Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview.
Oral History Interview with
George M. Elsey
Washington, DC
February 17, 1964
Charles T. Morrissey
[40]
MORRISSEY: Towards the end of our last interview, Mr.
Elsey, we were talking about the planning for the Truman Library. Could
you tell me how you were involved in this planning?
ELSEY: Fairly early in his administration, President Truman
began to comment from time to time to members of his staff about his
desire to have a suitable place for his papers. He was, of course, extremely
conscious, by virtue of the wide reading that he had done and was continuing
to do, of the fate of most presidential papers, the fact that they're
widely scattered, subject to accident and destruction and family whims.
He liked to recount some of the more horrendous episodes,
which are pretty well-known, about papers that members of the families
had burned up, simply because they thought they shouldn't be seen by
historians and so on.
It was natural, I guess, that I should be brought into
this picture, because of my association with the National Archives and
the Roosevelt Library at Hyde
[41]
Park. Some of the Roosevelt papers remained
at the White House well into the Truman administration, because they
were consulted, fairly often, by the White House and by officials of
the Department of State. The security nature of them made President
Truman think they were better off there at the White House than if they
were sent off to Hyde Park. And, because I did know the members of the
Archives staff who were concerned with the Roosevelt Library, as I say,
I just naturally drifted into the situation of being involved in discussions
on a proposed Truman Library.
Mr. Truman had mixed motives with respect to a library
out in Missouri. He was interested not just in a safe place for his
own papers, but increasingly his thoughts turned toward a center of
research and scholarship in the whole governmental process that would
be available to scholars in his part of the country.
When I would occasionally raise a somewhat quizzical eyebrow
about the desirability of having presidential libraries sprout up all
over the countryside, the President, in good humor, would dress me down
for being too "eastern minded," too "parochial," and he reminded me
that there were scholars in the Middle West just as there were in the
eastern seaboard.
[42]
His early decision to have the library at Grandview on
the family farm didn't go unchallenged. I recall that Elmer Ellis and
others at the University of Missouri tried quite hard at one period
to persuade the President to deposit his papers at the University of
Missouri. This, they felt, would meet his desire to build up the historical
resources of that part of the country. It would have the additional
great advantage of relating these papers to other standard library reference
materials.
If the President wanted to have his stuff in Missouri,
I personally thought that it made a good deal of sense to use the existing
University of Missouri. But, of course, once you got the University
of Missouri in the act, why then you had to consider the University
of Kansas City and so on and so forth. And, these discussions, while
there were a number of them over a period of a year or two, never really
got off the ground, the President most of the time, staying pretty firm
on his decision to have the Library ultimately built at Grandview.
Grandview fell by the wayside simply because of the problem
of proper site location. The President and his
[43]
brother didn't always
see eye-to-eye on just what kind of land and how much of it should be
made available for the Library.
The actual decision to move from Grandview to Independence,
however, took place after I had transferred from the President's immediate
White House staff and so I'm not familiar with all the details. I do
think that Independence is a far preferable location from all points
of view to the farm at Grandview. It's more accessible, of course, to
Kansas City.
The early plans, the first plans that Edward Neild, a
member of the Fine Arts Commission and longtime personal friend of the
President, drew up for the farm at Grandview were utterly inadequate.
It was a very small building, would have been merely a repository for
archives. It had practically no working space, would have been stuck
out in the country, miles from every facility for, well just meals,
for example.
And, I suppose as much contribution as any that I made
was pointing out how a building, if it were to be out there, had to
be much more than just a shell to house books and documents; that the
building ought to have a place for the President's own office, and
[44]
office
space for a permanent staff, and working quarters for students and scholars,
and it ought to have an adequate museum space because, a President,
inevitably, attracts a lot of curios as well as worthwhile historical
objects that you will want to have on display. So, the first Neild drawings
were shelved and from that point on, expansion was the watchword of
the day and the Library moved on to the present concept which is so
well exemplified at Independence.
Just as a personal note, which I hope won't offend Mr.
Truman or his brother or any other member of the family, it was interesting
to see some of the intra-family bickering on the subject of the site.
I recall, one day, tramping around the farm at Grandview with Mr. Neild
and with Vivian Truman, the President's brother, and Vivian was pointing
out where he thought the Library ought to be. It was a depressed
area, swampy in one corner, railroad track right behind it, and Neild
and I kept pointing to a much more attractive site some distance away,
across the road, on a high rise with a good view in all directions,
and I asked Mr. Vivian Truman why the Library couldn't be put over there
and got the very clear and direct answer, "Ain't no use wastin' good
[45]
farmland on any old dang library." Now, the problem of the farmland,
of course, was resolved by the move to Independence.
