Robert G. Nixon Oral History Interview, October 28, 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 It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.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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NIXON: The photographers' mistake was that they failed to clear the matter with Charlie Ross. In failure to do so they violated a cardinal rule of White House press relations. Ross was upset because of that and because this was an intrusion on the President's privacy. They all felt the photographers were spying on the President.

Dennison was upset because this was a Navy submarine base, and they were using a Navy blimp, without it having been cleared with him. Dennison was the President's Naval Aide and an admiral. He had the highest rank around that area at the time.

Dennison never did quite understand press relations. That wasn't in his bailiwick. Charlie Ross was the man who was

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responsible for these things.

I remember when we were aboard the battleship Missouri coming back from the Inter American Conference at Rio de Janeiro. We had flown down to Rio, but we came back on the "Big Mo" on a seventeen day journey to Norfolk. Dennison was captain of the ship.

The Navy was very proud of the equipment on this ship. One day a seaman on one of the accompanying destroyers had been injured. The Big Mo had very fine hospital facilities, whereas a little destroyer didn't. So, with the destroyer coming alongside the battleship they were to transfer the seaman from the destroyer to the battleship so he could get adequate medical attention. This was all to be done on a breeches buoy, and this was a show that Dennison wanted the President to see.

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A cable was catapulted from the battleship over to the destroyer, and this rig was set up. There were pulleys on either end, and the injured seaman was put in a wire basket.

HESS: They call them stoke stretchers.

NIXON: Which means that the injured seaman was lying in the stretcher, rather than having to stand up. He was strapped in and then the transfer was made.

The President and all of the party watched this taking place. Afterwards we went to officer's ward room where we had our typewriters set up, to write a little color story about the President's day.

This is an illustration of Dennison's unawareness of how White House press relations are made.

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He, being captain of the Big Mo, was eager to make a favorable impression in the news media in the States. He certainly didn't want to make a bad impression if he could avoid it.

One of the correspondents going back with us from Rio aboard the Big Mo was the correspondent for Time magazine.

HESS: Do you recall his name?

NIXON: Yes, his name was Win Booth. He was a red headed boy. Booth wrote a story describing this transfer that Dennison didn't like.

Booth agonized in it. He described the President standing on the deck watching this seaman being brought over on the cable, with the ships going ahead full speed. He said that the President's face was grim, and you could tell he was worried about the safety of

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this seaman and could hardly control his emotions.

This wasn't the way it happened at all. If this one correspondent saw an emotionally distraught President, he wasn't looking at the same man that all the rest of us were. Anyway, Dennison didn't like this story.

I, that year, was president of the White House Correspondents Association. Frankly, this title, while you are elected by a very small group that covers the White House, is entirely an honorary thing.

HESS: Very little authority goes along with it.

NIXON: It carried absolutely no authority whatsoever.

HESS: Don't you get to preside at the dinner?

NIXON: That's the principal quid pro quo.

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HESS: That's it, huh?

NIXON: That's it. You get to sit beside the President. The President himself bestows the accolade on you in a little ceremony. You get to make a speech at the same podium that the President makes a speech, and a fine time is had by all, especially the two presidents.

I had finished writing my story and had sent it up to the wireless shack for it to be sent into New York. I was in the ward room, minding my own business, when a very angry, red-faced caption of the Big Mo stormed into the room shouting for me. I had no idea what was the matter with the man.

HESS: But there was obviously something wrong.

NIXON: Something was wrong, and I thought, "Oh,

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lord, what have I done?"

To remind you, a captain of the mightiest battleship that has ever been in our fleet, is a pretty big wheel. While he had no authority over me, whatsoever, he didn't quite figure it that way. He proceeded to chew me out, and he really chewed me out. I finally slowed him up enough to find out that this Time correspondent had written a story that Dennison didn't like. He said it made the President look bad, which it did. This was Time magazine policy at the time, as it was throughout his period in office. I don't know whether their correspondents were under order to do so, or whether they just chose to do so.

HESS: They thought that's what Mr. Luce would like to read.

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NIXON: Yes, indeed. So, this was that type of thing. It made Dennison look bad because he was captain of the battleship, and it made the Navy look bad.

As I've said, "I had no authority whatsoever over any of these characters who were along with us. Each was a representative of different independent news medias. I had no authority of censorship over them. I wrote a story for my people. They wrote their stories for their people, no censorship involved. They were completely independent and free agents, but of course, Dennison was...

HESS: He was used to dealing with a chain of command.

NIXON: That's right, that's just the phrase I was going to use. His life was dealing with the chain of command. I had this title, so I

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was responsible for all of the correspondents aboard.

I finally explained to him when I could get a word in edgewise that I had no authority over these people. If he wanted to deal with the chain of command, he needed to deal with Charlie Ross, the President's Press Secretary, and/or the correspondent, not me.

HESS: Did he understand that?

NIXON: He finally stomped off. He had the ball. From then on he had to carry it to Charlie Ross or Win Booth.

HESS: Did he?

NIXON: I'm sure he saw Charlie Ross. I got him off of my back, that was the important thing to me. The rest of it was out of my periphery. I finally told him, "If you object

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to anybody's story, you're captain of this ship. If you want to exercise censorship on somebody else's story, you certainly have the authority to do so. I don't suggest that you do, but you do have that authority."

This was just an amusing incident illustrating that Dennison was a high ranking Navy man, but he just didn't know anything about press relations. He did learn. He really was a fine member of the President's staff.

