Frank Pace Jr. Oral History Interview, January 22, 1972

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 It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.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 June, 1974
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

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HESS: Mr. Pace, at the conclusion of our meeting on Monday afternoon we were discussing, the reduction that took place in the armed services between World War II and the Korean conflict. How significant in that matter of reducing the budget and reducing the armed forces was Mr. Truman' s desire to balance the budget?

PACE: Well, Mr. Truman was socially a liberal, but fiscally a conservative. He was a real joy for a Budget Director to work with because he honestly treated the budget in a very commonsensical way, the way the ordinary fellows treated his own personal requirements.

I believe that Mr. Truman felt that sustaining a balanced budget in this society of ours was important. Now he also felt that meeting the social requirements of this country in peace took precedence over the requirements of the military in peace, and it was for this reason that the military, as it always is in peacetime, was significantly reduced during this period. And as I said earlier, no nation is ever ready for a war, unless they precipitate it.

HESS: Unless they set out to build a war machine and have at it.

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PACE: And have it on a planned basis.

HESS: Well, what do you recall of Mr. Truman' s views on the importance of a balanced budget?

PACE: Well, as I said earlier, he was a very strong believer in a balanced budget.

HESS: Do you think that he would have liked to have balanced the budget before the 1948 election for political reasons?

PACE: No, I honestly don't think he felt that this decision was really a political one. I think he made it on the basis of his own strong feeling about the way the nation should be run.

In the whole period, in the Budget, I never had any sense that Mr. Truman used it as a political vehicle. In fact, he almost had a sense of astringency about political interference in the budgetary process. I do not recall Mr. Truman asking me, as Director of the Budget, to ever make a budgetary decision on a political basis.

HESS: The reason why I asked that is it appears in several histories that with the '48 election coming up, things not looking too good, many people thinking Mr. Truman did not have a chance, that he wanted to balance the budget to present the country with a balanced budget and say, "Look what I've

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done."

PACE: I don't believe this. I've heard that myself, but I'm quite sure that this was not Mr. Truman' s idea of politics.

HESS: All right, and that pretty well winds up that line of thought.

Now, the next question I have is in reference to the Legislative Reference Service, and checking through the Enrolled Bill file, at the Truman Library, I found that Mr. Truman often placed great weight on the advice of the Legislative Reference Service of the Bureau of the Budget, quite often in opposition to the advice as provided from all other sources. If you also found that to be the case, why do you believe that he placed such reliance on their advice?

PACE: When I first was selected by Mr. Truman as Director of the Budget, I called on various former Directors with the Budget. When I became Director of the Budget, I visited all of the living directors and among them was Charles Dawes who was the first Director of the Budget (later Vice President), and who had indicated that the position of Director of the Budget had more influence on the nation than the Vice Presidency. Mr. Dawes gave me his views on the budget.

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HESS: What were they? What did he say?

PACE: Well, I was going to really relate it to your question by saying that when we concluded Mr. Dawes said to me, he said, "Young man, you should always keep in mind that these Cabinet officers are the executive vice presidents in charge of spending and as such the natural enemies of the President. Good day, young man."

Now, I've given you a very clear evidence of Mr. Dawes' attitude, and to a certain extent I think Mr. Truman had a similar feeling. I believe he felt that the budget should be unaffected by special requirements or interests, except for honest special requirements or interests, because each Department had honest special requirements. But when you look for a new assessment of the national interest, he felt that the budget was the place he could turn to and get it, unaffected by politics or special interests. He relied very heavily not only in the legislative areas but frankly in the fiscal and management area on the Budget Bureau.

HESS: And you think that's why he placed such reliance on the recommendations of the Legislative Reference Service?

PACE: I'm quite clear on that. We were very strong in that field in my period, leadership was excellent and the quality

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of men in it was very good. But I think it was its capacity for institutional contribution that interested Mr. Truman.

HESS: Do you recall when the Legislative Reference Service was set up?

PACE: No, I don't, it was before my time and I would assume it was fairly early in the budget process because it was a very critical part of it. Without it, you see, the budgetary process could be made meaningless.

HESS: At the time that you went out to talk to the former directors of the Bureau of the Budget, who else did you speak to? Did you speak to the two that had been there before Mr. Truman: Harold Smith and James Webb?

PACE: Of course, I had worked for Webb.

HESS: That's right.

PACE: And really...

HESS: You were his deputy.

PACE: I was his deputy, so I knew his views.

Smith I unfortunately did not talk to. I can't remember why. I did talk to Law Douglas who had also been an earlier Director of the Budget. I'm sure I intended to talk to

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Mr. Smith, but I can't remember whether he was unavailable or ill but there was some reason why I did not have a chance to talk to him.