MORRISSEY: After our last interview, you suggested today,
that we discuss the relationship between the President and his staff
in regard to the decision making process. What was this relationship?
ELSEY: I think what I probably was referring to was a
discussion I'd had just a few days earlier with a young scholar who
is engaged in working up his doctoral dissertation. And, it became apparent
to me in the course of that interview that he had, what I thought, was
an entirely erroneous concept of the role of the staff of the President.
Over and over again, I kept being questioned: "Who advised
the President to do this?" Or, "Who advised him to do that? What did
this member or that member of the staff think about this or that subject?"
I was trying to educate that young man to my own philosophy, at any
rate, it may not be the prevailing one, but it's certainly mine, about
the role of the staff of the President.
[46]
The staff of the President is not a great body of experts
who have decided views and who recommend to the President what he should
or shouldn't do on fundamental national policy questions.
The President's principal advisor in foreign policy matters
is, of course, the Secretary of State. The President's principal advisors
on military matters are his Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs, and the Joint Chiefs, themselves. It's not up to individual
staff members to intrude themselves between the President and the responsible
officials of the executive branch, nor between the President and the
responsible leaders of the Congress.
The job of the staff members is to help the President
find out what the facts are; to clarify, where clarification is needed,
the opinion and advice of the senior officials of the executive branch;
when the President has a sharp view of his own, to advise the President
as to whether it's feasible or not to carry it out the way he wants
to; whether the temper of the times, the attitude on the Hill and all
that sort of thing, makes it necessary to change the timing, or change
some of the details, or change the method of
[47]
executing what he wants
to do.
An ideal staff member ought not to be a person who has
sharp and decided views of his own that he is determined to see carried
out. If a staff member is so prejudiced or so opinionated or so determined
on a particular matter of foreign policy or defense, he simply can't
be trusted to be an effective staff member of the President.
Special pleaders, special advocates, to my way of thinking,
have no place on a presidential staff. To illustrate, by going back
to something we were talking about last time, the matter of merger and
unification, the staff members working with the President on the whole
question of postwar organization of the armed forces were not trying
to influence the President's decision, one way or the other. They were
trying to help the President carry his objectives as far as he
could. They were trying to advise him on what was practical, what was
feasible, what you could get out of the Congress at a given time, or
what the prevailing sentiment of key figures on the Hill were. Also,
so far as the executive branch was concerned, try to convey current
and accurate intelligence as to the shifting
[48]
positions and points of
view of the Secretary of the Navy, the Secretary of War, and other key
figures in the executive branch.
If staff members, if Mr. Clifford, for example, or Charles
Murphy, or the military or naval aides, had been serving as special
pleaders, trying to get their point of view ground into the drafting
process, into the discussions on what shape the military establishments
were going to have, they would have been doing the President a disservice.
The staff around the White House--well, I think I have
perhaps beaten this point to death, but if you have any questions, please
ask them.
MORRISSEY: Well, you emphasized Cabinet members as prime
advisors of the President. Was this true generally, or were there other
advisors outside the Cabinet who were close to the President?
ELSEY: Oh, there are always advisors outside the Cabinet
and there are many cases, where, of course, there are heads of agencies
that aren't traditionally regarded as having Cabinet status, that, at
given times and given circumstances, have much more influence and importance
[49]
than a Cabinet member himself. Obviously, in today's world, the director
of Central Intelligence, on many, many matters, has far more influence
and far more to say and far more reason to have something to say than
some Cabinet members. So, I don't mean to confine it just to the nine
or ten members of the Cabinet, or however many Cabinet members there
happen to be at the moment.
Rather than Cabinet members, perhaps, I should say the
official who is responsible for executing, carrying out, administrating
the agency in question or the policy in question. Staff is staff and
staff should never construe itself as line, to revert to old military
terminology. When a staff member starts thinking of himself as being
in the line, and being a person whose views have to be considered and
who has a position to advocate and defend, then he has ceased to be
effective and of real use to the President as a staff member.
MORRISSEY: Could you tell me about the mechanics of the
President's daily staff meeting? Who would attend, and what would be
discussed?
