Rufus B. Burrus Oral History Interview, November 20, 1985

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

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

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 It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.

Opened December 1986
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

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JOHNSON: Do you know anything about the papers that Truman accumulated during his first term as Senator; the fate of those papers? Do you have any idea what happened to them?

BURRUS: I have no idea. Nothing. I never saw them, and I presume that as Senator he would have had files. I know this much about it. After he was elected Senator, I happened to go back to Washington and I came in to visit with him at his office. He had a bundle of photographs of himself. He opened up one of them and he said, "This is one of the first ones that I've had to take out," and he said, "I want to autograph this to you." And he did. It's on my wall now. But he didn't put any date on it. Soon after that he said, "You know, I learned something when I gave you that one; I ought to put the date on there." He said, "I learned from then on to put the date on things so that the person knows when it happened." I said, "Well, that's hanging up on my wall, or will be upon the wall." He said, "That's all right; you know when

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you got it." I said, "Yes, I remember you telling me when I was here in your office that it was one of the first bundles of pictures that you took out, and you gave one to me."

JOHNSON: Historians sure appreciate it too, when they see dates on photos and letters. Again, perhaps that is part of his sense of history that you should date letters and documents.

BURRUS: Just a second before you get along here any further.You know, he was a friend of a former Congressman from St. Joseph --Richard Duncan. He finally became a Federal judge. He ran for election and got defeated. He wrote letters to Truman in which he wanted to come and visit with him about some judgeship or some other kind of "ship," he called it. Truman said, "Come on;" and he did. Senator Truman later sent his name in for the judgeship between St. Louis and Kansas City; it was called the roving Federal District Judge seat. They didn't get anything done with it; it just kept laying there, and Truman kept needling the Attorney General. Anyhow, he was the one that had to pass on it, and he

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didn't get it done. Well, President Roosevelt was wanting to get some things done after a time through Truman. When Truman got word about that, he decided that politics is a two-way street. He got word back to Roosevelt about this nomination that was being held up. In the meantime, Truman's nominee was acting as a judge without having any express confirmation; he was waiting to be confirmed. Finally, Mr. Roosevelt got his name in and he was confirmed. I recall this because I was asked by the Bar Association to make an address to them about the judge after he died. I researched it and made the speech. I found out that Francis Biddle, in his memoirs, made a statement and had some letters from Roosevelt to him about Duncan.

JOHNSON: Yes, I've heard the name.

BURRUS: I'll give you the gist of it, but you can get it exactly, because I've got a copy of it that's in my file. Biddle received the letter from Mr. Roosevelt in which the President said that some little time had gone on, and Duncan had not been confirmed. Roosevelt told Biddle that Mr. Duncan seemed to be well-qualified

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and that all the lawyers in the district supported him. And he said that it didn't take a Harvard Law School graduate to be a United States District Judge. It took someone with good common sense. He noted too that the Senator was pressing him on the issue. He requested Biddle to review his files and do something about it. Biddle did, and Duncan was confirmed as a judge.

What I'm getting around to is that here is an example of Senator Truman using his weight to get something done on an appointment through the President.

Mr. Duncan did make a good judge; everybody acknowledged that. He had good common sense and he looked at the law objectively. He followed the spirit of the law as well. This event was what brought Truman to the attention of Mr. Roosevelt more forcefully than any thing else, that I can determine.

So when it came time for Mr. Roosevelt to find somebody to replace Wallace, Senator Truman came to his mind I'm sure. Here was a man who stood steadfast with his appointees and his friends, and he had the

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backing of the people there generally. He would be one that, if he was a Vice President, would stay within the terms of the position, do what he ought to do, be steadfast and not vacillate. I speculate that is what came to Roosevelt's mind.

Henry Wallace wasn't that kind of a fellow. He just would do whatever seemed to be in his best interest.

Also on the matter of Jimmy Byrnes, Mr. Truman told me he became a little too big for his britches. He said that he called him in and told him that the President made foreign policy; that the Secretary of State only carried out the foreign policy that the President made. He said that the President is the one who makes statements about foreign policy, and not the Secretary of State, unless the President told the Secretary of State to do it. In other words, he was critical of what Byrnes was doing. Byrnes promised Mr. Truman that he wouldn't do anything like that anymore, but when he did do it, Truman said the only thing I could do with him was just to have him hand in his resignation, and get him out. And he did.

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JOHNSON: He also parted company with Henry Wallace, who was Secretary of Commerce and then made a speech on foreign policy, in spite of the fact that he was Secretary of Commerce.

