Randall S. Jesse Oral History Interview, December 23, 1975

Notice
This interview was conducted by William D. Stilley and Jerald L. Hill as part of a intern and independent study project at William Jewell College in March 1976, under the direction of the Political Science Department of William Jewell College. 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 transcript may be read, quoted from, cited, and reproduced for purposes of research. It may not be published in full except by permission of William D. Stilley and Jerald L. Hill.

Opened July, 1985
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

[1]

STILLEY: Mr. Jessee, when did you first meet President Truman?

JESSEE: Actually I met him while he was President, one time when he was visiting in Kansas City, but we didn't really have any rapport develop out of that because it was a very casual meeting. He met thousands and thousands of people at that time. But I really got acquainted with him, which is what I presume you are referring to, after he returned home. It was rather unusual in that when he came home with Mrs. Truman, at that time he was in disfavor with a great many people, or at least the press would lead you to believe that

[2]

he was, including the Kansas City Star, for which I worked at the time. I was news director and program director.

The Star was--not the Star particularly, but my immediate superior was very much against Mr. Truman, so he implied-- although he didn't give us a direct order not to go out and cover his arrival home--but he implied that he would just as soon we didn't. But this sort of irritated me and so I said, "Well, there may not be many people out there, and for the former President of the United States, he should be welcomed home, so we'll all go out." We left a young man named Charles Harness in the news room. Charles is now new director for KBEA, but Charles at that time was a copy boy. We left him in the newsroom and all the rest of us, Bill Lee, Walt Bodine, and Bob Higby and I, all went out to welcome him. It was the largest crowd ever had been before or since at the Independence station that night. They claimed that there were, oh, from twenty to thirty thousand people there to greet Mr. Truman when he came home.

[3]

It showed that even a paper like the Star wasn't exactly in tune with what the people were really thinking.

Well, they were both delighted to be there, and, of course, the White House press corps then stayed around afterwards; and inasmuch as our television station at that time, WDAF Channel 4, was the only channel in Kansas City because of the freeze that had been put on, our responsibility to the public of Kansas City was, you know, very great, because being the only television station, we had to serve all of these things.

Anyway, we met him and I did an interview for NBC with him. Then on the way back we saw some flames in the sky and it was a lumber yard burning down that night and we missed that story. But anyway, we welcomed him home.

As I was a stringer for NBC, I was called on by the National Broadcasting Company to, you know, make various recordings for them. At that time we couldn't feed direct to the network. I guess

[4]

maybe we could by that time, but anyway quite often we would make film recordings for them. This White House press corps, a lot of them stayed over here for a few days, And I'll never forget Mrs. Truman came out of the house early the next morning--we were all out there going for a walk with the President, waiting for him--she came out to get the paper and she said--she was in a house dress--'Now boys, gentlemen, no pictures please." She said, "Wouldn't you know, they always throw it under the bushes," and she bent over and pulled the paper out from under the bushes. Here was a woman that had been waited on hand and foot for seven years in the White House, and she immediately adapted right back to her home town of Independence just as though she hadn't been anywhere, she had never left home.

In the course of those meetings with President Truman, a great rapport developed between us, not only as a reporter and interviewee, but also as a personal friendship, so that I was the only newsman

[5]

invited as a guest to Margaret's reception when she got married. He made it very plain that I was being invited as a friend, not as a reporter. I worked all morning for NBC and the coverage of it prior to the wedding, and went across the street to Lou Choplin's home over there, and changed clothes, and my wife and I went to the reception as guests. So, I wore two hats. They say Mayor [Charles] Wheeler has a lot of hats, well, I had two hats that day.

We got acquainted during the--that's a long answer to a very simple question, but I think it gives you a little background.

STILLEY: Was that about the last contact, or did you start inviting him over to your home?

JESSEE: Oh, no. What happened then, I had a number of interviews, oh, maybe once or twice a week on NBC. He was always very accessible to the press. And as much as we were the only network operating at that time, after three or four months, I guess, I went home one evening, told my wife, I said,

[6]

"I think they're lonely," because, really, naturally people were a little bit in awe of the former President and they thought that they had changed a great deal from what they were when they left. Of course, without meaning to, you do change, at least your relationship to the public changes where you almost become a prisoner in your own home. So, I said, "I'm going to invite them over for supper."