ELSEY: These were highly informal. It was the practice
[50]
to convene at 9 o'clock in the President's office. The time would vary
a bit, as the longer he stayed in office, the later the meetings tended
to be. I think toward the end, they were generally at 10 o'clock rather
than nine.
The Appointment Secretary, the Press Secretary, the Special
Counsel to the President, The Assistant to the President, John Steelman,
usually the Administrative Assistants to the President, and the three
military aides; it was a large group that would seat themselves informally
in a large semicircle around the President's desk. The President usually
started by asking the Appointment Secretary to run over the appointments
for the day and Matt Connelly would comment, if comment were necessary,
about the background of some of the appointments and other staff members
were free to chime in if they had anything that they thought would be
helpful or useful to the President in connection with that meeting.
The President would always ask the Press Secretary if
there were anything special, any particular problem that the Press Secretary
saw coming up during the course of the day, or comment on anything that
appeared in the
[51]
morning papers that should attract presidential notice
or comment. After that, it was a general discussion. The President would
usually just move around the semicircle, asking each person in turn
if he had anything on his mind or anything that should be taken up by
the group as a whole.
Fairly often, a staff member would say, "Well, I have
something, but, no need to bother the whole group. May I stay behind?"
To which the answer, of course, was always, "Yes."
Mr. Donald Dawson, who, most of the Administration, was
concerned with personnel appointments, would frequently mention existing
vacancies in major spots, or ask for suggestions from staff members.
Let's just say that we're on the lookout for such and such a post, such
a commission; anybody have any suggestions, I'd welcome them, or he'd
toss out names and see what the President and staff members thought
about some of the impending appointments or vacancies that were under
consideration.
The atmosphere was very friendly, very relaxed, and even
the junior members of the staff, such as I, felt we had the right, and
did have it, to take matters,
[52]
in that body, directly to the President
in the presence of everybody else. I think the only reason for mentioning
this is that it is such a sharp contrast to the situation that prevailed
in President Eisenhower's administration, where a rigid pyramid funneling
up through Sherman Adams, came into being. I don't mean to say that
the Eisenhower-Adams way of doing business was wrong. All I am saying
is that President Truman and President Eisenhower organized their staffs
and ran them in a very different fashion. And, what little I saw of
the Roosevelt staff, of course, was very different, too. But, that was
during the wartime and I was not directly reporting to the President,
at all, but, I was aware, conscious of the staff patterns, and it was
not FDR's practice to have general staff meetings of this sort at all.
He just didn't have them.
MORRISSEY: Could you comment, specifically, on the relationship
between the White House and both Houses of Congress in regard to legislative
matters?
ELSEY: In the Truman administration, there was very little
staff concerned with legislative matters. Here again, this is pretty
much a post-Truman development of the
[53]
White House staff, of having several
professional, fairly senior experienced men, who spend all their time
on legislative matters.
In the Truman first term, there really was no legislative
staff at all. Charles Murphy, who came in January of '47, as an Administrative
Assistant to the President, and remained in that spot until about February
1950, when he succeeded Clark Clifford as Special Counsel, Murphy knew
a great deal about the Hill, having served in the Legislative Drafting
Service of the Senate, and the President relied on him for information.
Charlie would occasionally visit with staff members of congressional
committees or with individual members of the Senate or House. But this
was a very hit or miss affair. It was not his regular assignment. It
was not a day in day out occupation at all.
Clifford, as Special Counsel, later Murphy, on matters
of extreme importance, would see chairmen of Senate committees or House
committees, but this was only in matters that one might say were of
the utmost crisis nature.
The President relied, for most of the discussion on legislative
matters, with his weekly meetings with the
[54]
Vice President, that is when
he had a Vice President in his second term, and the congressional leadership.
In which, in an informal fashion, they'd run over the list of things
that were coming up or that were of prime concern on the Hill.
Matthew Connelly and Don Dawson, because of their special
relationship to political matters, partisan matters, had a good deal
of voice in legislative relations. But, this tended to be more, as I
observed it, to matters of the partisan nature, patronage, appointments,
and so on and so forth. The things of that sort that are so necessary
to keep an Administration's relations with the Hill smooth and effective.
In about '49, maybe early '50, two new staff positions
were created: A representative to the Senate and a representative to
the House. I'm ashamed to say that I can't recall the precise titles
used for these two men. But, they functioned as assistants to Mr. Connelly,
the Appointment Secretary, and they spent most of their time, again
in keeping up friendly relations between Connelly's office and members
of the Senate and House.
