Excerpt

 

1. WILDER THAN EVER ABOUT HARRY

In an era of spin doctors, media consultants and government by poll, it's refreshing to read the words of a man who knew his mind and wasn't afraid to speak it.

That man was Harry Truman. The plainspoken man from Missouri is enjoying a renaissance. In his lifetime, it was said with a snicker that Harry Truman proved anyone could be president. Now that's said with pride. Since Truman's death in 1972, Democrats and Republicans alike have summoned his muse as a model citizen-president. Gerald Ford kept a bust of Truman in the oval office. Ronald Reagan's Steuben glass plaque engraved The Buck Stops Here caught Truman's words but missed the melody. George Bush even ran in 1992 as a "Truman Republican." (One can only imagine what Harry himself would have said about that oxymoron.)

The glow surrounding Truman as an ex-president stands in stark contrast to his dim reputation while in office. During seven-and-a-half years in the White House, Truman seemed hokey to many. Parochial. A president who couldn't wait to leave Washington for Independence, Missouri. One who wore loud shirts, called his wife "The Boss," and liked to show off his so-so piano playing. Harry Truman looked more like a Rotary president than a U.S. president. He stood for a front porch, double-breasted way of life many postwar Americans were trying to flee. Jet-setters like Jack and Jacqueline appealed to us more than ice cream socialites such as Harry and Bess.

Today we feel differently. Now we're hungry for Harry Truman's type of American. In the age of Prozac, we admire his lack of angst. In a time of skepticism we're nostalgic for Truman's optimism. His rigid sense of duty compares favorably with our flexible hedonism. During an era of dysfunctional families -- including those of presidents -- we enjoy reading about his close one. There's something irresistible about a powerful world leader in his 60s who considered his wife "my sweetheart."

Unlike his eloquent predecessor, Truman didn't use what he called "$40 words." Quite the contrary. Truman's comments were filled with terms such as "hooey," "high hat," and "nincompoop." He didn't pussyfoot around. Truman seldom left any doubt about his positions. "I never sit on a fence," he said. "I am either on one side or another."

Unlike his successor -- whose strategy for dealing with reporters was to "confuse 'em" -- evasion was not Harry Truman's style. He never had to struggle to make things "perfectly clear." There was no talk of a credibility gap during Truman's administration. It's hard to imagine anyone calling him "Slick Harry."

Truman's candor had him in hot water for much of his presidency. His colorful language made many a listener wince. Only after he returned to Missouri were we able to step back and wonder what could have bothered us so much about this outspoken man. "The quirks and quips that gave the press a field day throughout his presidency seem less defects now than a refreshing naturalness," observed biographer Robert H. Ferrell.

Harry Truman stands in stark contrast to modern politicians who don't seem sure of who they are or what they stand for until they've taken a poll. This doesn't mean that his successors have been liars or four-flushers (although Nixon was). Rather, post-Truman politicians as a group seem to have little sense of self, of character, of values other than the value of getting elected. Contemporaries observed repeatedly that Harry Truman knew who he was. "I've never met anyone," wrote journalist Charles Robbins, "whose idea of his own identity was clearer than Truman's."

At the heart of this identity was Truman's conviction that he was one of us. Franklin Delano Roosevelt befriended the common man. Harry S. Truman was the common man in person. Truman wasn't for the people so much as he was of the people. We saw him as a peer. That's the way he saw himself. "I look just like any other fifty people you meet in the street," Truman once observed.

America is still filled with people who exchanged a word or two with President Truman. One World War II veteran recalled passing him while out for an early morning stroll. "Hi, soldier," said Truman to the man in uniform. "Hi, Harry," responded the serviceman. Imagine calling Franklin Roosevelt "Frank." Yet Americans routinely called Truman by his nickname. How did he feel about this? "All over the country they call me 'Harry,'" he said. "I like it. I believe when you speak to me like that you like me."

While driving a cab as a student in New York, Mike Gravel pulled up beside the strolling former president. "Young man," said Truman, sticking his hand through the cab window, "you look good to me. Just make something of yourself." After Gravel was elected to the U.S. Senate from Alaska, they met again. What struck the new senator was how little difference there was in his two encounters with Truman. "A cab driver and a U.S. Senator got the same attention and respect from him," said Gravel.

One reason we recall Truman so fondly is that it's not hard to put ourselves in his size 8 1/2 shoes. Who among us hasn't fantasized about waking up one morning to find ourselves president? Truman not only lived that fantasy but proved up to the job. His example suggests that we all have untapped resources of strength, decisiveness and ability to grow.

Truman didn't covet the presidency. Quite the contrary. Throughout his time in office he spoke constantly of his wish to flee the "Great White Jail." When Press Secretary Charles Ross observed that he'd rather be right than president, Truman responded that he'd rather be anything than president. But duty was Harry Truman's cardinal virtue. Truman genuinely thought he had work to do for his country whether or not he felt like doing it. One reason we admire Truman so much in retrospect was the stand-up way he shouldered a crushing burden that he hadn't sought, didn't want, and couldn't wait to pass along. So why did he run for re-election in 1948? Although a genuinely reluctant president, Truman was also a proud man who couldn't abide the thought that he was keeping Franklin Roosevelt's seat warm while Americans chose his real successor. Truman wanted that title for himself, and earned it.

Even after being elected in his own right, Harry Truman never forgot that he was president due to circumstances beyond his control. Perhaps that's why he was better able than most presidents to stay human beneath its 21-gun salutes. Truman always kept in mind that he was a tenant in the White House, not its owner. One almost had a sense that he saw himself as an actor playing the part of a world leader, and doing so superbly. "As Harry Truman, I'm not very much," he said, "but as President Truman I have no peer."