She said, "Oh, you can't do that."

I said, "Yes, I can too." Not that she wasn't willing and delighted to have them, but she was sharing this generally felt feeling that, "Oh, here's the former President." So, I invited him and he said, "When?" Called up Mrs. Truman and we set a date and they came to our home for dinner, and that was the beginning of a long friendship.

STILLEY: Was it kind of difficult deciding what to serve a former President?

JESSEE: Well, I'11 tell you what, the ladies worried a lot more about that than I did, because I suppose I felt by that time I knew him much better than

[7]

they did. We invited Tom Benton and his wife--the artist and Rita Benton--they were neighbors of ours, so we invited them for the same dinner. Rita and Fern sort of planned the dinner and I said, "Well, he eats down at Brettons a lot, well call up Max Bretton and see what he likes particularly." It turned out he liked chicken wings and dumplings and Mrs. Truman liked beef, I believe it was. I could be in error on this, but I think this is right. I don't know how we found that out; so we had a two main course dinner.

STILLEY: Mr. Truman, did he know Tom Benton before then?

JESSEE: They had met once in the White House, more or less like I had met Mr. Truman, very casually, and they actually hadn't hit it off too well right at first. As a matter of fact, when I told Mr. Truman who the other guests were going to be, why he said--I told him Benton, because that was the only one I knew at the time we were going to have, and he said, "Well, I don't know whether I

[8]

like that fellow oar not."

I said, "0h, I think you will when you get acquainted with him, because," I said, "you're a lot alike. You're both very honest, and lay it right out on the table, and no sham about either one of you," and I said, "I think you'll get along fine," What he was referring to really was that Benton had painted in the early thirties the mural in the state capital, and had insisted that Tom Pendergast be included in those murals in a rather dominating position, sitting up on the platform more or less, by implication at least, dictating what the speaker was going to say. And there were some people who objected strenuously to Mr. Pendergast being included thinking that it was against his wishes. Then, of course, I went back to Tom and I said, "Well, you know, I think the President is a little,"--thought he should be warned at least--''the President's a little skittish about you because of the murals in Jefferson City,"

He said, "Why that was exaggerated out of all proportion. That wasn't started by Pendergast,

[9]

that was started by some of his loyalists who read a lot into it. which wasn't there." He said, "Tom Pendergast actually supported me in that mural because he posed for me in his office, and I still have the sketch." He said, "I never did tell anybody about that because it was good publicity for the mural, all that controversy." He said, "I'11 bring the sketch over there and give it to him."

He either brought the sketch that night or else told him about it, I've forgotten which; and eventually I think Mr. Truman got the sketch. It seems to me like that he did not bring the sketch with him thinking that would be inappropriate, but he did tell Mr. Truman about that; and as far as I know, later on Mr. Truman got the sketch of Mr. Pendergast that he had made,. Over that they became fast friends, after that dinner. So, actually, they met in our home.

STILLEY: Is that from then on? That's how Truman decided to have him paint the mural?

JESSEE: Well, of course, after he got acquainted with

[10]

Benton he began to take more of an interest in him. He was always pretty much interested in art. But he used to laugh about Mr. Truman. He said he bought paintings because of their size; he acquired paintings depending on what size they were to fit into certain spots. But a lot of us do that. But he really did like art, and he was a great respecter of Benton's talents and skills. And once they got acquainted, like 1 think all men of great talent and skills, get to know one another, are interested in the other's particular attributes, they became friends. Eventually they started discussing the mural at a later dinner party, "We're going to have to have you do a mural one day."

Then David Lloyd and Wayne Grover, the Archivist of the United States--and David Lloyd had been a Presidential assistant to Mr. Truman--came over to our house I remember and talked about getting Benton to do a mural. So they approached him on it. He did little preliminary work--this is an unusual thing. They had raised--I think the mural

[11]

was around eighty, eighty-five thousand dollars was what the Library paid for it, or something like that. They had only raised about thirty, as I recall, and so one day Tom Evans invited Tom Benton and me to come down. Tom Evans was a very close friend of Mr. Truman; sort of in many ways his assistant after he retired. He'd do a lot of errands for him. He called himself the Presidents errand boy. Anyway, Tom called us up and invited us down to the Kansas City Club for lunch and the four of us met there, Mr. Truman, Tom Evans, Tom Benton, and myself. Mr. Truman was kidding Benton a little bit and said, "When are you going to get started on that mural?"

