Frank Pace Jr. Oral History Interview, June 26, 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.

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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 It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.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. Secretary, on the subject of the Korean conflict and the possible use of atomic weapons therein, do you recall if the likelihood of using the atomic bomb in Korea was discussed at any of the meetings?

PACE: Indeed it was. It was discussed really quite continuously over the latter period of the Korean war. It was always discarded on two grounds: The first, that it would not be productive, that this was not the kind of war in which the use of the atomic bomb would be effective--I say three reasons--and I don't put them in order of priorities. Second, was the concern about the moral use of weapons of this nature against a smaller country in this kind of war, and the third was that if it proved ineffective then its function as a shield for Europe would be either minimized or lost. So, you had really three quite compelling reasons against its use.

HESS: As you may recall, after the Chinese Communists had entered the fray in November of 1950, Mr. Truman in a press conference made some reference to the fact that he would use whatever weapons that it was necessary to use to meet the military situation. Clement Attlee came from England at that time to discuss that remark with the President, as

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I recall. Was that a period of time when the President may have been swinging over, may have thought that there were conditions under which use of the atomic weapons would be justified?

PACE: I frankly rather doubt it, the discussions had been quite general on this subject and I think if I had to make a guess, that the President was really merely enforcing his position, negotiation-wise, with the Chinese Communists. I really quite seriously doubt that Mr. Truman was swinging towards the use of atomic weapons in that war.

HESS: Did you ever hear him articulate any conditions under which he thought their use would be justified?

PACE: No. No, I did not.

HESS: All right. Was it ever recommended by any of the advisers that the use of atomic weapons might be given to the commanders in the field, the discretion of whether or not to use it would be moved out to the commander in the field?

PACE: No. I heard no such reference.

HESS: All right. Anything else on the use of the atomic bomb?

PACE: No, I think that covers it. You see, in stating

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those three items, I've identified the basic problems. Probably one, the question of its effectiveness, was really very much at the top of military people's minds, and their general conclusion was, that it would not be effective.

HESS: You mentioned that moral considerations was one of the reasons why it was not used. What did Mr. Truman have to say at the time on that subject? Why I ask is that he had ordered its use in times past and has been roundly condemned as we all know by a number of critics, for that very reason, for not considering implications in the moral use of the atomic bomb.

PACE: I think that the two situations were substantially different, certainly substantially different in my mind and I think substantially different in his.

No one ever talked about the use of the atomic bomb except as a tactical weapon in this particular situation. No one conceived of it as the use of the atomic bomb against cities or anything of that nature. And so you were considering here a lesser moral question. However, I still think that the question of the moral posture of the USA in using an atomic weapon against a lesser foe under these circumstances was very much in a great many people's minds.

I never heard the President speak on that subject

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specifically, but at the military levels at which this issue was discussed, these three factors were compelling: One, it's value as a tactical weapon; two the moral impact, and three the relationship between Russia and Europe if it proved to be ineffective. And of the three the third was as compelling as the others.

HESS: We would lose a degree of control over Russia, if it…

PACE: If it proved to be ineffective.

HESS: All right, moving on, what do you recall about the transition from the Truman administration to the Eisenhower administration? Who worked on those matters? How smooth was it? Could it have gone better? Since you were Secretary of the Army right up to the end of the Truman administration.

PACE: Well, as you recall, there was not any intimacy at that juncture, between President Truman and President Eisenhower.

President Truman always regarded politics as a game to be played to the hilt, in which you said the things that would advance your cause and he never regarded it as a personal matter.

Mr. Eisenhower, who was unused to politics, did frankly personalize it, and as a result, two men who had a great deal in common were driven apart by different attitudes

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towards this particular function. Mr. Eisenhower regarded it as something in which you said only exactly what you thought and any reference to people was clearly and identifiably a proven matter. Truman regarded it as the development of a pattern in which you sought to bring your side out the winner.

So, to the extent that Mr. Truman was not himself running for office, the transition should have been smoother really than it was. I think that the relationship between Mr. Eisenhower and Mr. Truman was very perfunctory and I don't think that the values of the previous administration were transitioned on to the new administration.

HESS: Who replaced you, who was Mr. Eisenhower's Secretary of the Army?

PACE: Bob [Robert T.] Stevens took my place.

HESS: Did he come in, or did he send representatives in during the last few months of the Truman administration to talk with you or to look over the operation of your office?

PACE: You mean after the election?

HESS: Yes, after the election and before the inauguration.

PACE: Oh, he came in himself. I had known Bob Stevens and there was never a problem between us at all. The transition there was very simple, very smooth. Bob and I have been friends,

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he had been Army oriented, he was a gentleman, the whole transition there was very simple. and very smooth, no problem whatsoever.