BURRUS: Yes. Now here's something that recently was in the newspaper's 40 years ago column.

JOHNSON: I see the item. It says that Wallace called President Truman a small opportunistic man and compared [J. Edgar] Hoover with the Nazi gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler. It says the comments were made in a 42-volume diary and sealed on the 10th anniversary of Mr. Wallace's death.

Since we're back in that period again, back in the years of the Truman administration, I might just again mention some letters that you had written to President Truman at that time. I notice for instance in 1946, in a letter to Truman, you noted Truman's support for James Blair, as a Democrat representative from the Columbia-Jefferson City area, or district. You also mention Roger Slaughter's criticism of Truman. I believe James Blair was elected, wasn't he?

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BURRUS: He was elected Governor.

JOHNSON: He was elected Governor?

BURRUS: That's right.

JOHNSON: Do you know what the reason was for the friction between Roger Slaughter and Harry Truman?

BURRUS: Yes, Roger Slaughter was a young fellow that lived up the street, just a block and a half from where Harry Truman did on Waldo. He was an only child; he was educated at the university back there and he had a big ego. He was critical of Senator Truman's support of the Fair Labor Standards law, in the 1930s. He made the statement, publicly, that Mr. Truman either never read it or he never understood it, or else he wouldn't have been so foolish as to be in favor of it. Truman said that Roger had a right to his opinion, but from there on he would have to go by himself. That's where he parted company with Roger.

Because of that, Mr. Truman got one of the lawyers there in Grandview to run against Slaughter for the nomination, and Slaughter was defeated.

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JOHNSON: This would have been for Congress

BURRUS: Yes, but he wasn't elected. It went to a Republican somehow. I remember it.

JOHNSON: I guess they remained on the outs from then on?

BURRUS: That's right. Slaughter was just a haughty sort of a fellow and Truman had to treat him that way.

JOHNSON: He thought Truman was too much a friend of big labor, of labor unions?

BURRUS: Slaughter said that he was too much for labor.

JOHNSON: Did Slaughter represent more the corporate business interests?

BURRUS: He was what you would call a "silk stocking" type of lawyer.

JOHNSON: He did practice law here?

BURRUS: Yes, in Kansas City.

JOHNSON: In January of 1947, you recommended your former commanding officer Colonel Edward Barrett for the

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Governorship of Trieste. I'm wondering if Barrett got that job. What happened to that request?

BURRUS: He got transferred away from there to the Pacific, so he never got a chance to be Governor of Trieste.

JOHNSON: In October of '47 you mention that Forrest Smith might be the candidate for Governor, but you recommended Roe Bartle, instead, as a candidate. Do you remember Truman's reaction to that, or his reaction to Roe Bartle?

BURRUS: Well, he was favorable as far as Roe was concerned, but he wanted somebody that would be more out state and Roe wasn't known too well out state. That's the reason why he thought the other candidate would be better.

JOHNSON: Forrest Smith?

BURRUS: Yes.

JOHNSON: And he was elected wasn't he as Governor?

BURRUS: That's right.

Bartle never did run. He ran for Mayor and that

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was his career.

JOHNSON: They were friends as far as you know?

BURRUS: They were friends. They remained friends up to the time when Truman went out of office, even after that. He and Bartle got together sometimes.

JOHNSON: Also I notice in May of '48 you visited President Truman. That would have been only a few weeks before he made that first trip West in June, to give that commencement address out in California. He made whistlestops along the way; it was sort of a fore runner of that fall campaign, the whistlestop campaign Do you remember him saying anything about running again in '48, about his methods or tactics, or any thing about the '48 campaign that early in the year?

BURRUS: No, I don't remember it if he did. I always knew though, when it came time for campaigning, he'd be out on the campaign trail.

JOHNSON: Do you recall the reason you were in Washington at that time?

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BURRUS: Well, I don't recall.

JOHNSON: Around July of '48 you wrote this open letter to Floyd Gibson that was in the newspapers. I'm not clear about the details of that. Apparently Gibson had been a supporter of Milligan in the previous campaigns. Do you recall what Gibson was running for in that campaign?

BURRUS: He was running for Congress.

JOHNSON: Congressman in '48. He was trying to kind of tie himself to the coattails of President Truman, I would gather, and you took exception to that..,

BURRUS: That's right.

JOHNSON: Did Gibson ever go anywhere politically?