Incidentally, the President later made him his Naval Aide in the White House. He was one of the nicest members of the President's staff. A big, large, handsome, fine looking man. Perhaps because I had unknowingly been brought to his attention in this rather amusing mistake, we later became very fast friends for many years.

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HESS: I have heard that during the time that he served as Naval Aide that his advice to the President was not restricted just to matters of the Navy, that he was consulted on many issues. Do you recall anything about that?

NIXON: Not specifically, but I would assume so. As a member of the staff, he was permitted to sit in on all the daily staff conferences. Each staff member in attendance was called upon to give his opinion of whatever matter was in hand and what action should be taken one way or another.

HESS: Were there any times that you asked any of the people who had participated in one of the morning staff conferences, just what had gone on that day to find out what the news might be?

NIXON: You didn't do that. What went on in a

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President's staff conference was confidential. It was what the services called, during the war, "very top secret." This was the personal business of the President, and it wasn't in a goldfish bowl. This would have been on the same level as asking the Chief Justice of the United States what his upcoming decision was going to be. You just didn't do it. Now I can't speak for all of my colleagues, but I'm sure that perhaps at one time or another they may have burnt their fingers. There are such things as leaks, of course.

HESS: Do you recall anything that might illustrate how a leak would work?

NIXON: No.

HESS: Was a leak from a member of the White House staff pretty rare?

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NIXON: They were extremely rare. The reasons are obvious, and the results are obvious. Unless there was a leak which the President wanted made, it was bound to get back to the President who had made it, and this fellow would be in very hot water and might find himself out on the street without a job.

If a President can’t trust the members of his immediate staff, he is really in a pretty bad fix. There are so many other people near him that cannot always be trusted because they have their own axes to grind, and this applies to say the Cabinet. They go sailing off on their own independent ways. They frequently leak information. They frequently launch trial balloons. Many of them get involved in feuds with other members of the Cabinet or administration.

[495]

There was that feud between the Secretary of Defense...

HESS: Louis Johnson and Secretary of State Dean Acheson. What do you recall about that particular feud and just how did that get under way, do you recall?

NIXON: This was a feud engendered by Johnson. He just didn't like Dean Acheson. He didn't like him personally, and he didn't like the way he conducted the foreign policy of the United States for Truman. That was about it. Without going into any fine details, he conducted an open feud with Acheson, and this was particularly bad for the President because the climax came during the Korean war.

Acheson had made a speech, with the President's approval, in which he drew a line. This line was in the Far East. It was announced

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as our defense perimeter against Communist China and the further advance of communism in that area. However, this defense perimeter which Acheson described in the nature of a warning to Communist China against further expansions, excluded all of Korea. Korea was divided into parts very similar to the way Vietnam is today. A Communist government in the north, and an ostensibly free world as such. We had a small number of troops, stationed in South Korea as far north as Seoul, which is almost to the border with North Korea.

This, as it turned out, was not a very smart thing for Acheson to have done, or for Truman to have approved because it was in a sense a green light to the North Korean army, trained and equipped by the Chinese Communist military people as well as by Soviet Russia. All of its armored equipment, artillery and what

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not, were of Russian make.

As near as I can recall it was June '50, the latter part of June, early Sunday morning, when the North Korean Communist army invaded South Korea.

HESS: Where were you at that time?

NIXON: We were in Kansas City. The President was in Independence at his home. Charlie Ross and I were in Kansas City, nearby, staying at the Muehlebach Hotel.

When these people stormed into South Korea and attacked our forces there, the result of this was that we were overnight in an undeclared war half way around the world on the very end of any communication line whatsoever. We did have our principal forces in Japan under MacArthur--our occupation forces, our forces were very light

[498]

and under equipped. They weren't in there with battle equipment. They were in there by agreement with the South Korean Government. They were not in battle readiness. They were a token force to hold the bar up against further Communist expansion. Our forces were decimated, and they were almost forced out of Korea. They were forced down into a tiny little perimeter. If we had not been able to get heavy reinforcements in there from Japan in quite short order, they stood the probability of being wiped out.

Now, Johnson was, had been made Secretary of Defense largely because he had been the finance chairman for the Democratic Party in the 1948 campaign.

Johnson, being a money man, had also made another bad mistake, as it turned out. In that year's budget request, that he made on

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behalf of the Defense Department to the President, which became part of the budget, he asked for only, I believe it was, thirteen and a half billion to run the Defense Department for the next fiscal year. That may sound like a lot of money, but to run the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, that is not much money. It was hardly enough to pay the salaries of the personnel of these armed forces. By comparison, when you're engaged in warfare, even on a more or less small scale, your defense budget is seventy billion and above. This tiny little budget meant that we weren't able to purchase any new battle equipment.

I remember just as an illustration. The rockets from the bazookas were found to just bounce off of the Russian tanks that the Communists were using. They were totally inadequate.

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We had been down to Fort Benning a few months earlier. We had seen a new infantry rocket launcher demonstrated, among other weapons, down there. This was a lO5mm, I believe. It was a larger and more adequate weapon that fired a rocket projectile that was supposed to be adequate for penetrating the armor of a heavy tank and disabling it.

I assumed that this was a new weapon and that our whole army had it. Well, as it turned out, they didn't. These were a few prototype weapons that had come into being. The infantry school was at Fort Benning, and they were being tried out experimentally by our forces down there. They had not been put into production, and we didn't have them.