HESS: What do you recall about the press conferences that the President used to hold exclusively about the budget, the annual press conference on the budget?

PACE: Well, first I recall how superbly he prepared himself for them. He really was interested in the budget, this wasn't something that somebody else did. All the key decisions in the budget he'd made, and I believe he labored as hard over his budget message as he did over his State of the Union message, and he was very good at it. Mr. Truman' s great strength, of course, was his ability to make the complicated simple, and the way he talked about very complicated things was the way the ordinary guy understood them, and that was really his great strength.

HESS: To what would you attribute his interest in budgetary matters? He had been county judge of course, which was an administrative position in Missouri and not judicial, and he had prepared many budgets for Jackson County.

PACE: I think that's partially it, my own instinct however is

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that his section of the nation was really basically fiscally conservative. I came out of Arkansas, money was important to us, we didn't have a lot of it.

HESS: Money was tight, as an old saying goes.

PACE: That's right, money was very tight as he was growing up and later as I was coming on. The fact was that there just wasn't a lot of money. Money was something that you paid attention to, and your parents in that part of the world rather drummed into you the importance of not getting into debt.

You know in the East I think and probably in the Far West, there was a much greater feel for the leverage of money. I think basically those of us who came from the southwest had a critical sense of meeting things day to day, solving your problems within your capacity, doing without that extra pair of shoes.

HESS: And if you wanted to buy something you saved up the money ahead of time and then you'd pay for it.

PACE: To pay for it. That's right, borrowing was not regarded in our part of the world as a way of life. You lived within your means.

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HESS: How would you evaluate Mr. Truman' s grasp of budgetary matters as compared with some of the other Presidents that you've known?

PACE: Well, of course, I dealt much more intimately with him than I did with other Presidents. I've observed them largely from the outside. I'm certain Mr. Truman was far more interested in the budget than Mr. Eisenhower was. I don't mean by that that Mr. Eisenhower was not interested, he was. But Mr. Truman really took the budget quite personally and felt himself to be the protector of it against the demands of the Departments.

Strangely enough, I'm sure Mr. Truman would never agree with this, but in fiscal philosophy what Charles Dawes had to say really fitted the way Mr. Truman thought. And I think he had a sense of intimacy with the budget and I know he worked at it.

HESS: Back to those press conferences just a minute. As I understand it, Mr. Truman, yourself, and the Secretary of the Treasury, would set on the stage...

PACE: That's right.

HESS: ...to answer questions.

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PACE: This is just exactly correct, and we had of course, the "pie," the traditional "pie," that showed the division of the budget. We identified that portion of it that was subject to Mr. Truman' s control, and that portion of it that was fixed. I do believe that we brought a greater understanding, both to the press and to the American people, about this really rather dry document and caused it to live in the minds of people as a vital factor in their lives.

HESS: Looking back on those days, how would you evaluate the general quality of Mr. Truman's answers to the questions that he was asked by the press?

PACE: I remember one thing I liked to quote Mr. Truman on, he said there are no bad questions, there are only bad answers, and it was this attitude that encouraged people to ask questions.

Mr. Truman also had another great characteristic, he wasn't at all concerned about saying he didn't know. He didn't try to talk about something he didn't know.

Thirdly he was a great user of staff and he'd toss a good many of the questions to Secretary Snyder or myself, but the ones he did answer, he answered them crisply, usually with a little humor, and showed a knowledge, grasp, and

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interest in the budget that had to be impressive to the press.

HESS: As we mentioned Monday, Mr. Truman said when he first became President that he wanted to set the budget up under a tripod, the Bureau of the Budget, himself, and the Secretary of the Treasury. Now the Secretary of the Treasury during the full time that you were there was John Snyder.

PACE: Right.

HESS: He took over about one year after the beginning of the Truman administration. What is your evaluation of Mr. Snyder's understanding of the budget and budgetary matters?

PACE: I think that John Snyder, for whom I had great respect, was likewise a fiscal conservative. I think that he had more than his share of problems in the Treasury, managing the debt, raising the necessary monies, handling the Internal Revenue Bureau, and his side assignment in the field of customs.

Mr. Snyder was not an empire builder. There was no effort on his part to trespass in my area. He felt, I believe, that I was capable of managing that end of it, and while on really deep, or basic matters, I consulted the President and he uniformly consulted Mr. Snyder, but he neither sought to have or had any intimacy of knowledge about detail, which made for a very happy relationship.

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The Secretary of the Treasury was in the Cabinet, he was a senior person, it could have been exacerbating, if he had sought...

HESS: He could have pulled rank on you if he had so wanted, in other words.

PACE: He could have tried to pull rank.

HESS: He could have tried to pull rank.

What would happen there if the Budget Director and the Secretary of the Treasury would have a standoff? Just a hypothetical question.

