John W. Snyder Oral History Interview, May 28, 1969

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 It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.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, 1970
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

[1591]

HESS: Mr. Snyder, did President Truman himself ever express in your presence any viewpoint about the operation of the presidency or Government organization?

SNYDER: Yes, Mr. Hess, on many occasions we talked about the Presidency and the tremendous responsibility that it placed on an individual; that there should be a better organization of the President's job; that the President had so many responsibilities that had accumulated through the years without any particular statute or regulation or anything. There is a matter of the tremendous number of signature required of a President; appointments -- I'm talking about where he would appoint somebody to a job, he had to sign their

[1592]

certificates. There were so many things that he gradually began to pass part of that work-load over to someone else -- got it authorized -- but there are just so many calls on a President to do so many things that he shouldn't have to do. There should be greater delegation, if you can get the right people in the right job. Some Presidents have undertaken to almost run in detail some of the various departments. Teddy Roosevelt tried it; President Wilson did; certainly FDR. Frankly, Roosevelt tried to run the State Department, the Treasury Department, the Army and Navy, all those things. He attempted to get in it and try to run them himself. And Mr. Truman began to realize that, and we did try to do some reorganization. Still a lot more should be done with that Executive Office. Under that I think there is

[1593]

some thirty or forty different agencies and departments, all under the President's control. He has somebody, like the Director of the Budget, things of that sort but it all stems right back to him.

HESS: What can be done to streamline the office of the President?

SNYDER: It's going to take some objective analysis and study to try to come up with it but entirely, I think, too much time is taken up in meaningless appearances. He goes to so many things that are a lot of wear and tear on him. There would be no problem for you to get up and drop in to see a group and come on back out, but with a President, it's a major operation. You have to get organized, you get the routes laid out, you get all this fixed

[1594]

up, you get the police coverage, the news media, and you have to case the place that you're going to, and it's a terrific job.

HESS: As Mr. Truman has said several times, it's like transporting a circus.

SNYDER: Well, he's put it that way and it's certainly true. And particularly these meaningless appearances that do not serve any constructive purpose.

HESS: Do you think some of those could be given off to the Vice President?

SNYDER: Oh, there's no question about it. It's got to be carefully organized. I know it's nice, but from my point of view -- his going to these media dinners you know, TV dinners, White House photographers, all affairs, those

[1595]

people see the President all the time, he doesn't carry any message. It's nice, of course, if he'll come but then if they just break the habit of it, why, then -- if some President would just have the courage to quit it, don't you see. Then these TV appearances. People begin to get tired of those constant TV appearances of a President announcing some trivial decision or appointment. I say trivial, I mean less than important, don't you see. Kennedy began to do that. If he would appoint a fellow to catch jackrabbits almost, he'd announce it. I've heard him talk about it. Well, that's wear and tear on a President. Nixon is beginning to outdo LBJ. He may have enjoyed it, but it's still not giving him time he needs. And he is beginning to demonstrate this, that instead of sitting meditating and studying,

[1596]

analyzing a decision that he had to make on something really important, if he had spent that time in review and study instead of all this preparation that he has to go through for an appearance -- and the waste involved. Well, I think you get my point there. Then going to dedications and things of that sort. I know there's the political angle. The President wants a certain exposure and he wants the public to see him. And everybody loves to see the President, there's no question about that, but he could have appearances on occasions of importance. I think that more consideration should be given by the President to public rather than political welfare. The pressures on the President always, of course, are great. He is the leader of his party, but at the same time, I think his stature -- his image -- would be

[1597]

greatly enhanced if a president could conscientiously back up something that's for the public good even though it might not be just exactly for the political good at the time. And I think that we have let our Presidents and our whole political machine draft toward just getting the vote. It's been entirely too much the emphasis of things.

HESS: Don't they have some fear, particularly in their first term of office, that if they don't keep their political fences mended, more or less, they may not be there the second term?

SNYDER: Well, that's probably part of it, and then in the second term the party then leans on them to see to it that somebody in the party gets in the next term, don't you see? And frankly FDR tried to break that down but I

[1598]

don't think -- I have my grave doubts that we'll ever elect a President for a third term again. That's been ruled out.

HESS: Yes, that's the twenty-second amendment. That amendment would have to be repealed.

SNYDER: I think that they decided that the general public's feeling is that two terms is enough and, frankly, I have a very strong feeling personally that a six years' non-repetitive term would be probably of greatest value. The President in for six years could get in and do a good job and then move on.

