Dwight D. Eisenhower - No. 34 - Gettysburg, PA - March 14, 2020

Dwight D. Eisenhower

No. 34

Eisenhower National Historical Site, Gettysburg, PA

March 14, 2020

Official Presidential Portrait
painted by James Anthony Wills, 1967

Dwight D. Eisenhower is remembered, rightfully so, for his many military accomplishments, starting with his command during D-Day.

But we visited the Eisenhower National Historical Site using another of his major legacies, one that everyone uses but forget about or didn’t even know about  — the interstate highway system.

Eisenhower pushed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, which funded the first 41,000 miles of highway that made up the system. America had tried creating a highway system before, but it was never funded. Eisenhower, however, was motivated to build a highway network. According to the U.S. Army (Dwight D. Eisenhower and the birth of the Interstate Highway System), three events pushed him toward building the network: His assignment as a military observer to the First Transcontinental Motor Convoy, his admiration of Germany’s efficient road network during World War II, and his fears of a nuclear bomb — he wanted Americans to be able to escape a nuclear disaster, and he was worried that the road network at the time couldn’t handle it. As legendary broadcaster Walter Cronkite said, the highway system “changed the entire face of America.”

Living in the Washington area, we’ve always appreciated being able to zip around on the nearby Capital Beltway and the region’s extensive highway network — when traffic isn’t backed up.

So at the beginning of March, we headed onto Interstate 270, north to Interstate 15 in Frederick County, across the Maryland line into Pennsylvania, and into Gettysburg.

Yes, Gettysburg. Eisenhower’s farm, the only home he ever owned, is right next to the Gettysburg Civil War battlefield. In fact, to visit the farm, you must park at the Gettysburg National Military Park visitor center to buy tickets, and then a shuttle bus whisks you to the Eisenhower Historic Site.

We visited March 14, during the first real weekend of the coronavirus pandemic, deciding it was better to go now while things were still open. That was a good call, since the park was closed by the following weekend. The park rangers and volunteers were practicing “social distancing,” at the time a new concept.

Our visit was apropos since Eisenhower also went through a severe flu outbreak in 1957.  In fact, he didn’t want to have a vaccine because it was in short supply and he didn’t want to cut to the front of the line.  However, he was pressured to take the vaccine because that the Public Health Service recommended vaccinations for older people with preexisting conditions and Ike had had a heart attack. So, he finally received a vaccine in August 1957.

The Ike section of the gift shop.

The park was surprisingly busy, with the parking lot full of cars. And when Cathy ventured into the gift shop at the end of our visit to hunt down “I like Ike” campaign buttons, the sheer number of people in the store, especially kids and teenagers running around, drove us out. Still, only about 10 people were in our tour group, which meant we didn’t need to split into separate groups.

* * *

Eisenhower , one of six boys, was born in Denison, Texas, but raised in Abilene, Kansas. Young “Ike” loved to read, especially military biographies. His favorites were Hannibal and George Washington (Moore, 2007).  Since his family didn’t have much money, West Point was a good option for him. As a cadet, he was an average student—he graduated 61st out of a class of 164—who performed better as an athlete. And he was often in trouble amassing hundreds of demerits. It was at West Point that his childhood nickname of Ike stuck. 

Early in his military career, Eisenhower was assigned to command Camp Colt, Pennsylvania, the U.S. Army’s new tank training school, on the grounds of the Gettysburg battlefield. He had served with the 301st Tank Battalion, the first heavy tank battalion in the Army, at Camp Meade in Maryland, which is why he was picked for the new command. Gettysburg had long been used as a military training ground.  In fact, Eisenhower had his tank teams put guns on top of Little Round Top to lob shells at targets below. Obviously, he loved the Gettysburg area, since he decided to retire there.

Eisenhower met Mamie on an assignment at Fort Sam Houston, Texas.  They hit it off right away and were engaged in four months. When he married Mamie on July 1, 1916, he warned her, “My country comes first and always will. You come second.” Their first child, Icky, was born in 1917 but died in 1921 from scarlet fever. Eisenhower said, his son’s death was “the greatest disappointment and disaster of my life…” (Moore, 2007). Each year he sent flowers to Mamie on Icky’s birthday (Eisenhower, 2015).

Eisenhower was upset that he never had an opportunity to serve in Europe during World War I.  The problem was that he was so good at preparing troops for battle that the Army didn’t want to send him overseas. When he was finally sent to Europe, the war was over.

Skip ahead to World War II. Ike’s leadership talents and his ability to build consensus were quickly recognized. By 1943 he was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces. In 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt put Eisenhower in charge of D-Day because he was a “natural leader who can convince other men to follow him…” Before the troops landed on the shores of France in June 1944, Eisenhower wrote a note that he kept in his pocket: “In the event of failure, the responsibility for this is mine and mine alone.” Stress like this caused him to smoke “packs of Camels” and drink “fifteen cups of coffee” per day (Moore, 2007). But by the war’s end he was a five-star general.

After Victory in Europe day, President Harry S. Truman — who was unsure if he himself would run for a full term—offered to help Eisenhower win the presidency in 1948.  Instead, Eisenhower became president of Columbia University, a position he ended up disliking.

The Eisenhowers moved about 40 times during their marriage, never owning their own home until they finally bought the Gettysburg house.