PACE: I would say if it was in the Budget Director's field, the Secretary of the Treasury in spite of his rank, his preeminence, would be the loser with almost any President I know. I don't think that the Budget Director would ever see fit to trespass in the field of the Secretary of the Treasury.

Of course, today, with the broader range of responsibility given the Budget Director and with the drawing of power much more fully into the White House than it was in my period, the two are much more equally ranked.

HESS: As you mentioned, Mr. Snyder is a conservative.

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PACE: That's right.

HESS: That's pretty well recognized. Now, the budget is really a model of what the government is going to do.

PACE: This is right.

HESS: How much money it is going to spend for welfare, for housing, for health programming. Is it going to become involved in these matters, or is it not? Looking back on those days, do you recall Secretary Snyder's comments when someone perhaps wanted to put in a higher amount of Fair Deal, New Deal, liberal, matters than he thought should be in there?

PACE: I would say that Secretary Snyder really again was extremely good about not interfering in the budgetary process. I don't know what private conversation he had with the President. I'm sure there were a great many of them, (as I had a great many private conversations with the President). But a Budget Director becomes sensitive to influences with the President in his field and I think it's fair to say that Mr. Snyder really made no effort as far as I could see to influence any specific legislative area. I'm sure that in their discussions Mr. Snyder's conservative attitude must have been influential in certain fields. As far as my own operation was concerned, there were a couple of times when there were issues of great

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fiscal importance, where I enlisted Mr. Snyder's aid. He was always ready and willing to give it because his attitude on how the budget should be managed coincided to a certain degree with my own, but he never, never interfered in it.

HESS: What would the President have done if he received conflicting advice from the Bureau of the Budget and the Council of Economic Advisers?

PACE: I think it depends upon the area. If you're talking about the broad development of the economic process about what was needed to ward off a recession, what was needed to control inflation, what was needed to increase trade, what was needed to deal with unemployment, I think the Council of Economic Advisers would have been preeminent in his mind. If it was...

HESS: Strategic decisions, more or less.

PACE: Yes, if it were the division of the dollar within that broad movement I think the Budget Director would have been compelling. President Truman was very good about that sort of thing, you know.

It world have been, to me, almost impossible to have worked with Mr. Roosevelt as Director of the Budget, because he tended to mix them all up and throw them into the pot. Mr. Truman tended to keep his lines of control really very,

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very straight. In addition to which he was so honest with his own internal performers that nobody ever really had any doubt about where he stood on an issue.

HESS: That touches onto the subject of Mr. Truman' s administrative ability. How would you evaluate Mr. Truman as an administrator?

PACE: Very high. Very high. He had excellent capacity to select people, and he was a superb delegator. The Presidency obviously requires delegation, it's far too big a job to handle on a personal basis.

HESS: Did you think that Mr. Roosevelt tried that?

PACE: No, I feel Mr. Roosevelt was very much of a personal operator.

HESS: Well, that's what I mean. To handle too many things personally.

PACE: Oh, yes, I thought he ran things basically by personal fiat and unlike Mr. Truman who had his decisions staffed on the way up to the President, Mr. Roosevelt had his decisions staffed on the way down from the President.

No, I have often said that in my judgment people tended to think more of Mr. Truman as a politician and less as an administrator. I happen to feel that he was a better

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administrator than he was a politician. Although the election of '48 obviously makes that statement seem a little silly, but I still would say that his talents as an administrator have largely gone unsung in history. His courage, his simplicity, his sense of history have been mentioned, but his capacity as an administrator, and as I told you his ability to recognize the importance of the institution of the Presidency and build it up is one of the remarkable characteristics of Mr. Truman that I don't think has yet had the attention it should.

HESS: Of course, the Bureau of the Budget has now been reorganized into the Office of Management and Budget. Do you believe that reorganization brought about an improvement in the situation?

PACE: I don't, frankly, know the answer. I don't know the current problems; today the Government is bigger, more complicated.

We incorporated in the budget in my day full responsibility for the management of the Government. We had a very illustrious outside management council that worked with us constantly on this process.

I have often found that reorganizations, generally speaking, involve the same people, and possibly new titles, but don't really change the basic function. I think it's the man at the top and the people he has working with him that is compelling, whether you call it the Budget Bureau or the Office

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of Budget and Management, these chart changes are rarely very compelling.

HESS: My next line of questioning has to do with the political events of 1948. Have we fully covered everything that we want to say about the Bureau of the Budget?