HESS: Do you think there is much chance that the law will be changed that way?

SNYDER: Oh, I don't see any likelihood of it at this time although personally, I would be

[1599]

strongly in favor of careful consideration to that. I think that the President's time has got to be so organized so that he will have to have more time for reflection and concentration on matters of great importance. The President is under such pressure that he rarely has the opportunity and that, of course, is why Mr. Truman used to take advantage of those Key West trips. He could get out of the pressure pattern to get down there to think and to reflect on the cause and effect of occurrences and give greater attention to important matters and less to lesser important pressures that are put on him. Something that I believe very strongly as a help towards giving the President a little more seclusion, would be give him a home away from the White House. Make his residence another place and have the

[1600]

White House for the social functions and for a show place and let the crowds go through there. He could keep his office in the Executive wing and identify it that way as the President's headquarters and so forth. But as the actual living, he could get a nice estate here...

HESS: Somewhere in the District?

SNYDER: Somewhere in the District, yes. But, in complete retirement and not have it open to the public and that sort of thing and when he goes there, he can relax a little, don't you see. But, around the White House he's always on display, even when he goes upstairs, and he can't get out and walk around the yard, the lawns, or the, garden. People are looking through the fences at him with binoculars and so forth. I think it would give a sense of

[1601]

relaxation to leave that place and get away. Take a place like Mrs. Merriweather Post's. That's private and withdrawn. It's got a big fence around it, and you could get out and walk around the gardens and no one ever see you then. You could get a feeling of great relaxation.

HESS: Well, was this ever discussed during the Truman administration?

SNYDER: I don't think so but these are my own ideas. Most of these things I've been talking about are just that, maybe not thoroughly thought through, but they are the seed of ideas.

HESS: Of course, when Mr. Truman was there, for a long period of time, for several years, he was in the Blair House, across the street.. Do you think that that, even moving across the

[1602]

street, do you think that that helped him any?

SNYDER: No. No, because there was that parade across the street everyday with people lined up. He was on display, don't you see. And when he got over there, there was no place to go. He was cooped up. You get a sense of claustrophobia. He couldn't get out. He did try to get out and make his early morning walks around the streets, but in these days I don't know whether you could risk even trying to do that now.

HESS: Probably not. Okay, everything on that?

SNYDER: Well, it's endless. It's not complete but just some seeds of ideas.

HESS: Of things that could be done to improve the office.

[1603]

SNYDER: I think so. It certainly ought to be given a careful study, I think.

HESS: All right. Mr. Snyder, what in your opinion were Mr. Truman's major contributions during his career?

SNYDER: Well, Mr. Hess, you're asking a tremendously important question, and you're asking it of a person that is highly prejudiced about Mr. Truman's nearly eight years in the Presidency. I think that he did a great many very fine things. I think that the biggest decision that confronted him immediately after he became President, was the dropping of the atomic bomb. Mr. Truman, up until he became Vice President, knew very little about the atomic bomb, or about the Manhattan Project, as it was called. Mr. Roosevelt told him some

[1604]

of it, but actually it was not until after he became President that he was told the whole story and exactly the status of the work on the bomb and how near it was to completion. He actually did not know that until he was briefed by the Secretary of War on it after he became President.

HESS: One question on that. When did you first find out about the bomb?

SNYDER: I don't know whether I've ever told you this story, but that was one of the great secrets that I tried hardest not to know about.

HESS: Was it that difficult not to know about it?.

SNYDER: Yes. You see I was running the Defense Plant Corporation and I was being called on to finance plants with some rather large expenditures and -- "Well, don't ask about this."

[1605]

This was not on the project exactly, but on some plants and equipment connected with the project.

HESS: Hanford?

SNYDER: Yes, for one. The Defense Plant Corporation was called on to do some of the financing there. I had a friend Earl Stewart, who was the president of Comstock Company who had been given the contract to install some of the highly top secret electrical machinery that went into...

HESS: Oak Ridge?

SNYDER: Oak Ridge and also Hanford. And Earl used to come and want to sit down and talk about the problems that he had. I'd say, "I don't want to know about it. Please don't tell me." And then...

[1606]

SNYDER: Frankly, I had all sorts of notions and I just wanted to keep it that way that I didn't know precisely what they were up to.