When our troops out in Korea used these smaller rocket launchers to try to stop the Russian tanks, the projectiles just bounced

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off. Well, this was a small illustration of how the arms of our military forces (because of stringent budget economies) had been allowed to deteriorate. They deteriorated to the point where our troops were not properly equipped. We really, for quite a long while, had a very nasty time in the fighting in Korea.

It's unpleasant enough when a force is properly equipped. It's a lot worse when they aren't properly equipped and when they are outmatched in almost every way.

HESS: Do you recall if the cutting back of the Defense budget that year was Louis Johnson's idea or was he following the orders of Mr.Truman?

NIXON: You have to understand how these things are done to put an answer in its proper light. Certainly it was, at the instigation of Johnson,

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but it was also with the approval of the President. He had progressively been instituting these economies in Government where he could, since the end of the war. As I've said earlier, he almost cut the jugular vein of Britain by the termination of lend-lease. If lend-lease had been carried on, it would have cost only a dime a dollar of what the Marshall plan later cost. The Marshall plan started off with a seventeen billion dollar whack.

Johnson was the emanating point for the Defense budget, but the contents of all budgets are made up under the guidance of the President. The details are worked out by the departments. In discussions with the President, the Budget Director, and the Budget Bureau, months before the final budget is put together, guidelines are laid down and many times the departments are told, "Your

[503]

expenditures for the next year must be held within this figure," and the figure is then given. So, that's the way it went, and it was with the President's approval, but Johnson got the burden of the responsibility.

I remember this budget figure, thirteen and a half billion, was a matter of considerable discussion in the President's press conferences. A great to-do was being made in the press at the time, about economies in Government. The administration was accused of spending too much money. Although the cold war was going hot and heavy, there was also the widespread feeling that if we had the atomic bomb (then we were the only nation with the atomic bomb) why did we need any other arms? Why did we need firecrackers when we had this massive explosive? In other words, the atomic

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bomb was supposed to keep peace in the world with just the very fact of possessing it. If anybody got obstreperous, why, you just dropped one atomic bomb on them, so to speak, and that war would be over with and everything would be cleaned up.

Well, as we know, that wasn't the way that it worked at all. But that was the point of view that was going on. Why did we have these large military forces in being, with all the expenses involved, when you had the atomic bomb? So, economy was the order of the day. It always enters into the politics of the times, between the two parties. If the Democrats are in, they are spending too much money. If the Republicans are in, they are spending too much money. That's the way it goes. It depends upon what side of the fence you are on. This was all part of the

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picture of this feud between Johnson and Acheson which Johnson was pressing.

I should explain that Acheson had the President's confidence. Acheson, as a Secretary of State, was one of the few men in Government that Truman really relied upon. So, Johnson, unknowingly, was really putting himself behind the eight ball in feuding with Acheson.

HESS: Do you recall if Mr. Johnson used any press leaks in his fight?

NIXON: It's too long ago to remember. Oddly enough, Johnson's personality and manner of handling things, were not for his welfare. To go back to 1938 or '39, Roosevelt had made him Assistant Secretary of War. Woodring was Secretary, a mid western banker. Johnson was just always getting himself in hot water.

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He was trying his best to get Woodring ousted and to get himself appointed Secretary of War. To do so, he undercut Woodring all the time. He carried on a subrosa campaign against Woodring, which wasn't too difficult because Woodring never acted like he was very bright.

Woodring had a very pretty and very personable wife. Washington is filled with gossip all the time, and people said the President made Woodring Secretary of War and kept him in that job because the President enjoyed the company of Mrs. Woodring. It was well-known that Roosevelt did like the company of pretty and sociable women. So, in this earlier instance involving Johnson, he didn't have a prayer to get Woodring out of the way, because he was in the President's favor.

HESS: Because of his good looking wife.

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NIXON: Yes. He got himself in hot water because these things became well-known around Washington--particularly in the cocktail circuit. Our ladies, many of them, love to gossip. Life in Government circles in Washington can be very exciting to ladies who come to Washington from the Middle west, or other parts of the country, when their husbands are made members of the Cabinet or put into some other high administrative post. This is a new world to them and a very exciting world.

In that instance, Johnson got himself into hot water. He never did get to be Secretary of War. Edward L. Stimson succeeded Woodring as Secretary of War. Truman later did make Johnson Secretary of Defense, really as a reward for his having raised the money for Truman to conduct his very costly whistlestop campaign.

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This finally reached a climax. It came down to the point where Acheson made it known to the President that either Johnson would have to leave the Cabinet or he would resign. When this was put up to Truman, there was only one choice, Johnson had to go.

Incidentally, I knew Johnson quite well. In the late thirties before the war broke out and I went to Europe, I was covering the State, War and Navy Departments, all three of them. They were housed, and I was housed, in what was then the State, War, and Navy Building and is now the Executive Office Building. So, I knew him quite well. When Truman nominated him for Secretary of Defense, I saw him one day in the White House lobby and I said, "Well, Mr. Secretary, you finally made it."

HESS: What did he say?

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NIXON: He looked a little startled. I don't think he liked the remark. Then he smiled, so it was all right.

We were down at Key West on one of those three or four week visits. It became known that Johnson was on the way out. It was purposefully leaked, but we wrote stories about it, on our own authority.

It's not a pleasant thing to call a man in and say, "I want your resignation." If it becomes known that it's pretty likely that this will happen, then it is hoped that the man in question will have sense enough to submit his resignation and get it over with.

This became known just two or three days before we were to leave Key West to return to Washington.

