Robert G. Nixon Oral History Interview, October 19, 1970

Notice
This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for the Harry S. Truman Library. A draft of this transcript was edited by the interviewee but only minor emendations were made; therefore, the reader should remember that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written word.

Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview.

RESTRICTIONS
This oral history transcript may be read, quoted from, cited, and reproduced for purposes of research. It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.

Opened December, 1978
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

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HESS: To begin this morning, Mr. Nixon, tell me about the events that transpired after Roosevelt's funeral, and then your trip back to Washington.

NIXON: If you will recall from our last session, I had briefly described the funeral in the rose garden at the Roosevelt mansion at Hyde Park.

I remember that when the train arrived there, all of the brass and VIPs were taken, in a roundabout fashion in White House limousines, up to the mansion. We others, who were along, had to walk up a sixty degree hill. There was a crude sort of trail that led up from the Hudson to the top of the highland where the Roosevelt home was. I was lugging a twenty or twenty-five pound typewriter (this was a hot, steamy day). And, of course, I arrived

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somewhat breathless.

Those who were aboard the train were set out by the protocol of this event. The Government itself, in the highest echelon, had moved up to Hyde Park for the funeral. The President and Bess got aboard the train with the others, and they returned to Washington.

I remained behind, virtually alone (Mrs. Roosevelt was in mourning in her home), and I remained behind through necessity. I had to "clean up the story." In other words, I had to finish it. I wrote a story about the contrast of what had happened there. The garden, where the burial took place, had been jam packed with all the top dignitaries of the nation, and a firing squad from West Point in their gray uniforms.

Incidentally, to interpose, you don't expect humor at a funeral. I shouldn't say this was

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humorous, but I should tell what happened. This is in connection with the West Point contingent that was there. The commander of the corps itself was a tall, fine looking young man. (They were in ranks off to the left of the side of the garden.) When the young commander was to give the order for the firing of the guns in the latter part of the funeral, he was so emotionally overcome and excited, that when he whipped the sword from his scabbard to give the order, he pulled it so hard that it flew out of his hands over the heads of the crowd and stuck into the sod. He was a highly embarrassed young man, but he recovered the sword and went on.

Now, where was I...

HESS: Talking about the crowds there.

NIXON: The contrast between this huge assemblage

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of dignitaries and later the completely deserted rose garden was incredible. Here was Roosevelt in his grave, completely, and utterly alone. No one at hand--the world had passed on.

I remained there over night and the next morning began the drive back to Washington. This would have been a Monday morning.

Truman had come on back to the White House, but he and Bess went to their home on Connecticut Avenue. They had an apartment on Connecticut Avenue where they had lived for years while he was in the Senate. The next morning, attended by the Secret Service, he motored down to the White House to begin his term in office.

HESS: I have heard that Mr. Vaccaro rode down with him that morning.

NIXON: Yes, Tony had covered Truman when he was Senator (The Senate was his assignment.) He

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had also covered Truman during the rather obscure campaign that Truman conducted in the shadow of the great giant Roosevelt, as nominee for Vice President. So, he continued his coverage. Because of this, his press association assigned him to cover the White House, which he did for nearly the entire time that Truman was in office.

With due consideration, Mr. Truman had asked Mrs. Roosevelt to remain on in the White House residence as long as she wished to. This was to give her ample time to recover from the shock of the death and to realize that she must now move out of a residence in which she had lived since early 1933.

All of the Roosevelt possessions had to be packed. There were crates of official papers, and heaven only knows what else in the way of personal possessions. This was expected, but

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still a gracious thing for the new President to do.

She remained on at the White House for a short while, while the various things were being done that had to be done. My recollection is that she actually moved to New York City. She had an apartment down in the Greenwich Village area. Of course, the Hyde Park home remained, but she liked to be very active, and New York became the center from which she conducted her various activities.

In returning to Washington, I then went to the White House on Tuesday morning, as usual. As I had covered President Roosevelt, I began covering President Truman. This was really the first time that I had had a chance even to see what the man looked like. As I said, once before, several months earlier, I had glimpsed him from across the rose

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garden. But the first time that I could really look Truman over was at his first press conference. He looked like what he was. He was a product of his background. He was a smalltown, Midwestern Missourian of farm origin.

We all knew that Roosevelt had gone to Groton and then Harvard; that he came from a quite old, well-to-do family; that he had moved in what is known as the best circles all of his life.

Truman had grown up on a small farm in Missouri. Aside from a trip to France in the First World War and his move to Washington when he became Senator in the thirties, he literally had almost never been out of Missouri.

Both being products of their environment, there was a tremendous contrast. The contrast was in appearance, voice mannerisms, and even their attire. President Roosevelt, while a casual dresser, was very well tailored. The

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casualness was almost the kind that was deliberately put into the tailoring. Everything that Roosevelt wore was tailored. His shirts were hand made. They were a sort of the Brooks' Brothers button-down variety known as polo shirts. He dressed very conservatively, and I remember on his shirts he had a very small "FDR" in blue thread on his left sleeve.

Truman dressed like he had just come off of Main Street in Independence, Missouri. All of his clothing was what we'd call store bought. He was quite a neat dresser, very neat, but everything was a little too precise. Mind you I'm not saying that Roosevelt did it the way it should be done rather than Truman. I'm simply trying to report what I saw of this, and felt of this tremendous contrast, and I'm not being derogatory to Truman in the slightest. In many senses he was much more grassroots

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American than Roosevelt.