* * *

We boarded the bus in front of the visitor center. The bus driver wore an “I Like Ike” campaign pin.  The drive takes about 10 minutes and winds through the rolling battlefield before the bus turns down a long, narrow, gravel road, lined with spruce trees, which were a gift to the Eisenhowers.

The first structure we saw as we pulled in was the green-gray farmhouse, a color Eisenhower mixed himself, our guide tells us — breaking away from the traditional white. 

The farm, which the Eisenhowers bought in 1950, was advertised for $20,000, and included 500 chickens and 36 cows. But the owners doubled the asking price when they learned the Eisenhowers were interested. 

On the walk to the house is a small, white building. This is a former one-car garage that Eisenhower converted to a guesthouse. His grandson, David, used to stay there. On the side of the house is a little room with its own door that used to house the Secret Service.

Eisenhower's house

Then there’s the house, which was built in 1887. The house originally was red brick. The Eisenhowers wanted to renovate it, but found that the original house underneath was a log house that was almost completely rotted. They built the new house themselves, with Mamie overseeing the entire $215,000 renovation. Don’t worry, our guide tells us: Eisenhower’s WWII memoirs paid for it.

After buying the house, the Eisenhowers headed almost immediately to Europe where in 1950 Eisenhower became supreme commander of the NATO forces.

As the election of 1952 approached, Eisenhower was pursued by both parties to be their candidate. Since his family had always been Republican, he chose that party. He selected a conservative congressman from California, Richard M. Nixon, as his running mate and they ran on a platform of low taxes, a balanced budget and opposition to communism.  The campaign slogan, “I Like Ike” came from a 1950 Irving Berlin musical, “Call Me Madam.” The play, which opened in 1950, references Eisenhower running against Truman in 1952. When Eisenhower finally did run in 1952, Berlin rewrote the lyrics.  Ike beat Democratic candidate, Adlai Stevenson, by an overwhelming electoral margin, 442-8.

Eisenhower put the Gettysburg house to good use during his presidency.  He used it as a temporary White House for almost two months as he recuperated from a 1955 heart attack. He also used it for personal diplomacy, since it is near Camp David, which Eisenhower renamed from Shangri-La for grandson David. It is a nine-minute helicopter trip — Eisenhower was the first president to ride in a helicopter — to the presidential retreat in the Catoctin Mountains in nearby Maryland. He would bring world leaders who were visiting Camp David to the house, where they would meet and mingle with his family, including his grandchildren. 

This strategy paid off in 1959 when Russian President Nikita Kruschev visited. Talks at Camp David weren’t going particularly well, so Eisenhower invited him to the farm, and told his grown up kids to get their families there. Eisenhower’s four grandkids squirmed all over Kruschev, who melted with affection; he presented them each a Communist red star.  The visit went so well that Kruschev invited Eisenhower to visit him in Moscow. But “the spirit of Camp David” was destroyed when pilot Gary Powers was shot down while flying a CIA U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union on a reconnaissance mission. (The United States didn’t believe the Russian missiles could touch a plane at 70,000 feet.  Powers was supposed to take a suicide pill if shot down but did not.)  Kruschev canceled the invitation and the Cold War was back on, full throttle.

Eisenhower was hugely popular: His average approval rating over his eight years in office was 65 percent. Historian Paul Johnson wrote that Eisenhower “was the most successful of American’s 20th century presidents, and the decade when he ruled (1953-61) the most prosperous in American, and indeed world, history” (Johnson, 1991) — at least to that point.

However, it was Eisenhower who began U.S. involvement in Vietnam in 1954. Johnson (1991) wrote that ”it can be argued that he (Eisenhower) was more responsible for the eventual mess in Vietnam than any other American.” Eisenhower decided against authorizing an air strike to rescue French troops from defeat at Dien Bien Phu because he wanted to avoid a land war in Asia. After the French defeat, Eisenhower refused to back the Geneva Accords, which set a temporary demarcation of north and south at the 17th parallel and allowed an election to establish the future of Vietnam. Instead, Eisenhower established the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), which backed a despot named Ngo Dinh Diem as the leader of the south. Diem held his own election in 1955, a likely rigged election in which he won 98 percent of the vote. After the vote, Diem unleashed “waves of terror” under his regime (Cuddy, 1997). Eisenhower had good intentions — he did not want Vietnam to be another Communist “falling domino.” (The United States eventually turned against Diem, and the CIA supported a coup in the early 1960s that led to his assassination.)  According to Johnson (1991), “The loss of South Vietnam would set in motion a crumbling process…”

Eisenhower also stumbled in his response to the Hungarian Revolution. In late October 1956, the Hungarian population rose up against the Soviet-backed government. For 12 days, Hungarians had a taste of freedom. The Soviets removed their tanks from Budapest and the Hungarian government announced its withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. The CIA-backed Radio Free Europe encouraged the revolt, but Eisenhower had no plans to become militarily involved. For one thing the Suez Crisis was happening almost simultaneously. And for another, the 1956 presidential election was imminent. On Nov. 4, a column of Soviet tanks rumbled into Hungary and slaughtered thousands of Hungarians. The revolution was over.

The Hungarian Revolution -- the early days.