HESS: Did he have any assistants who came in at that time who may have spent some time in the office, going over the files and checking things?

PACE: I'm not sure that Bob Stevens was identified as Secretary of the Army until really quite late along in the game. I think that maybe it was not much more than two or three weeks before Mr. Eisenhower took office that Bob was selected. And so the kind of long term interrelationship just wasn't there. But as far as that was concerned I remained available to Bob for judgment and identification of our past practices.

HESS: So the transition in the Department of the Army was quite smooth?

PACE: Quite smooth, no problem at all.

HESS: Good.

Briefly, how would you rate the Presidents of recent years, from Mr. Roosevelt to the present in terms of intellectual ability, administrative ability and as men? We have discussed Mr. Truman's administrative ability, but just how would you rate the Presidents you have known; Roosevelt,

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Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson?

PACE: Well, Mr. Roosevelt came in under very perilous circumstances, and obviously did an absolutely unique job of turning the country around from a sense of despair to a future of hope. He was a consummate politician, a man utterly confident of himself and I felt brought to the country, really, some great and needed changes.

I felt that he had not thought through all of the changes that he achieved. For instance, there is no question but that business had exercised an undue control over the process of labor, but I feel in righting the balance, Mr. Roosevelt created undue strengths in labor that had at least in this day and age, made our competitive position extremely difficult to sustain.

So, I would rate Mr. Roosevelt certainly as one of the unique Presidents of all times. I frankly think he would have been a greater President if he had two terms instead of four. I had the feeling that towards the end of his period in office he was really consolidating positions that he felt were important, but were not in my judgment thoroughly thought through.

I also believe that Mr. Roosevelt introduced into the political system the necessity for presidential candidates to promise more than they can deliver, and established it

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as a pattern in our political life. This has proven to be disadvantageous to the democratic political process.

HESS: And that wasn't done to such a great degree before?

PACE: Well, not at all really. As you know the democratic process--except in certain areas--was much more limited than it became after that time. Whether the media, the development of television, radio, the greater rise of the press would have brought this about anyway, I don't know. But at least I think that the pattern was established by Mr. Roosevelt, who was, as I say, not only a remarkable statesman, but also a consummate .politicians.

Mr. Truman, I think, would never be rated as an intellectual and certainly he would never rate himself as an intellectual. The thought that he was an intellectual would be more appalling to him than anybody else in my estimation.

But he brought a quality of commonsense, an ability to equate with the ordinary man, a remarkable degree of courage, a capacity to select people and to delegate and to administer that I think will make him one of the exceptional Presidents of our times.

And it's even more remarkable when you consider that Mr. Truman when he came to the Presidency had really deep and abiding doubts about his capacity to be President. He

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lived under the shadow of this magnetic and attractive and dominant personality, Mr. Roosevelt, and yet he emerged from it and remained himself without trying to become a carbon copy of Mr. Roosevelt,, and I think he will emerge as one of the great Presidents.

Mr. Eisenhower, whom I knew well as General Eisenhower, was a superb human being. He had a great capacity for attracting and working with other people. He won the confidence of people because he was a straightforward, direct, and a basically honest man. He really never liked politics. He really, I don't think, liked the Presidency. I think the frustrations of it were more disturbing to him than the possibilities of it.

HESS: When he was in the Army and gave an order, it was carried out.

PACE: That's right.

HESS: When he was the President and gave an order, it might not be.

PACE: Well, the odds were quite substantially that it would not be.

So. I would say that Mr. Eisenhower brought a period of calm to this country which was tremendously important,

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but when you think in terms of the forward thrust of the society, you can't say that Mr. Eisenhower contributed a great deal to this.

Mr. Johnson was a remarkable man.

HESS: We're leaving out Mr. Kennedy.

PACE: Oh, Mr. Kennedy was so short a period of time. Well, Mr. Kennedy was a very remarkable man, great charm, deep political insight, great confidence in himself, a capacity to view the United States in its global perspective. All of the ingredients of greatness were there. Whether those ingredients could have been put together to achieve what his very remarkable speeches suggested, I guess neither I nor anybody else will know, all we know is that the potential for greatness was there.

Mr. Johnson of course, was a completely different man. He was also a remarkable political politician, highly pragmatic. He had probed deeply into the problems of the Senate of the United States in a very masterful way, but had great difficulty transitioning from a very personal leadership that made him one of the great Majority Leaders of all times, into the capacity to delegate, that is necessary for success on the national scale. I think he showed great courage in staying with the unpopularity of the Vietnamese

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war. He introduced a great deal of meaningful social legislation for which he will be well remembered. But I must say he surprised me beyond all belief when he chose not to run again. I never would have believed that Lyndon Johnson would not have a second run at the Presidency.