Truman always had a pressed crease in the sleeves of his coat, which is not especially good taste, except in the little small Midwestern towns. If Roosevelt had a handkerchief in his outside breast pocket, it would be casually crushed into the pocket. Truman wore a carefully pressed handkerchief that had four or perhaps five carefully placed peaks sticking out of his pocket that reminded me of the insert that you now get from your cleaner when you send suits to be cleaned. As I say, it was all very precise. He was addicted to bow ties and two-colored shoes, some of them with mesh in them. They wouldn't be black and white like the older sport shoes used to be, or golf shoes, but they would be a strange hue two tinted colors of blue, sometimes high yellow. Really this was something.

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For this press conference, he had been obviously quite well-briefed about the things that were occurring in the news--the war having the greater impact. This, of course, was less than a month before the Germans surrendered. Because it was wartime, those things could be answered only in generalities. So, Truman didn't really have to know much about it. He just had to have been briefed by the White House staff and press officer. And there were questions about legislation in Congress, and his own plans, and what did he feel like when he was told that Roosevelt had died and he would be President.

He handled himself very well. Where Roosevelt had had to sit behind the desk in the Oval Room, for the first time here was a President who could stand, and he stood surrounded by two or three of his close friends and associates from Capitol Hill.

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Matthew Connelly was his secretary on the Hill and immediately became his secretary at the White House. When I say secretary, this doesn't mean stenographer. It's a title for the person who met the visitors to the president's office and arranged appointments. The title as I recollect was Appointments Secretary. Harry Vaughan was there, a longtime associate of the president's in National Guard days, who was on his staff at the Capitol. I don't remember any others, but the others behind the desk were members of the Roosevelt White House staff.

HESS: Who do you recall being there from the Roosevelt staff?

NIXON: I'm sure Jonathan Daniels was. He was press Secretary. Steve Early, an Administrative Assistant was there. The White House stenographer, in contrast to the president's personal secretary

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Grace Tully, was Jack Romagna. That's about all that I can recall. Incidentally, it was Steve Early who was the principal immediate adviser to Truman on virtually everything, but especially on the conduct of the Presidency and what to do at a news conference, and what to say, and what not to say.

HESS: Why would he have that role rather than Jonathan Daniels because Jonathan Daniels was the Press Secretary?

NIXON: Well, I don't mean to demean Daniels at all. Perhaps I should have said Steve Early and Daniels acted together. But while Jonathan had been an assistant in the White House for a number of years, his tenure as Press Secretary was relatively brief. Steve was simply the more experienced man and knew everybody in Washington that should be known and he was known

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by everybody in Government. He had been asked, and, as a matter of fact, everybody in Government had been asked by Truman to remain in their posts to help him.

As I say, Truman handled himself quite well at this news conference. I remember later when we were talking about it in the press room, he apparently had done so well that we were calling him a "whirling dervish." But he wasn't subjected to too much of an inquisition at this first news conference. Incidentally, it was held in the Oval Office.

I spoke earlier about the situation that Truman found himself in when Roosevelt died. He had never been briefed by Roosevelt. He had no familiarity with Government except his experience in the Senate, and that's a sort of closed corporation.

It's a wonder we got through the times.

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Roosevelt died on April the 12th. The war in Europe was rapidly drawing to a close, but it was by no means at an end. In retrospect, it was an extremely difficult time, and the collapse of Germany was not yet apparent. Remember that the war with Japan was going on at a furious pace in the Pacific. We were not having it all our way. Even after the German surrender, our top military people predicted it would take another year of fierce fighting to bring about the Japanese surrender.

It was a dreadful time, and here was a man who came into the White House almost as though he had been picked at random from off the street, with absolutely no useable background and no useable information.

In those early days he said: "Bob, I can't even make a speech. The newsreel men

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used to come to me and say, 'Mr. Truman we want you to make a statement about a certain piece of legislation before the newsreel cameras!' And I used to say to them, 'Fellows, please get somebody else to do it. Those cameras frighten me, and I just can't do it. I can't make a speech.' I rarely ever tried to make one in the Senate."

This was when he was being coached, because as a President he did have to make speeches.

HESS: Do you recall who was handling that coaching?

NIXON: Yes, I do. A young fellow named Leonard Reinsch, who must have been doing some radio work on Capitol Hill. Later the President announced who the members of his staff would be: Matthew Connelly, Appointments Secretary; Harry Vaughan, Military Aide; and J. K. Vardaman

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(another of his National Guard people who was in the Navy during the war in some minor capacity--he brought him from civilian life to be his Naval Aide). There was another bird from Omaha, Nebraska, also an associate on Capitol Hill, Ed [Edward D.] McKim. Ed McKim was to reorganize the White House staff and boy what a mess he made of things.

HESS: What did he try to do?

NIXON: He drew up a diagram--one of these charts that you put on the wall which corporations indulge in. Sort of like a family tree. You have the President at the top with lines drawn down to the next in command, and then on down, the next in command, and the next in command. From the appearance of this chart, it seemed that Truman had simply transferred the members of his vice-presidential staff in the Senate

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down to the White House to run the Government. This was absurd. It was a mistake and sooner or later circumstances and events made him rectify it. McKim, of course, was the one who later got Truman into all sorts of trouble in the 1948 campaign when he went through Omaha to make a speech.

HESS: Which we will get to later.