BURRUS: Yes. He was a senator in the state legislature of Missouri. And he was named to be United States District Judge in Kansas City, the Kansas City Division. After that he was elevated to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals; that's where he finally retired after the years went by. He was appointed before Truman became President.

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When he was in the state legislature, Gibson supported Senator Clark and his folks against Truman when Truman ran for the nomination. So Truman just didn't have any more need to look for him for anything. Anyhow, Gibson did get an appointment as a Federal judge. When it came time to have him installed in Kansas City, Truman was invited to be there, and he came very near not going.- I said, "Well, you've been invited and they want you to come. I'll be willing to take you over. You can go with me and you can just do as you please about what you want to say. Just let it be known that you're there, and you don't have to applaud anything." Well, he did go, but he and Gibson never had anything together at all.

JOHNSON: Also, I see in December of '48 you noted the filing of a decree to incorporate the Jackson County Truman Club. You said that Truman might want to object to the use of his name. Did that go through? Was the Jackson County Truman Club ever established?

BURRUS: I'm not too sure whether it was or not; I don't think so.

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JOHNSON: I notice in 1949 that among other things you noted that the Army Reserve seemed to be kind of weak and needed more money, more appropriations. I guess President Truman sort of agreed with you. I would imagine the situation didn't change probably very much, at least until the Korean war, because of lower appropriations for defense in those days?

BURRUS: That's right.

JOHNSON: Were you president of the ROA at that time?

BURRUS: The Kansas City chapter of the ROA, not the national.

JOHNSON: Then there was that Boyle dinner, honoring William Boyle in October '49. Were you there at that dinner?

BURRUS: Yes.

JOHNSON: Any special recollections?

BURRUS: Well, there was a lot of good Democrats there. Boyle was a good Democrat, and he was one of Truman's

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friends back in Washington. They were very helpful to each other.

JOHNSON: So it was just a good old-fashioned kind of Democrat rally?

BURRUS: I think one of his brothers had been one of the aides to Mr. Truman in the White House at one time, too.

JOHNSON: In 1949 you were also elected as president of the Missouri Bar Association. How long did you serve in that?

BURRUS: One year. I had come up as a vice president, and then from there was president. Here's the way that happened. When I came back from the service in 1945, I learned about the activities of the Missouri Bar and how they were doing things. I went down to Jefferson City. On the way back I stopped at Sedalia, because one of the Board of Governors of the Missouri Bar and the secretary was a Republican, Don Lamb, the son of a judge. Ordinarily he would be in line to go up the next step from secretary to the vice presidency,

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and then on to the presidency. So I stopped to visit with him. He was glad to see me and said, "Get back to practice law now for awhile." So that's what I did.

Sometime later the Bar Association met in Kansas City. I was on the board by reason of being in the district out here, the Independence area, which was separate from the Kansas City area. I was going to be present at the affair in the afternoon, when the election came up. I happened to see Don on the street around noontime, and I said, "I'm going to nominate you this afternoon to be vice president," and smiled to him. He said, "Well, you think you are, but I'm not going to run. You go ahead and do what you want to, but when you get there I'll be there too."

So I arose for the purpose of making a nominating speech; I didn't make it too long. He replied that he had told me to go ahead and do it, but he wasn't going to accept. He said he didn't want to be vice president because that would lead to the presidency and he didn't feel he could give the job the time it required. He said he wasn't going to do it, but then added, "But I'm going to nominate the Colonel." And he did. They

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made me vice president, instead of him. Sure enough, the next year I was elevated to the office of presidency, which wouldn't ordinarily have happened that way except that Donald wouldn't accept the vice presidency.

JOHNSON: Was that a full time job? In other words, how did it affect your law practice?

BURRUS: It took a lot of time because we had to attend the various meetings of all of the 116 counties of the association and the State Bar, and all of that. I traveled as the vice president quite often with the president and we would go together. They were going separately, and I said to the president, "There's no reason for the two of us to drive our car around separately. Let me pick you up so we can get together." He said, "All right."

JOHNSON: Share the work.

BURRUS: That's right. I was in effect doing what the president was doing by going along with him, but I wanted to find out who the active members were in the local associations that would help the Bar at

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the state level. That was one way I could keep track of, and know, and become acquainted with those in their various places of business. I would see them in their offices, in their own surroundings. That's how I finally got to be the president of the Missouri Bar.

JOHNSON: This put you on the national scene too.

BURRUS: That's right.