PACE: Yes, I think so. Again, if I were making a last statement here, it would be that Mr. Truman did use the Bureau of the Budget throughout the period I was Assistant Director and then Director as a means of creating the institution of the Presidency. As I said to you earlier, it was his own personal modesty, as well as his sense of the Presidency as an institution, rather than as a personal process that made it possible, and I believe that history as it looks over the course of the development of the U.S. Government and the U. S. civilization will give Mr. Truman very high marks for establishing this institution. It's not something people know very much about, you know, and yet it is something that is part of the warp and woof of the growth of our whole society.

HESS: This will just be asking for a supposition on your part, but we have mentioned that Mr. Roosevelt handled the Presidency on a personal basis not institutionalized at all, or very

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little, and then Mr. Truman did establish the Presidency as an institution, or he slanted it more in that way. Just asking for a supposition on your part, but did you think that Mr. Truman thought that Roosevelt's way of doing things was wrong and that he tried to improve upon them?

PACE: No, I really don't. I think Mr. Truman had the greatest possible respect for Mr. Roosevelt. I think that he felt that Mr. Roosevelt's form of Government fitted Mr. Roosevelt's style and talents, and I don't think he thought it fitted his style and talents. And I think that the change was not a reflection of the inadequacy of the system, as much as it was his own sense of what was needed. It was his belief as to what society needed irrespective of who might be President. The decision for whatever reason, was highly beneficial for the nation.

HESS: Very good. All right, now moving on to the political events of 1948, as you will recall there was an effort before the convention on the part of some Democratic factions to see that someone other than Mr. Truman received the nomination that year, the ADA wanted General Eisenhower. In your opinion was there a possibility that the Democratic convention might have chosen someone other than the President if he had wanted the renomination?

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PACE: Not the slightest chance. Obviously the most attractive person from the Democratic point of view was General Eisenhower. Great popular appeal and the party felt, as the party always did, that it needed a winner and it had real doubts that Mr. Truman was that winner. The only person who possibly could have taken that on would have been General Eisenhower, (and that of course is very much in doubt), otherwise I would say Mr. Truman was clearly the party's choice.

HESS: Did you go to the convention in Philadelphia that year?

PACE: I did not, no. No, I have not attended any convention in my lifetime.

HESS: Is this a conscious decision that you have made?

PACE: I think to a certain degree, yes. I made up my mind quite early on that my basis of contribution to the society was in the broad administrative field rather than the political field. I felt that I could be a better administrator and render a better service if I were not semi-tinged with politics.

I felt if you go into politics you ought to go into it all the way. I felt that to dabble in it was only a losing game, so since I didn't intend to go into it up over my head, and I wanted to really function in the interest of the nation

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rather than the interest of the party, even despite my earlier service with Bob Hannegan, I really pretty much divorced myself from politics. And I think that really what appealed to Bob Hannegan, was, although I had bean a Democrat and have continued to be a Democrat all my life, I never functioned in any partisan political fashion.

HESS: Since you are from Arkansas, did you have any particular thoughts or feelings at the time that several of the southern states walked out of the convention over the wording of the civil rights plank?

PACE: No, I just thought that this was the normal political phenomena, having come from that part of the world, I obviously didn't approve of it, but I could understand why it happened.

HESS: What effect did you think that J. Strom Thurmond and the State's Rights Party would have on Mr. Truman' s chances?

PACE: Well, I thought it was from his point of view a negative factor. Obviously the South had been a base on which the Democratic Party had developed over a period of time. Mr. Roosevelt kept it as a base, and added a very strong element of labor and minorities to it, to make it an almost compelling party and when you begin to lose that base it obviously made Mr. Truman' s chances that much weaker.

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HESS: And he lost a good many of those states.

PACE: He did.

HESS: But he still won.

PACE: That's right, which was again a tribute to his ability not to appeal to any specific sector, but I think to a broad mass of the American people.

HESS: And there was another party cutting in that year, also, Henry Wallace and the Progressives.

PACE: That's right.

HESS: What effect did you think that henry Wallace and the Progressives would have, about the same thing on the other end?

PACE: Not quite the same thing. I felt that these were votes that normally Mr. Truman would draw, but I did not feel it cut as heavily into his base as the Strom Thurmond movement.

HESS: It cut quite heavily into New York, though. As you recall, the votes that Wallace took away from Truman, gave New York to Dewey by a slim margin, and the Republicans got the entire 47 electoral votes.

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PACE: That's right, which they would have lost otherwise.

Well, what you really have to say is that from a political standpoint, it was David versus Goliath. Mr. Truman running under very difficult circumstances had two additional problems foisted on him and made his re-election seem that much more remote.

HESS: Were you present at any time that Mr. Truman spoke during that campaign.

PACE: No, I was not.

HESS: And we covered on Monday where you were on election night, with the bow tie.

PACE: This is correct.