Did you ever hear the Roosevelt staff members give their opinions of Mr. McKim? Did they seem to think that the vice-presidential staff members were coming down to take over?

NIXON: Not that I recall. But remember there are circumstances that surround these things. In the first place, the presidential commissions which appointed them to office, had expired immediately on the death of President Roosevelt.

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They were waiting around to see what happened. The President, who was almost completely helpless, asked all of them to please remain as members of his staff to help him, which they did. So, they weren't about to be passing criticisms of any of the newcomers.

I was talking about members of the staff that Truman brought in with him.

HESS: What do you remember about Mr. Vardaman for instance.

NIXON: Well, before we get to Vardaman let me tell you about this incident at the news conference involving J. Leonard Reinsch. The President said, "My Press Secretary will be Leonard Reinsch." Leonard Reinsch wasn't going to be his Press Secretary at all. The President just flubbed as it turned out. Leonard Reinsch was brought in to coach him. Incidentally, he

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didn't do very well, he had to be replaced.

Where Leonard made his error was that he tried to change Truman's personality, to change his voice, to change his mannerisms, to change his delivery, everything else. The President, in making public speeches, had to be himself. To be as he often said, "A Missouri clodhopper." Then he was able to reach the people--witness his rear platform speeches in the '48 campaign.

When we asked Leonard afterwards what his newspaper background was, it turned out that it wasn't a newspaper background, it was a radio background. But he said very beamingly and very proudly, "I was assistant sports editor of my high school newspaper."

HESS: How did that go over with the members of the press?

NIXON: Just like a lead balloon. Everybody, of

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course, laughed--this incredible flub of Truman's in mistakenly announcing Leonard, who was a nice guy, and today he is the head man down at WSB in Atlanta.

HESS: That was with the Cox newspaper chain at that time.

NIXON: That's right, the Cox newspapers. They own the two newspapers there and also the major NBC outlet, WSB.

Truman was so conscious of trying not to make a mistake, that in order not to acknowledge that this was an error of tongue at his press conference, he let Leonard remain in the press office for a few weeks (of course, with Jonathan Daniels' careful backing) until Charlie Ross came in and took over.

But here was this man, just totally unaware of the world problems, with no background whatsoever.

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It's no wonder that he made such dreadful mistakes. The first year or eighteen months of his tenure in the White House were in a sense shocking.

What were some of his immediate errors? On May 8th, and this was all carefully staged and arranged, he announced in his White House office that the Germans had surrendered, which had taken place some twenty-four hours before, at Rennes, France. It was carefully wrapped by the military. This had to be an arrangement involving the British Government, and the Soviet Government--the Big Three. When you have allies, you don't go sailing off into the wild blue yonder all by yourself.

Anyway, after the surrender one of the first things that he did was a dreadful mistake? He abruptly ended lend-lease.

HESS: Why was that decision made?

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NIXON: To stop Government expenditures. But this was just like cutting a man's throat. The whole wherewithal to exist and to operate war, and everything else, by Great Britain and Russia was dependent upon us. This cut the pipeline. This was taking the bread and butter out of the mouths of starving people. Well, this was done just peremptorily. This, of course, was done very abruptly right after the German surrender. The action may have been one of those important things which began the cold war. It shocked Churchill and Stalin to the bottoms of their feet.

As I say, when it came--and this was only about three months after the Germans surrendered--it shocked the allied world to its very roots. You see, it also had a very profound effect on our own economy. It was just like--here is a factory with so many

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workers and everybody is just doing fine because they have jobs, and they are feeding and clothing their families and able to live, and then suddenly the owner of the factory puts them all out of employment. It was just that abrupt. I might add they had no unemployment insurance to fall back on.

You can't shut down the factory and close the gates and throw everyone out of employment with one fell swoop overnight. Granted that eventually this had to be done. The surrender of Germany and the surrender of Japan dial not abruptly change the world as it was. It did not, in a sense, end the war; it only ended the fighting and the killing. All of the things that you have to do to bring a war to an end are continuing things that go on and have to be supported until the vast adjustment is made. You have ships at sea. You have armies in the

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field. You have liberated populations that are impoverished. So, suddenly, Truman drops the guillotine. What will those people do? What was the world to do?

He also cut back with another abrupt action, the expenditure of fifty billion dollars that was in hand for the continuation of the war in Europe and the Pacific. Well what do you do? This was just some of the same part of severing the lend-lease pipelines. Certainly the fighting war was over, but the economy of this country did not recover overnight.

This was done much too abruptly. The adverse affect on the economy was obvious. You don't just have to go to the figures that existed at that time. If you have a job today and you don't have a job tomorrow, how are you going to eat next week?

Those were two of the immediate postwar errors that I recall.

HESS: What were some of the other errors that you saw at this time, things that had been done wrong?

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NIXON: Truman brought a bunch of incompetents down to the White House.

HESS: Who would you put in that category?

NIXON: I don't want to single out any particular person. I'll just say the whole lot. They didn't know first base from breakfast. But these were the only people he knew.

Truman later told me, "Bob, I don't know anybody. How can I bring big people into Government when I don't even know who they are, and they don't know me? They know the power of my position, but I've had no broad contacts in life. The only people I knew to bring down to the White House were those that worked in my office on the Hill. All of whom were little small town people, That's all they were.

I don't mean to impute that there is anything wrong about a person being from a small

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town. My God, it's the way our country is made up, and they are our real good people. But the connotation is utter lack of experience in anything but the normal little things in daily life--like making a living plowing or selling plows.