Benton said, "Oh, whenever you raise the money."

He said, "Well, why don't you start on it now and we'll raise the money."

"No," he said, "I know you and Tom," referring to Tom Evans. "You'd be just like all those other politicians," he said, "then you'd want me to donate about half of it."

[12]

They laughed about that, and Mr., Truman said, "Well, how about if we shake hands on it and I promise you the balance of the funds will be available long before the mural is finished."

Benton said, "That's good enough for me," so they shook hands on it and then Benton did more of his research and started in on more of the preliminary long before the contract, the formal contract was ever signed. So, it was on Mr. Truman's handshake that the work actually began on the mural.

STILLEY: Going back a little bit earlier, did you cover Mr. Truman when he came--while he was President--to Independence and Kansas City?

JESSEE: Yes, I did. Yes, sometimes I did. But naturally, it was a far different relationship. NBC would have their own people that would travel with him and I would assist them more or less. I wasn't the key figure for NBC on it. As you know, the press would travel with him, there would be thirty-five or forty, at least, members of the

[13]

press traveling with him from the White House press corps.

See, the way they worked that is that on the President's plane, sometimes he will ask a pool of reporters to go with him, and there may be one from the wire services and one from a leading daily, and one from the electronic media, you know, something like that. So there would be three of them traveling with him. However--and this is a misunderstood thing--when the White House press travels, their papers and their radio and television stations, pay for their travel by private carrier, by charter usually. Then the other members of the press traveling, the White House press corps, will take off after the President does in case something happens on takeoff that they would need to report. They will land before the President does in case something happens on landing, and there will only be, if any of the press was with the President, why, it would be the pool coverage of the President. But they would have tickets on the charter flight, and he would have invited--or his press section would have invited (Charlie Ross

[14]

in those days)--different members of the press pool, to accompany the President, and the others would come under private flight.

STILLER: Did Mr. Truman seem to have a good working relationship with the press?

JESSEE: Excellent. Excellent. I think that they were fond of him as a person. Of course, I worked with President Johnson's White House press corps too, while he was President; but those are the only two I am really qualified to speak about. But from all indications and from remarks that members of the press had made, there was a real fondness for President Truman, and the fact that Tony Vaccaro and a bunch of them hung around here for about a week after--it was sort of like, "Well, we hate to leave,'' you know. And it was a very, very warm, friendly feeling

STILLER: Did he have any problems with White House leaks to the press?

JESSEE: I don't believe he would worry about them if

[15]

he had any leaks, because he was always pretty forthright. I don't think he would worry about it if he did. If they asked him, he would tell them. He was one of the few politicians I've ever known who would really as nearly as possible give you a yes or no answer, or give you no answer at all. He might give you some answer sort of in a kidding way that didn't answer your question, but then he just wouldn't answer it. But I don't think he was ever disturbed, to my knowledge, I don't recall any--there may have been occasions--but he had very honest relationships with the press, and they respected him a great deal, and there was no trying to mislead the press. The result of that was, perhaps, they didn't dig quite as much as they would have otherwise. If somebody thinks--as a reporter, if I think somebody is trying to put something over on me, I'll try to go to work on it. Used to when I was a reporter. But if you feel like someone has been forthright and leveling with you, and you like him individually, you know you're not going to dig very hard usually, no matter what your employer might say.

[16]

STILLER: Did the former President make decisions quickly, or would he wait a long time . . .

JESSEE: I think he studied about them a lot. He would give an impression of making them quickly. Oh, he shot from the hip sometimes, but I think he gave a lot more thought to things. He loved to give the impression that he would respond just like that [Mr. .lessee snapped his fingers].

Oh, for instance, I would usually, when NBC would call me and tell me they wanted him to comment on something--this was after he was home--I would usually call him up at home and tell him that I was going to see him the next morning in the parking lot. I tried never to bother him at home, because I think every man has a right to a little privacy once in awhile, and certainly a President and former President have little enough of it. I established that with NBC right off the bat that I would not--unless it was a big story of some sort; if this were a routine news query and all, I would not bother him at home, and they accepted this. But I would usually call

[17]

him up and tell him what I was going to ask him. One time, I remember particularly, someone in the Republican Party had suggested, probably facetiously, but anyway it created a lot of comment--must have been a had news day that day--that the name of the Democratic Party should be changed to the Democrat party, implying of course that the Democratic Party wasn't very democratic was the idea. So I called up Truman and said, "NBC wants you to comment on that so I'm going to meet you in the parking lot in the morning." He'd drive himself in those days, and he'd always park right across from the Federal Courts Building there on Grand. Right on schedule he came wheeling into the parking lot and we turned the news camera on and I walked up to there and he said, "Well, good morning, Randall, what are you doing here?"