I guess that's a fairly full estimate of some people I knew pretty well.

HESS: All right, in your opinion what were Mr. Truman's major accomplishments and what were his major failings?

PACE: Well, his major accomplishments it seems to me were very clearly the postwar planning for Japan and for Germany. These will always be one of the high spots.

Mr. Truman is condemned for dropping the atomic bomb, and I'm not one of those who agree with that. I think he was moved by completely humanitarian motives, and that is the sort of thing you could argue back and forth.

He certainly showed an ultimate quality of the spirit and reflected the generous nature of the United States not only in the exceptional terms of peace that were granted to aggressors in the war, but also in the selection of the men who carried this out: MacArthur in Japan and Clay with McCloy and Conant in Germany.

The Marshall plan, of course, was, I believe, one of

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the unique achievements of all times. Without it the postwar years would have been intolerable.

Domestically I think his social program was well ordered and he felt always that he was the representative of the common man and his forward movement. As you recall from my earlier statement, I'm a fiscal conservative and I felt he went faster than he should have. I myself would have moved slowly in the direction of what I regard as a social explosion that...

HESS: Did you discuss that with Mr. Truman, perhaps at the time that you resigned as Director of the Bureau of the Budget?

PACE: Oh, yes. Oh, yes, I did.

HESS: What did he say?

PACE: Well, he basically said, "Frank, I am following the course of history." He said, "The course of history is to take care of people socially, and I am following the course of history."

And I said, "I agree, Mr. President, but our problem is not one of direction, it's one of timing, and I frankly feel that we move too quickly."

Well, when you talk about timing you know this is

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purely a matter of human judgment and obviously, he was President and I wasn't.

HESS: You have mentioned that at the time you resigned one of the reasons you did so was that you felt Leon Keyserling's policies and ideas were somewhat closer to what Mr. Truman wanted.

PACE: This is correct.

HESS: But when we discussed that point I don't believe I asked what you and Mr. Truman said at that time.

PACE: Right.

HESS: All right, what do you see as Mr. Truman's failings?

PACE: Well, as I say, I think he moved too...

HESS: That's one of them, is it?

PACE: I would rate that as frankly, in my sense, as number one.

I have felt as I said, that between the years, oh, 1932 and 1972, which is a span of forty years, we've had a development in this country that could well have taken place over 150 or 200 years. I think we have moved too fast.

HESS: What particular items do you think moved a little too fast and could have been slowed down?

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PACE: When you say could have slowed down, who knows whether...

HESS: I mean are you speaking of health care, are you speaking...

PACE: I'm speaking of almost the whole sweep of social legislation.

HESS: Integration?

PACE: Oh no--well, integration--well, let's now talk about integration.

You will recall that I was the first Secretary to totally integrate the black man into the Army. And I believe as deeply as anybody that failure to grant him equal rights, economic, social, and political, is one of the real scars on this country. Again I believe that his integration, if we had given him and the society a little more time to absorb it, would have come along a little more effectively than it has.

Now the answer to that is that if you move more slowly you might not have moved at all, and I think Mr. Truman would say, "That's fine, Frank, but frankly, we'd still be back where we were. You either have to make the total move or not at all." I'm aware of that. My instinct still runs to the fact that the black man would have been served better if the process would have been more carefully advanced than

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it was.

It's never a very popular position, you know, to say that anything should ever be held back, because the important individual needs are there, there's no denying it.

I said as Director of the Budget that it wasn't just a question of the pork barrel things you could cut out, there obviously were some, but they were minimal. The thing that amazed me as Director of the Budget was the real need and the vast requirements that existed for expenditures in this nation. The issue is whether in providing, in these forty years, for people as well as we have, there has been created for your children, and grandchildren and great-grandchildren conditions with which their society is unable to cope.

You take the specifics of any social legislation, you're hard put to ever take a position against it. Any decent human being is, including myself, so when you say to me, "What do you specifically oppose," I have to say to you, Frankly I don't specifically oppose anything.

I merely say when you look at it in the long sweep of history, if America gets ahead of itself, the people who pay the price for it, are not the people now, they're your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren and your great-great-grandchildren. If America does not remain strong, they are the people who pay the price, and it is for that

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reason that I was always a very--and remained very strongly in favor of limiting the present to ensure the preservation of the future. This is where any fiscal conservative is really outmatched in any theoretical discussion. Because you say, do you want to stop cancer research? Do you want to stop Social Security? Certainly you don't, the issue is purely one of timing.