HESS: Do you recall if Fred Canfil was around during the first few months?

NIXON: Well, I'll tell you when he first showed up. It was when we were going to Potsdam--very early July. I forget the exact date. But Fred had one of those shoeshine stands in either the Federal Building or the Court House in Kansas City. And he would shine Truman's shoes when Truman would come in when he was county judge.

Truman had a very kind heart. All his personal relations with people were amiable

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and friendly. When he was to go to Potsdam, he brought Fred Canfil in from Kansas City to Potsdam with him. This being, I'm sure, the greatest event in Fred Canfil's life. Whether he was around the White House before that, I just don't recall.

HESS: Have you ever heard of the story that Canfil used to be a marshal in Kansas City. He served warrants, and things like that. He was introduced to Stalin as Marshal Canfil?

NIXON: No, I didn't hear that. But that's what he was at the time and Truman had gotten him the job. Again, a kindness on Truman's part, that he had gotten Fred this job.

These people that Truman brought down to be members of his staff were the only ones he could talk to. They were his people. He talked to them every day. They knew what his

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little personal needs were. Here he was among all of these strangers on the White House staff, whom he probably, privately, felt a little in awe of. How could he talk to them? They were worlds apart.

These people he brought down from his office up on the Hill, sooner or later all got the President in trouble, and this meant embarrassment for Truman.

Some of these characters had the attitude that members of the Grant administration had. The government was something to pillage and line your pockets with. As recently as Warren Harding--some high personages in his administration were of the same opinion.

There was an atmosphere about the White House connected with this. Roosevelt Government had very able members, and you hardly realized you were in the same place. It was so obvious that things were not right.

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There was one, group that we called the "Polo Boys" that came down from New York, real city slickers. If you typed con men for a movie, you couldn't do better. The reason we called them the Polo Boys was because almost invariably they wore tan topcoats, with belts that you tied around the middle. They were called camel hair, but they were just expensive lambs wool.

HESS: Who were a few of those gentlemen, do you recall?

NIXON: No, I don't, because they were people of no importance, and I should have said, they were callers on Matthew Connelly.

HESS: Did they come in more in the nature of favor seekers?

NIXON: Well, for what else? They didn't come by

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just to pass the time of day! They were there to obtain influence with various departments of Government. They were trying to sell contracts. They weren't there because they were nice guys coming by for tea. They later became known as the five percenters.

Another character was named John Maragon. He was a man with a Greek-American background, who was a sort of dog robber, which was a term familiar in the First World War for the guy who did the dirty work for the captain of the company who couldn't do it himself because of his position. Maragon was a friend, primarily, of Harry Vaughan's.

John was an ingratiating person. He was another one of those hangers-on of the Truman office on Capitol Hill. Remember this was the war period, and there was a so-called rationing over here, which I understand never worked

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very well. In England it worked; it had to work, they didn't have the food; but over here it simply meant a vast black market operation. No one suffered any real deprivations in this country. Quite the contrary. Rationing made possible this vast black market operation. To the ordinary people things like steaks and cigarettes, were difficult to obtain.

Maragon ingratiated himself with members of the Senate, and House, and those important hangers-on in Government who peddled influence by being able to get fine sirloin steaks, the T-bones and the fillets, and that sort of thing.

There was one source. There was a store on H Street in downtown Washington where he obtained his black market meats. It was a black market operation, and he was able to obtain black market items. Well, if you can

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get prime steak and whiskey (which was scarce), you were welcome in almost anybody's office, and they would do favors for you.

Knowing the man that Truman was, I know he didn't have any part of Maragon's operations, but again, Harry Vaughan was his amanuensis, the fellow who did things for the Vice President. Maragon was Harry's friend, because this was a way to get into the Vice President's office and the aura of influence that that means. Maragon had complete access to the White House which, very few people have. You go there only by invitation or with special identification cards that were issued to you because of the position which you happen to hold.

HESS: Do you think that General Vaughan saw that this wasn't the thing to do? Do you think that General Vaughan knew what was going on?

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NIXON: I doubt it very much. Harry Vaughan is a nice guy. There's nothing venal about him. But he just wasn't very smart. He wasn't smart and slick like Connelly was. I just don't think he was aware of any implications. He was a guy who could get steaks for him and for Truman.

HESS: It was as simple as that.

NIXON: Sure.

This reminds me of a favorite saying of Sam Rayburn's when he was Speaker of the House for so many years. When some of the parts of the mess in Washington came to light, Sam said to me one day, "You just don't take it unless you can eat it, drink it, or smoke it in twenty-four hours"--which is just about as pithy a statement on how you conduct yourself in government, as I have ever heard, and he's right.

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HESS: When did you first see John Maragon in the White House?

NIXON: Oh, I don't know what day it was, but it was one of those early days. I was sitting out in the lobby that leads through Connelly's office, near the president's Oval Office. I saw this character come in. There were so many strange looking people that came in there, but I thought, "Who in the name of heaven is this now?" It just struck me before I ever said a word to him, which I didn't until we met later on. Of course, my interest was simply this: Here's a man going toward Connelly's office, the president's Appointments Secretary, and he is going to see Truman? Because when callers on the president come out of his office, we would chat with them and ask them what they were there for, that was just part of news gathering. They didn't always say, of course.