I said, "Well, Mr. President, I have a little question to ask you about this move by the Republicans to change the name of the Democratic Party to the Democrat Party."

"Well, I think that's fine, providing they'll let us change their name to the Publican Party,"

[18]

he said, "you know all about those Publicans as tax collectors and everything else in the Bible."

Now that gave the impression of really shooting from the hip, but actually he had been thinking of that, and thought that up. He might have thought of it off-the-cuff anyway, but that's sort of typical of the way he--he loved to give the impression of "bang," and he would get away with it. And sometimes it was true. I think sometimes he did make snap judgments.

For instance, on the other side of the ledger. One time at a convention in Chicago in either 1952 or '56.--1 think it was '56-- he was still a hot news item, very good news source. Merriman Smith who was later the senior White House correspondent of United Press International--this was just at the beginning of the anti-discriminatory laws and decisions by the Supreme Court with regard to race, and there had been a report turned in by two Senators (I've forgotten now who they were), suggesting that all Federal funds be withheld from any state which did not immediately comply with the desegregation

[19]

order. This must have been '56 after the desegregation. Well, Merriman right at the end of our
walk in Chicago that morning (there were a whole bunch of us there.), said, "Mr. President, what do you think of the report of Senator so and so and so and so, they just gave?" I knew from Truman's attitude that he really didn't know what the report consisted of because he was no longer President, you know, and was not privy to every little thing. He said, "well, two good men drafted it, it's a good report, I agree with it." I knew he didn't. He felt that the states should have the right to appeal, and certain states rights be permitted and so on. I knew that he didn't agree with them. Maybe I wasn't a very good reporter, but I was also a friend of the President, and I knew that Merriman had just--well, that would make a good story, it would be amplified way out of proportions. So as soon as we broke up--we were right in front of the Blackstone
Hotel, where the president was staying, and he went right on up--I thought, "Now what should I do?" And then I followed him up in a few minutes. In

[20]

the meantime he had gone on down to the train to meet Margaret. So I got a hold of Charlie Murphy and Dave Lloyd who were up there--two of his assistants. They had been in the White House, and still with him at the convention there, and I told them what had happened. Before he even got back, there was a denial. out on the street saying, "The President misunderstood this morning," and then it did give his proper position on that. So that was an occasion when he did shoot from the hip and it could have gotten him into a lot of trouble. But he always had a lot of friends.

He used to say, "Always have a good man in the background." And that happened one time when--you know the Plaza Christmas lights--somebody thought it would be a good idea for President Truman to turn on the Plaza lights that year. I went out and talked to him about it; and I went out and I picked him up, officer [Paul] Burns and I did. In those days they would have a little ceremony with all the consoles on that little platform leading up to some doctor's offices there by Putsches Cafeteria,

[21]

and the dignitaries would assemble on that little platform, with the choruses and all that out in front. So they had this switch which was supposed to turn on the lights. Actually it was a signal for the other men around different places to turn on the lights, you know. So Mr. Truman at the proper time--he made a little speech--reached over and instead of hitting that switch, there was a switch right beside it that turned off the lights on the platform and hit that one. I saw what he was doing, so almost simultaneously maybe a second or two delay--I hit the right switch. I was right behind him and he didn't even know it. On the way back to Independence I told him about it. He said, "Well, now that's what I've always told you, whenever you're going to do something, have a good man backup."

STILLEY: When he would make certain decisions--I know you weren't associated with him as President, but did he often discuss when he came home that he regretted certain decisions such as the steel mills?

JESSEE: No, I don't think--I can truthfully say that

[22]

he never told--and I don't think that he regretted any decision that he made. I think that he felt that he--in fact, he was very strong. He gave me a little blotter one time and I have it around here somewhere, which says something, "Do what you think it's right, and if you're wrong ten angels in hell saying you're right won't make any difference," you know. He studied about things a lot and then acted.