I do remember it was in that year but before electioneering ever occurred--no let's see--no, it was subsequent to '48, that's right. It was subsequent to '48. I was thinking where I had been with Mr. Truman where he addressed a large crowd. and he went down to Little Rock, my native heath, and the crowd was so large, this was after the election of '48. He took along some of the members of his Cabinet and members of his own executive office and took me along. The crowd was so large they held it in the outdoor stadium, they had no indoor facilities able to accommodate the crowd, and when I

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was introduced, being a hometown boy, a roar of approval went up and I felt a hand on my shoulder and I looked up and it was the President of the United States. He said, "Frank, you must be a hell of a Budget Director. They ought to be booing you, not cheering you."

This was so typical you see, of Mr. Truman. Here he is walking all the way around to get back of me so he could put that in to me right there at that moment. As I say, that's what made him, for the people that work for him, so very special.

HESS: Didn't John Snyder, who was also from Arkansas go along on that trip.

PACE: That's right.

HESS: And I believe Les Biffle was on that same trip is that right?

PACE: That's correct.

HESS: Any other Arkansans?

PACE: In the Cabinet?

HESS: You were the three people that in his speech, as I recall, that he mentioned in his talk.

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PACE: That's right.

HESS: You three.

PACE: That's right.

HESS: Was there anybody else from Arkansas along?

PACE: No--oh, you mean along.

HESS: Yes.

PACE: Oh, you had obviously Brooks Hays, who at that time was a Congressman, and I believe Senator McClellan was there.

HESS: I could be wrong, but I have read that speech in the Presidential Papers, and I'm not sure they got mentioned.

PACE: Well, they would have been mentioned, you know, Mr. Truman would not have missed that. Then my memory is not accurate.

HESS: All right, now back on '48. Did the Republicans and Governor Dewey make any particular mistakes that year that contributed to their defeat? When Mr. Truman won in '48. What were the Republicans doing wrong?

PACE: Well, obviously they did a great many things wrong.

HESS: Yes, they lost.

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PACE: They lost. You remember Mr. Dewey, assuming victory, played a very cautious and really undynamic role and I think that the decision to coast in when you had a three up and four to go lead in the golf match, lost it for them.

Dewey had a few personal incidents like the railroad engineer that really reflected the fact that he just didn't have the human touch that Mr. Truman had. And so I think when they saw the momentum slipping away, it was too late to pick it back up. Their mistakes were essentially mistakes of overconfidence and timing.

HESS: One of the things that was mentioned at the time was that the Republicans did not feel that it was necessary for them to make any commitments, to make any promises that they would later have to live up to. That is just one of the factors in their overconfidence, but were there other factors that caused the Republicans to just rest on their oars?

PACE: You know you don't quite get out with the party organization to stir them up, you don't really leave that sense of imperativeness in the people who are working with you. These are not matters that can really be identified in black and white, they run much more in the gray area.

HESS: Did you think Mr. Truman would win? Even when you went to

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the party that night wearing the bow tie, what were your own thoughts? Did you really think Mr. Truman was going to win?.

PACE: Well, I have to say that I knew Mr. Truman thought he was going. to win.

I had of course, in earlier days, seen my father's law partner run against Joe T. Robinson, and he was very confident he was going to win and he lost by a margin of about six to one. This was obviously not a comparable situation.

I guess if I have to say to you, I would say that I so badly wanted Mr. Truman to win that I probably thought he was going to win. But I think that there was another side saying, "Be sensible Frank, it just isn't likely that he will." But I guess if we added it all up and you were giving me a lie detector test, I'd have to say, "I thought he was going to win." I can assure you this, everybody at that party thought I thought he was going to win.

HESS: What did you say when you turned that tie on that night, anything?

PACE: Well, I mean...

HESS: Any comments?

PACE: Comments like, "Well, for God's sake," and then, "He sure

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came well prepared didn't he?" and "Good night."

HESS: As they left to go home.

PACE: As they left to go home.

HESS: All right, now moving on, in checking Commander William Rigdon's log of the visits to Key West, I have found that you went down to Key West on occasion. One of those occasions was a trip almost a year later, from November the 28th to December the 20th of 1949, and it's indicated in Commander Rigdon's log that you were down there from December the 8th to the 12th. Also along on that trip were William Schaub, who was your assistant, he was Assistant to the Director of the Bureau of the Budget.

PACE: That's right, in the defense field.

HESS: And then John Snyder, Secretary of the Treasury, was also along on that trip.

PACE: That's correct.

HESS: Why were you there on that particular trip? Was it because of matters pertaining to the formulation of the Budget?

PACE: You see the ultimate formulation of the budget, the final

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touches to the budget had to be made at that time. In other words I'd gone over the budget with the President, but then he'd given me general guidelines and gone back and refined it and out of that there still were a number of unanswered questions. I was down there really to get the President's answers in this area.