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As a matter of fact, unless they had come in to sell a bill of goods, and to use the White House as a rostrum to get news out to the Nation, you didn't get information from them. Now, there's an unwritten law about those things. When you call on the President, if you have an ounce of brains, you don't later say why, unless it's through agreement with the President that this can be done. If you do, you never come back.

As I say, Maragon just happened to be one of those characters. I later learned that he wasn't going in to see the President, he was going to see Harry Vaughan. Although Truman later, I suppose through Vaughan's influence, sent him over to Greece on some mission, and he got in trouble in Italy on his way to Greece.

HESS: What was his trouble?

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>NIXON: I don't recall, I just remember it got him in the newspapers, and it was embarrassing to the President. He was throwing his weight around too much as Personal Diplomatic Representative to the President of the United States--that's how far this idiot carried it. This was a minor role, but he threw his weight around. It was so bad. I think, this was the time of Turkish-Greek aid to try to stop the Communists from taking over Greece. He embarrassed everybody in the American State Department circle in Athens, and then later reputedly, with having diplomatic immunity, brought back a large amount of expensive perfume into this country with no tariffs paid on it.

Those are a few things that I recall about the change in atmosphere. There was Jake Vardaman, incidentally the son of a former Senator from Mississippi. He wasn't around

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very long because he soon wore out his welcome, and the President had to get rid of him.

One of the things was that he accepted an automobile for the President from the Ford Motor Company. The President needs his own personal car in the White House just about like you need a hole in the head. There are these vast numbers of long, sleek, black chauffeur driven limousines. Some Presidents, like Roosevelt, preferred Cadillacs, others preferred Lincolns. But Jake accepted this Ford automobile for the President, and that got into the newspapers and was a little embarrassment to the President. I don't recall what happened to the car, but I guess the President said, "Take this thing and give it back to them."

Remember that we have two parties in this country. When one party is in power, as the Democrats had been for many years, the other

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party is trying its best to make them look bad. If these things happen, they don't have to fabricate them, they just take advantage of them and use them. Remember, the press of the Nation for many years has been largely Republican--Republican in outlook and in policy. Even if they are independents, and even if they are, in a few instances, of a Democratic nature, they still print the news, and they let it stand as it is.

Another thing Jake did. Somebody told the President that he needed a yacht. There was no such thing as a presidential yacht. In some earlier administrations there had been a yacht that was borrowed from the Navy by Presidents for weekend excursions and that sort of thing. But Truman was persuaded that he needed an oceangoing yacht. Vardaman was then Naval Aide, so he was told to look

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into the situation with the Navy and to see what they could bring up. Well, Vardaman really threw his weight around. If you're speaking for the President of the United States, as they all pretend to do, or do, if they are requested to do so, everybody out at the Pentagon is going to stand around and say, "Yes, sir," from the Chief of Naval Operations on down, unless the Chief of Naval Operations is a very strong character. This is the way to avoid trouble, and such things normally don't involve high policy or the conduct of an arm of the services or anything of that sort, they are usually relatively small things. And the way to handle them is to say, "Yes, sir," and do it.

They rustled up a large old flat-bottom ship that had been made for river use. We had such things out in China earlier. This one may have been used out there, but I don't think it was. In other words, they are large ships,

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but they don't have much depth because rivers and channels are not usually deep and there are sand bars. They are not made really for oceangoing. When you take them out on a sea, they really roll. They roll so much that they almost turn over and would, presumably, in a bad storm.

This was found down at Norfolk, and of course, for the President it had to be just made over. Which Vardaman took in hand--wouldn't let the Navy do anything. Vardaman was going to be the architect of this vessel. He insisted on turning it into what looked like the hundred dollar suite at the Statler. In other words, it was not a seagoing, comfortable yacht with walnut paneling, or mahogany paneling in the cabins and that sort of thing. The ship didn't have cabins. It had suites with wall-to-wall carpeting, fancy modern furniture, gaudy hangings, lavishly paneled walls, and so forth. This is

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what he produced at considerable expense with the Navy privately saying, "Oh, my god;"

Truman subsequently used it to take weekend trips down the Potomac, and into Chesapeake Bay. He used it for a conference or two when Churchill later was in town, with the boat tied up at the Washington Navy Yard. Later, we made one long trip up the coast to New England where we ran into very foul weather and so headed south to Bermuda and visited there and subsequently came back.

I don't recall at the moment any other little things that Vardaman did to embarrass the President, but...

HESS: Was this the Williamsburg?

NIXON: Yes, the Williamsburg.

HESS: Was that ride out to Bermuda pretty rough?

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NIXON: I went to Bermuda on a Navy destroyer accompanying the Williamsburg. We weren't aboard the Williamsburg.

One day when it was rather stormy, we got Charlie Ross on the ship-to-ship radio, and said something to the effect, "Charlie, we haven't heard a word from you for a couple of days. What's going on over there. Why haven't you called us?"

Charlie's reply was, "Oh, my God, please let me alone. Oranges and grapefruit are rolling around the room, I'm deathly seasick. The President is seasick. Everybody in the party is seasick." So, that gives you an idea of how she rolled. She wasn't built for ocean-going.

HESS: Let's go back to some of the Roosevelt staff that were retained for a period of time after Mr. Roosevelt's death. Have you ever heard of

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what their reaction was?

NIXON: I can answer that only in generalities. Frankly, because that's a little facet that I just don't recall.