They were not concerned with development of the
[55]
legislative
program or of the drafting of major messages or legislation. It was
more of just the errands and the chores which are absolutely vital and
essential to keeping good relations between the Administration and the
leadership of one's own party on the Hill.
In short, we simply did not have at that time, the White
House staff hadn't evolved, hadn't matured, hadn't developed in the
way that it was to in the later administrations.
MORRISSEY: Could you comment on the relationship between
the President and the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee?
ELSEY: The relationship varied a good deal, depending
on the person occupying the chairmanship. When it was Bill Boyle, who
was a longtime personal friend of the President, I'd say the relationship
was obviously a good deal warmer. Bill Boyle was in and out of the White
House as an old friend in a way that the other chairmen were not.
Here again, this is, I suppose, a matter of part of the
general reticence of Americans to recognize some of the facts of life.
The White House has always been just a little jittery in recognizing
that the President
[56]
is a political leader and a politician 365 days of
the year. The White House, in the Roosevelt and the Truman and the Eisenhower,
the Kennedy administrations, doesn't advertise the fact that it has
continuing and close relations with the national party headquarters.
Somehow, it's just not thought to be very nice. As I say, this is part
of the mythology of American life. We don't want to admit that a President
has to be a good politician, if he's going to be halfway effective as
a President.
And so, there never were any members of the staff, as
such, designated to be liaison with, or work with, the Democratic National
Committee during the Truman administration.
Facts being facts, however, it was perfectly obvious that
the Appointment Secretary to the President had to have, and did have,
a very close relationship with the committee. He needed to know the
background of some of the people who wanted to see the President. He
had to be responsive when the national committee or the party machinery
wanted certain people to get in to see the President. Naturally, they
had to go through the Appointment Secretary's office for those appointments
and the Appointment Secretary needed to take into account and
[57]
effect
the wishes of the Democratic Party machinery.
Similarly, the Administrative Assistant responsible for
personnel matters had to be very sharply attuned to the wishes and the
needs of the party. I'm not apologizing for it at all. It has to be
that way. And, when the White House and the party machinery fall out
of step, if they ever do, the results are bad for the Government, because
the President immediately starts tripping and stumbling in his relationships
with his party and with the Hill.
The time, when I personally was most involved, most directly
related to the committee, was in the preparations for the 1948 campaign.
We had a very small White House staff for speech purposes and it was
very apparent to me in the fall of '47 that we were going to have to
take some very drastic steps, if we were to be at all prepared to serve
the President during the '48 campaign. Mr. Clifford and I talked this
over at great length and Charlie Murphy, also, I recall, as well as
Charlie Ross, then Press Secretary, and concluded that it would be a
big mistake to try and build up a "stable," if you will, of speech-writers
in the White House or, for that matter, any place on the Government
payroll. The latter would not
[58]
have been proper at all. The obvious answer
was to build up a team in the headquarters of the Democratic National
Committee.
The committee always gets busy during a presidential year
and has a lot of things, but nothing is more important than electing
a President or re-electing one, but at the same time, they've got a
lot of other things on their mind, such as Senators, Congressmen, state
tickets, and so on and so forth. And so, it didn't seem to us, as we
looked over the situation, that it would be very satisfactory simply
to augment the regular staff of the committee. And so, a separate new
division was established called the Research Division of the Democratic
National Committee, separately housed in its own building, some distance
from the main committee, where it could fulfill its principal function
of preparing material for use by the President's associates in drafting
speeches and digging up the information he would need during the course
of the campaign.
MORRISSEY: I've noticed in the papers of the various White
House staff members in the Truman Library that there was great disappointment
that this Research Division was allowed to lapse after the 1948 campaign
and not maintained on a
[59]
continuing basis. Could you comment on this?
ELSEY: Well, I suppose it depends on whose papers you're
looking at. There were some of us on the White House staff, who felt
that the Research Division had abundantly demonstrated its usefulness.
But, I've just mentioned that it functioned pretty independently in
a separate building, and the regular staff of the committee, quite frankly,
were upset by this and wanted everything to be back in their own shop,
reporting through the normal chain of command. This was just a jurisdictional
fight as much as anything else.
Those of us who wanted a vigorous, separate Research Division,
felt that if it were simply brought back as part of the publicity section
or something of that sort of the national committee, that it would cease
to be of much help to us.
The budget had something to do with it too, of course.