Many of my British and French friends would ask me a good number of questions. You see, we didn't have a French government to deal directly with, but we had some friends of the French people who were always around trying to find out what was going on. I had known them in the banking business and so on, and they would keep coming in and, "There's some thing big going on. The United States is working on something now. You ought to know about it."

"Well," I said, "I know nothing about it."

I remember going down to Knoxville to address the Tennessee Bankers Association and, oh, the pressure they put on me about that Oak Ridge plant. They said, "Great carloads,

[1607]

trainloads of stuff pour in there and we never see anything come out. What's going on over there?" Well, it was fascinating and when I actually knew about it, I think was along in the spring when I knew precisely what was going on. I think it was in the spring of '45.

HESS: About the same time Mr. Truman did, or perhaps a little before that?

SNYDER: Well, I don't want to measure the days but I think it was along about the same time.

HESS: I think he says in his Memoirs that Mr. Stimson came in on April 25th to inform him of this.

SNYDER: It was a couple of weeks after he became President.

[1608]

HESS: Well, did you ever hear Mr. Truman say why he thought the bomb should be dropped?

SNYDER: Yes. Yes. I don't know whether I mentioned it to you or not but I'm going to repeat it. I had some most interesting experiences later when Mr. Churchill and Mr. Truman were discussing whether it was right to have dropped it, looking back, don't you see. They both always came to the conclusion that it was the right thing to do. You had to think about all the reasons that the President had to consider. Number one, I think, was the military decision. The Germans had capitulated, and we'd had V-E Day, when word reached Mr. Truman that the bomb was ready to drop, that they had had a test -- you see, they first had a test out there on the desert and it worked perfectly.

[1609]

The greatest problem was the stabilization of the explosion, so that they could transport it around without danger of it going off. And that triggering, as they called it, was one of the most delicate things that they had to work on and they finally demonstrated in the test that they could command the moment that it would be triggered and that was reported to Mr. Truman. Here is a schedule of the bomb program involving President Truman:

1. President advised of bomb project by Stimson April 12, 1945.

2. Committee appointed to determine use -- May, 1945 -- 8 members -- 4 scientists..

3. Four cities were selected as military targets if bomb would work: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki. Stimson, Marshall and Arnold took part in conferences. Report of committee was submitted to the President by Secretary Stimson on June 1st. President Truman left for Potsdam on July 7, 1945:

[1610]

4. Test bomb drop successful July 16th. Reported by Stimson to President at Potsdam.

5. Order prepared to General Carl Spaatzto to arrange for dropping bomb around August 3rd. Order dated July 24, 1945. (Potsdam)

6. Ultimatum issued to Japan from Potsdam on July 26^th -- was rejected.

7. Decision made to drop bomb. (Potsdam)

8. Bomb dropped on Hiroshima August 5^th while President was en route home from Potsdam. President Truman reached U.S. on August 7, 1945.

9. Second bomb dropped on Nagasaki on August 9th.

10. Japan surrendered August 10th.

HESS: I believe that it was in Potsdam that Truman told Stalin that the U.S. had a super weapon more or less, something like that. He did not tell it was an atomic bomb?

SNYDER: No.

[1611]

HESS: And, according to the history books, Mr. Stalin was not too surprised.

SNYDER: Oh, no. He didn't seem to be surprised at a1l.

Does that cover the subject of dropping the bomb?

HESS: Yes, that's good. But one more question.

SNYDER: What?

HESS: Was there actually a decision by the President personally of this nature? Did it ever come down to a point when there might have been a decision not to use the bomb?

SNYDER: Yes. Yes, there was a final decision that the President had to make. If he had said, "No, I will not authorize the use of it,"

[1612]

that was within his scope. I mean, you could say, "Well, it would have been an impossibility for him to have made such a decision." But he had the power to do it, and he could have, at one time said, "I'm not going to drop this bomb."

HESS: Do you know if any of the people around him in the military perhaps, advised him that way, not to do it?

SNYDER: I don't think there was any opposition of the military, they were all pretty much for doing it. That brings up one of the strongest reasons, as I said, the military aspect of it, because they were so certain that the Japanese were going to fight to the last island, that they were going to make the kamikaze effort to protect the emperor to the last second, don't you see. The loss would have been tremendous

[1613]

in men, so General Marshall has told me time and again, at that time and later, that it is just incalculable how many men we would have lost if we would have continued the war after we were ready to drop the bomb. So, that was a decision. Mr. Truman had to be concerned with the moral decision also. Was he justified in dropping the bomb? And whenever he would measure one against the other, they were careful in selecting a military target to drop it on, because Hiroshima was just a composite of manufacturing plants. And the later one that they dropped was on a port town.