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Truman had sent Steve Early out to the Pentagon from the White House and made him Assistant Secretary of Defense. Because of Johnson's penchant for getting himself into hot water, Steve's principal task was to try to keep Johnson on an even keel and keep him out of hot water.

I left Key West. When my plane landed at National Airport, who was standing at the bottom of the gangway, but Steve Early. Steve buttonholed me and said, "Bob, I'd like you to get into my car and drive over to the Defense Department with me to see Louie Johnson." Well, I knew what was up.

On the way over Steve asked what was behind the stories that came out of Key West that Johnson was on the way out. Steve was a close friend, and I knew his difficulty. He had to be able to tell Johnson whether these

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stories were just speculation. If they had a firm basis, it was too bad for Johnson. I had to be careful how I told Steve this, but had to make it clear to him that this was the President's thinking and the stories were accurate.

HESS: Who had put out the stories at Key West?

NIXON: That was just one of those things that you have received in confidence, and I think you should maintain that confidence.

HESS: But it was not the press office.

NIXON: No, not at all. It was pretty close to the President himself.

I didn't feel that I could tell Steve the precise source, that would have been breaking a confidence and would have been embarrassing to the person involved. I gave him the answer

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and made it clear that this appeared to be the President's thinking and this was a good unnamed authority.

We went up in a private elevator in the Pentagon to Johnson's office. Steve had me repeat this story for Johnson. Subsequently, Johnson resigned without embarrassment to the President. I said, "Steve, you just can't feud with Dean Acheson and win. It's just that simple."

HESS: Do you know if Mr. Johnson at that time went to the White House to speak further with the President on that matter? In other words, to plead his case?

NIXON: I just don't remember. Johnson could be sort of highhanded, that's why he kept getting himself in trouble all the time. Something seems to stick in my mind that in resigning,

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he made a rather hotheaded statement, but again, I just don't recall. If you want to make a case, you ask for an appointment with the President and go over. Now, I wish that I could remember just exactly the way it was done. It would have certainly been in the newspapers when it happened.

HESS: He was replaced by General Marshall. What are your recollections on that?

NIXON: Truman had a tremendous admiration for General Marshall. He once said to me privately that there were only five people in the Government that he could trust. Marshall was right at the head of the list.

HESS: Did he tell you who the other four were?

NIXON: My recollection is that he told me this in illustrating his feeling for Marshall. Dean

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Acheson, of course, was another. I should be able to recall the others, but I can't at the moment. He also said, on a number of occasions to me, when he would be walking in the morning, that General Marshall was our greatest living American.

The President had sent Marshall out to China on a special mission. Chiang Kai-shek was head of the Chinese Government that was on the free world side. The Red Chinese, had made great incursions into China, but there was still an ostensibly free China Government. Marshall was sent over there by the President to try and prevent a Communist takeover. Which, as it turned out, was like trying to stop a snow avalanche in the Alps with your hands.

When Johnson's resignation was accepted, or forced, the announcement was made by Charlie

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Ross. He announced that Johnson was resigning. He said, "And he will be succeeded as Secretary of Defense..."

And I interrupted and said, "By General George C. Marshall, Charlie."

And he said, "Bob, you are right, how did you know?"

And I said, "Charlie, just plain common sense."

I knew the judgment that Truman reposed in Marshall. If you're familiar with how things are done, plain horse sense enters into these things. You just know this is the way it is going to be. That's how you are able to write exclusive stories many times, then pray that you are right.

This was a logical thing for the President to do. Marshall was the man who logically needed to be in that place.

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Somewhere along the route, Truman had made Marshall Secretary of State.

HESS: That was during his first term, after James Byrnes.

NIXON: Yes, and then he was succeeded by Acheson.

HESS: Acheson, on January the 20th of '49, at the beginning of the second term. Mr. Marshall had let it be known that he would like to retire.

NIXON: Yes, that's right. Then later, the President brought him back from retirement.

HESS: There are several other topics that we need to cover in relation with the Korean war, such as the trip to Wake Island and the firing of MacArthur. Since those occurred later in the administration, let's leave those just for a

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little while and return to where we left off of our last tape, which was down at Key West. What else comes to mind when you look back on the days of Key West? Just how did you like to spend your time at Key West? Did you have very much free time?

NIXON: A news correspondent covering the President of the United States is very much like a cop on the beat. He has to work all the time. I was covering the President twenty-four hours a day, sometimes literally. At the end of an eighteen hour day, I would find myself still waiting for the text of the main speech that the President was scheduled to make the following day. Then before getting a brief nap myself, I would have to sit down (the President long since had gone to bed), read the text, digest it, and write a story for use

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by the next day's newspapers on whatever time release the speech was scheduled to be made.

This type of thing was put on the newswires slugged either "Hold for release,, expected at approximately such and such a time," or if there was a flat release permitted, then it was, "Hold for release" until 10:30 a.m. or 8:30 p.m., or whatever time the release was set for. But all these stories had to be done in advance. They were put on the newswires for use by the newspapers sometimes hours before they were released. So, as I say, while the President would be sleeping, maybe at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning, I would have to still be up after this long, long day.

If we were on the campaign train, for instance, we couldn't wait until the next day. It would have to be done immediately because your competitors were having to do the

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same thing. Also arrangements had to be made ahead of time so these stories could all be bundled up together by the Western Union communications to wire this mass of material into our various offices.