Tom’s parents, who lived in Budapest, hated the communist system and knew that their time in Hungary was coming to an end.  Tom’s mother, Marianne, was a 25-year-old dance teacher, and his father, Robert, a 28-year-old automotive engineer. One cold January day in 1957, Robert casually left his office in the middle of the day and went home. He and Marianne quickly dressed in two layers of warm clothing, grabbed Tom’s 2-year-old sister, Eva, and left the only home they had every known. They fled Hungary by car, horse-drawn wagon and finally by foot through a snowy field. Their slog across the field took most of a day. At one point an armed Hungarian border guard loomed over them on the back of a horse. Instead of arresting or shooting them, he took a bribe and let them continue. It was nearly dark by the time Marianne and Robert spied a guard tower silhouetted on the horizon and staggered toward it.  They had reached Yugoslavia. Eventually they would settle in France, where Tom was born, and then emigrate to the United States.

* * *

Visitors to the Eisenhower house see it almost exactly was it was in 1967, when Eisenhower gave it to the National Park Service with the stipulation that he could stay there until he died. Unfortunately, he died before Mamie did, and she wanted to stay in the house. So Congress had to rush through special legislation to allow her to remain. Our guide tells us the reason he says that the house is “almost exactly” as it was in 1967 is because Eisenhower’s grandchildren were allowed to take only three items each from the house. Everything else stayed.

On the tour, visitors enter the main level of the house and walk into the formal living room, which our guide says reflects Eisenhower’s public stature. He talked to us there and then let us explore on our own. Our one quibble is that there wasn’t enough time to explore—less than 90 minutes between the time the bus starts its drive to the farm to the time it picks you up.

Living room with
the poof.

The living room and dining room are formal, and the Eisenhowers rarely used them, with Ike saying he thought the living room in particular was too stuffy. It has a floral motif, with a lot of pink (Mamie’s favorite color), including a round sofa in the middle called a poof, which was a gift from Mamie’s mother (who lived with them) and sister. The room also features several glass cabinets with tchotchkes in them — including stuff Mamie would buy at the local Stuckey’s — as well as lots of little gifts. Eisenhower was the last president allowed to keep gifts from foreign dignitaries, so he had accumulated about 50,000 objects — including the Oriental carpet in the living room, which was a 1959 gift from the shah of Iran. The marble fireplace is a wedding anniversary gift. However, the Eisenhowers never used the fireplace because Mamie was allergic to ash.  The living room also features a small organ and a baby grand piano; our guide said Mamie was a “fair” piano player.

The dining room has a long formal table with room for eight people, with rich red cushions and red carpet, and formal silver service. The Eisenhowers used it only on holidays and for guests.

The sunroom.

Instead, they hung out in the sunroom in the back of the house. The sunroom is long and narrow, with white cushioned furniture and lamps with polished wood stems that look like tree branches. On one end of the room is a TV cabinet and a phone. They often watched television there using TV trays to eat.  

Eisenhower also played cards in the sunroom and Mamie loved watching the soap opera “As the World Turns.” If she knew she was going to miss an episode, she would assign a Secret Service agent to watch and take notes. The Eisenhowers also liked meeting dignitaries in the sunroom.

The Eisenhowers' television.

Downstairs are Ike’s den and office. The den looks very cozy, with dark, knotty pine, lots of bookcases and a fireplace. Across the hall, however, is his office, where he worked when he was recuperating from his heart attack. It is tiny and sparse, with just a desk and bookcase and white walls. The office is so sterile it raises questions as to why he didn’t work in the much more inviting den.

Also of note:

• The wallpaper in the stairway leading to the second floor from the entrance was specially made for the house, ordered by Mamie. It is black and white and features the seals of the 48 states at the time as well as the territories.

• The Eisenhower farm is the first place we have seen where family photos — not paintings — are displayed around the house. They’re all over — on top of the piano, bookcases, dressers — a sign of the times and changing technology. Fans of painted portraits, don’t fret — the house features several of them, including two of Mamie, one of her mother and one of Ike.

One of Ike's paintings.

• Eisenhower painted (like George W. Bush after him), and his paintings are hung throughout the house. In the upstairs corridor between the Eisenhower’s bedrooms and the guest rooms are four of his works.

• Lastly, a side building houses some exhibits and a quick film narrated by Walter Cronkite. He notes some of Eisenhower’s successes: He balanced the budget, didn’t raise taxes or increase military spending, had a steady hand on the economy, created the interstate highway network, and created NASA and named the first astronauts. And he was pro-civil rights: He sent troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce the Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of Education decision that desegregated the schools. However, he was weak against Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his anti-communist crusade. 

• An evergreen is planted on the Gettysburg battlefield where Camp Colt once stood. Veterans of the Tank Corps who trained there returned in 1954 to plant the tree and build a bronze tablet to commemorate the birth of the Tank Corps and honor Eisenhower. 

• In his 1961 Farewell Address, Eisenhower pointed out that after WWII, the private sector had developed a huge weapons industry that continued to grow. He warned that this “military-industrial complex” could threaten our freedom.

Directions

Catch the shuttle to the Eisenhower National Historic Site at the Gettysburg National Military Park Visitor Center and Museum located at 1195 Baltimore Pike (State Route 97), just outside of Gettysburg, PA.