HESS: Nagasaki.

SNYDER: Yes, Nagasaki. But the justification seemed to be very strong because of the bringing the war to a close, getting us back working towards

[1614]

peaceful pursuits. Get the world repaired. We were being kept from rehabilitation programs in Europe. Our attention was divided between continuing the war in Japan and trying to straighten out the Continent of Europe following the devastation of World War II, and the feeling that we ought to be able to concentrate on rehabilitation of the world and those pressures, finally helped to make the decision. And it was a tremendous decision to make and when you ask what were the outstanding things, I think that was the first one. That was the first one he had to make.

The next important...

HESS: I've got a couple of questions about the atomic bomb.

SNYDER: Oh, okay, before we move on.

[1615]

HESS: Number one: Was the possibility discussed by the President and his advisors, of not dropping it on a city but dropping it over a desert island or an uninhabited place -- a demonstration, more or less?

SNYDER: That was discussed, but it was so inconclusive. Dropping it on a desert would not prove anything. You had to prove that you could knock out working operation. Some of the professors, before and during and afterwards, began to get great conscience stricken feelings about what they had wrought, you know. And later, I've seen them, particularly when we got up to the hydrogen bomb, I've been present when some of them came in to talk to Mr. Truman with tears in their eyes to think that they had moved into the seat of God, you know, and were...

[1616]

HESS: Who?

SNYDER: Well, I won't name names but it was some of our top scientists.

HESS: Don't want to give any names out?

SNYDER: No, I don't.

HESS: Back on the atomic bomb, what part did the fact that the Russians were getting ready to enter the Asiatic and Japanese war play in the fact that we dropped the bomb? Now we dropped the first bomb on August 6th; the Russians declared war on Japan two days later on August 8th; we dropped the second bomb on August 9th.

SNYDER: I don't know when the Russians would have really entered the war against the Japanese, but I think that they saw the war was over, and

[1617]

that's when they rushed in and declared war on the Japanese. The dropping of the bomb convinced them the war was coming to a close, and I think that they would have waited until they were sure the war was over, or nearly over, before they committed themselves, but they wanted to get in on sharing in the victory, don't you see.

HESS: Do you, or do you not think that if we had not dropped the bomb and the war had gone on, that the Russians would have got further in and we might have had a stalemate in Japan as we have in Germany?

SNYDER: I doubt it.

HESS: Why?

SNYDER: I just do. I think that the Russians were

[1618]

so concerned with trying to. get a good foothold into Europe that I don't think they would have. I think they were watching it and they were going to jump in just before the close in order to share in the division of the spoils as it turned out. As you know, they moved in and just ripped out of Manchuria and certain parts of Japan, the machinery; and that which they didn't move out they broke up. But they moved in just at the right time to share in the victory.

Now, the next important decision, and I think its effect was so outstanding that it must be mentioned, is the prompt decisions that Mr. Truman made in times of crisis. I think that the ability stands out in his administration all through the time he was President. But it showed up so vitally important in the early

[1619]

days when he was having to make decisions on matters where there were no signposts, no guidelines, and he had to step in. For instance, one of the first ones that he had to make was the Interim Aid to the war-torn countries of Greece and Turkey, and put a stop to the invasion of the Russians into those areas. They were already moving in further north into the Balkans. The Communists were headed right straight into Turkey and into Greece. So that was one of the first early, very important decisions and had a great effect on history afterwards. I think that his prompt reconversion from a war economy to a peacetime economy was outstanding. He engineered some splendid legislation through Congress to help in their reconversion. We didn't have near the vast unemployment that was predicted in Mr.