STILLER: So, in regards to the decision making, you really don't think that when he would make a decision that was it and . . .

JESSEE: Actually, even the biggest one he ever made, of course, was the dropping of the atomic bomb. He always defended it. He said, "Well, that was war, and that ended the war, and it would have cost at least a hundred thousand lives, American servicemen's lives, if we had to invade Japan as we were planning on doing at that time." Of course, I was always glad he dropped it, because I would have been one of the hundred thousand, maybe, because I was

[23]

all set to leave in about two or three weeks from Hawaii. We had been staging in Hawaii, awaiting invasion of Japan. It would cost thousands of America lives, and he said, "This was war, and so this is the enemy and this ended the war."

STILLEY: I know he was asked this hundreds and thousands of times all across the nation, did he ever indicate any perturbness at everybody asking these questions?

JESSEE: No, he would have a stock answer and he never varied, "Yes, he would do it again if he had to."

STILLEY: He's regarded as probably one of our most humble Presidents. Do you think that in some ways he was too humble, or had too much ability to be humble?

JESSEE: No. I don't think he was ever--there wasn't all that much humility about him. I think he was one of our few completely honest Presidents rather than humble I think would be better. Here was a man whose chief regard was for the American

[24]

people, and for the United States of America, the country. He was one of the most unselfish people I've ever known as far as power, or wanting things for himself was concerned. He was very loyal to his family, but never to the excess of wanting things just for the sake of just wanting them. He really I think was one of the few Presidents we've had and many--the welfare of the country, the interest of this country, and the people of this country, were his primary concern, and I mean a very basic concern.

He used to say, you know, he was the only lobbyist that the American people had, and I think he regarded himself a lobbyist for the American people, and for the country as a whole. Of course, he made mistakes. All. of us make mistakes. But he was a proud man and I don't think I've ever heard him say, "I was wrong," but he probably thought about it a lot, which was the base of his--and here was a man who came out of the White House, where a person legally has every opportunity to enrich his own coffers, and he didn't take advantage

[25]

of this, and didn't want to. He wasn't interested in personal wealth. He wanted enough naturally, but he absolutely--can you imagine the President of the United States moved back into his mother in law's house? And so he had nothing really except a lot of wonderful memories and a wonderful wife and daughter. He had no money when he came out to speak of. I mean I would say probably 50 percent of Independence had more money than he did when he came home. Of course, he wrote the Memoirs, and they brought him in some money, but again not a great amount by the time the taxes were paid on it, because he didn't get a break on his taxes.

STILLEY : This "Give 'Em Hell Harry" play and movie and everything, they sort of concentrated--not necessarily concentrated, but a lot of it had the President cussing.

JESSEE: Well, he cussed, but not like--he never cussed except for emphasis. You know, I never heard him use the Lord's name in vain. He did cuss for emphasis, used hell a lot, and damn. But Miss

[26]

Conway, his secretary, said, "Randall, I don't remember him cussing so much."

I said, "Well, he didn't cuss so much, Miss Rose." She sat right behind me at the play that night.

Anyway, there was not the vulgarity in his cursing as there is with some people that I've heard of. I just remember, "Give 'Em Hell Harry" in the theater. It's true, it was good Truman theater, but it wasn't really exact in every respect; but theater, because it is theater, they exaggerate, and that was just one of the exaggerations. It was good Truman theater; the actor was excellent.

STILLEY: In your friendship with President Truman did you ever travel with him?

JESSEE: Yes, I've made several trips with him, again, after he was home. I went with him to the United Nations anniversary dinner. In fact, the network had called me and asked what President Truman was going to say at the U.N. anniversary dinner. I guess

[27]

it was the tenth anniversary that was being held in the Opera House in San Francisco. I said, "I' II go up and ask him," So I went up and asked him and he said, "Well, I haven't been invited to speak." I mean you could tell he was a little irritated. I went back and I said, "Well, he hasn't been invited to speak," and NBC couldn't believe it, because here was the man who had laid the cornerstone for the United Nations. Evidently they called up somebody in the Eisenhower administration and said, "Why hasn't President Truman been invited?" It wasn't about three or four days later he got an invitation, I went out with him on that, as sort of a press man, at his invitation, and to write press releases for him.