Truman's ability to grow into the presidency was his greatest asset. This meant that he had to transcend a parochial background and some backwater prejudices. The man from Missouri could be surprisingly petty: right on the big issues, wrong on the small ones, said House Speaker Sam Rayburn. The president who recognized Israel minutes after its founding had mocked Jews in letters to Bess. The man who did more for civil rights than any president since Lincoln sprinkled his conversation with racial epithets. The decisiveness we admire so much in Harry Truman could be seen as rushing to judgment. Many historians have questioned the long-term consequences of decisions such as those to develop the H-bomb, found the CIA, and expand the presidency into today's imperial version. Posing such questions about Truman doesn't mean one can't admire him nonetheless. "I am not sure he was right about the atomic bomb, or even Korea," Eric Sevareid told David McCullough. "But remembering him reminds people what a man in that office ought to be like. It's character, just character. He stands like a rock in memory now."

That helps explain why we're wilder than ever about Harry. We can't seem to quench our thirst for information about this fascinating man. Several excellent biographies have been written about Truman, most recently by David McCullough and Robert H. Ferrell. Ferrell has done yeoman work editing and publishing Truman's letters, diaries and miscellaneous writing. So has Monte Poen, and Margaret Truman, who has also written biographies of her father and mother. She and David Gallen have based separate books on a series of taped reflections by Truman (Where the Buck Stops and The Quotable Harry S. Truman). Truman himself published his memoirs and a follow-up work called Mister Citizen .

What we don't have is a book that distills the best of Harry Truman's words into one accessible volume. Thus The Wit and Wisdom of Harry Truman . This book combines the most cogent remarks by Truman with fuller observations from his diary, letters and speeches. Excerpts from Truman's press conferences show his gift for peppery repartee. Anecdotes that illustrate different facets of his character -- "Harry Truman's Life Stories" -- give a more rounded picture of the man.

For a compiler of Trumaniana, the problem is not what to include but what to leave out. Truman made enough wise, witty observations to fill this volume and many more. Even his public papers serve up nuggets of humor and verve. In the give 'em hell speeches of 1948, Truman's words bristle off the page. "This Republican Congress has already stuck a pitchfork in the farmer's back," he told an Iowa audience. "I wish I could stay longer," Truman said in Illinois, "but I have to get back to Washington to veto some more bills." From the back of his train car he warned yet a third crowd, "If you send another Republican Congress to Washington, you're a bigger bunch of suckers than I think you are!"

Because he was so outspoken, it's tempting to include only Truman's saltier remarks in a book such as this. But there was more to Harry Truman than salt and pepper. For a man of action, he was unusually reflective. Truman may not have been brilliant. Nor was he well educated in the conventional sense. But -- like so many whose love of books hasn't been extinguished by four years of college -- Truman read voraciously; history and biography especially. If his intellect wasn't profound, it was intelligent and wide-ranging. Truman made continual thoughtful observations about the issues of his day. Many of these observations bear on issues of our own day: congressional term limits, for example, the federal deficit and national health insurance. Some are strikingly prescient. The Wit and Wisdom of Harry Truman includes a fair measure of his more thoughtful comments to balance the many "Trumanisms," with particular emphasis on topics such as Leadership, Decision-Making, and The Presidency, where he spoke from experience.

The Wit and Wisdom of Harry Truman can be used in two ways:

1) as a mini-biography to be read straight through;

2) as a browser and resource.

One is tempted to add a third category: as a primer of clear, vigorous exposition. It's a pleasant surprise to discover how vivid a writer Truman could be. (So vivid that I used one entry from this book in another one on writing.) After he and Bess enjoyed a summer supper on the south porch of the White House, for example, Truman jotted this vignette:

A robin hops around looking for worms, finds one and pulls with all his might to unearth him. A mocking bird imitates robins, jays, red birds, crows, hawks -- but has no individual note of his own. A lot of people like that. Planes take off and land at the National Air Port south of the Jefferson Memorial. It is a lovely evening. I can see the old Chesapeake and Potomac Canal going across the Washington Monument grounds, barges anchoring west of the Monument. I can see old J.Q. Adams going swimming in it and getting his clothes stolen by an angry woman who wanted a job. The old guy did not have my guards or it wouldn't have happened. Then I wake up, go upstairs and go to work and contemplate the prison life of a president. What the hell!

Harry Truman was a spirited man. This book tries to capture his spirit. This means not just the rip-roaring campaigner of 1948 but the compassionate man revered by his colleagues. It's no accident that Harry Truman was never the subject of an unflattering memoir by an associate. Yet he was paid many a tribute by those with whom he worked. The more we learn about Truman's persona, the better he looks. If anything -- unlike the case with so many of history's "greats" -- what we've discovered about Truman's private life only adds to his luster.

Although the last of 19th century men in his sensibilities, Truman's spirit was in tune with our times -- or, should we say -- the times we'd like to have. "In a way," said Michigan Senator Philip Hart in his eulogy to Truman, "I suppose, it could be argued that he did the public a disservice by teaching the people that candor and politics, honesty and government are not incompatible items. After President Truman, the public -- not unreasonably -- expected complete straightforwardness and frankness from everybody elected to Federal office thereafter. The disappointment was inevitable.

"He was a great man, yes, but he has given us a gift that we do not always get from great men -- he gave us the gift of warm, smiling memories."

The Wit and Wisdom of Harry Truman is an attempt to capture that warmth, and convey those smiles along with the thoughtful insights of a dedicated public man.