An operation of that sort is darn expensive, salaries of the staff members
and their secretaries and all that sort of thing runs into a whale of
a lot of money and that was a factor too. The committee felt that it
simply couldn't afford to put that much money into that function.
[60]
Yes, there were a number of us who were disappointed,
but not everybody on the White House staff felt that way.
MORRISSEY: In your remarks to Kenneth Hechler's class
at Princeton in 1949, you mentioned that factually, the whistlestop
speeches of 1948 were extremely well prepared. Who did the factual preparation
for those speeches?
ELSEY: The background material was done by this Research
Division. Every place on a presidential itinerary, every community,
no matter how small or how large, was looked into by the Research Division.
It prepared digests, briefs, having just the sort of the Baedeker kind
of historical, geographical background--population, so on and so forth,
anything notable in the history of the place. Then it would focus on
the issues of 1948, material on the candidates, both for the incumbent
Congressman and his opponent, material on state candidates, if that
was germane, a suggestion as to what subject or what topic would be
of most interest to the voters of that region, and sometimes, if the
Research Division had had enough time, they would outline a suitable
talk.
Frequently, the time pressures were so great that they
were not able to get on to this last job. But, I
[61]
would receive on the
train anything from four to five typewritten pages about these communities
and the background of the issues believed to be of interest there.
My job on the train was to take this material, on each
of these places, and prepare an outline that the President could actually
use from the rear platform of the train. Sometimes, where possible,
I used as a basis the material that the Research Division had sent out.
If they had not been able to do it, I'd do my own. Sometimes I would,
despite all the work they'd put into it, I would discard that simply
because of the currency of the situation. After all, they were writing
some hundreds or some thousands of miles away, thirty-six or forty-eight
or seventy-two hours earlier, and I would adapt something that was much
more current and that was reflecting the situation of the moment, in
the last few hours or the preceding days events. Or, sometimes on the
basis of my own conversations with local political figures, who were
riding the train with us. I would, where possible--where time permitted,
would talk with the local chairmen, local Congressmen, the local Senator,
and say that this is what the staff was thinking about for
[62]
the President
that afternoon or the coming morning. How did this strike them? Sometimes
they had good ideas; sometimes their ideas didn't seem to be very germane
to the President's pattern of campaigning and they'd necessarily be
discarded.
All the President's whistlestop speeches were delivered
from outlines of salient points, so that the President didn't have to
just stand on his hind legs on the rear platform and shoot from the
cuff. That would have been an impossibly difficult situation for him
and would have put him under impossible pressure.
MORRISSEY: Were efforts made to correlate the President's
campaign with the statewide and congressional campaigns being run at
the same time?
ELSEY: Well, if so, it was being done the other way around.
The statewide and the local campaigns might have been correlated with
the President's. But, at the pace the President was moving--by plane,
by train--it was simply not possible to correlate his with what each
candidate for a congressional district or for the Senate.
Of course, we tried always to be aware and sensitive to
the positions of the party candidates. We
[63]
certainly would have avoided,
and so far as I know, did avoid, having the President ever take a stand
on an issue which was in known and open and direct conflict with the
position of, let us say, a Democratic candidate for Senator or for Governor.
But, there again, any situation as open as that, the Research Division
would have known all about, and would have been very careful to make
that point clear. I personally, at the moment, at this late date, can't
recall any conflict of that sort.
The Research Division did a magnificent job. They worked
like dogs and they ground out an incredible amount of material. They
were on the long distance phone all the time, meetings in Washington,
Government documents. All kinds of historical, literary, political,
economic data flowed from them, and the news clippings, photostats of
useful documents, anything that would give spark and vitality and originality
and vigor to President Truman's campaign effort. This is what they were
after and I think the results obviously speak for themselves.
With respect to the organization on the train, much of
the time there were really only two people who
[64]
were concerned with speeches
per se: Clark Clifford, whose principal concern was with the major addresses,
the evening speech in a stadium or in a coliseum, or something of that
sort, and I would be with the whistlestop speeches. When Mr. Murphy
was with us, which was not on all the trips, he worked with Clifford
on the major speeches.
On the whistlestops, I can recall one case, getting as
many as sixteen per day and that's an awful lot of stuff to turn out
when you're rocketing around in a railroad car.
MORRISSEY: Several people have commented that the President,
in l948, was confident throughout the campaign that he was going to
win. How about these people that rode the train in the different states?
