David H. Stowe Oral History Interview, September 25, 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 It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.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 July, 1991
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

[41]

HESS: To begin this morning, sir, let's discuss Dr. [John R.] Steelman's office, the set up of the Assistant to the President. I do not have the date that he began as head of OWMR (Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion), but he was Special Assistant to the President from December 29, 1945, until December 12, 1946. At that time he was also with OWMR and then on December 12, 1946 he became the Assistant to the President and served until the end of the administration. I might add that in a few of my interviews, there has been some question about the duties of Dr. Steelman: the range of duties; the responsibilities of his office; just exactly what they did and how it was done. Since you worked for him for several years, could we clear that up this morning?

STOWE: First of all, I only worked for Dr. Steelman a little over one year, from September 1947 until after the election in 1948. Shortly thereafter I became an Administrative Assistant to President Truman.

Let's go back just a bit. Dr. Steelman was the head of the office of War Mobilization and Reconversion for a period of time. During that time

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he also became Special Assistant to President Truman; in effect he was wearing two hats. He continued to direct the office of OWMR and served as a staff member to President Truman, until the time OWMR was closed down. In the fall of 1946 Dr. Steelman asked me if I would come over to the White House as his assistant. At that time I did not accept his offer. Subsequently, in September of 1947, when he was The Assistant to the President, he again asked me to come over as his assistant in the White House; at that time a one-year arrangement was worked out with Jim [James E.] Webb, the Director of the Budget, where I was at the time, and Dr. Steelman.

I went over as the so-called Deputy to the Assistant to the President. This title was never cemented down because my payroll title was Administrative Assistant in the White House Office. However, I did serve as his deputy and during that time one of the things I had to do was to attempt to integrate the staff that he had brought with him from OWMR, with his White House operation. Most of OWMR had been liquidated by that time; these were residual staff members. However, it resulted in a rather substantial staff when compared with other White House staffing patterns; it included a newspaper public relations type of person, Mr. Fitzgerald; a

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legal counsel whose name I don't recall at the moment; staff for the Advertising Council; a liaison person for the motion picture industry and some other functions which apparently had been utilized in OWMR as a part and parcel of the conversion after World War II to the peacetime economy. During that year a number of those people and their functions were either terminated or transferred to other agencies; only one or two were continued on in Dr. Steelman's White House office.

HESS: Just what was the function of Dr. Steelman's office? I have heard him described as a man who was in charge of the day to day workings of the White House. Is that right?

STOWE: I was associated with Dr. Steelman both when I was his deputy and afterwards when I was Administrative Assistant to the President. I continued to work fairly closely with Dr. Steelman in a number of areas. First, I would say that he handled perhaps more of what might be termed the general government relationships for the White House, that is, the day-by-day operation. I would say that most of the White House day-by-day administrative dealings with the various agencies were conducted in great part through Dr. Steelman's office. I would say that in the area

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of general government administration he was the focal point, although subsequently, when I became Administrative Assistant, some of that continued to operate through my office.

HESS: Did he have very many functions dealing with legislative liaison, relations with Congress?

STOWE: No. That was handled entirely through the Legal Counsel's office or Matt Connelly's office. As far as I know, no legislative things except possibly where it might have been a bill that affected labor- management relations might have been referred to him for comment, but I would in general say no.

HESS: You know, two men were brought in in 1949 and given the specific title of Legislative Liaison, Charles Maylon and Joseph Feeney. Did you often work with those men?

STOWE: No. I know both of them but they worked directly for Matt Connelly. As far as I know their legislative work was under Matt Connelly, and I assume that was coordinated with the Legal Counsel. We had nothing to do with them.

HESS: All right. Dr. Steelman took part in many labor matters. Did you think that there was a feeling on the part of perhaps the Labor Department that the

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White House was setting up an office within the White House that should not have been done? Perhaps they should have been working more through the Department of Labor?

STOWE: Well there is no question that the Truman administration setup for dealing with independent agencies in the labor field and with national labor- management disputes was quite different from those that we have had since then. As the former Director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, Dr. Steelman had a reputation as one of the top mediators and labor experts in the United States. My background was in the field of labor-management relations where I had handled many of those agencies in the Bureau of the Budget. So naturally, with two of us over there, I suppose that labor disputes tended to gravitate to Dr. Steelman's office.

Secondly, under the Truman administration, at least in the labor field, the independent agencies such as the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the National Mediation Board, and the National Labor Relations Board, which on the charts report directly to the President of the United States, by and large reported to Dr. Steelman and did not report through the Secretary of Labor, a Cabinet officer. I think as far as the independent labor

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agencies were concerned, they probably preferred this relationship because it gave them direct access to the White House and to the President in times of difficulty. I know that Cy [Cyrus] Ching, who was Director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, on many occasions expressed the feeling that this was a good arrangement because when necessary he could get right in to see the President of the United States and didn't have to go through a Cabinet department.