He was very irritated with Dulles out there because Dulles made an appointment with him and then didn't show up. So later on back stage at the Opera House there, why, Secretary Dulles came up, said, "Mr. President, how do you do? How do you do, Mr. President."

Truman said, "I do as I damn please and I

[28]

guess you do, too, don't you? You didn't show up this afternoon."

STILLEY: I don't mean to be getting into, let's say, personal conversations of things, but basically where did Mr. Truman and his distaste for Richard Nixon originate?

JESSEE: Well, that was when Nixon called George Marshall, and by implication, called Mr. Truman a traitor to the United States. I think just the way in which Nixon went about that; President Truman was smarter than the rest of us. Although I interviewed President Nixon one time when he was Vice President, I guess, and I didn't like the man then, there was just something about him. You know it's easy to say that after what's happened. But there was some thing about the man where you thought he was conning you all the time. At least that was the impression I got of him. That every answer you got was structured and you were the subject of a con job, and I guess maybe I was, I don't know. Of course, they were so different, President Nixon I think

[29]

has shown that he was an opportunist. That his own interests and those around him were greater than the interest of the country, the people of this country and the country itself. Of course we didn't know that, but I think probably Mr. Truman, who was a pretty good judge of character, I believe, maybe sensed this, didn't like him, just didn't like him, period. But then the action that President Nixon took in the Alger Hiss trial and now that has created doubts, been cast on whether that wasn't exaggerated out of all, proportions, I lived through the [Joseph] McCarthy era, and yet it's hard for me to realize that we were all taken into a greater and lesser degree by such tactics. Here was a man who ruined the lives of hundreds of people by innuendo and by no real facts or anything at all, and yet it became almost a hysteria in this country. I think Mr. Truman realized all this. Maybe he might not have at first, but later on he did, because to him Nixon was a party to it.

STILLEY: What was the President's feeling in regard

[30]

to President Eisenhower?

JESSEE: Well, he told me that he had always had a very high regard for President Eisenhower and at one time President Eisenhower did for him, too, because he used to love to show his book Crusade in Europe and the way President Eisenhower autographed it to him and so on and so forth, and to General Marshall. Then he told me that, in the first place, he was irritated when they had--as I recall and I think I'm right--they had to go and pick up General Eisenhower and Mrs. Eisenhower for the Inauguration instead of them coming over to the White House. They went by and picked them up. He had ordered the President's son back from Korea. He wanted to surprise General Eisenhower so he ordered General Eisenhower's son back.. So, Truman said that really their falling-out was basically two things: one was that they went to pick them up, then they went up to the Inaugural together and to the reviewing stand, where the President and General

[31]

Eisenhower were to be. And when General Eisenhower saw his son on the reviewing stand on their arrival, he said, "How did he-- he didn't say, "0h, my goodness, there is my son"--he said, "How did he get here?" And President Truman said, "I ordered him here as Commander in Chief because any boy ought to see his father inaugurated as President of the United States." He said that was all that Eisenhower would say about it. Mrs. Eisenhower, later on, thanked them and all for it, but General Eisenhower didn't.

And another thing a little later, which really caused a big split, was that because there was no way really in which a President could get money--I mean pensions and all that as President, although Eisenhower had his military pension of course. But when he had written Crusade in Europe President Truman had suggested legislation and urged it, and got it through the Congress which gave him a tax break someway on it. Like he didn't have to declare it all in one year or something. I don't know enough about taxes to know exactly what it was, but anyway

[32]

President Truman had got friends of his to initiate and pass legislation which gave President Eisenhower a tax break on his book, which was a way to accumulate several thousand dollars all at once. And when President Truman wrote his book, President Eisenhower didn't reciprocate. I think that caused a little bit of animosity. But the main thing was Eisenhower, I think, during the McCarthy era, again--the way that he did not repudiate McCarthy right off the bat, more or less put up with his shenanigans. Now Truman told me those three things, or two because one's related to the other--but I think those three things. You can separate the Nixon calling--he always said--calling him a traitor (actually called George Marshall)--anyone who follows his policies, a traitor to the United States or something like that. So it was just a deterioration of what had been a very close--I don't think they were ever close friends, but I think President Truman had elevated him and jumped him over several other military men, at the suggestion of George Marshall, as I understand it, and it made Eisenhower really.