How'd they feel about his chances?
ELSEY: You're referring to local people who came aboard
the train?
MORRISSEY: Yes, these people that often gave you good
advice on what should go into the whistlestop drafts.
ELSEY: Well, most of the state candidates or local
[65]
candidates
were concerned, of course, with their own situation. They could size
it up pretty well. It was not a case of our asking them what they thought
nationally, we were the ones on the receiving end of the questions.
They'd want to find out from us, how it was going elsewhere. They could
tell us about Keokuk or Kankakee or something of that sort, but as for
nationwide, why, we were the ones who were on the receiving end of the
questions.
And, whether their opinions were optimistic or pessimistic,
depended, of course, on the local situation. Some of them were very
optimistic with good reason. Some were optimistic with not very good
reason, as it turned out, and the reverse.
With respect to your first point, the President's own
optimism, I can testify to this. I never saw President Truman at any
point, during the campaign, on the train, or at the White House, or
anyplace else, reveal anything other than confidence that he would win,
come election day. He was certainly very frank at the early weeks of
the campaign that he was behind. He knew he was behind and he said he
was behind, but he was catching up and he was confident that by election
[66]
day, he would be out in front.
This is easy to say. How do I know that he really felt
that way? I can recall one day, we were, I guess, not far from Duluth,
Minnesota. We had a ride of about an hour and a half without stops.
I had gone back to his car with some additional outlines for some more
whistlestop speeches that were coming up. He was alone, everybody else
was catching up on much needed sleep or off doing other chores or errands
and I handed him my papers and he asked me to sit down and chat a bit.
And, it occurred to him at that point that he'd like to check the electoral
count. So, acting as stenographer, I wrote out the names of the forty-eight
states as he called them off and he told me and he knew the--of course
the names of the states--but he also naturally knew the electoral count.
Then he told me what column to put the votes in, Republican, Democrat,
Dixiecrat, or Progressive.
Well, he didn't hit it exactly on the nose, but, he was
in front and his count that afternoon was very close to the final electoral
college count. And, this was purely private. He was not putting on a
show for anybody. Obviously, he wasn't trying to influence or persuade
or sell me. This is what the man, himself,
[67]
believed. This is the way
he saw the situation turning out. If I'd ever had any doubts about the
President's own personal views on the matter, this would have been the
clincher, so far as I was concerned.
MORRISSEY: I realize that many people have asked the question
many times since l948, that how could observations differ so much; let's
say between what the President expected the results of the election
to be and what most of the newspapermen riding the train or most pollsters
thought it would be?
ELSEY: Well, I think you've got some different . . . you're
lumping some different things together there. The newspapermen riding
the train, with, I suppose, perhaps a few exceptions, were pretty accurately
reporting the growing crowds and the growing enthusiasm and the growing
responses that Mr. Truman was getting. Pollsters are something else
again. Do you have any evidence that the newspapermen who regularly
rode the train thought he was going to be elected?
MORRISSEY: No evidence. That's more of an impression.
I should rephrase that to say, "Many newspaper people
[68]
writing about
the campaign."
ELSEY: Yes, newspaper people writing about the campaign,
publishers, wire service people, and so on. I think it was a case fundamentally
of, let's just say, bad reporting. People were so convinced, so many
months ahead and so many weeks ahead of the election, that Truman didn't
have a ghost of a chance. They were convinced after there was a first,
a third, and then a fourth party. All evidence, all historical evidence,
any kind of evidence anybody could think of, showed that he couldn't
possibly win. And, all evidence showed, of course, that the Republican--Dewey,
the challenger--would win, and people just kept on writing what they'd
convinced themselves of weeks in advance without paying attention to
what was actually going on in the course of the campaign.
MORRISSEY: Are you familiar with the issue which arose
from the lack of storage bins for grain in the fall of l948? Could you
tell me about that?
ELSEY: Yes, indeed. We took care of that at a great many
whistlestop speeches. Well, I think perhaps I covered that about as
well in those remarks to Hechler's class
[69]
at Princeton as I could.
Now, and with your indulgence, perhaps the thing to do
is simply reread that paragraph or refer you to it, because, I'm sure
I stated it more concisely and accurately then.
MORRISSEY: How did this get to the attention of the President?
ELSEY: I can't answer precisely how he heard about that.
Probably from some of the Democratic congressional people on the Hill.
