feeback, of WDAF, and some of the other news photographers were out here with cameras. Somebody said, "Who the hell told these press people about this." I said, "I don't know." Well, I didn't, I just told them to follow the car.

JOHNSON: So they came up to the rear door, here at the Truman Library?

MONTAGUE: Yes.

JOHNSON: To the administrative entrance. They came in through that doorway.

MONTAGUE: Bob Adams was there to greet him.

JOHNSON: Bob Adams? (He was a military aide to Truman.)

MONTAGUE: Yes, there's a picture of him right here. (I had been given a set of contact prints of the visit by a

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Life photographer.)

JOHNSON: I see. But Truman was still back in his office, right?

MONTAGUE: Right.

JOHNSON: Is it true that Truman waited until Eisenhower came to the doorway of his office before he got up to greet him? Well, where were you when Eisenhower came into the building?

MONTAGUE: I was behind him.

JOHNSON: You were right behind Eisenhower when they came into the building.

MONTAGUE: I rode in the second car, yes.

JOHNSON: Did you go to the doorway of Truman's office?

MONTAGUE: No.

JOHNSON: In other words, you didn't see Eisenhower come up to the doorway of Truman's office?

MONTAGUE: No, my recollection isn't the same. I remember when he got into the foyer that the President was there.

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JOHNSON: According to Rufus Burrus, Truman insisted that Eisenhower would have to come into the office before Truman would get up to greet him, come to the doorway.

MONTAGUE: I don't know.

JOHNSON: You see, there was an instance back in the inauguration of 1953 where the Eisenhowers waited until the Trumans started coming out of the White House entrance before they got out of the car, and traditionally the new President was supposed to go into the White House to be greeted by the outgoing President. So, Truman never mentioned that incident to you?

MONTAGUE: No.

JOHNSON: So now you're into the Library here, and...

MONTAGUE: There was a lot of movement going on. Mr. Hall and Roy Roberts, and Eisenhower rode in the limousine ahead of us.* They were the three in the car plus the driver. I was behind, in the next car. I recall seeing Truman and Eisenhower in the foyer. They walked down this long hall...

* Newspaper accounts indicate that former U.S. Senator Harry Darby also was a member of the entourage.

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JOHNSON: The newspaper says it was about a ten minute talk there.

MONTAGUE: That's in the end. My recollection is that when I was in the building they were standing talking together and they started down the long hall to the main entrance. When we got to the lobby of the museum, we paused and looked around and then Truman took Eisenhower over to that window display and said, "Remember that?" [Pointing to the General's Crusade In Europe and the inscription Eisenhower had written in it.] Then they went around, and they made a swing and went into the replica of the Oval Office. He pointed out the President's [Eisenhower's] picture, which surprised him. He didn't realize Truman had such a picture. They both looked at the Oval office for a few minutes and chatted and they turned around and came on back, and they walked on back. Then, the two of them privately went into Truman's office, and my guess was that they were in there 20 minutes at least.

JOHNSON: Oh, it was more than 10 minutes in his office?

MONTAGUE: That's what I remember. They talked and then they came out and I heard Truman say to the President, "I understand that you have a library and museum in

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Abilene. You know, I and my associates have ideas and experience in building, and in operating a Presidential library and museum. If I or any of my assistants can be of service to you in putting yours together, Mr. President, all you have to do is ask." I thought that was pretty gracious. Mr. Eisenhower thanked him, and then left.

Then, according to a later report by Mr. Hall, when Eisenhower and Roberts and Hall got into the car to go back, nobody said a word. They drove and drove and drove, and finally Eisenhower slapped his knee like that and said, "You know, that wasn't so bad."

JOHNSON: According to Rufus Burrus, he came out here one day and Joyce Hall and Charlie Stevenson were leaving as Rufus was coming in. Charlie Stevenson saw him and said to Rufus, "I want to see you in the next day or two, that is, down at Joyce Hall's office. Then he made arrangements through Rufus Burrus for this visit. Did you ever meet with Rufus Burrus about this visit, before the visit?

MONTAGUE: No.

JOHNSON: So Eisenhower said it wasn't so bad.

MONTAGUE: That's what he said.

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JOHNSON: And Joyce Hall was in the car.

MONTAGUE: Yes.

JOHNSON: And Roy Roberts.