[33]

Then Eisenhower walked royal after he had been made. I think it was just they didn't click as individuals. In fact, we developed a good friendship, we had good rapport not because I was a reporter or anything else, but because we just hit it off together, and Truman was like that. If you were a friend of his you were a friend all the way. His family is still very much like that.

Boy, it was very embarrassing in a way for me when I came back from Australia from the Foreign Service. Tom Evans approached me and said, "President Truman wants you to be the family spokesman for them upon his death."

I said, "Well, I didn't realize that he was that ill."

He said, "Oh, he's not that bad. It's because the Army has suggested that he appoint someone as the family spokesman."

Well, we went out to see the President and he said, "Yes," he wanted me to do that for him, be the family spokesman. "But,°" he said, "don't say anything to Margaret and the Boss." He called

[34]

Mrs. Truman the boss. So, I naturally didn't, once committed.

Well, then he began to fail the last year of his life and, as an elderly person, had a little bit of loss of memory. Not shame on him. This is old age. So, it began to worry me because here I was committed not to say anything to Margaret or Mrs. Truman about this arrangement. He said, "It worries them, I don't want to worry them." He said, "It doesn't bother me, but it worries them that people have to think about these things."

Finally I told Paul Burns. In the meantime Tom Evans died, so Tom was no witness. But Dr. Brooks was still there at the Library and Paul Burns, the head of the Secret Service knew about it. We would meet from time to time and of course the networks had the lines in and out of Independence for five or six years before his death because they had to be ready as soon as possible, and it took a few days time for them to put them in. They were paying, thirty, forty thousand dollars a year line rental for all those years. But anyway, finally

[35]

I told, I believe it was Paul Burns, I said, "I'm going to tell Cliff Daniel the next time I'm in New York. In fact I'm going up to New York and tell him about this, because I'm not committed not to tell him."

Paul Burns said, "I'm going up next week and I'll tell him." So he did, and then he told Margaret.

STILLEY: What was the President's regard for President Kennedy?

JESSEE: Well, I think when he first started running for President, remember, Mr. Truman supported Senator [Stuart] Symington in his campaign in 1960. You know, I say, there's a story that's never been really told which I think is correct. Mr. Truman was planning on going to the convention in Los Angeles, and in fact I was going to be covering him for NBC. We had made big plans about him and I had the room right down the hall from his suite and all that. Sam Rayburn came to visit him on Friday night, as I recall, and stayed all night out

[36]

at the house Friday night; and Saturday afternoon--I think my days are right on that--before the convention which was to start on Monday, Mr. Truman called a press conference and said that he wasn't going to attend the convention. Well, my theory on this is that Sam Rayburn told him what his plans were, which were to get the Kennedy's who--we really thought that Symington would get the Vice Presidency, because we knew what a strong organization Kennedy had. I think what Sam Rayburn told Mr. Truman was that he was going to get the Kennedys to offer it to Johnson, thinking that Johnson wouldn't take it, telling them that Johnson wouldn't, and then Johnson was going to accept. Because you remember at that time Johnson said, "Oh, I'll never accept the Vice Presidency." He was a candidate himself. "I will never accept the Vice Presidency," and so forth. It was a great surprise when Johnson--and I think my own feeling was that it was a surprise to the Kennedys, because I know that Bobby Kennedy was over asking Stuart Symington the same thing, would he accept the Vice Presidency, and he got no answer yet. Senator Symington was stalling

[37]

a little bit, at the same time that Jack Kennedy was over talking to Lyndon Johnson. I think Symington is much more the type of guy that Kennedy liked than Johnson was. Because Johnson was a little different operator than Jack Kennedy. I think that that's the reason Mr. Truman didn't go to the convention. I think Sam Rayburn told him what the ploy was going to be, what the plan was going to be, and what Johnson's decision was going to be because Lyndon Johnson was a creature of Sam Rayburn, and Mr. Truman and Mr. Rayburn were both great friends of each other. I think that Sam Rayburn probably said, "Now, Mr. President, you don't want to be on another loser, and Lyndon Johnson is going to be the Vice President."