Since the Truman administration, this has been handled entirely through the succeeding Secretaries of Labor, both Democratic and Republican. It is still an academic argument as to which serves the best purpose. I think insofar as the independent agencies are concerned they would prefer, of course, to deal directly with the seat of power, namely the White House, rather than go through a Secretary of Labor regardless of who that Secretary might be.

I think the other side of the coin is that there was a feeling during the Truman administration, which has not been true since then, that too many labor disputes of national importance were brought too close-in to the White House. Actually, on occasion, Dr. Steelman and/or I became involved in what might be called super-mediation or last-ditch mediation on

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some major strikes, not only in the railroad industry or steel industry, but in others, particularly atomic energy. Secondly, there was a panel set up during the Truman administration to deal with atomic energy disputes, and obviously anything that was set up in the White House in the field of labor relations would come under the general supervision of Dr. Steelman.

There was another facet to Dr. Steelman's office which I don't think too many people in the White House realized the importance of. As I am sure you are aware, sometimes disputes arise between Cabinet members and or agencies. Oftentimes, these are jurisdictional over who's going to run which program--things of that nature. Now in this area I think the President relied almost completely on Dr. Steelman's prior experience as a top mediator to bring in the Cabinet members involved, and to work out some sort of mediation agreement, as to their problems vis-a-vis each other and their institutional squabbles over who's going to do what. In this area Dr. Steelman played a very important role and one which, I am sure, even some of my fellow staff members in the White House were not aware.

HESS: Did you ever hear any comment by the two gentlemen who served as Secretaries of Labor for Mr. Truman? Mr. [Lewis B] Schwellenbach was there until the

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summer of 1948; that was the time of his death. Then there was a period of a couple of months when there was no Secretary of Labor, and then Maurice Tobin took over, in August of 1948. Did you ever hear those two men comment on the Steelman setup in the White House?

STOWE: I never heard any comments from Schwellenbach, because by the time I arrived in the White House he was ill, and I don't believe he functioned completely as the Secretary of Labor during the latter part of his term before his death.

I had a lot of contacts with Morrie Tobin. I never heard any complaint or any suggestion that we were interfering in his business. Although I could well understand that Secretaries of Labor, particularly in this more modern viewpoint, do handle all these independent agencies, that wasn't the way it was set up under the Truman administration, and frankly, no, I never heard any complaints from Morrie Tobin. There may have been some complaints from lesser lights within his department who were interested in getting their relationships with independent agencies perhaps on a stronger basis, but I never heard anything from Maurice Tobin.

HESS: How successful was Dr. Steelman in dealing with

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labor matters?

STOWE: Well, I think his record probably speaks for itself. He was considered then, and still is looked upon, as one of the best mediators that we've ever had. He, Cy Ching, and George Taylor are spoken of in the same general category of ability as top mediators.

HESS: How did he go about the job? Did he have anything in particular, any particular methods of operation, that helped him be successful in that?

STOWE: Well, first of all, he had the personality and the patience and the know-how that is just absolutely essential to any mediator. If I could write a book, now that I'm here at the National Mediation Board, on how to do this I'd make a fortune. It's quite simple to write a book on how to become an arbitrator, which I was for the past 17 years before I came over here. But no one has written a book on how to mediate; it's a matter of personality; it's a matter of sense of timing; it's a matter of knowledge; and most of all it's winning the confidence and trust of the parties. I can't say just what made him great except that he was.

HESS: Do you personally find it more difficult to be a

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mediator than to be an arbitrator?

STOWE: Yes. As an arbitrator, you have simply a judgment to make against any given body of law which normally is the contract between the parties; that is, to interpret and apply. As a mediator, you are trying to bring people together often when they don't want to come together, don't want to make an agreement; it becomes very difficult and requires a great deal of innovation and ingenuity to do it. I would say that it also represents a person who does not impose his judgment on what the parties should do, as an arbitrator does, but it required him in a very adroit way, to sell the idea of what they should do. I sometimes wonder, looking back on mediators I have known, including Dr. Steelman and members of this board--my predecessors--whether mediators can ever become good administrators. The simple reason is that they are so conditioned not to make decisions and not to administer things. I would say this was one of the things, when I was Dr. Steelman's deputy, that I found myself insisting on time and time again, and that was that the time would come when he had to make decisions. Instead, he was more prone to let the parties work things out. That's fine if you can get them worked out, but in the White House sooner or later you may have to make a decision.

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HESS: In regard to Dr. Steelman's position as The Assistant to the President, as opposed to the position of the special counsel, let's discuss that just for a moment. Were there periods when there was a certain rivalry going on, or a friction that may have been present between Steelman and Mr. Clifford?