MONTAGUE: Of course, they were all old cronies and I guess they felt pretty good about it too. I know Hall had to feel good about it.

JOHNSON: When Truman was with Eisenhower, were Joyce Hall and Roy Roberts next to them, or near by, when they were going through the Library here? Do you recall if they were...

MONTAGUE: I'm looking at the pictures, and I don't see Roy. Harry Darby was with me. I can see Harry Darby there, and I can see Hall.

JOHNSON: Did you have any conversation with Joyce Hall or with the others about the results of this visit, or did Joyce Hall ever say anything to you about how he felt it went?

MONTAGUE: Well, he told me the story about the general being very pleased.

The next night we had an affair for the foreign dignitaries out at the UMKC as part of this program,

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and the President and Mrs. Truman were guests of honor that night.

JOHNSON: You mean the next night after, on November 11th. Truman spoke on November 11th at the rededication ceremony. You say there was a dinner that evening?

MONTAGUE: Yes.

JOHNSON: I don't seem to have an account of that one. Eisenhower had to go back, before then. According to the newspaper article he had to return to Washington, or perhaps to Gettysburg, after his participation at the ceremony.

MONTAGUE: I don't know where. They didn't have too many events set up. I'll have to go back through the book if I can find it. We had a plan book with the whole thing...

JOHNSON: Eisenhower wasn't here on the 11th when Truman gave the speech at the rededication on the 11th of November.

The next big event after this was the visit of Miguel Aleman. That was in January of 1963.

MONTAGUE: Yes. They were together.

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JOHNSON: And here you've got two former Presidents of the United States and a former Mexican President together for this event. You got good coverage in the papers, and you apparently helped to arrange that.

MONTAGUE: I was the director of that event.

JOHNSON: That was again part of this People-to-People program. Then there was a dinner in the Hallmark building dining room...

MONTAGUE: Yes, with Aleman, Truman and Eisenhower, Hall, all of these.

JOHNSON: This is part of what they called a two-day salute to Mexico by People to People, and you helped plan arrange that. And that dining room that they were in, is that in one of the buildings there at Hallmark?

MONTAGUE: It's on the fourth floor and is called the Crown Room.

JOHNSON: Near the top floor?

MONTAGUE: The 9th floor is the top.

JOHNSON: This Aleman visit was a chance for Truman and Eisenhower to see each other again for the first time, I suppose...

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MONTAGUE: Since that first meeting, as far as I know.

JOHNSON: Did they seem to be on a friendlier basis?

MONTAGUE: Yes.

JOHNSON: Did it appear that they had patched things up between the two?

MONTAGUE: I don't think they ever really patched things up; they just had broken the ice and conversed friendly.

JOHNSON: Did they socialize with each other?

MONTAGUE: Yes.

JOHNSON: Then the next day after the dinner at the Hallmark Building -- that was a Saturday night apparently -- the next day Truman hosted a luncheon for Mr. Aleman out here at the Library. Were you out here for that?

MONTAGUE: No.

JOHNSON: You weren't here for that dinner the next day hosted by Harry Truman? Harry Truman and Miguel Aleman seemed to be very friendly and cordial with each other.

MONTAGUE: Right.

JOHNSON: And very respectful of each other. Was that

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mainly because of Truman's visit to Mexico in 1947?

MONTAGUE: I would think so.

JOHNSON: Well, on March 1, 1963, you left Hallmark; you left People-to-People. You became a member of the Potts, Woodbury Advertising firm.

MONTAGUE: Right.

JOHNSON: You apparently helped organize that year the celebration of the 16th anniversary of the Air Force, which you have notes about here. This is September 20, 1963; it's a letter from Gene Zuckert to you thanking you for what he calls, "A most successful testimonial honoring three great Americans on the occasion of the 16th anniversary of the United States Air Force." Who are the three great Americans?

MONTAGUE: [Stuart] Symington, [Carl] Spaatz, and Truman. Symington was the first Secretary of the Air Force. Spaatz was the first Chief of Staff, and Truman was the President who created it.

JOHNSON: Truman spoke at that event. Did you have a chance to visit with Harry Truman at that event?

MONTAGUE: Yes. I also had a chance to visit with him just

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very briefly up in the old Truman suite at the Muehlebach.

JOHNSON: When was that?

MONTAGUE: That was part of this event.

JOHNSON: Part of that same event?

MONTAGUE: Yes.