The members of the staff knew Roosevelt was a one-man President--all powerful. They didn't know who this obscure new man was. Truman had a profound native intelligence, and he was smart. While he brought these characters down on his staff from the Vice President's office, he was intelligent enough to ask the members of the Roosevelt staff, the members of the Cabinet, all these wartime agencies people to remain on. I don't recall a single one that he didn't request to remain on.

Well, the attitude of Roosevelt's White House staff was: "This man needs help." So, their disposition was to remain to help this man as long as he needed their help.

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There was Steve Early, who was really the mainstay, the shrewd, vital, dynamic, and highly experienced member of the staff. There was Sam Rosenman.

HESS: How would you evaluate Judge Rosenman?

NIXON: Rosenman was an able lawyer. He was a very careful, cautious man. He had to be able in his own area, because he had been one of Roosevelt's intimates when Roosevelt was Governor of New York in 1932. Roosevelt had made him a Federal judge in New York, and had brought him down later to Washington and made him the President's Special Counsel, the duties of which depend upon the President. He was the White House lawyer, that was what it amounts to. But, in addition, Rosenman was one of the President's speechwriters. He was not the dynamic one, the coiner of phrases; that was Robert Sherwood,

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the play writer. As a matter of fact, I doubt if Sam ever coined a ringing phrase in his life, certainly not as far as I know; not in the President's speeches. But he was the careful preparer of the basic ingredients of speeches. Then Sherwood would polish the thing up and put in those glittering phrases that made news. Then Roosevelt would go over them and put in little phrases himself that sometimes rang.

So, Sam stayed on for a while as counselor. He stayed on...

HESS: He left just about a year later, February the 1st of 1946. One of the main speeches that he helped on, was the twenty-one point message in September of 1945. Do you recall anything particular about the twenty-one point message which was a liberal pronouncement of what Mr. Truman intended to do?

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NIXON: Frankly I would have to look back and read the thing. I remember the message.

At that time Truman was frightened to death to make a public address, because it was new to him. He didn't have any self-confidence then. The only thing that I can remember about it, was that I thought at the time that too much had been put into it. This was something like his first State of the Union message to Congress, which in myrecollection, was combined with that year's budget. It was as thick as Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. It was not light reading and that isn't the way you get things over. It seemed to me with this twenty-one point message that they were not only trying to cover the waterfront, but they were just stuffing it full of verbiage and phraseology and putting too much in it. Which is not the way to have an effect

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on the Nation or an effect on Congress.

HESS: Some of Mr. Truman's advisers advised him against putting so many provisions in. Their view was that only a few of these will pass, and others will not, which would make it look like his legislative program was starting off as a failure.

NIXON: That's really what I was trying to say. That was my reaction to it. But again, at that time, Mr. Truman was so eager to look good. Sometimes it was really pitiful.

HESS: Do you think that he was bothered by the contrast between himself and his predecessor?

NIXON: I am sure he was. No President likes a previous President looking over his shoulder. No President wants the shroud of a great President to be placed around his shoulders. That is what happened to Truman.

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Some of his major decisions, like the Marshall plan--incidentally, the Marshall plan was devised by General Marshall, for Truman, to try to recover the dreadful mistake of the abrupt severance of lend-lease. It had to be done or all Europe would have been Communist, and that meant Soviet Russia domination.

Some of those later decisions were very good, and really had to be done. He made those despite the fact that he was living in the shadow of one of our greatest Presidents.

Now, let's see. In addition to Early and Sam Rosenman…

HESS: One other who did not stay very long was William McReynolds.

NIXON: Oddly enough, I suppose he was one of, what Roosevelt called, the anonymous assistants. These birds were closeted across the street

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in the Old State, War and Navy Building, which became the Executive Office Building. Well, this tiny little West Wing can accommodate only a few people and that's true of the East Wing, too. In other words the White House is not built as a place of business administration. The White House requires a big staff, and as the years have gone by, the staffs have gotten larger and larger. They were over in the Executive Office Building, and to save me, I can't even recall this character.

Now, Jonathan Daniels was one of the anonymous assistants at that time. Roosevelt said that persons with a passion for anonymity were needed on his staff.

HESS: Now, there were two levels of command, actually, the Secretaries and the Administrative Assistants. Another one of the Administrative Assistants who had been with Roosevelt for a good long time

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with David Niles, who was in charge of minorities matters. Do you recall anything particular about Mr. Niles or his assistant, Philleo Nash?

NIXON: Yes, I recall both Niles and Philleo. Again, they operated in the Executive Office Building. I can't recall any incidents involving Niles.

HESS: I understand that he really liked to play that anonymity bit to the hilt.

NIXON: He was a man who never said a word around news people. I believe he was of Jewish origin. I just remember that I would see him come and go and that he handled Jewish and Negro problems.

Well, in any event, the agitation for the establishment of the nation of Israel was foremost in matters concerning the racial

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minorities. Because of the wealth and influence among the leaders of this faith in this country, there were vast pressures on the White House to come through.

That's what I recall David Niles doing mainly. Well, the main thing that I remember about Philleo Nash, has nothing to do with the conduct of government. On many of these trips to Key West, heaven only knows where else, Philleo always took a mandolin or a guitar.

HESS: He was pretty good with a guitar, but he played a mandolin too, I think.

NIXON: These stringed instruments baffle me. They all have strings and make music.

He would take his guitar along, and he would entertain the President and whoever was around the President in the evening. He sang these folk songs, and he was a very pleasant

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fellow, but I've even forgotten that he had anything to do with handling of minorities. I recall Dave Niles.