[1620]

Nathan's figures in the June 1945 report of the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion. Mr. Nathan put that estimate in the report against Max Gardner's and my protest. We never had over three and a half million people unemployed, as I remember. Within nine months of V-E Day, we had changed the production from a wartime economy to a peacetime economy to the extent that we were turning out of those former wartime factories a greater supply of peacetime commodities than we had ever in the history of the United States. It's a great tribute to industry itself, and to our banking structure, that under Mr. Truman's leadership, they moved right in and got things to rolling in a great hurry. That has meant a great deal to our country's aid. I think our foreign policy was outstanding under Mr. Truman's

[1621]

regime. He was able to accomplish leadership in the world in an exemplary fashion. That leads us to the Marshall plan. Without any question, it is unique in history that a victor would go in and try to patch up the damage done by a devastating war. That's what was done under the Marshall plan. It got Europe back on its feet so it could start being what it is today, a great economic success. It all roots right down to the early assistance that this country gave with -- well, go back a bit, lend-lease, UNRRA, Interim Aid, and then the Marshall plan. All of those were programs of assistance that we were doing for the vanquished and for our allies who had been pretty badly beaten up. Then another one was the creation of NATO. We can't measure how important that was

[1622]

to maintaining the freedom of Europe, to have had that strong force there constantly available against further encroachment of the Communists. We hadn't done it along. Those countries in Europe had not been able unaided to rebuild their military forces quickly without having had the assistance of a coordinated defense program which NATO furnished. Of course, there were great leaders in the other member countries too, but we stood out in the leadership and we were able to offer substance earlier than the other countries to the armament of NATO. That was one of the great things. And I think that all of his domestic social developments and improvements were also of great importance.

HESS: What do you have in mind there?

[1623]

SNYDER: Well, all the development, expansion and putting into operation of many of the programs that had been started under Mr. Roosevelt, and were still in the making when Mr. Truman became President. He got bills passed through. The Full Employment Act, and things of that sort. I think the GI bill that helped give so many young people educations was very important. There were so many. We could talk for a long time on these various things. We would almost have to go down the legislative calendar to see what all he did do. Then, of course, in 1950 he was confronted with the decision about Korea. That I think was one of the very great decisions that he made, that we would say, "You are stopping here, you're not going any further," to an aggressor nation.

Then to get into the inner operation of

[1624]

Government, 1 think one of the outstanding things that his leadership brought about was the complete reorganization of the Treasury. It put the Internal Revenue on a business basis and the same, of course, in Customs. The complete reorganization of practically the whole Treasury was done under various bills that we were able to put through. Mr. Truman's financing program in the Korean situation. I have told you, from the time that I went into the Treasury until the Korean war came up, we had actually taken in more money in the Treasury than we had spent. We had actually been in balance for that one whole period of five years. And then when the Korean war came along, the president agreed to go right to Congress and ask for tax bills to help defray the expenses while we were entering the war. We didn't

[1625]

know how big it was going to get. We'd seen two world wars develop from lesser incidents than the invasion of South Korea. He began to slow up on many of the domestic projects that weren't absolutely essential. He began to cut down on spending. He prevented inflation by those steps that were taken promptly. And it was just amazing to even the Congressmen themselves, they passed three tax bills there within a very few months. They were all singularly helpful in making folks realize that we did have a very serious situation. These Treasury activities helped bring on a so-called battle between the Treasury and the Federal Reserve Board. The Fed plan, at least under the leadership of Allan Sproul of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, was that it was the time to tighten up on money and to

[1626]

raise interest rates to stop war inflation. I was very definitely opposed to any sudden big raise. The record shows that we had been easing upward on the interest rates from the very stringent rate pattern held in World War II when bills were down to 7/8 and the going rate was around 2 percent on many of the notes and bonds. We began to loosen up and expand that somewhat, and we intended to do it gradually. Lee Wiggins was my Under Secretary during several of those earlier years of my administration, and we were making an effort to gradually get a better pattern in the financial and fiscal operation. But then, all of a sudden, they wanted to press forward. I as deadly opposed to enter into a war of unknown dimensions on a rising interest rate not knowing what it would cost us. Suppose

[1627]

we had gone into World War II on a rising interest rate pattern, and had built up the deficit financing that we did on a constantly rising interest rate pattern. You can't operate a government in war time on the normal procedures of monetary control. We worked it out all right, we reached what was called the "accord," but that only adds to the important things that Mr. Truman did in times of crisis at the right times. I'm sure there may be a great many other things that different persons would like to say they thought were among the great things he did, but just quickly here, without any research, those are the ones that think were the most outstanding -- were outstanding -- I wouldn't say most, but were outstanding of the things that he did and decisions that he made.

[1628]

HESS: Fine. You and I have discussed several times the meaning of the words liberal and conservative, but judging from the decisions that we've made about those two words, just where would you place Mr. Truman on a scale from a liberal to a conservative?