JOHNSON: Were there any other events after that which you had planned and helped arrange, and in which Truman was a speaker or a feature?

MONTAGUE: I don't think so. You see, when I left People to People I had come to the conclusion that I had gone as far as I could go, and while I was over at Hallmark my office was right next to Charlie Stevenson. I used to be able to sit and look out on a big glass window and I could see the Liberty Memorial and many of the other attractions out there. Having been involved in tourism before, it occurred to me, that there was something wrong with Kansas City that it wasn't being publicized as a tourist city. Finally, I did some research and I found out that there was as much, if not more, to see and do in and around Kansas City as in New Orleans. I'm from New Orleans, which is a great tourist center.

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So, after I left People-to-People, I approached Potts, Woodbury who had handled Ike Davis mayoralty campaign, and Ike was the Mayor.

JOHNSON: Ilus Davis?

MONTAGUE: Yes, Ilus Davis. So I became associated with Potts, Woodbury, and put together a presentation on tourism. I presented it to the city and suggested that it set up a Tourism Commission, which it did. The City Council appropriated a quarter of a million dollars, and then they looked at me and said, "Okay, you sold us on this, you run it." That's how I became the Director of Tourism for the city.

JOHNSON: Was that the first Tourism Commission here in Kansas City?

MONTAGUE: Yes.

JOHNSON: That allowed you to help promote the Truman Library as a tourist stop. So, did you visit Truman several times more then out here in the Library?

MONTAGUE: Yes.

JOHNSON: Did you ever talk to Mr. Truman about tourism?

MONTAGUE: I don't think so. What I did do, I went over to

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London and acquired three double-decker buses and brought them back to Kansas City. At the same time I met the Lord Mayor of London; which everyone had said, "There's no way you're going to get to see him. He doesn't even see the Queen. She's got to get special permission from him to go into the city." I received permission, and went in and saw him and I asked him if he would give me a letter to the Mayor of Kansas City saying how pleased he was that these buses were coming here, because it was a link between London and Kansas City and the Churchill exhibit, which was out at the Truman Library. He was so happy to know that people were going to be riding from Kansas City out to the Truman museum, in London double-decker buses to see the Churchill exhibit. And that's how I got the letter. Of course the letter was delivered to Ike Davis, and he's got it somewhere in his files.

JOHNSON: So you did have double-decker buses running from downtown Kansas City out here to the Truman Library?

MONTAGUE: For awhile.

JOHNSON: With tourists. Did Truman ever talk about that, or refer to these London buses?

MONTAGUE: No. I'm trying to think of the last time that I

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saw him.

JOHNSON: Well, in July of 1966 he fell and hurt himself and then he didn't come down to the Library after that, except twice on special occasions.

MONTAGUE: The last thing I recall is a friend of mine, Audley Porter, and I came out here for the funeral, and we had a choice to make. I could either come back over to the administrative area and try to pull a little weight, and say, "Hey, you know, I'd like you to give us some special consideration," or the two of us could stand in line with all of the other common people. We just decided we were common people, so, the two of us stood and waited for a couple of hours and paid our respects. While waiting, we saw Nixon drive by in his limousine.

JOHNSON: Did you come out once with a newspaperman from Rochester, and I assume that's Rochester, New York newspaper. This was in '65. In October '65 you escorted Paul Tanner through the Library when the governors were visiting Truman here, and Tanner wrote an article for publication in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. That was Rochester, New York.

MONTAGUE: Yes.

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JOHNSON: Okay. And Truman called it a fine story. He got a copy of it. That was in October '65. In April of 66 you thanked Rose Conway for arranging for an Ambassador from Finland to visit Truman.

MONTAGUE: I also came out with the Ambassador from India.

JOHNSON: And the Ambassador from India too. About that time, you think?

MONTAGUE: Yes. The reason I remember it being India was because we went into the office and we got to talking and President Truman says, "I'm going to show you how to solve problems, the economic problems of India." He got up and he walked to that big globe, you remember that he had in the office.

JOHNSON: Yes.

MONTAGUE: He spun it, and stopped at India and put his finger on the Ganges River and said, "You build a hydroelectric dam at this point and you can industrialize your country and solve the economic problems."

JOHNSON: On the Ganges River.