References

Brookhiser, Richard.  2015.  How Ike Began Our Mess in the Middle East.  American History.  Vol. 50, No. 3.  August 2015, pp. 20-21. 

Byrne, Malcolm (editor), 2002.  A National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book.  November 4, 2002. (https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB76/)

Carlon, Peter.  2015.  Eisenhower Defrosts Khrushchev.  American History.  Vol. 50, No. 3.  August 2015, pp. 18-19. 

Carter, Graydon.  2010.  Vanity Fair’s Presidential Profiles.  Abrams, New York, NY.

 Denes, Marianne.  2000.  Reflections:  1931 to 1957.  Unpublished memoir.  Kalamazoo, MI.

Denes, Robert.  2005.  It Wasn’t Easy:  A Journey from Budapest to Oshkosh.  Unpublished memoir.  Kalamazoo. MI.

D’Este, Carlo.  2015.  ‘I Really Hit a New World.”  American History.  Vol. 50, No. 3.  August 2015, pp. 32-35. 

Eisenhower, Mary Jean.  2015. ‘I Never Cease to be Grateful.’ American History.  Vol. 50, No. 3.  August 2015, pp. 65-67. 

Johnson, Paul.  1991.  Modern Times:  The World from the Twenties to the Nineties.  Revised Edition.  Harper Perennial.  New York, NY.

Kelly, John.  2020.  As New Flu Hit in 1957, World Watched and Waited for it to Spread.  Washington Post.  March 18, 2020.

Moore, Katheryn.  2007.  The American President.  Fall River Press.  New York, New York.

Morelock, Jerry.  2015.  ‘I’m Going to Command the Whole Shebang.’ American History.  Vol. 50, No. 3.  August 2015, pp. 38-43. 

Nichols, David A.  2015.  ‘Unless We Progress, We Regress.’  American History.  Vol. 50, No. 3.  August 2015, pp. 56-61. 

Pach, Jr., Chester J. date unknown.  Dwight D. Eisenhower: Foreign Affairs. 

https://millercenter.org/president/eisenhower/foreign-affairs

EisenhowerLibrary.gov

Thomas, Evan.  2015.   ‘The Only Way to Win World War III is to Prevent It.’ American History.  Vol. 50, No. 3.  August 2015, pp. 47-53. 

Websites

History.com

https://buffalonews.com/1997/10/05/want-to-place-blame-for-vietnam-start-with-eisenhower/

https://blog.oup.com/2016/06/broadway-eisenhower-presidential-nomination/

https://blog.oup.com/2016/06/broadway-eisenhower-presidential-nomination/

https://www.army.mil/article/198095/dwight_d_eisenhower_and_the_birth_of_the_interstate_highway_system

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngo_Dinh_Diem

Videos

History Channel.  2005.  The Presidents:  The Lives and Legacies of the 43 Leaders of the United States.

Harry S. Truman - No. 33 - Key West, FL - Nov. 16, 2019

Harry S. Truman

No. 33

Little White House, Key West, FL

November 16, 2019

 Historically, Harry S Truman is viewed as one of the most honest presidents to hold the office. But he tiptoed around the border of corruption early in his political career. 

Harry S. Truman
(Source: National Portrait Gallery)

His political mentor was Tom Pendergast, the “boss” of Kansas City politics in the 1920s and 1930s. Pendergast, who was connected to organized crime, handpicked Truman to run as judge of Jackson County, Missouri, in 1922. Truman, who had failed in every business he had tried, felt that he had no choice but to accept. And he won.  As a judge, Truman never took money dishonestly, but he averted his eyes when Pendergast’s cronies accepted illicit money.

Pendergast then picked Truman to run for the U.S. Senate in 1933, even though Truman had no national political experience. Again, Truman went along, and Pendergast’s political machine helped him win the close election. Truman was mocked as “the senator from Pendergast.” 

And when his name was advanced as a possible running mate to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Truman didn’t want to run because he would have to divulge that his wife, Bess, was on his Senate payroll to the tune of $4,500 year — and wasn’t doing much to earn that salary.  (That salary would be worth $66,800 today.) 

In 1939, Pendergast was convicted of tax evasion and went to federal prison.  Truman’s political career sailed on without him.

* * * 

Harry Truman was born on May 8, 1884, to a farm family. As he was growing up, he had to work odd jobs because his father had lost all the family money on wheat futures. Harry graduated from high school but never attended college. But he was a voracious reader. He claimed to have read all the books in his hometown library in Independence, Missouri.

When the United States entered the Great War (World War I), Truman cheated on his eye exam so he could fight. He went off to France and became the captain of an artillery unit during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive of 1918. 

After the war, he tried a number of jobs with limited success. He was a payroll clerk for the Santa Fe Railroad and then a bank clerk.  Later, he and a partner then opened a haberdashery shop in downtown Kansas City, but it went out of business. 

And then Pendergast came calling. 

Once hostilities began in Europe, now-Sen. Truman sensed that U.S. industrial suppliers might be less than honest. He first investigated procurements at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri and then started visiting other installations. In all, he drove 10,000 miles investigating fraud and waste.  In 1941, Truman got a resolution passed to set up a Senate committee — the Committee on Waste of Industrial War Production (also known as the Truman Commission) — to investigate inefficiency and graft in wartime production. As the chairman of the committee, Truman held 70 hearings and appeared on the cover of Time Magazine on March 8, 1943. His work saved billions of dollars.  He did such a good job that FDR’s advisers suggested that Truman be named as his running mate for the Democratic ticket.