No matter whether he had heard of it directly from a member of Congress
or from some official in the executive branch, this is the sort of thing
that the Research Division of the Democratic National Committee would
certainly have found out all about and would have been busy keeping
us on the train and at the White House posted about.
No, I think that undoubtedly the President knew it from
officials of the Commodity Credit Corporation itself. Probably from
a few Democratic leaders on the Hill. But, then the translation of it
into specifics and keeping the facts right up to the minute, as to the
actual selling price of corn at different places in the
[70]
country and
all that sort of thing and being sure that the President's facts were
accurate almost to within a matter of hours at the time of his speech,
that's what the Research Division of the Democratic Committee was doing.
This matter of farm price supports and the fact that the
C.C.C. didn't have the authority to store grain is the sort of thing
that was completely absent from the Dewey effort. It was not the kind
of subject he talked about. Not the kind of factual, specific, down-to-earth,
pocketbook matter that entered into the Republican campaign strategy.
This was where the whistlestops really counted, because,
they were sharp, precise, and very factual. And, he never would use
the same subject twice in one day. So, that there was a continuing flow
of stories off the train. The wire services could just keep a continuing
flow. They didn't have to listen to one speech and know that he was
going to say the same darn thing day in, day out. Those newspaper reporters
had to hop off, scamper through the cinders, and get back there because
every single stop would add another subject, another topic to that day's
lead story about
[71]
the Truman campaign. And, it would always be something
that would make a tremendous splash in the local or regional papers
because it was something the people knew all about.
MORRISSEY: How was the itinerary for the President's travels
in l948 established?
ELSEY: The itinerary was established by consultation.
Mostly by the work of the Democratic National Committee, the permanent
committee staff, in consultation with Connelly and Dawson of the President's
own staff and on their part by incredibly numerous phone calls all over
the country. And, by advice that the President would get from old friends
and staunch political advisors and allies like Alben Barkley.
MORRISSEY: Do you have any recollections about the selection
of Mr. Barkley as the vice-presidential candidate?
ELSEY: Mr. Barkley summed this up fairly well, I think,
himself at the time by commenting on being a--what was it, he referred
to himself as being just a "warmed over biscuit." He knew that he wasn't
the first choice, but he was glad to take it anyway.
[72]
MORRISSEY: Could you tell me about the source of the suggestion
that the 80th Congress be called back into a special session?
ELSEY: I'm sorry to say, I don't remember the source of
that. I'm sure I knew at the time. It may well have been the President's
own idea. It may have been suggested to him by someone. I do not now
recall.
I recall very well indeed the preparation of the President's
acceptance speech there in Philadelphia. The work we did around the
Cabinet Room table on that speech. The uncertainty as to when we were
going to leave for Philadelphia because of the prolonged and dragged
out proceedings up there. The struggle over the platform and so on and
how our departure time, which was by train--we traveled every place
by train in those days--kept being put off hour by hour by hour, but,
at what point the suggestion for the special session, I don't know if
I could find--do you have the folder of my notes and drafts and so on
the acceptance speech? If so, it's barely possible, although unlikely,
that there might be some marginal note at some point on that point.
MORRISSEY: What prompted the question was the not surprising
[73]
fact that Bernard Baruch mentions in one of his memoirs that he suggested
this to Mr. Truman.
ELSEY: I would find this hard, hard to believe. I have
no recollection that the President was seeing or hearing much from or
of Baruch at that point.
Sam Rosenman was one of those that the President was relying
on very heavily at that point. So many people were in and out and so
many things were constantly being talked about that I would doubt that
any single individual could say he and he alone was responsible for
that. After all, as we would "bull" over subjects of this sort, nearly
every possible alternative and every possible course of action would
be talked about in the days preceding something of this sort and I imagine
that this and a number of other things were talked about by many people
over a period of some days. But I'm sorry, I simply can't recall.
MORRISSEY: How great was the likelihood before mid-summer
l948 that Mr. Truman would not receive the nomination of his party in
the convention at Philadelphia?
ELSEY: I don't know how to answer the question on a solid,
[74]
factual basis, how great was the likelihood. So far as I personally
was concerned, I thought it inevitable. I simply couldn't see how a
party could fail to renominate its man in the White House. I'm sure
there were, of course, mixed opinions on that score. But I never doubted
that he would be nominated and I certainly don't think any of my colleagues
on the White House staff doubted that he would be renominated.