Key West was no lark for me or for anyone else with responsibility. I had to be sure that I watched the President all the time and was in a place where I was immediately available if something did come up. Fortunately, this wasn't completely confining, because the President kept pretty much to himself with members of his staff.

Charlie Ross, who was over with the President all day, living in the same quarters, was our go-between and our contact. Also, the daily press conferences with Ross were on a more or less set time schedule. They might vary a half an hour or so, but after your morning

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and afternoon press conferences and you had written these stories, you were pretty much on your own. You would then leave your telephone number with Carroll Lincolns, the Western Union man who handled all of our communications. If anything came up unexpectedly Ross would notify him, and we would be called in.

For instance, when I was staying in the bachelor officers quarters in the submarine base, we would go over to the officers swimming pool, which was just a couple of blocks away. There was a telephone there at the pool. If anything came up we'd receive a call over there and could get right over. When I stayed at the hotel on the beach, it was less confining and a lot more pleasant than the BOQ, but the same things prevailed.

There was a telephone at the beach house.

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If I were paged I could then jump into our car and drive over to the BOQ at the sub base. So, this gave a little more freedom.

I might add a rather important thing. This was a nice hotel and the food was a lot better than eating at a mess at the BOQ. It was the difference between dining at the Waldorf and eating food out of a tin can in a tent. That of course, is an exaggeration at both ends, but it illustrates what I mean. It was pleasant to be able to lie on the beach and get a suntan and swim. That was about it.

Key West was a fishing paradise. That's where they caught these huge sailfish, tarpon, and bonito, but I never dared go fishing.

HESS: Might miss a story.

NIXON: Well, suppose you were out on the water,

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ten or twelve miles away in the gulf stream, and the President of the United States suddenly died.

HESS: Especially if the AP and the UP man are back on the beach.

NIXON: Well, yes, indeed. Even with the more pleasant quarters in a nice hotel on the beach, the whole thing was quite confining. You dared never go anywhere where you couldn't be immediately reached.

All presidential coverage is confining, wherever you are, but there were compromises that made it reasonably pleasant. There was very little really to do. In the evenings, at the BOQ, several of us played cards to pass the evenings, because there was really nowhere to go and nothing to do. We would

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sit around and play cards.

Key West, at that time, was a rundown town. The so-called night life was on the Sadie Thompson level. The saying goes that there was only one other town in the hemisphere that was lower down the totem pole than Key West and that was Panama City, which was a notorious sailor leave port. Key West was at the absolute dead end of the country. It was the last of the keys, as far out as you could go. It was in the tropics, and the termites were active and the scorpions would get in your shoes at night if you did not watch out...

HESS: Did you have to shake your shoes in the morning?

NIXON: Yes, it was a very good thing to shake your shoes out in the morning, and the mosquitoes were bad. Everything got pretty

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rundown, weathered. It wasn't much of a place. There were some nice homes. Ernest Hemingway had a very, very nice Georgian type residence there, complete with swimming pool. At that time, Hemingway wasn't there, he had departed for other parts, and the house was given to one of his ex-wives who lived there. I used to be invited over. I believe one of his sons, a son by this wife, was there, a young man in his late teens. But otherwise, there was this sandy island that was pretty rundown.

We started going there in '46, not too long after he became President. He wanted a place to go to rest and to get away from the White House. He asked Admiral Leahy, his Naval Aide, to suggest a few acceptable places. Among them Admiral Leahy, who had spent some

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rest periods himself at Key West at the sub base, recommended Key West.

It met the requirements. What the President had to have was a place where there was security. Of course, outside of Ft. Knox, you couldn't get a more secure place for a President than a naval base where there were Marine guards on the gate. It was surrounded by a high steel mesh fence. The captain's quarters, where the President stayed, could be easily sequestered and guarded by the Secret Service detail, as well as armed Marines. So, Key West fulfilled the primary requirements.

Then, climate wise, it gave the President a pleasant, warm spot to go to in the winter months. We never went there in the summer. It was always either one or two trips a year, usually two, one in the late fall and

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one in along March, sometimes lasting until Easter. In the main the weather was warm, comfortable, and pleasant. Occasionally there would be some cooler weather, but it was the sub-tropics. The President had very little personal resources, for recreation. One of them was to lie on the beach in the sun, as we all did, and get a suntan and swim.

HESS: I understood he liked to swim with his glasses on also.

NIXON: Yes, he would swim with his glasses on, because he was very nearsighted. You can see from his photos that he had to wear quite thick lensed glasses.

The gulf stream came in there and virtually brushed the shore. From an elevation you could look out and see this deep aquamarine blue stream going through the rest of the ocean just like a

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river on land. It was just beautiful.

HESS: Does that come in from the southwest and go up the coast of Florida?

NIXON: It goes right up the Florida gulf coast and bends with the coast. I believe it goes on around and down off Texas.

The President also had to have a place where he could go and not be bothered by people, because the President was always being besieged by favor-seekers. He had to be free of them. He had to have a place where the weather was equitable, where the security measures were sound, and where he could help keep his health. Key West provided all these. He was never exposed to the town itself.

HESS: He didn't get into town very often?

[528]

NIXON: No. Almost never, unless he was going to ride out to the Boca Chica air base.

The security at this submarine base was far greater than at most other military installations, because this was one of our very important and very large submarine bases. A lot of very top secret things were involved.

HESS: Experimental equipment and things of that nature.

NIXON: Mind you the atomic submarines were beginning to come in, and they were based there. They were just absolute top secret at the time. There were also all of the devices that were used in submarine and anti-submarine warfare, things like sonar.