STOWE: Well, let me put it in a framework. Whenever you are responsible for the general government operation, obviously there are areas where the President is also going to be consulting with his legal counsel as counsel, as opposed to law officer. Also, the charter of the Director of the Bureau of the Budget was that of making him, in effect, overall manager of the government. So there was always potential conflict between the office that Dr. Steelman held, and that of the legal counsel within the White House, and also with the Director of the Bureau of the Budget who technically at that time was the overall manager of the government establishment.

I would say that at a time in '47 there was perhaps some minor conflict. It never got beyond the level of "minor" for the simple reason that Mr. Truman was not the type of person that would tolerate that kind of business. And secondly, the staff of both the legal counsel and the people who worked with him, such as Charlie Murphy, myself, and Steelman

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felt that on many of those things we could avoid the appearance of conflict by working them out. So, I would say that conflict was at a minimum. Frankly, one of the reasons Mr. Webb was disposed to allow me to go over, for a while--it was originally to have been a one year assignment--as a deputy to Steelman, who was a good friend of his, was to make sure no conflict developed between them. As former Chief Examiner of the Bureau of the Budget, I understood both the functions of the Bureau and of Steelman's office and no conflict ever developed. You will find that most of the Directors of the Budget, namely Jim Webb, Fred Lawton, Frank Pace, and some of those who followed during our administration, did not find themselves in conflict with John Steelman because I think the coordination between his office and their office was fairly well worked out.

HESS: How would you characterize the relationship between Dr. Steelman and Charles Murphy?

STOWE: Well they had worked together for a number of years before Murphy became legal counsel; they got along very well and there was little or no conflict. Dr. Steelman clearly recognized the areas of Mr. Murphy's assignment as well as his inordinate ability to work with the President and vice-versa. Mr.

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Murphy's not the type of person who felt that anything was being added or subtracted from his function, busy as it was.

HESS: For just a few moments, let's discuss a few of the men that were on Dr. Steelman's staff; if you can tell me just a little bit about what their functions were, or if you worked with them on a particular job. Russell P. Andrews was special assistant to Dr. Steelman from 1950 until after the election in 1952. This was a little bit after your time, is that right?

STOWE: Yes, after my time...

HESS: After your time with Steelman.

STOWE: ...but Russ Andrews had worked for me in the Bureau of the Budget. Harold Enarson, who succeeded me in Steelman's office, was appointed to the Stabilization Board and they needed someone to serve as an office manager in Dr. Steelman's office. Russ Andrews was suggested by either Enarson or myself, I don't know which, and was put over there primarily as a general office manager assistant to Dr. Steelman.

HESS: Well, Harold Enarson was special assistant in Dr. Steelman's office, from September '50 to August 4th, '52.

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STOWE: Yes.

HESS: Late in the administration also. How did he come into the White House?

STOWE: The same way. Harold worked for me in the Bureau of the Budget. I thought he came over a little before that, because I left Dr. Steelman actually after the election of '48. I was shifted over, working with him with the National Security Resources Board (NSRB). And it was during that time I was made Administrative Assistant to the President, although for a few months I continued to remain at the NSRB.

Dr. Steelman was the titular head and I was actually spending most of my time there. I remember, now, that Bob Turner also served as a deputy to John Steelman in the White House. The President appointed Turner to the Council of Economic Advisers, and it was at that point when Dr. Steelman didn't have any assistant in his White House staff office. Harold Enarson went over as a replacement in the areas that Bob Turner and I had covered.

HESS: And William Bray was Special Assistant to Dr. Steelman from April '47 to April '49.

STOWE: Yes. Bill Bray had been with the President in the '48 campaign and had, I think, been with John

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Steelman at some point prior to that. When he returned after the campaign, or thereabouts, I believe, he did go in as a Special Assistant to Dr. Steelman. Precisely what he did there I am not too well aware.

HESS: James V. Fitzgerald, from '47 to '51.

STOWE: Jim Fitzgerald was the public relations person. I believe he had been public relations director for Francis Perkins, in the Department of Labor. He was there when I arrived, and I think he had been the Director of Information for the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion; he remained on with Dr. Steelman for a period of time. He left sometime in 1949.

HESS: John Gibson, as advertising liaison and public relations from '46 to '50.

STOWE: This was one of the functions set up originally in OWMR. It dealt with the Advertising Council. I don't know the precise functions it had over in OWMR. The Advertising Council was made up of advertising people. You may recall that there was a lot of public service advertising going on, and I think Gibson's main function was to allocate public interest advertising time among the various

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Government programs, because everybody was trying to get as much free advertising as they could. The Advertising Council had insisted, both prior to the time I became aware of it and during the time I was aware of it, that there be someone, and they preferred that that someone be in the White House. They wanted someone who would have the authority to allocate and to tell the Government agencies whether they could have free advertising. The advertising people did not want to make these decisions as between programs and agencies but wanted the Government to do so.

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