FDR agreed, and they won. It was to be FDR’s last term.

Truman did not spend much time with the four-term president once their term started on Jan. 20, 1945, but when he did meet with him, he was stunned at how weak FDR appeared. He said to a friend, “I am concerned about the president’s health. I had no idea he was in such feeble condition. His hands are shaking and he talks with considerable difficulty. It doesn’t seem to be any mental lapse of any kind, but physically, he’s going to pieces. “ (A.J. Baime, 2017).

By April 12, FDR was dead. 

Suddenly Truman was president. When he next saw Eleanor Roosevelt, he asked, “Is there anything I can do for you?” She replied: “Is there anything we can do for you, Harry?  For you are the one in trouble now.” 

Truman was stunned to be president. “I’m not big enough for this job,” he confided to a friend. And later he said, “Last night the whole weight of the moon and stars fell on me.” (Baime, 2017)

Fortunately, the war in Europe was going well. On April 15, the Allied troops liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany, and other camps the same week.

Bergen-Belsen has special significance to Tom. His Hungarian great aunt, Ibi Farkas, was imprisoned there. In 1986 she told him that when they were freed, the survivors were all “csont emberek” or skeletons. 

By May 7, Germany had surrendered. But there was still the war to prosecute against the Japanese, who showed little sign of capitulating.  The last major battle of World War II, the Battle of Okinawa (a tiny island in the Pacific) was still raging and wouldn’t be over until June 22.

Truman was also challenged by an aggressive Russia. He sought Russia’s help to quickly end the war with Japan but feared that he would have to give away too much in return. In the countries it now occupied in postwar Europe, Russia was installing puppet governments and imprisoning those who stood in the way. On May 12, Truman was with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill when he visited Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, and spoke of the “Iron Curtain” descending on the eastern part of Europe. Churchill said of the Soviet manipulations in Eastern Europe: “An iron curtain is drawn down upon their front. We do not know what is going on behind.” 

Many in Truman’s administration trusted the Russians, but Truman did not. 

* * *

The world didn’t know much about what was going on behind the Iron Curtin. But Tom’s parents, who grew up in Budapest, did. Tom’s mother, Marianne, was 14 in the summer of 1945 and his father, Robert, was 17. In her memoir (Denes, 2000), Marianne writes: 

“Immediately after the Russian occupation … the Hungarian Communist Party under the control of the Red Army started the process of Sovietization. It forcibly imposed its own point of view. The democratically elected Smallholders Party became the target of a large-scale police operation, first the police arrested a minister and several deputies from the Smallholders Party and in 1947 its secretary general was arrested…. Two years after the end of the war, the most important party in Hungary was rendered ineffectual. Matyas Rakosi, the secretary general of the Hungarian Communist Party, officially called the Hungarian Workers’ Party … initiated the so called ‘salami tactics’ slice by slice successfully eliminating the remaining opponents such as the Independence Party and the People’s Democratic Party. [Rakosi] used traditional Soviet methods such as establishing the police force called AVO and liquidating all non-Communist forces…. It resulted in the one-party system, total centralization of economic planning, collectivization in agriculture and vicious propaganda against religious activities.” 

“We were forced to carry internal passports with our photo marked with every personal data of our lives such as workplace, occupation, travels, family and political orientation. Every aspect of [our] lives was regulated and kept on files. First, the large companies were nationalized.… Later smaller businesses were also confiscated.” 

Tom’s father, Robert, writes in his memoir (Denes, 2005): “It was the constant and unceasing propaganda which was the most repulsive to most of us. We had to repeat slogans that no one with a trace of intelligence would believe.” 

Both of Tom’s grandfathers had their businesses confiscated, and each of them had to find a job. Tom’s paternal grandfather owned an automobile rebuilding business and his maternal grandfather owned a small construction firm. 

Robert writes: “The communist government struck the final blow at the old middle class during Christmas (1950) and expropriated their small businesses…. The communist people raided the [auto shop], roughed up my father, took the store keys away from him and with this, they confiscated his life’s work.  He was not even allowed to take his jacket with him… Interminable police and court interrogations followed that raid, going on for weeks and weeks. They accused my father with the exploitation of the workers and with cheating the government. It was a ridiculous charade, but it was a very dangerous one, as many other businesses owners were badly beaten up, tortured, jailed or exiled from the city.… The government also raided the business of [Marianne’s] father [who] had a small construction company he was running from the apartment where one room was dedicated as his office.  With that raid the government took the construction businesses away … they locked and sealed the office room.

Robert’s father, who also had been a pianist in an orchestra, was able to find low-wage work playing the piano in cafes and bars for the next 20 years. Marianne’s father was placed in a state-owed construction company.

In addition, Robert’s family lost their condo and had to rent it back from the government. The government also confiscated a room and plopped two strangers into it.