HESS: All right now, this just brings up the general subject of Key West. What do you recall about Key West, what part of the day was given over to work, what part of the day was given over to other pursuits, and what did you enjoy the most about Key West?

PACE: Well, I'll answer the last question first. I enjoyed that poker game that evening most, because playing against people who were clearly my superiors in that game, on the first evening I was the big winner. I remember at the end of the evening Mr. Truman called in the head of the Secret Service, Mr. U. E. Baughman. I remember he said to Baughman, who knew me quite well, "Do you see that man?" And he said, "Yes sir."

He said, "Well, don't let him off of this place until I get my money back."

Well, of course, that broke everybody up, but seriously the routine of the day was--the morning was devoted entirely

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to work. Lunchtime was not a working session and normally there was work until about 2:30 or 3 in the afternoon, and then you were free to exercise in one way or another, volleyball. I remember playing tennis with Clark Clifford who was down there at the time.

HESS: Did you ever go swimming at the Truman Beach?

PACE: Oh yes, we went swimming usually before lunch. You could take off for about twenty minutes for a swim and of course, if Mr. Truman were engaged with somebody else, you would have a longer time free. In the evening if you were fortunate, Mr. Truman invited you to play poker with him and that was always, of course, a very rare treat.

HESS: Where did you stay? Do you recall?

PACE: Well, there is a compound there, as you know, and I stayed somewhere in the immediate environ, within easy range of where Mr. Truman was to be.

HESS: How many times did you go down?

PACE: Three.

HESS: What were the other two times, were they similar to this, were you down there working on the budget?

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PACE: Well, I was not working on the budget, the other times, I was working on matters of the budget. In other words, while you set the budget for somewhere around the 24th, 25th of January, during the year, in the course of executing the budget, some very major decisions arise and so while the President went down at a normal time to Key West, I was there on matters of the budget.

I went down there once when I was Assistant Director of the Budget and twice when I was Director of the Budget. And each time it related to--it could have been some legislation, it could have been a specific and major undertaking on the part of a Cabinet officer.

HESS: Did you ever go down as Secretary of the Army?

PACE: Never did, no.

HESS: All three times were when you were with the Budget?

PACE: Yes, that's right.

HESS: Were you ever on board the Williamsburg with Mr. Truman?

PACE: Oh, yes.

HESS: What were the occasions, and what do you recall?

PACE: I can't really recall. I say--oh; yes I was on twice.

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These were largely social occasions, when the President was taking time off and he very kindly included me.

HESS: Sailed down the Potomac?

PACE: Oh, yes. Sailed down the Potomac and it was always a great thrill because of the President's lovely sense of humor and he made his work associates his friends.

You know some Presidents keep a barrier from their assistants. President Truman felt that the President's position was its own barrier and while he .was never undignified in that sense, he did give you a sense of intimacy, and the Williamsburg was a place where you developed it to an even higher degree.

HESS: The men he worked with were the men he took to Key West and on the Williamsburg.

PACE: That's right, yes. He--to the best of my knowledge I don't ever remember any outside friends of Mr. Truman being along on any of these trips.

HESS: Did the poker games have a limit, do you recall?

PACE: Oh yes. Oh, yes. They had poverty.

HESS: A poverty pot.

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PACE: A poverty pot. And when you got to a certain point you could draw from the poverty pot, and Mr. Truman was very careful about this. Besides which, if I may say so, the people who played there like Senator Kerr and Senator Anderson were the kind of people I'd only play with if there was a poverty pot.

HESS: They could afford to get into a big game.

PACE: It wasn't just that they could afford it, at poker they were so much smarter than I was. I mean I think there were some areas that I could give a very good go, either athletically or intellectually, but in poker believe me, I knew when I was in the presence of my superiors.

HESS: How would you rate Mr. Truman as a poker player? Was he as good as they were?

PACE: No, he wasn't. President Truman loved the game, and he was essentially in poker a gambler, he loved to gamble, and he understood the game. Let me say that I would say that Mr. Truman was a good and even possibly a very good poker player. He's liable to allow his emotional desires to play a role, but I would say that Senator Kerr and Senator Anderson were absolutely superb poker players.

HESS: I have heard that Clark Clifford was pretty good at the game, too.

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PACE: Clark was good, very good, but Kerr and Anderson were a cut above Clark, or the Chief Justice, who played and loved the game.

HESS: All right, now moving on to your role as Secretary of the Army. At the time that you became Secretary of the Army in 1950, what was your evaluation of the strength and degree of the preparedness of our armed forces and of the Army in particular?