MONTAGUE: Yes. And on the way out and driving back, the

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Ambassador said, "You know, I'm just amazed. I didn't realize the grasp the President had of economic conditions." He said, "He's got a solution for our problems that I didn't even think about."

JOHNSON: And he knew his geography.

MONTAGUE: Yes he did.

JOHNSON: We might have some record on that visit.

Well, I thank you for the information you have given us.

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APPENDIX

This being the 100th Anniversary of Dwight D. Eisenhower's Birthday, I thought this might be the time for me to write this story. Samuel A. Montague, Kansas City, Missouri, June 15, 1990.

The time was November,1961 and Kansas City was getting ready for one of its biggest events in recent memory. On Veterans Day, November 11th, the Liberty Memorial was being rededicated to International Understanding. The first board meeting of the newly revised People to People organization, under the direction of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, its new Chairman, would be held in Memory Hall. Previously People to People, which was started during Eisenhower's administration, had been a part of the United States Information Agency. Now it would be in the private sector, and freed of suspicion as an official propaganda arm of the government.

Scores of diplomats and V.I.P.'s from around the nation, and the world were converging on Kansas City, for the momentous event. The staff assembled by Joyce C. Hall, founder of Hallmark Cards, to produce the many activities planned for the noteworthy occasion had done an outstanding job. Every detail had been checked and rechecked, and everything seemed to be in readiness.

It was during one of the many reviews of the plan book, that I suddenly became aware of an oversight. Unless corrected, I felt it might cause Kansas City, and everyone involved with the project a great deal of embarrassment.

The problem was this: Kansas City and People to People were going all out to focus on the importance of building understanding and good will among the peoples of the world. Yet, when former President Eisenhower arrived for the ceremonies, someone would be sure to

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point out that he, and former President Harry S Truman, who lived in nearby Independence, hadn't spoken to each other since Eisenhower took his Oath of Office as President, more than eight years ago

As Deputy Director, and Director of Operations of People to People, I felt that this could be the right time to bring the two together, so I suggested this to Mr. Hall. He mulled it over for a few moments and then agreed. The big question was how, with so little time could the two former presidents be induced to meet.

Mr. Hall said he would run the idea by General Robert L. Schulz,. Eisenhower's Military Aide, Jim Haggerty, his former Press Secretary, and others and then get back to me. Two days later, I got a call from Mr. Hall inquiring if I was a "good Democrat!" When I said yes, he asked if I would mind going out to see former President Truman, and find out if he would meet with Eisenhower. I went and this is what happened.

Upon arriving at the Truman Library, I joined Nathan Stark, a Hallmark Executive, and Henry Talge, Kansas City business leader, and longtime friend of the President. With no time to discuss strategy, we were ushered into President Truman's office. I was seated in a chair directly across from the President, where I could easily see his " The Buck Stops Here " reminder on his desk. Stark sat to my right, and Talge selected a seat somewhat in the background.

After the usual amenities, it appeared that the ball was in my court, and so I said " Mr. President, we have a problem"

"Shoot! " Truman countered as he folded his arms across his chest, and seemed to brace himself a bit.

"Mr. President, " I continued, " People around the world will be following the events connected with the Liberty Memorial Rededication. Many will be interested in America's attempt to build

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better relations between the peoples of the world by communicating on a one-to-one basis.

"While many agree that People to People is a noble idea, others view it with skepticism. To complicate the problem we have two former Presidents of the United States, who, after eight long years still do not communicate with each other, and have no plans to meet during this historic occasion. Under these circumstances, Mr. President, would you extend an invitation to the General to visit you here at the Library?"

" I will not, " replied Mr. Truman.

" In that case, would you agree to meet him at the at Hallmark, where the General is staying?" I inquired.

" I will not, " he again said emphatically.

"What about meeting him halfway, at some neutral place," I said hopefully.

Once again the reply was " I will not."

"Mr. President, " I said, " you're not making my problem any easier."

Truman responded " Young man, if you want General Eisenhower here, you work it out."

After that comment I felt this was a losing battle and was figuring out what my next move might be, when Mr. Truman went on to say, "You know, there have been only three Presidents who did not get along with their successors: There were Adams and Jefferson, but these two later were reconciled through their now famous letters. Next, there were Johnson and Grant, with Johnson refusing to even be present at Grant"s inauguration.....and now there is

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Eisenhower and me, and I sure don't want to go down in history as the third.