HESS: Any other failings? What did Mr. Truman do that he might have done wrong?

PACE: Oh, no, I think when I have specified my concern on timing, I'm not--I really find it difficult to fault Mr. Truman. Maybe a lot of smaller things, but they play no role at all, but even there his limitations never approached his contributions.

HESS: At the time that you were Director of the Bureau of the Budget would you go over and have some friendly conversations with the President, just like this?

PACE: Oh, yes, yes. Because my relation with the President was very fine and very...

HESS: Do you find that he pretty well defended his viewpoint, or did you argue these things out?

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PACE: You never completely argue something out with the President. I said my relationships with the President were warm and intimate and they are, but it could never be like you and myself talking, because he is the President and once anybody, even if it were your closest friend, dons that mantle, then there is a certain restraint in the nature of your conversations. Because in the long run he ultimately has to make deep and basic decisions and he has to live with them and therefore you aren't arguing in a theoretical fashion. You present a point of view, if it's different than his, then that's it, you don't go on beyond that point because...

HESS: You've made yourself clear.

PACE: You've made yourself clear, and it's important that if you're once of his advisers he knows what you are and how you think, because then he knows best how to use you. On the other hand, for anyone, I believe to press a point of view with the President, beyond a certain point, is not serving either the country or the President. If you feel deeply enough about your difference with the President then you should resign, and indicate why, but I have to say you, at least for me there is a special aura about the President. I'd never call any President, "Truman" or "Nixon," nor do I let my children do it. All have to call them, "Mr. Truman," "Mr. Roosevelt," Mr. Nixon."

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HESS: On the subject of advice to the President, Mr. Truman mentions in his Memoirs that he liked a wide diversity of men and viewpoints around him. He had Oscar Chapman on the liberal side, he would have John Snyder on the conservative side, because he felt that each had something to contribute and he wanted to hear the viewpoints...

PACE: Very definitely.

HESS: ...of all sides before he made up his mind.

PACE: Very definitely.

HESS: Did you have that same feeling?

PACE: Oh, no question about it.

HESS: But you still felt that you should resign as Director of the Bureau of the Budget?

PACE: Yes, I did.

HESS: You felt that your viewpoint was just too far from his, is that right?

PACE: Yes, just too far from Leon Keyserling's, and I felt that the President tended in that direction. I don't think the President ever intended to go as far as Leon went. But I think he leaned basically in that direction. And I

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felt that because my views on this subject were really quite positive that it was the wrong place for me to be.

HESS: I believe Mr. Keyserling took over as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in 1949. Of course he had been one of the original members...

PACE: This is right.

HESS: And then when Dr. Nourse resigned in '49, there was a period of time in there when he was acting chairman and then he took over as chairman. Did you have conversations with Mr. Keyserling?

PACE: Oh yes . Oh, yes, I liked Leon as a person. We just couldn't see things in the same way.

HESS: All right, what is your estimation of Mr. Truman's place in history?

PACE: Well, I think that he will be regarded as one of the great Presidents. I've always felt that way, even when many of my people whom I saw quite regularly felt very derisive about it.

HESS: Do you think the public's image of Mr. Truman has changed substantially since he has left office?

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PACE: Completely. Not just...

HESS: What do you see as the reasons for that change?

PACE: Well, I think when Mr. Truman was President they saw many of the small things that were played up by the press: His defense of Margaret against...

HESS: Paul Hume?

PACE: ...the critic; the balcony. Mr. Truman was so essentially human a person, and so real a person, he was subject to attack on minor subjects. And I think as time has rolled on, and his courage and the really large things that he did and did so well, become apparent, then people come to quite different conclusions. This is why General Marshall was so wise in saying that he just couldn't see writing a contemporary autobiography, because your personal judgments were not up to the requirements of history.

HESS: What is your favorite memory of Mr. Truman?

PACE: Well, there are so many. I guess my favorite memory is the one that I mentioned to you when he made up his mind on the central Arizona project that he was going to advise the two oldest friends that he could not do it. I think my favorite memory, I mean there it is because then I knew

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that he would do the hard right against the easy wrong. And I believe that's critical in any President of the United States.

HESS: Do you have anything else to add on Mr. Truman or your role in the Truman administration?

PACE: No, No, none other than the fact that I loved it when I was doing it. I thought Mrs. Truman played a remarkable part; it will never be fully understood, in providing much of the cement that went into Mr. Truman's strength. There was a warm and intimate human quality to the whole administration that I'll never forget, and he brought it, and it will always be one of the great and meaningful periods of my life.

HESS: Well, thank you very much.

PACE: Its been a privilege.