PACE: Well, I had known it largely as the Director of the Budget. I had felt that any army deteriorates in peacetime. I had felt that our own army included some very remarkable people. Mind you the Army was run by the "flower" of World War II. I doubt that in the history of this, or any other country, as remarkable a group of men were gathered together as were working in the U.S. Army in that period.

HESS: Why were you selected as Secretary of the Army? Tell me about that?

PACE: Well, I think that I had told Mr. Truman that I felt that he should have someone else as Director of the Budget because basically I didn't agree with the economic philosophy of Leon Keyserling who was the head of the Council of Economic

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Advisers. I liked Leon as a person but my own belief was that his economic policies were much too loose. And I said to the President that I felt Leon's economic philosophy was more in tune with the political requirements of the times.

He said, "Well, Frank, this is as it should be, Leon should be liberal and you should be conservative."

I said, "Yes, sir, but I really feel that there ought to be a little greater philosophical rapport than there is."

And he said, "Well, Frank, if you've made up your mind it's better to do it that way, I don't want to lose you." He said, "Would you like to be Secretary of the Army?"

And I said, "Well, sir, I don't think that's the question." I said, "The question is do you want me as Secretary o f the Army?"

He said, "Well, that's a refreshing point of view." And he said, "Obviously I did or I wouldn't have asked you."

So I said, "Well, sir, then I'll be your Secretary of the Army."

HESS: Gordon Gray had just retired.

PACE: That's right.

HESS: Do you know why he left? Any particular reason.

PACE: No, I don't. You know he went down to become the president

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of the University of North Carolina.

HESS: A pretty good school.

PACE: A great school, and Gordon of course is a great person and I assume that he had decided that he wanted to undertake this academic challenge. We worked very closely together, Gordon briefed me on everything. And I never really asked him why, he just left, and he really never indicated why.

HESS: At the time you came in as Secretary of the Army was there an awareness in the Pentagon and in the government as a whole, that the Communists might try to test our defenses in some part of the world?

PACE: I don't really think so. I think that frankly the only wars that America had engaged in and the recent memory of man had been total wars, World War I and World War II. Small wars had never been a part of our history. I don't think that any one thought that another world war was likely and I don't think people really thought in terms of small wars at that time.

HESS: The so-called brushfire wars.

PACE: Brushfire wars. It just didn't seem like we were likely to be engaged in those.

HESS: All right, we soon became engaged in one in June of 1950.

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PACE: That's right.

HESS: Where were you when you first heard of the events in Korea and what went through your mind? What were your thoughts?

PACE: Well, very interestingly, we were having dinner that evening at Joe Alsop's and by an interesting coincidence, Dean Rusk was also having dinner that evening at the same place. And Dean Rusk was called and advised that evening about the North Korean invasion of South Korea and he advised me and he went to the State Department and I went to the Pentagon and I was there all night long on that first occasion.

My recollection is that Mr. Johnson was not in the city at that time and...

HESS: He had been to the Far East, as I recall, and was coming back at that time.

PACE: I can't tell you exactly where he was, I just remember that at the time this occurred he was not there and I took the original responsibility.

HESS: The President was in Independence...

PACE: That's right.

HESS: That weekend. It was on a Saturday. Dean Acheson phoned

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him and talked to him and the President, came back on Sunday afternoon, and held a meeting at the Blair House that evening, a meeting that you attended. Now before this time you say that you took the initial responsibility, but what did you do, what actions did you take between the time that you heard about the invasion and the Blair House meeting?

PACE: Well, between the time that we heard about it and the Blair House meeting, our function really was primarily one of correspondence by Telecom with General MacArthur keeping informed, making sure what was happening and trying to collect all the evidence to permit the President to make the decision that he ultimately had to make.

HESS: Our Ambassador in Korea at that time was Ambassador [John J.] Muccio.

PACE: Muccio, that's right.

HESS: And were you receiving any reports from him?

PACE: Yes, although his reports...

HESS: They probably came through the State Department.

PACE: ...came through the State Department. Our discussions were almost exclusively with General MacArthur during that period.

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HESS: All right, now on Sunday evening after the President had returned there was a meeting held at the Blair House. What do you recall about that meeting?

PACE: Well, the President operated in his usual fashion, my recollection is that the people there were Mr. Acheson and Dean Rusk, and I believe Louis Johnson had returned by that time, and the three service Secretaries, the Joint Chiefs of Staff

HESS: That's right.

PACE: ...were there, and I can't remember if anybody else was or not.

HESS: Yes, Dean Acheson and...

PACE: Dean Rusk.

HESS: Dean Rusk and Philip Jessup.

PACE: Yes, Philip Jessup. Well...

HESS: And the others that you mentioned.

PACE: Well, the President asked each of us our opinion on what should be done.

HESS: What did you tell him?