SNYDER: This, of course, is just a freewheeling mental exercise because I don't know of any device or instrument yet that's been invented that can measure the extent to which man is this, that, or the other but I would venture a shot and shoot my arrow into the air. I would say about 60 percent liberal and 40 percent conservative.

HESS: Do you have any particular programs that he may have tried to implement that you have in mind when you make this evaluation?

[1629]

SNYDER: Yes, I have. There were a great many of these social programs that he favored and pressed for and yet on the other hand, he always felt like we ought to operate on a balanced budget. He wasn't a deficit financing advocate. He would have liked to have the country pay off some of the debts that the extreme liberals didn't think were necessary. They all said, "We owe it to ourselves, and therefore we don't have to ever be bothered about a big debt." There were many, many evidences of conservatism in Mr. Truman that I observed from time to time, which leads me -- and this was just a stab in the dark this sixty-forty -- but I thought he leaned a little bit more toward the general ideas of liberalism. It's awfully hard to get a definition of what is a liberal politician and what isn't. I don't believe you could get any three,

[1630]

so-called liberals to define their position and have it to make a pattern. And so, as I say, it's just a freewheeling mental exercise to attempt it, but he leaned towards many of the so-called liberal things for social development in the country; yet underneath that, and back of it, he was many times very conservative in his thinking.

HESS: One of the liberal programs that was put forward in his day dealt with civil rights, and there are those that say that Mr. Truman's actions in civil rights were taken from the standpoint of political expediency, and that he really wasn't in favor of some of the measures that he was espousing in public. What are your views on that?

SNYDER: Well, I told you the story of my experience.

[1631]

HESS: That's right, I think we covered that.

SNYDER: I think we covered that, I think he was sincere. I don't think he was for everything that came up. Many times he would say, "No, I don't think we ought to go to that extent," or "We ought not to do this." But, in general, he was sincere about what he did do, in my opinion.

HESS: Okay, fine. What is your estimation of Mr. Truman's place in history? How will he be regarded by historians one or two hundred years from now?

SNYDER: Well, I just jotted down here something that I think maybe will fit into an answer to that question. "In motivation, self-discipline, personal adjustment, vitality,

[1632]

human reactions and political sensitivity, Harry Truman stands high in measurement of the performance of all Presidents. And I'm confident that he will rank among the top in courage, concept of office, sincerity, capacity for growth, and a well-balanced leadership."

HESS: How would you rate the Presidents of recent years, from Mr. Roosevelt to the present, in terms of their effectiveness, their administrative ability, their intellectual ability, and as men?

SNYDER: If we would actually list down all of the effective steps that each took, I think maybe Mr. Roosevelt has the edge a little, but Mr. Truman is pretty close. When it comes to administrative ability, we've got to go back to the thirties and see the skillful manner in

[1633]

which Mr. Roosevelt brought about a complete reorganization of the concept of government and its positions of responsibility and the management of the war, and I think that again, we've got to give Mr. Roosevelt a little edge on administrative ability, but Mr. Truman's was very close. As to intellectual ability, I think Kennedy stood out without any question. His agile mind and education, background, his preparation for the job. His father had prepared him for political life, for public life, and had educated him both on this continent and in Europe, something that none of our recent Presidents have had, that type of education. Mr. Joe Kennedy set up trust funds for his boys which would enable them never to be bothered about having to earn a living, and that their entire efforts in their education

[1634]

and their work experience would be bent towards public service. And with this sort of intellectual platform I think Mr. Kennedy stood out. I wouldn't want to go back into the effectiveness or the administration because I don't think you can rate him very high on those. But so far as pure intellect, I think that he had it over most of our presidents, perhaps all the way back to Wilson. I think Wilson was a great intellect. But, as a man, I don't think that anybody comes anywhere near matching Mr. Truman. As a President and as a man. You blend those together and I think he just is outstanding. I think I somewhat defined that in what I said just before about motivation and self-discipline and went on and described all his attributes. I think that gives you the detailed reasoning behind my saying that as a man I think he rates on top.

[1635]

HESS: Good. Mr. Snyder, did President Truman ever consider relieving J. Edgar Hoover of his position?