"From the moment General Eisenhower took the Office as President, until he completed his two terms," he continued, "I was never once invited to set foot in the White House. Yet, when I followed Mr. Hoover, as President, I never went to New York City, without first paying a courtesy call on him. And when Mr. Hoover came to Washington, I had my car meet him at the railroad station, and bring him to the White House, where he always had a room."

Mr. Truman then went on to explain what caused the estrangement between him and Eisenhower. "The public version was that the General was upset because I had ordered his son John home from Korea, so he could be present at his father's inauguration. The General felt he should have remained with his troops.

"The real reason was a 'chewing out' I gave the General for not defending General George C. Marshall, after he had been vilified in a speech by Senator William Jenner, of Indiana. He was incensed because of Marshall's position on U. S. policy in China, Eisenhower was present when the speech was made, and said or did nothing as the Senator delivered his diatribe.

"I reminded Eisenhower that if it had not been for Marshall and me, he would still be a Lieutenant Colonel, and I told him it was inexcusable for him not to rally to the defense of the man to whom he owed so much."

Having shared that bit of history with us, Mr. Truman returned to the purpose of our visit and concluded it with this comment, "Mr. Hoover was senior to me in the line of Presidents, and I am senior to Eisenhower. So, since he is coming to Kansas City, it is up to him to take the initiative....and if he does, you may assure him that he will be received by me with every courtesy and hospitality." Then he

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n afterthought "....but if the press learns about this before it happens, I won't see him."

We thanked Mr. Truman for the opportunity to visit with him and took our leave. Upon arriving back at Hallmark, we went directly to Mr. Hall's office to give him a report.

"Well, " said Mr. Hall, " how did you make out?"

"Great, " I replied, and then went on to explain the tradition of courtesy calls in military, diplomatic, and governmental protocol "President Truman's reference to it was tantamount to an invitation and if General Eisenhower is approached from this position, he might be agreeable to paying his respects to his senior in the presidential line."

Mr. Hall thanked us and said he would run it by the General, and let us know what he decided. The next morning Hall called to say that Eisenhower had agreed to go to the Truman Library, and interestingly enough made this comment "....If the press finds out about this before it happens, I won't go!"

The next few days were hectic. In addition to my other responsibilities with the Rededication, I suddenly found myself fielding repeated inquiries from local and national media. "Is Eisenhower going to see Truman while he is there?" Recalling the admonitions of the two principals in this drama, all I could reply was " I don't know."

Finally, the big day arrived. Eisenhower was originally scheduled to fly in by private plane and land at Richards Gebaur Air Force Base. At the very last moment, however, plans were changed and he was to land at Kansas City's Municipal Airport. I immediately alerted the media, of the change, and some thought this was a ruse. Despite my best efforts, at least one television station didn't believe me and sent its crew out to Richards Gebaur:

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When Eisenhower landed at Municipal, I was again besieged with inquiries as to a possible meeting between the two former presidents. At that moment I made a decision and said "I'd follow the motorcade, and if it goes straight up Broadway there would be no meeting. But, if the motorcade turns East at 15th Street, I'd head for Independence as fast as possible."

When the General arrived at the Library, Mr Truman was waiting for him on the steps...and so was the Press. After a handshake, and introductions, everyone went inside. Accompanying the General, among others, were Roy Roberts, publisher of the Kansas City Star, Mr. Hall, and General Schulz. Among those with Truman were Colonels Rufus Burrus, and Robert Adams, his military aides, and Benedict K. Zobrist, Curator of the Library. I was also present.

As Truman escorted Eisenhower on a personal tour of his library, he made certain that the General took time to look at one of its permanent displays. It was a copy of Eisenhower's "Crusade In Europe" which he had autographed saying, in part, "this is the first copy presented to anyone outside my immediate family."

When they got to the replica of the Oval Room, just as it was when Truman was in the White House, he pointed to an oil painting on the wall at the left of the entrance and commented "Recognize that fellow?" It was a portrait of Eisenhower.

After the tour the two former antagonists went into Truman's private office and spent about twenty minutes alone in private conversation. When they emerged, Truman escorted Eisenhower back to his limousine. On the way he said, "Mr. President, I understand that you are planning a library and museum to be built in Abilene. As you can see, I have had five years experience with such a project. If I, or any member of my staff can be of assistance to you in developing yours, I'd be pleased to help in any way I can."