Tom’s parents married in late 1950. His mother was a ballet dancer and his father an engineer. As Marianne writes, because of their social background they were “classified as bourgeois and as such persons, our families and we were not sure how long our jobs or even our existence in Budapest would last…. At the door of innumerable Budapest apartments the bell would buzz at dawn. The police came with orders of deportation for many of the remaining bourgeois families. They were taken to the countryside to work on the fields and to fill their heads with Marxist-Leninist doctrine.”  To remain in Budapest, my parents “toed the party line” to keep out of trouble. That included marching down the main streets of Budapest to “pay homage to Matyas Rakosi, who stood on the high platform with all of his henchmen … we lived a lie and against our beliefs.”

Tom’s mother and father escaped from Hungary in 1956 — but that is a story for another president.

* * *

Truman had no idea that the United States had developed an atomic weapon. (and neither did many of the people who were working to build it (Kiernan, 2014)). On April 25, Truman learned of the highly secret “Manhattan District Project.” It was now his responsibility to decide whether to use the bomb or simply threaten to use it. He knew that continuing the war on the Japanese homeland would be unbelievably costly for the United States. The estimate was a loss of 250,000 to 500,000 U.S. lives. It was too high of a price to pay.  

Potsdam Conference
Churchill, Truman & Stalin

In July 1945, Truman sailed across the Atlantic to meet with Churchill and Soviet Marshall Joseph Stalin in Potsdam, Germany, just outside Berlin. While the population of Germany were scrounging for food, water and shelter, the three delegations enjoyed lavish dinners that included caviar. The meetings did not go well. It didn’t help matters that Churchill’s party lost the British parliamentary election part-way through the conference and he was replaced by a new prime minister, Clement Attlee. Stalin conceded little on the installation of puppet governments in the Eastern European countries that the Soviets occupied. Stalin also pushed hard for war reparations from the Germans — a mistake that the Americans did not want to repeat from World War I. At one point during the conference, Truman was so despondent over the lack of progress that he considered resigning the presidency.

Truman also struggled with the Soviets’ role in the war against Japan. When the Potsdam Conference began, the atomic bomb had not yet been tested. But partway through the conference, Truman got word that the atomic bomb had been successfully detonated in New Mexico. The Soviets might not be needed to defeat the Japanese after all.  

Little Boy

As Truman’s ship was returning to the United States, the Enola Gay, a B-29 Superfortress, appeared 31,000 feet over the city of Hiroshima. In its belly was the atomic bomb, strangely named “Little Boy.” At 8:15 on the morning of August 6, the bomb bay was opened.

When the bomb detonated, people in the blast zone simply evaporated. Within seconds, 70,000 Japanese were killed. In the Enola Gay, co-pilot Robert Lewis wrote in the pilot’s log: “My God, what have we done?”

Still, the Japanese refused to surrender unconditionally. 

On August 8, the Soviets declared war on Japan and sent a million soldiers into Manchuria in northern China.

On August 9, a second, more powerful atomic bomb named “Fat Man” was dropped on Nagasaki—another 50,000 Japanese were killed.  (The bomb was dropped without specific authorization from Truman, who was still on the ship.) On August 15, Japan agreed to surrender unconditionally.

* * *

But, by 1946, Truman’s popularity was low. For one thing, he had replaced a very popular Roosevelt, who had been in office for 12 years. Truman certainly didn’t fit the model of the aristocratic, confident FDR. Also, post-war inflation was an issue. Labor unions were pressing for higher wages and often going on strike. And Truman did not support the unions.

The Democrats lost the 1946 mid-term elections in both the House and the Senate.  The 1946 class included Republicans Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon as well as Democrat John F. Kennedy.

Still, Truman pressed ahead with his agenda. In December 1946, he established a Committee on Civil Rights. The Democratic Party leaders didn’t support it, nor did the Southern Democrats. In February 1947, Truman asked Congress for civil rights legislation. In particular, he wanted to end segregation in the Armed Services. He was sickened by savage attacks on black WWI vets — including lynchings. On June 30, Truman addressed a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) rally at the Lincoln Memorial.

Following the war, Truman’s administration was committed to repairing the devastated economies of Europe (and Japan). The USSR and Eastern Europe were also invited to participate, but they were suspicious of Western motives. The main goal was self-serving — the U.S. wanted to expand trade. Aid would also help prevent communism from expanding into Western Europe. The recovery package—which was named after Secretary of State George Marshall—authorized $16.5 billion (but only $13 billion was spent). The recovery program was a great success and helped build the U.S. reputation in Europe.  In Germany, Russia blocked Allied aid to the western part of Berlin. So, the U.S. responded in 1948 by airlifting supplies to the tune of 24,000 tons a day to keep the residents from starving.

Truman also wanted to limit the spread of atomic weapons. He proposed to eliminate nuclear bombs if no other country developed them, but the proposal died at the newly formed United Nations.   

In the Middle East, Truman supported partitioning Palestine to create a homeland for the Jews. The new nation of Israel was formed in in May 1948 and was immediately recognized by the United States. 

As the election of 1948 approached, Truman trailed Republican candidate Thomas Dewey. Truman decided to get on a train and do a national “whistle stop tour.” For two weeks he stopped in communities and gave informal speeches from the back of the train — including one in his pajamas. Overall, the train stopped in 18 states and Truman was heard by about three million people.