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PACE: Well, I think I told him very clearly that I felt we had to resist the attack. I told him that I felt that this was more than just a matter of Korea, that the Russians were testing, and if we allowed this test to go unchecked that they would undoubtedly take bigger steps and this would involve us in bigger problems. If we were going to stop this thrust, now was the time to do it and that we ought to undertake to do so.

HESS: Did he receive any advice in opposition to that viewpoint from anyone?

PACE: Not really, no. The feeling was very unanimous there. People expressed it in different ways. Some were a little more complex. I'm sure that a broader view of all the implications was made by Dean Acheson as Secretary of State, but the President had the comfort of really a unanimous assessment that this was the thing to do.

HESS: Was it discussed at that time that such a movement into Korea should be made through the United Nations, as it was done?

PACE: Yes, it was. That was suggested by Dean Acheson at that time and it was concurred in.

HESS: Was it discussed that if it could not have been done through

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the United Nations that we should go in unilaterally on our own anyway?

PACE: I don't believe that there was a sense that it could not be done through the United Nations. I don't believe that the issue that it could not be done really arose, and therefore, I don't think the alternative was discussed. I'm quite clear in my own mind that had it been discussed this group would have agreed we should have gone in unilaterally.

HESS: All right, now, there was a meeting held the next night. This was Sunday night, there was another meeting held on Monday night, do you recall anything about the Monday night meeting? Were there any other subjects discussed?

PACE: No. I think Mr. Truman said this was too momentous a decision to make without everybody reflecting on it.

One of the interesting facts is that the original decision to go in was made on the basis of the belief that this could be handled by air and naval forces. It was not originally contemplated that land forces would participate. I think that if it had been contemplated, that land forces would participate, the decision would have been considerably harder to make, but on the basis that it could be handled by Air and Navy the decision was much simpler.

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HESS: Was that articulated at the meeting?

PACE: Oh, yes, very definitely, and it was the opinion of the Joint Chiefs that this was possible and that it could be done...

HESS: By air and naval bombardment.

PACE: That's right, supporting the South Korean troops. The South Korean troops had received training from us and I believe there was a general belief that they were considerably stronger than they actually turned out to be. Or alternatively, the North Koreans were considerably stronger than we had anticipated.

HESS: And at that time we did have KMAG in there, the Korean Military Advisory Group, which had been cut back and I understand no larger at this time than about 500 men.

PACE: I think this is correct. My recollection is that this had been headed by "Tough" Tony McAuliffe who was one of the ablest trainers in the. Army. I don't remember whether Tony--I am sure he was not in charge at that time. But he had had the primary training responsibility there and he was one of the people on whom we relied most heavily.

HESS: What were a few of the problems that the emergency brought up and how did you handle them during the first few days?

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Looking back into July of 1950 what were some of the problems that you were faced with and how did you handle them?

PACE: Well, in the early stages since the function was primarily Air and Navy, our role in the matter was largely that of planner and thinker. However it was only about three or four days before we had a critical telecom from General MacArthur, advising that the North Koreans were overwhelming the South Korean troops and that if we intended to make an effective stand in Korea that it was imperative that we agree to commit American ground troops.

It's very interesting, I remember conversing across 11,000 miles in this question and answer fashion. General MacArthur had the most uncanny talent for anticipating the real meaning of a question and providing you with a pertinent answer.. I rarely asked a question but that I got the kind of answer to the question that indicated he clearly understood why I had asked the question. So communicating with General MacArthur was very clear and definitive.

After this, it was quite late at night, I called the President and awakened him and advised him of General Mac Arthur's decision. And he said, "Well, Frank, do we have to make that decision tonight?"

I remember saying, "No, sir, we don't, but the fact that

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we don't have to make a decision is one that you should make rather than I."

And he said, "Well, Frank, I feel that we'd do a better job on this in the morning," and so he deferred the decision on that until the next morning.

I can't remember the exact date but there must be some records then of a meeting that we had the following day on this. Is there not some record?

HESS: I think so. The National Security Council was meeting regularly at the time.

PACE: Well, in any event, as a result, of this we did decide to commit ground troops, which was a much more fundamental decision than the original one although it was largely over-looked at the time. And I remember it was then my responsibility to advise General MacArthur that he had the authority to commit ground troops.

HESS: At the time that the decision was made to commit ground troops, was there anyone who advised against that action?

PACE: No, none.

HESS: It was something at the time that looked like it had to be done.

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PACE: That's right

HESS: Because our forces had been pushed down so it looked like it might have been another Dunkirk.

PACE: That's right. At that point, you can't really call it a decision. I mean...

HESS: It is just something that has to be done.

PACE: That's right. America should no more enter something like that and then write it off. It just didn't lie in the American character.

If I want to catch that 4 o'clock plane I had better get going.