Our concern was the circumstances of the renomination,
hoping that it could be done in such a way that it would not lead to
any open feuding and fighting that would weaken the Democratic Party
and weaken the President's own admittedly difficult task in actually
getting elected.
MORRISSEY: To what extent is the President the chief fundraiser
for his party?
ELSEY: Well, here again I suppose it's a matter of semantics.
If by chief fundraiser, you mean somebody who actually goes out and
speaks at fundraising dinners, the President usually is not the chief
fundraiser. But, if by chief fundraiser, you mean the guy who has a
successful administration, why obviously, he's it. If an administration
is going well and the President's personal prestige
[75]
is high and the
public thinks well of his performance; if his chances for re-election
look good or if he can't run to succeed himself because of constitutional
limitations; if the chances of a successor, to his personal taste and
of probably his personal choosing, if those chances are good, why, his
party's going to have no problem raising money.
I don't think the President should, too openly and obviously,
be involved in fundraising on a continuous basis. Certainly, it's all
right for him to show up at Jefferson-Jackson Day dinners, or Lincoln
Day dinners or speak over nationwide closed circuit television, which
is a practice today, but here again, we're back on that subject we were
talking about earlier, the sensitivities of the public if a President
is too openly active in partisan fundraising. This would hurt and would
react against him. But certainly, he's the chief fundraiser. He can't
be anything other. It's all a case of how successful he is and what
method he chooses to use.
MORRISSEY: What I had in mind behind that question was
really how much personal attention or personal interest did the President
take in raising money for the party in 1948?
[76]
ELSEY: I don't think I can answer that simply on the basis
of limitations on my factual knowledge. I don't know. I was, personally,
not involved in any way, shape or form in that. My own area of responsibility
was so much that of speeches that this was something that I didn't have
time for, even if it had been any of my business, which it didn't happen
to be.
MORRISSEY: Do you recall President Truman commenting after
his victory in l948 about not running again for the Presidency?
ELSEY: Oh, I don't know. He commented jocularly on many
subjects. I don't recall his having said anything immediately after
the election of '48, which could be taken, or was taken by anybody as
being a serious statement on that subject. There was lots of banter
and lots of conversation, but, as you know, he had not made a statement
that was regarded by the public or by his own party leadership, a definitive
statement on that subject until the spring of 1952. No, I don't remember
anything. If by this, you mean the first few weeks after or something
of that sort, no, I don't recall any statement that anybody could have
taken as being anything
[77]
other than a joke or a wisecrack.
MORRISSEY: Could you tell me about the pre-press conference
sessions?
ELSEY: In Charlie Ross' day, these were always very interesting
and sometimes quite entertaining. Ross knew Mr. Truman, very well indeed;
they'd been boyhood friends and they'd known each other all their adult
lives, so Charlie could say things and do things with the President
that few other people could. And, what I specifically have in mind at
the moment was Charlie's habit of asking the President, in a sharp,
sometimes almost rude fashion, blunt and unpleasant questions and the
President would sometimes flair back or snap out a quick answer, not
always in diplomatic terms, nor would it be very politically wise, at
which point, Charlie would lean back and laugh and the President would
also grin, and realize that all Ross had been doing was simply putting
him on the alert to the fact that that was the kind of a question he
might get from an unfriendly reporter or from a reporter who was trying
to get from him, precisely the reaction Ross had succeeded in getting.
[78]
I should have said that these pre-press conference sessions
were of the same format and fashion and style as the regular staff conferences.
Most of the staff would sit in a semicircle around the President's desk.
The Press Secretary would always lead off with all of the questions
which he had been told by reporters were going to be asked and then,
he would follow up with other questions on which he thought the President
might get a question. And, as I say, sometimes he would step out of
his normally soft, gentlemanly demeanor and flash one of these sharp
questions, flick it across the President's face, so to speak, in whip-style.
But once the President was put on notice by that kind of a question
from Ross, he would never make the mistake of behaving that way in a
press conference itself. And, he understood perfectly well, we all did,
what Charlie was doing. Charlie was simply doing his best to brief him
in the most effective fashion he could, which was very good indeed.
Mr. Joseph Short, who succeeded Ross when the latter died
of a heart attack in December of 1950, hadn't known the President in
the same fashion at all. He'd known him as a newspaper reporter and
in his capacity
[79]
of newspaper reporter and the distance between him and
the President was of a different order than that between Ross and the
President. So, I felt that Short never quite was able to prepare Truman
as effectively as Ross had.
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