Now, as for McReynolds, I just am no help at all.

HESS: What do you recall about Eben Ayers, who was Assistant Press Secretary?

NIXON: Eben was a nice quiet, slender, very cautious man. He had been, years earlier, an Associated Press reporter or editor in Massachusetts. He had gotten a job in Government with one of these agencies that cranked out Government propaganda for foreign consumption. That's my recollection.

After Roosevelt's death, Truman made Bill Hassett the Correspondence Secretary. In this job you compose and write, mainly the thank you letters for the President. This is in

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answer to the final top of the heap personal letters which the President receives and cannot answer himself. To a large extent he never even sees them. So, Bill Hassett was made Correspondence Secretary, and had an office in the Executive Wing right in the corner on the first floor adjacent to what used to be the part of the lobby where Bill [William D.] Simmons the receptionist sat. Simmons was the sort of official greeter.

HESS: Executive Clerk, I think, is that right for a title?

NIXON: I suppose so, but we always called him receptionist. I think that was the title. He would greet the callers on the President, and then go into the Appointments Secretary's office and then Connelly would let the President know that such and such a caller was outside.

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And if time ran over with whoever was calling on the President, word would go from Connelly to Simmons.

When Hassett became the Correspondence Secretary for Truman, a vacancy was created in the press office, in which there were only two people, the Press Secretary, the Assistant Press Secretary, and perhaps three stenographers who typed the press releases and that sort of thing.

Charlie Ross was a longtime friend of President Truman. I remember Charlie Ross one time pointing out to me his former home. It was a large columned, red brick house. His parents had been apparently reasonably well off as things were in those days, and Truman's old Victorian two or three story house just about a block away. They had gone to school together. They had been together in grade school, and

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perhaps high school, and years later Charlie Ross had entered the newspaper business. And, at the time Truman came to office, Charlie was the Washington correspondent for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The reasons are obvious why the President wanted him to be Press Secretary. There was this lifetime friendship, and the association continued in Washington. The President felt he needed a competent newsman who was independent of any competitive connections, to be press secretary. When I say independent of competitive associations, I mean an independent newspaper like the Post-Dispatch was all right. In contrast it would have been very embarrassing to the President, and just impossible for him to have chosen a reporter from one of the news services, no matter how high he went, because of the intense competition in the three services.

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Charlie Ross rather quickly succeeded Leonard Reinsch, the circumstances of which I've already told. He needed an assistant, and Eben Ayers was in this agency of Government so they borrowed him.

Eben became Charlie's Assistant Press Secretary. He had intelligence enough not to throw his weight around, as any good Assistant Press Secretary knows better not to do. In other words, if there is any heat at all, it is always on the Press Secretary. The assistant simply helps him do his work and distributes information only on the behest of his boss, the Press Secretary. If he tries to exceed that authority, he's probably going to be in trouble.

Eben had not been there under Roosevelt. He was brought in as one of the early, lesser members of the White House staff, and remained

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there for three to four years until Joe Short came in after Charlie Ross' death. Joe Short wanted his own people in his office, including all the clerical help. Ayers was then asked by the President to undertake a job of gathering and correlating records of Truman's Presidency. Just how deep it went and where it went I have no idea. I suppose a great deal of this material appeared later in the President's Memoirs.

HESS: This is the project he worked on after leaving the press office. Charles Ross died on December 5, 1950. Mr. Ayers spent '51 and '52 working on that particular project. At that time did you ever see him around the White House?

NIXON: He was a friend of mine. He wasn't much in evidence because, when he undertook this

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project for Truman, he moved over into the Executive Office Building. I didn't see much of him anymore because he was across the street. I had no reason, other than normal friendship, to contact him. As I say, we had been associated together for several years. We were friendly, and I would see him on little social occasions and that sort of thing. I recall going out to his apartment, at his invitation, a few times. He and his wife lived in an apartment off Connecticut on R Street. I remember they had a little dog, a little Dachschund it seems to me.

HESS: Do you recall if there was ever a discussion of Mr. Ayers possibly taking over as Press Secretary upon the death of Charles Ross?

NIXON: I don't think there was. It was not due to a lack of any ability on Ayers' part. This

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was a sort of policy thing that the President himself sets. In the first place, Eben Ayers was not wholly popular with the press.

HESS: Why?

NIXON: A very simple reason. He was a cautious man who did not deliver news except when Charlie Ross told him to. Newsmen are a rapacious lot. A very demanding lot.

HESS: Is that because they have an editor on the other end of the telephone demanding this of them?

NIXON: Well, I was going to say this is not necessarily the character of the individual. This is because his editor has a red hot poker right up against his private parts,, all the time. Now this is a matter of survival. Now, to say a little kind word for the editors,

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why do they do it? It is because the newspaper business (and now radio and TV news), is highly competitive. They've got to make money to stay in business. Now it was just as simple as that.

Eben was as responsive to the demands as he could be, but he was smart enough never to try to undercut Charlie Ross, no more than any intelligent individual ever tries to undercut his boss. You just cut your throat thereby, unless you work for a very gracious, receptive person.