That year many southern Democrats left the party and formed their own party called the Dixiecrats. The party, whose goal was preserving racial segregation, was led by South Carolina Gov. Strom Thurmond. Another party, called the Progressive Party, was led by former Vice President Henry Wallace. This party touted national health care and the end of segregation, among other ideas.

Truman's upset

Truman somehow managed to win 303 electoral votes to 189 electoral votes for Dewey. It was a major upset, with the Chicago Tribune infamously calling the race incorrectly with the banner headline “Dewey Defeats Truman.” The Democrats also won back majorities in the House (263-171) and Senate (54-42).

Even though he won, Truman was not comfortable as president. He said, “A man in his right mind would not want to be president if he knew what it entails” (Dallek, 2008).

Truman had pledged bold reforms under a slogan he called a “Fair Deal.” It included national medical insurance, a higher minimum wage, civil right legislation and repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, which restricted the activities of labor unions and which Congress had enacted over his veto in 1947. But the southern democratic wing of the party resisted those changes.

Perceived creeping communism in the United States stoked fear. The House Committee on Un-American Activities, formed in 1938, relentlessly drove to expose domestic communists. There were calls for loyalty oaths. One of the committee members was Rep. Richard Nixon, a fervent anti-communist. Truman could not stand him and said: “All the time I’ve been in politics, there’s only two people I hate and he’s one” (Dalleck, 2008).  In the Senate, Joseph McCarthy stoked fear and controversy by claiming to have a list of 81 communists in the State Department.

Internationally, the USSR continued to exert power in Eastern Europe. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed in April 1949 to present a unified front against the USSR. Under the NATO agreement, the U.S. would come to the aid of any country threatened. In response, the USSR set up the Warsaw Pact. And in September 1948, the USSR produced its own atomic bomb. (It was later learned that the Soviets had been spying on the Manhattan Project.) 

World order continued to disintegrate as Mao Zedong took over China in 1949, causing the Nationalist government to flee to the island of Taiwan. Not surprisingly, China aligned with the USSR.

In June 1950, the world’s attention turned to Korea when the North Korean army —separated from South Korea at the 38^th parallel after World War II — crossed that parallel.  Truman wanted to stop the aggression as an example to the USSR and China. With U.S. backing, the young United Nations condemned the attack. Because of the condemnation, Truman was able to send troops into South Korea as a “police action” and not as a congressionally authorized declaration of war (Dallek, 2008).  Gen. Douglas McArthur, the commander of the forces, beat back the North Korean invasion by October 1950. When MacArthur pushed north above the 38^th parallel, Chinese troops entered the war with 250,000 to 300,000 troops. MacArthur wanted to widen the war, but Truman resisted. In fact, MacArthur seemed to be pushing for war directly with China, thinking it was important to take a stand on communism in Asia to stop its spread worldwide. Truman viewed MacArthur as usurping civilian control of military.

So, he fired him. 

Gen. MacArthur’s firing was not popular. When he returned to the U.S., huge crowds turned out to cheer him — including a ticker tape parade in New York City. Congress got into the act and held hearings on MacArthur’s firing. Truman’s low approval fell even further to a meager 23 percent. 

In November 1950, Truman nearly lost his life when two Puerto Rican nationalists tried to kill him. In the ensuing gun battle, one policeman was killed. 

In 1952, steel workers went on strike. Although Truman usually stood for the common man, Truman believed that the workers were demanding too large of an increase in their wages. It would further drive up the price of steel. He tried to nationalize the steel industry, but the Supreme Court ruled against him. The strike went on for 53 days. 

By the time the election of 1952 rolled around, Truman was exhausted. He had served nearly eight years. He could have run for a third term because he was not elected to his first term. But he decided against it. 

* * *

The Little White House in Key West, FL

When it was time to visit a site that represented Truman’s presidency, we learned that the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, was closed for a year of renovations (starting in July 2019). While Truman’s home, a national historic site, was still open, we took the opportunity to go somewhere not as obvious — the Little White House in Key West, Fla.

Granted, it didn’t hurt that Cathy had wanted to visit Key West for years. And we went in November, with cold weather in the DC area. So south we went.

The Little White House was originally an 8,700-square-foot building on a Navy submarine base that housed the base commandant and the pay master in two units. Built in 1890, it was called Quarters A and Quarters B (which were later combined into one house). The base is now called the Truman Annex.

In the fall of 1946, Truman was exhausted and had a cough that wouldn’t quit. The units were empty, so Admiral Chester Nimitz recommended the Key West Naval Station for a little R&R. Key West was warm, the house was on the ocean, it was on a naval base with tons of security, and the house was empty. What’s not to love?

Truman indeed loved it, got healthy and said he’d be back.

After that, he visited for a couple weeks every November-December and February-March, for a total of 175 days of his presidency.

The Adirondack chairs

The Little White House is big and yes, white, and is on a bucolic, gated, tree-lined street, with lots of historic houses. It has a big lawn with Adirondack chairs, too. 

When we visited, the roof was being renovated, a casualty of Hurricane Irma. (Side note: The Hemingway House a couple blocks away is the safest house on the island, our tour guide JP told us, since it is built of 18-inch thick limestone mortar).