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Eisenhower thanked him, and got into his car. On the way back, neither the General, nor Roy Roberts, nor Mr. Hall said anything. After quite a while Eisenhower broke the silence by slapping himself on the thigh and saying "You know! That wasn't so bad!" ( This was relayed to me later by Mr. Hall.)

On November 14, 1961, I wrote Mr. Truman, in part, as follows, "'Now that the meeting between you and General Eisenhower has taken place, I hope it was accomplished to your complete satisfaction and pleasure. From most of the reports I have seen and read, everyone in the nation and around the world has applauded this meeting.

"I shall never forget the moment in the preliminaries before this meeting when you pointed to me and said " Young man, if you want General Eisenhower here, you work it out."

On November 21, 1961, Mr. Truman replied, "Thank you very much for your good letter of the 14th. It was certainly thoughtful of you to write me as you did.

"I more than appreciate all the courtesies extended to me in connection with the Liberty Memorial Rededication."

After this reunion, the two presidents met again on a number of other occasions. In 1963, they again shared a head table at Hallmark, when they joined Mexico's former President Miguel Aleman in a People to People Salute to his country.

[Top of the Page |Notices and Restrictions | Interview Transcript | Appendix | List of Subjects Discussed]]

 


List of Subjects Discussed

Adams, Robert “Bob”, 59, 80
Adams, John, 53-54, 77
Advertising Club of New York, 38-39
Aleman, Miguel, 29, 65-67, 81
Ambassador from India story, 73-74

Bandera, Texas, 11-13
Burrus, Rufus, 61, 63, 80

C. M. Hayes Photography Studio, 6-8
Colt, John, 39
Comite, North Americano Mexico, 31
Connally, Tom, 13
Conway, Rose, 73

Darby, Harry, 61, 64
Davis, Ilus, 70

Eisenhower, Dwight David, 32, 37, 40, 44, 47-66, 75-81
Eisenhower, John, 78

Feeback, Sam, 59
Fike, Stan, 48
Ford Motor Company, 8-9

Garner, John Nance, 14
Grant, Ulysses S., 77

Haggerty, Jim, 57, 76
Hall Foundation, 41-44
Hall, Joyce, 39-50, 56-57, 61, 63-64, 66, 75-76, 79, 80-81
Hallmark Corporation, 42, 46, 66, 68, 81
Hoover, Herbert, 54, 78

Jefferson, Thomas, 53-54
Jenner, William, 78
Johnson, Andrew, 54, 77
Johnson, Harry H., 15, 19
Johnson, Lyndon Baines, 1, 11

Kansas City Tourism Commission, 70
Kennedy, John F., 47-48

Liberty Memorial Hall rededication, 43, 75-76
Long, Huey, 3
Lord Mayor of London, 71
Louisiana State University, 2-3

MacArthur, Douglas, 26
Marshall, General George C., 78
Mexico Public Relations work:

    • Department of Agriculture, 15-22
      Embassy press attaché, 24-29
  • Montague, George, 1
    Montague, Teresa Bromowicz, 1

    New Orleans Item-Tribune, 4
    New York World’s Fair – 1940, 8
    Nixon, Richard, 37, 72

    O’Dwyer, William, 24-28
    Operation Amigo, 31

    Panama Canal Zone, 10
    People-to-People Program, 32, 40-49, 58, 66, 68-69, 75-76, 81
    Porter, Audly, 72
    Potts Woodbury Advertising firm, 68, 70
    Press Congress of the World, 35

    Reynolds, Conger, 33
    Robb, Inez, 38
    Roberts, Roy, 47, 61, 63-64, 80-81

    Schultz, Robert L., 57, 76, 80
    Spaatz, Carl, 68
    Stark, Nathan, 51-52, 76
    Stevenson, Charles, 63, 69
    Symington, Stuart, 48, 68

    Talge, Henry, 51-52, 54, 76
    Tanner, Paul, 72
    Triple-decker busses 71
    Thurston, Walter, 24
    Truman, Bess, 65
    Truman, Harry S., 10-11, 13-15, 25, 37-39, 45-46, 49-68, 70-74, 76-81

    United States Army Air Corps, 10
    University of Missouri School of Journalism, 3, 34-35

    Williams, Walter, 35

    Zobrist, Benedict, 80
    Zuckert, Gene, 68

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