Anyway, there was this as a consideration. Along with that was that the President wanted to get another man in the noncompetitive field of news, who was well-known. That was the reason he picked Joe Short, who worked for the Baltimore Sun in Washington, and had for many years. Joe was one of that little handful of reporters, five, or six, who had gone

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with Truman on his little campaign trip during the '44 election. Truman got to know him; and afterwards when he became President, Joe covered the White House everyday. I'm sure in the President's mind he was the natural choice. That's how those things are done. I'm sure he felt he could trust him, and that he could, perhaps, keep this ravenous tribe of reporters in hand. Remember, this was again a period in which the Truman administration was not in especially good repute.

HESS: Mr. Short had two men, Roger Tubby and Irving Perlmeter.

NIXON: Yes, that's right. Irving Perlmeter was brought over from Treasury. Because later, he went back to Treasury.

HESS: What do you recall about Mr. Tubby and Mr. Perlmeter? Upon the death of Joe Short,

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September 18, 1952, at the beginning of the Stevenson campaign...

NIXON: We had just gotten back from Key West where Short had had a heart attack. He was in the Navy hospital down there during almost our entire stay of three or four weeks in Key West.

HESS: I was leading up to the fact that at that time Roger Tubby and Irving Perlmeter took over. They both held the title of Acting Press Secretary until December 18, 1952, when Roger Tubby was made Press Secretary for one month and two days. What do you recall about Mr. Short's heart attack in Key West?

NIXON: Joe told me about it. He and Eddie Folliard worked together on these trips, and they usually shared a room together. They were good friends. They were having lunch one day early

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in our stay down there, at a little beach restaurant in Key West. Joe said he had some seafood. He had what he thought was indigestion. When he returned to the Navy base, where the President had his living quarters, he saw the President's doctor, Wally [Wallace] Graham. Wally had him taken out to the Navy hospital, there on the outskirts of Key West, to be examined. Apparently, Joe didn't know that he had had a heart attack. I gather he wasn't told, but he was kept there and examined. We thought it was indigestion. They put him through all these tests. I'd go out to see him. But they kept him there the rest of the trip. He came back on the plane with us. I don't recall how much later it was that he died. But he wasn't at the White House like Charlie Ross who was in his press office. Joe was at home one evening having dinner with his wife and two

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or three children. He felt badly again, and excused himself. He told Mrs. Short that he thought that he would go upstairs and lie down, and he died.

HESS: The two men that came in then, Roger Tubby and Irving Perlmeter, what do you recall about them?

NIXON: Beyond what I said of their origin, both of them were borrowed from Government.

HESS: Perhaps we can cover some of their activities when we reach the 1952 campaign?

NIXON: To cover it broadly (and this is a personal opinion on which everyone may not concur), I thought that the press office deteriorated gradually after Ross' death. Ross was not a strong, vehement, press officer like Steve Early had been.

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Steve didn't give a damn about these press people. He had been one you see. He was an AP reporter who was with Warren Harding in San Francisco. He was a forceful and irascible man; a nice guy--I loved him--but he still was a strong, irascible character. Boy, he had no hesitancy in chewing newsmen out. I mean he could chew them out! If they said things, or did things, or asked questions that he didn't like, he didn't wait until the next day to let them know.

HESS: Did he ever get on you?

NIXON: No, Steve was one of the friendliest, kindest men I've ever known in news work. We were close friends, and I never had the faintest idea why. I was asked by his wife to be one of the honorary pallbearers at his funeral. He always treated me with the greatest courtesy and

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the greatest deference.

As I say, I never knew why. It just never occurred to me that it might be my amiable personality at all. That may have played a little part in it. I mean certain people just don't take to other people. That's the way it goes in life.

I remember once in New York in the campaign, a Negro policeman, who was there to protect the President or to control crowds, tried to stop him from crossing a lawn or going to the President's car, and Steve kicked him in the groin.

HESS: Did you see this?

NIXON: I did not. I was told about this. I must have been in Europe at the time. I think this may have been the '40 campaign.

Well, Charlie Ross had none of those

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characteristics. An interesting thing, Steve, who came from a fine Virginia family, was a sportsman. In the fall, he didn't care what was going on, he took off for the duck blinds down here on Chesapeake Bay and went hunting. He detested Warm Springs and would not go down there. That's why he wasn't there when Roosevelt died. He loved to play the horses and after lunch in the afternoon he would lock himself in his press office in the White House and tell his girls not to disturb him under any circumstance, unless it was the President. He would get in there, I have to just assume that he was reading the racing form and on the phone placing his bets.

No. Charlie Ross was mild, easygoing, interested in the President's welfare, but not overbearing about it. I'm sure he felt that the news profession was part of the American

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structure, that newsmen had their job to do as he had to do.

HESS: Would you rate him as more effective at the job than Joe Short?

NIXON: I was getting to that. I never saw him get angry or chew anybody out. Often when an unfriendly reporter, or a reporter representing an unfriendly newspaper, would ask him a question in these morning press conferences at 10:30, he simply would stand behind his desk and say absolutely nothing. If the reporter pressed the question, which they always did, he would smile and say, "I heard you."

How are you going to answer that one? But that's how he disposed of things that he was not in a position to, or did not wish to answer. He was a good Press Secretary, an effective Press Secretary, but of course, he

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couldn't keep Truman out of trouble. Truman got in trouble himself.

HESS: Do you think he tried to keep him out of trouble? In other words would he see that as part of his duties to advise the President on what not to do and say?

NIXON: I'm sure that he did, but my feeling is that he never really pressed it. I never saw any real indication of it.

I remember one day I was having Charlie to lunch at the University Club, and probably, I was trying to make character with him. But Truman had done something very well with this Turkish-Greek aid program.