Inside, the Little White House features decor that would fit in a typical beach house: Beige carpeting with tropical floral prints covering the furniture. The house is open and airy, with a wraparound porch on the upper level, off the bedrooms. The Trumans had a great view of the sea at the time. Unfortunately for visitors, the relatively new naval administration building now blocks most of the view. 

Some highlights of the house:

• A cubby hole on the right when you first enter the living room, which used to be a booth for the Secret Service.  

• A poker table with built-in chip holders and ashtrays. Truman used to play with his guests until late, although it was never publicized. The living room also has a built-in bar. Truman had a heart condition, so his doctor ordered him to have a shot of bourbon with his orange juice every morning, since it was a blood thinner.

• The highly polished silver all around the dining room. It is called “Admiral Silver” and Truman would use it when he had barbecues. He would serve hot dogs and hamburgers in it.

• A photo of Truman playing the piano with a young Lauren Bacall looking down at him from on top of the piano. Bess Truman wasn’t exactly happy about it.

• The Trumans had separate bedrooms, which was protocol at the time. The reasoning was that if the president had to be awakened in the middle of the night, the first lady would not be woken as well. The tradition ended with Betty Ford, who thought the practice was stupid.

Truman's Key West garb

Truman’s bedroom is decorated presidentially with red and blue and dark wood. He had a desk, which he mostly used for personal correspondence — specifically, love letters to Bess. One day, she tossed them all in the fireplace. She explained to him, when he caught her, that she didn’t want “history” and the entire world reading them one day.

Bess didn’t visit much, coming with Truman on only four of his 11 visits. His daughter, Margaret (the famous author of such mysteries as “Murder in the White House”) came more frequently and is in a lot of the pictures around the house.

• Downstairs is a piano, which is still in tune. The piano came with Truman from Washington, on the USS Williamsburg every visit and had to be tuned. He was an accomplished pianist who once said he would have liked to have been a concert pianist if he weren’t president. 

When Truman visited Key West the first time, he took the USS Williamsburg from Washington. But it ran into a hurricane off Cape Hatteras. He flew every time after that. The Williamsburg still came down to Key West when he did, though, carrying the piano and providing a secure phone line to Washington since the government couldn’t trust that the phone lines to the mainland would be secure. 

• Downstairs also has the original “Dewey beats Truman” Chicago Tribune. You can see a ton of mistakes, from the production staff’s hurry to rush it out, including part of a paragraph pasted upside down. The polling had shown Dewey ahead by a lot, so everyone just assumed Dewey would win.

• It also has a rare 48-state flag.

• And a desk where he conducted most of his business.  The desk holds the famous “The Buck Stops Here” sign. On the other side it says, “I’m from Missouri.” A Truman aide had seen the sign on a warden’s desk at an Oklahoma prison and told him he thought his boss might like one. So, the warden had the prisoners make one for Truman.

But we couldn’t photograph any of it. The Little White House is an active presidential retreat, meaning current presidents can use it at any time. So, for security reasons, visitors cannot take pictures or videos. However, the gift shop sells postcards.

Of course, a sitting president hasn’t visited in a while. Presidents who have visited include Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1949 and 1955-56, when he traveled to the southernmost point in the U.S. to recuperate after a heart attack. John F. Kennedy visited in 1962, and Jimmy Carter’s family came in 1996 and again in 2007 for a 33-person family reunion. The Clintons also visited in 2005, when Hillary was campaigning for a New York Senate seat.

The tour ends in the museum, which is another room in the house. It exhibits mainly pictures and a poster about the Civil Rights Act covering one wall. The most interesting thing, though, are the copies of newspapers covering important events during Truman’s time. The museum has entire front sections of the newspapers, so they’re interesting to read beyond the main headlines. In addition to the Dewey Beats Truman paper, it has one from when JFK was shot and another from when Truman died in December 1972.

While the importance of the Little White House doesn’t show up in many history books, it had a small, but critical role in Truman’s presidency. First, Truman said the Little White House was his favorite place on earth, besides his house in Missouri.  He figured he signed his name 200-600 times while in Key West. And while there, he changed the presidential seal so that the eagle turned its head to look at the olive branch instead of the sword, to show that the U.S. is a peace-loving nation. And the Key West agreement created the Department of Defense. 

Directions

Truman’s Little White House is located at the Truman Annex on 111 Front Street in Key West, FL.  It is open from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily.  Tickets are $22.50 for adults and $10.75 for children.  Bonus:  If you buy tickets to both the Little White House and the Ernest Hemmingway House, you will receive a discount.

References

Baime, A.J.  2017.  The Accidental President:  Harry S. Truman and the Four Months the Changed the World.  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.  New York, NY.

Dallek, Robert.  2008.  Harry S. Truman.  Henry Holt and Company. New York NY. 

Denes, Marianne.  2000.  Reflections:  1931 to 1957.  Unpublished memoir.  Kalamazoo, MI.

Denes, Robert.  2005.  It Wasn’t Easy:  A Journey from Budapest to Oshkosh.  Unpublished memoir.  Kalamazoo. MI.

History Channel.  2005.  The Presidents:  The Lives and Legacies of the 43 Leaders of the United States.

Kiernan, Denise.  2013.  The Girls of Atomic City.  Simon & Schuster, New York, NY.

Websites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Party_(United_States,_1948)

https://www.wearethemighty.com/history/president-truman-world-wari-artillery?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Committee