The Navy would send out these subs on

[529]

training exercises. Many training exercises took place at night, under water. Sound devices were perfected to be able to detect hostile submarines, or hostile ships when the subs were submerged. On these devices they began hearing strange sounds in the water.. Those sounds would go across their sonarscopes and all of these devices. They found that a porpoise, for instance, talked to other porpoises and other fish did the same.

They heard a new sound that had never been heard before, and they would only hear it at night. During the day, nothing. At night, the ocean was just alive with noises. With their listening devices, they discovered perhaps the world's largest bed of shrimp. The shrimp buried themselves in the sand at the bottom of the gulf during the day and only came out to feed at night, and this was what was making all

[530]

these strange noises. These beds are where our shrimp boats now get these huge jumbo shrimp. These are the big fellows that you get in the finer restaurants. Until the Navy's sounding devices located these schools, jumbo shrimp had never been caught in the gulf. I just instance that as a little color story of interest.

HESS: On one of the side trips the President and his party went to Fort Jefferson and on another trip they went to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and Guantanamo Bay.

NIXON: We had a huge fort, Fort Jefferson, on this island that was about sixty miles off Key West. The island was on the outer edge of the shipping lane that the sailing ships had to use. So in the days of the sailing ships, this was our major defense of the entire

[531]

gulf. If any hostile vessels came into the gulf, they had to go by this quite small island. This tremendous fort had been a prison used by the Union forces.

HESS: That's where Doctor Mudd was.

NIXON: That's right, I was, going to say that it was converted from a fort into a military prison much like Devil's Island. Now, this was a Devil's Island. Mosquitoes were rampant This fort was a huge structure, made out of brick. It had gun embrasures facing all around the sea on this small island. It is intact today, in just as good a repair as it was a hundred years ago. It was one of our national monuments. So, we went over there to take a look at it on one of these trips.

[532]

HESS: Do you recall anything in particular about the trip to Puerto Rico and Guantanamo Bay and the Virgin Islands? This was in February and March of '48.

NIXON: Oh, yes. I was just trying to think of the reason we went over there. The President had the Williamsburg brought down. He and his staff were on that, and I was on a Navy submarine tender, which was a vessel made to fuel, service, and even repair submarines at sea. (This was before the advent of the atomic power submarines.) They were a very essential part of the submarine fleet because a submarine carried a limited fuel supply, and it had to be fueled at sea. This was true of all Navy vessels no matter what their size. In time of war, these refueling "trains," as they are called, or vessels, had to follow a fleet.

[533]

One of the hazards was that an enemy fleet might locate them and destroy them.

HESS: Tankers are always prime targets for submarines.

NIXON: The President made a talk that afternoon to the Virgin Islands legislature, and we made a tour of the island looking at its fine beaches. We went up on the top of a mountain behind the town where there was a rock that I believe was called "Frances Drake's seat," or named after one of the early explorers. From the top of this mountain we looked out over a magnificent view of other islands that were very, very abrupt in their nature. They were more or less huge rocks that just stuck up out of the sea all over the place. The President stayed at the house of the Virgin Islands Governor, who was a presidential appointee.

[534]

HESS: Hastie?

NIXON: I guess it was Hastie.

The Governor's house was up on a hillside. Saint Thomas, the island that it was on, was a very rocky island. The Governor's house overlooked the harbor and sea. It was very picturesque, very pretty. There wasn't much business reason for being over there. It was just to take a look at the islands and bask in the sun.

We then went over by ship, to Saint Croix, where they had their own separate legislature, and he made a talk there. We drove around the island. One of the places we visited was the house of an American. He was a friend of the President's and a party contributor. I believe he was head of one of the big automobile concerns.

HESS: Willys-Overland?

[535]

NIXON: That was it I'm sure, but his name escapes me.

Then we went on back to Saint Thomas. We didn't get over to Saint John, which was the loveliest of those three islands where one of the Rockefeller sons had an enormous house and built a hotel. It's a pity we didn't get over there, because there was a national monument over there. They have some of the best snorkeling waters in that area.

On returning we went along the entire length of the southern part of Haiti, which was very mountainous and picturesque, and then to Guantanamo Bay. Incidentally, this was a very narrow strait. Even on a calm day, the sea was very rough. The Williamsburg was a flat bottom river boat. The President and all of his staff, got dreadfully seasick. It was so rough that many of those aboard this sub tender

[536]

also became violently seasick. I came through it all right, because fortunately, I have never been subject to seasickness. It's very distressing to see anyone who is.

This stop was just for the President to see the place. We were on friendly terms with Cuba at that time. Batista was the head man, and Fidel Castro had not come into power. This was just a visit. The President motored around the base and passed the time of day with the current commandant and that was about it.

Visiting the Virgin Islands was a nice thing for the people of the Islands. It gave them a big boost in morale. It meant to them that Uncle Sam had not entirely forgotten them.

HESS: They received the personal attention of the President.

[537]

NIXON: Yes. Earlier, especially during the depression, the islands were one of our worst poverty spots. They hardly had any rainfall. They had a very rocky terrain, which meant they couldn't grow anything to eat, though, it was a little different over at Saint Croix. They did grow food over there. The only industry at all was the making of rum. The only local crop that would bring in any money at all, was the sugar cane on Saint Croix. This was a place that was so poverty stricken that the Roosevelt administration had to take emergency measures for it.