SNYDER: I don't think that he actually got to the point of seriously thinking about removing him. I think that he felt many times that Mr. Hoover had overstayed his time; that he had developed a sort of a dictatorial operation in the FBI that needed revamping and recasting. There were quite a number of times that he took very firm stands about some of Mr. Hoover's operations. There was a constant effort on the part of the FBI to move into some of the Treasury operations. They wanted to take over the Secret Service for one. They wanted to not necessarily takeover the Secret Service, but they wanted the responsibility for looking

[1636]

after the President, and his family, shifted to them. In investigative matters they wanted to take over narcotics, they wanted to take over investigation into forgery and counterfeiting, and things of that sort. Just creeping encroachment on any other investigative units. Because, as you know, the Treasury up until the time I left there, did a tremendous amount of investigative work in many areas; in Internal Revenue and tax evasion, narcotics, customs, and the Secret Service. There was a very interesting story recently in a book that's come out on the FBI. It is related in the book that each one of the juniors in Mr. Hoover's organization had tried to write something justifying the actions or programs in the FBI; when they got through and put it all together (in this recent book) there was a

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great big question as to just what kind of an organization Mr. Hoover had put together during his long tenure, and whether what he had assembled was all for the good of the country. That was, I think, Mr. Truman's general feeling that Mr. Hoover had built up a Frankenstein in the FBI.

HESS: What's your opinion?

SNYDER: I feel the same way.

HESS: What do you think can be done?

SNYDER: Well, of course, eventually the departure of Mr. Hoover is going to have an effect. I don't know of any one who could step into his shoes. Of course, there always is a successor who can be found, there's no indispensable man, but Mr. Hoover went beyond the normal man. Once he got into that area and started

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to building up the investigative part of the Justice Department, he absolutely devoted every waking hour of the day to working on it. He had no family, he devoted himself strictly to that. He dedicated every effort that he could make towards building up this, great Frankenstein, as I call it. You never know exactly the effectiveness of the FBI's work because it is so propagandized that you're never certain how much it has really accomplished when you stop to think of how many things they have not solved in major thefts, of major bank robberies and major violations that they are responsible for investigating. You learn years afterwards that finally they caught the last man but they never got the money back or anything of that sort. They take full credit for eliminating kidnapping, but we've had some very serious kidnappings

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in recent days, and some of them have been solved and some of them haven't. We don't know how much of it we really do know and these ten most wanted men have been so propagandized and played up, and the stories of the invincibility of the FBI has been so dramatized that one wonders how much is true and how much isn't. When we look downtown and see that enormous building that they are going to have for the headquarters of the FBI, when you realize how many offices they must have scattered around the world, then you begin to realize what a tremendous complex Mr. Hoover has assembled, what a web he's woven in the years that he has been in charge, to built it up to where it's so huge an operation today; and yet you don't know exactly what its effectiveness is. If it was ever possible to have some organization, go

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in there and make a detailed analysis as so many businesses do, and as I did in the Treasury, brought in outside -- Kinsey and others, you know, and had them just go right through with the probing effort to find what was done right, what should be improved, what the effectiveness of the operation was, we would have been absolutely mired to the hilt in the Internal Revenue if we hadn't brought in new processes and new planning and new ideas. But we don't know, and there's no one dares to go into the FBI to really analyze their programs, costs and effectiveness. There's no question in my mind but that Mr. Hoover has built up dossiers on every man of importance in the Government and they don't dare go against him.

HESS: What do you recall about the inception of

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William Hillman's Mr. President book project?

SNYDER: Well, Bill Hillman and I were very good friends. We were discussing Mr. Truman's work one time and I thought it would make a very interesting book. Mr. Truman had not had a great deal written about him and I thought it would help to sort of humanize him a little to write a book of the character of Mr. President. Frankly I don't think it ever reached any great sales. It was fairly popular as current reading matter, but it did give a side of Mr. Truman that was not too well-known up to that time and I really, frankly, regret that there hadn't been a great deal more written -- serious and scholarly research on Mr. Truman I understand that one or two are now in the making but it would have been so much better

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if we could have gotten them much earlier. Mr. Truman did not gather around him as Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Kennedy, and Mr. Johnson did, a lot of historians simply to do that kind of job. He just didn't do that and he was extremely reluctant on this book, many times, to go about it in a way projecting himself, you know, and I wish he had done that. But this was among the first ones and I think it served a good purpose. Do you have any questions in regard to it in the back of your mind?

HESS: No. That's all. And this clears up all of our questions and gets us down to the subject of taxation and the public debt. Thank you very much.