I don't know, but Mr. Truman would never discuss it. He never told me about it, and you always hate to ask a friend like that; if he wants to tell you something, fine, but you always hate to interrogate them. That's my theory on that anyway. But he made a remark to Jack Kennedy earlier in that campaign. He said, "That young

[38]

man ought to learn to vote with the Democrats a little more than he does before he gets too ambitious to be President." But I believe he liked him as an individual; he liked him but he was a different cut of guy than Truman was. They probably neither one quite understood the other. President Kennedy was very nice to President Truman and I think that their friendship grew after he invited the Trumans to come and stay at the White House when they were in Washington.

STILLEY: What was his regard for President Johnson?

JESSEE: I think he respected Johnson as a politician and a political animal. President Truman loved politics. He loved the game; he loved the science of it--which I regarded politics as a science--and I wish more people thought about it in that way. I think Truman did, too, although you know the difference between the lawyer going to law school and reading the law and becoming a lawyer. Well, Truman read politics and became a political major, and other people go to school and take political

[39]

science and become political science majors. I think he had a lot of respect for Johnson as a politician, but Johnson was a mean man, and Truman was just the opposite. Johnson was a tough, mean guy, he would twist arms and everything else. He knew how to use power. Mr. Truman used it in a much nicer way. I think he was much fonder of Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Truman was, too. Maybe I shouldn't say that, but I have a feeling that they were. That's my opinion purely.

STILLEY: Okay, thank you very much.

Atomic bomb, decision to use against Japan, 22-23

Benton, Rita, 7
Benton, Thomas Hart, 7-12
Bodine, Walt, 2
Bretton, Max, 7
Brooks, Philip C., 34
Burns, Paul, 20, 34, 35

Chaplin, Lou, 5
Conway, Rose, 25-26
Crusade in Europe, 30, 31

Daniel, Clifton, 35
Daniel, Margaret Truman, 5, 33-34
Desegregation, racial, 18-19
Dulles, John F., 27-28

Eisenhower, Dwight D., 30-33
Eisenhower, John, 30
Eisenhower, Mamie, 30, 31
Evans, Tom L., 11, 33, 34

Grover, Wayne C., 10

Harness, Charles, 2
Higby, Bob, 2
Hiss, Alger, 29

Japan, atomic bombing of, 22-23
Jessee, Randall, background, 1-2
Johnson, Lady Bird, 39
Johnson, Lyndon B., 14, 36-37, 38-39

Kansas City Club, 11
Kansas City Star, 2, 3
KBEA, Kansas City, Missouri, 2
Kennedy, John F., 35, 36-38
Kennedy, Robert F., 36

Lee, Bill, 2
Lloyd, David D., 10, 20

McCarthy, Joseph R., 29, 32
Marshall, George C., 28, 30, 32
Murals, State Capitol, Jefferson City, Missouri, 8-9
Murphy, Charles S., 20

National Broadcasting Company, 3, 5, 12, 16, 17, 27, 35
Nixon, Richard M., 28-29, 32

Pendergast, Tom, 8-9
Plaza Christmas lights, Kansas City, Missouri, 20-21
Presidential campaign, 1960, 35-36

Rayburn, Sam, 35, 36, 37
Ross, Charles G., 13

Secret Service, U.S., 34
Smith, Merriman, 18, 19
Symington, Stuart, 35, 36-37

Truman, Bess Wallace, 1, 4, 6, 7, 33-34, 39
Truman, Harry S.:

Benton, Thomas Hart, relationship with, 7-12
decisions as President, 21-23
Eisenhower, Dwight D., relationship with, 30-33
evaluation of as President, 23-25
food, favorite, 7
Independence, Missouri, return home to, 1953, 2-3
Jessee, Randall, appointed family spokesman by, 33-34
Jessee, Randall, first acquaintance with, 1-2, 4
Jessee, Randall, friendship with, 5-6
Memoirs, 25, 26
Nixon, Richard M., dislike of, 28-29
Plaza Christmas lights, Kansas City, Missouri, switches on, 20-21
Presidential campaign of 1960, and, 35-38
press, and the, 14-17
press coverage on travels, 12-13
profanity, use of, 25-26
UN, speaks on 10th anniversary of, 26-27
Truman Library, mural in, 10-12

United Nations, 10th anniversary celebration, 26-27

Vaccaro, Ernest B., (Tony), 14

WDAF, Kansas City, Missouri, 3
Wheeler, Charles, 5
White House press corps, 3, 4

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