So, in addition to this being a pleasant cruise, it gave these people a great boost. It may have been instrumental in making it an island paradise where there are now hotels

[538]

and motels and shops. This was a free port, where there was no tariff on any foreign goods. A case of the finest French brandy sold even at the retail stores for about $24. French perfumes, the most expensive, sold at a tremendous discount. You could buy these fine cashmere Scotch sweaters at a pittance. They now have become an island of wealth. The last I heard the going price for an acre of this rocky soil was $10,000.

So, Truman's trip there, in a way, began to give these people life and bring them into being. Of course, the airplane did a lot too, because now there are direct flights from New York to Saint Thomas. So, they are quite accessible. Tourist fare on planes from New York or Washington to San Juan, at that time were very, very small, something like only $50.

[539]

On this voyage we went to San Juan, and visited the ancient Spanish fortress on the edge of the harbor which dated back to the days of the Spanish conquest. He went to the legislature, where he made another talk. We drove, to an area on the edge of San Juan which was a notorious poverty stricken ghetto.

HESS: In the evening, when President Truman was at Key West, would the newsmen go over and play cards?

NIXON: Very rarely. In my recollection, we never were there in the evening. We were invited over there one late afternoon. I remember this occasion because we dressed very informally.

HESS: Mr. Truman liked his sport shirts didn't he?

NIXON: Yes. He had a real colorful collection. I

[540]

was wearing that day, one of these brilliantly flowered Hawaiian shirts with Hawaiian designs. It was very flamboyant and colorful. The President said, "Bob, I'm going to shoot you dice for that shirt."

And I said, "Mr. President, when I go back to my quarters, I will have the shirt laundered and wrapped up and be delighted to present it to you."

And he said, "No, I don't want to take it that way." He said, "I'll shoot you dice for the shirt. If I win, the shirt is mine, if you win I will present you with a shirt."

So, he got out some strange dice that had the components of a deck of cards on them: aces, kings, queens, jacks and tens. My recollection is that there were four dice. He had a set of dice to play a poker game with.

HESS: Did he have five then, the same as five cards?

[541]

NIXON: Well, it was several dice, and you had several tosses, and I won. So, Truman didn't get the shirt--I think I shot four aces, and he had a lesser hand.

HESS: Did he ever send you the shirt?

NIXON: Oh, yes. I was a little embarrassed because I wanted to give him the shirt. I had gotten it in Hawaii when I was there with Roosevelt on the MacArthur conference. I had several of them, and I wanted to give him the shirt. But the next day, Arthur Prettyman, his valet, came over with a sport's shirt wrapped up in a little package with his autograph on it. It was just a plain white sports shirt, but it had "Harry S. Truman" scrawled on it. It was one of those tails out shirts.

HESS: What else do you recall about Key West, sir?

[542]

NIXON: There was another occasion.

We went to Key West immediately after the '48 election victory. This was in early November, when the weather was beginning to turn cold. This was the only time we were ever invited over to the beach. In the first place, we were all dead beat. We had been through a very strenuous campaign, week after week, day after day, running into incredible hours. I remember I got about four hours sleep out of the twenty-four having to do the things in the manner in which I have described. The people who cranked out the speeches for Truman were always running behind time. They were always late, and you always got the text of a speech in the very dead of night or early morning.

The President's car was the rear one.

[543]

The first car ahead of his was where the staff members were. Then we would be along in the middle of the train. So, at every whistlestop we would have to leap off the train, run half its length to the rear car, stand there below the platform, take down what the President said, and before the train pulled out try to write a brief story to be sent to our wires.

We were all dead beat when we got down: to Key West. Right away he invited us over to the beach where he had on his swim trunks for his daily sun bath and swim. He was pretty full of himself, naturally. Hardly a person in the country, dealing in politics and news coverage had granted him even a chance to win.

HESS: What did you think?

NIXON: I started off like everybody else. All

[544]

of the supposedly best opinions in the country said he could not win. He had had three really dreadful years in office, during which it seemed like almost everything went wrong. He was opposed uniformly by the Nation's news media: the newspapers of the country, the news magazines, the commentators, the columnists, and the radio commentators. How could you expect him to have a chance to win?

At the same time, the news media were plumping former Governor Tom Dewey of New York, the Republican candidate. They didn't think he could do anything wrong. Dewey was their great rising champion. He was a Republican candidate in a position to end this long, long period of years of Democratic administration. What could you think?

You watch what is supposed to be public opinion. You have to depend upon something, so

[545]

I started out thinking, "Oh, brother, here we go." This seemed just too much for any individual to overcome. Even when we started out in the whistlestop campaign, we had a dreadful beginning from his point of view.

HESS: Was this in June? The pre-campaign trip?

NIXON: Yes, it was. When he was fighting to overcome the resistance in his own party. There was a question whether he would be the party's nominee. Many like Colonel Jake Arvey, a Chicago politician who was a big wheel in the Party, were trying to get Eisenhower to accept the nomination. Everything seemed to go wrong. We went to Chicago first. Truman met Arvey, in his office suite high up in one of Chicago's skyscrapers, and it didn't come out too well.

We went on to Omaha where the President was to attend the annual reunion of the 35^th

[546]

Division Association.

One of the few people the President really knew was Ed McKim. Ed had been one of this little group, such as Harry Vaughan and John Snyder, who each summer had gone to officers Reserve encampment for their two weeks of training. Ed McKim lived in Omaha and living there he was the host. He was a member of the 35th Division Association.

Well, what did Ed do? President Truman was to address the association meeting that evening. It was held in a large Shriner's auditorium, called the Ak-Sar-Ben.

HESS: Nebraska spelled backwards.

NIXON: Yes, like Serutan.

This place was about fifteen miles outside Omaha. McKim, apparently very jealous of his

[547]

prerogatives, had excluded the public. In this vast auditorium, he had decided that the President would address just the members of the 35^th Division Association. Really, this was just a handful of people. Ed was going to keep it all to the group.

I got there and looked around. Instead of a vast number of automobiles, there was nothing but blackness and a few cars. The auditorium was as empty as Soldier's Field in Chicago at midnight with nothing going on. There were a handful of 35th Division veterans in this vast auditorium and nothing else.

Here he was to make his first really important speech in the pre-campaign whistlestop trip talking to a handful of veterans, that's all. Photos were made, of course. One by a Life magazine photographer was made from high up in the rear of this huge hall.

[548]

It showed virtually the entire auditorium with this vast area of unoccupied seats. It appeared in Life magazine and became an important part of the story. It was much more important than what the President said in a set speech. It had to be pointed out.. And, of course, I and others did. You don't ignore those things. Your job is to report them objectively and factually and let the chips fall where they may.

When this photograph appeared in Life magazine, and was given fairly prominent display, it was somewhat shocking indeed. As I say, everything up to and including Omaha, seemed to have gone wrong.

HESS: Did you ever hear the President speak of the small crowd they had in Omaha?

NIXON: Well, I'm trying to remember.

[549]

HESS: Either that or the Carey, Idaho incident.

NIXON: Yes, I remember. I ought to tell about that.

The only thing I can recall, and I'm not too sure that is accurate, is that the President later remarked, "Well, Ed's a nice fellow, but he just didn't know how to do it. He was over eager in the wrong direction." The President was a very forgiving man.

The public did get a chance to see Truman in Omaha, aside from this ghastly thing at the Ak-Sar-Ben coliseum. As was his custom, the next he marched in the 35^th Division parade in downtown Omaha at the head of the parade. There was a reasonable turnout of people for the parade, and he got a good hand from them. Because of the failure of this meeting that he addressed to be opened to the public that was the only exposure that he had in Omaha to people

[550]

who would be going to the polls a few months later.

You see we made two cross-country whistlestop trips. I'm trying to sort out in my mind which trip it was. My recollection is that it was on the first trip.

It was not until we got to Butte, Montana that he began to hit his stride. We went out to visit one of these enormous Federal dams that were used for reclamation, to provide water to arid lands of the West. We were walking on the top of the dam that day alongside the President, asking what he expected to say that night at the nationwide speech. I guess the speech was to be at Butte. This was when he first lit into the Republican 80th Congress. He said, "This no-good do-nothing 80th Republican Congress," which had come into being in the bi-election in 1946.

[551]

This was the first time the Republicans had had control of the Congress since 1932. This seemed to be at the time, another indicator that come the 1948 election the Republicans were coming in. This was the first time that I had heard the president use this expression.

He went on to say that this was the worst Congress in our history, as bad or worse as the Thad Stevens Congress immediately after the Civil War, when the so-called reconstruction was saddled on the South. It kept the South in poverty for a half century or more afterwards.

When he said these things, we realized that a theme for his whistle stop campaign had been decided upon. He now had an object for attack. It was a good object because the Republican controlled 80th Congress was, as he said, "a do-nothing no-good Congress." It was

[552]

just that. He wasn't exaggerating.

HESS: The "do-nothing Republican Congress" was a. very catchy title. It was first, used by a reporter in a press conference on August the 12^th of 1948. Do you recall who brought that up?

NIXON: I was at that conference, but my memory just doesn't serve me. I don't have the vaguest idea.

Again, let me remind you that those press conferences were in the Oval Room. There was no identification of any individual asking a question. It was always a jammed packed room.

HESS: Perhaps just a voice from the masses.

NIXON: As you say, it was a very catchy phrase. It nailed this Congress to the barn door. It was a phrase that everybody could understand.

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HESS: One point on that. Many people point out that it wasn't all that do-nothing. They passed Greek-Turkish aid. They passed the Marshall plan. They were somewhat deficient in doing what Mr. Truman wanted them to do domestically, but not on the foreign field.

NIXON: It was in the domestic area. He had made proposals, many of which had the purpose of restoring the country's economy. After the end of the war, as I've pointed out, one of the first strokes of his pen was to halt the expenditure of fifty billion dollars. So, the economy began to stall. It slowed down. There was all this tremendous trouble with the labor unions, who for the first time were now free to make demands for higher wages.

The economy very quickly slowed down. There was wide-spread unemployment and all that

[554]

goes with it. It became obvious that a little pump priming had to be done. The Republican Congress was stalling him on domestic matters. While the term "do-nothing," as you point out, did not completely apply, it was one heck of a fine phrase to get over with the country. It was something that everyone could understand.

So, from then on we hit it pretty well.

HESS: What do you recall about Carey, Idaho? The dedication of the airfield.

NIXON: I'm trying to think whether this do-nothing thing did come up in the first trip.

HESS: Probably not since it wasn't mentioned in the press conference until August. That must have been during the regular campaign in the fall. I don't recall their being at a dam in the June trip, although they could have been.

[555]

NIXON: Well, as I've said, there were two cross country whistlestop campaigns. One in June, to try to win nomination by his own party. Another in early September. It's difficult for me to sort them out in my own memory.