They had the custom that the retiring president was made a member of the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association. So I fell into that too. I was also a member of the group up there called the President's organization, representing the various States. And later I was named as the representative of the Kansas City Bar on the American Bar. Altogether, I served twenty years in the house of delegates of the American Bar Association.

JOHNSON: Are there any particular recollections of that year that you were president of the Missouri Bar? I've read something about how you emphasized the need to enlarge the membership or to get more lawyers involved in the activities of the association.

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BURRUS: Every lawyer that practiced in the state had to be a member of the Missouri Bar. It wasn't a question of whether you wanted to, for when you registered you did become automatically a member of the Missouri Bar. You voted in the district in which you lived. You might have your office in another place but it was generally required that you do it from your place of residence. Jackson and various other neighboring counties were District 3.

I attended annual meetings of the American Bar. There was always one meeting of the year that was in Washington, and the other time it would be in different places, such as New York, San Francisco, Atlanta and other places.

JOHNSON: A good deal of traveling for you, no doubt.

BURRUS: They never even paid expenses for me as president. I paid my own expenses to go to state and national meetings. After I was out, the policy changed so the next president received expenses. Anyhow, I enjoyed it.

JOHNSON: I notice that in 1951 you wrote a scathing letter

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to William Huie who wrote an article on Truman in the Cosmopolitan magazine. You charged him with half truths and certain falsehoods. It was kind of interesting to note Truman's reply to your letter. He agreed, of course, with you, but he said, "I don't let these things bother me, for the simple reason I know that I'm trying to do the right thing, and eventually the facts will come out." I suppose that was kind of a typical response of Truman to some of these critics?

BURRUS: That's right. He said, in a little more pointed language, "The more you handle a turd, the more stink you get." In other words, he just ignored it. He said, "That's the best way."

JOHNSON: Let the record speak for itself. Was that his approach?

BURRUS: That's right. That's the reason I hesitated to try to answer this fellow here, because it just gives dignity to something that doesn't really deserve any.

JOHNSON: You feel that the record will speak for itself?

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BURRUS: Especially if people would read Mr. Truman's Memoirs. He wrote, and he had documents to sustain what he said. He had helpers that got the facts out for him, and helped him put it together so it could be published. And it was published.

JOHNSON: I guess we're finally up here to the post-Presidential period. But maybe I should ask you this, you were home here on that last day that President Truman served in office, January 20, 1953. Were you down here to meet him when he arrived at the depot, along with the rest of them?

BURRUS: That's right. And I saw him the next day or two a couple of times.

JOHNSON: After he returned home he referred to himself as "Mr. Citizen." I would imagine that you and President Truman visited together a good deal during those years.

BURRUS: Yes. He had his office downtown in the Federal Reserve Bank Building, if you remember. Occasionally I'd stop out there to see him at the bank building,

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and sometimes, if he was going down to the Club, we'd walk down the street together to the Club.

JOHNSON: The Kansas City Club?

BURRUS: The Kansas City Club. Sometimes I'd go to lunch with him, and he'd have somebody else he was going to be with. I'd take care of myself, but we'd walk down together.

I remember one time that we were walking down the street, and we met a state Supreme Court justice named Hyde. He was being mentioned as a member, or prospective member, of the United States Supreme Court. We had a Republican President [Eisenhower] at the time. Mr. Truman knew Mr. Hyde and he said, "Judge Hyde, if they had any sense, political sense, or any other good common sense, they'd nominate you because you'd make a good judge and you're the kind of a fellow that gives them the law as it should be. You've got a good background as a Republican, too, and that's what they should do with you." Then he said, "But they're not good enough and smart enough to do it I'm afraid; they won't do it." And they didn't do it. But he wanted him

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to know that he would have enjoyed seeing being there. Judge Hyde smiled and said, "It'll happen sometime, but I'm not in any hurry about it. I'm not worrying about it." He stayed on the bench down there until he retired.

JOHNSON: I guess there were a number of Republicans in that Kansas City Club, weren't there, that he learned to be friendly with?

BURRUS: We called it the 1122 Club; it was on the eleventh floor of the Kansas City Club Building. He had good Democrat friends there too. They had a dining room there and they had a place where they played poker. That's where I met the men who later built the Library here for him.

JOHNSON: Massman?

BURRUS: [Henry] Massman and [Salvador] Patti.

I'll tell you the story. Mr. Truman asked me to meet him at lunch over there. I said, "Yes, I'll be there. I suppose the Club?" "Yes." "1122 Club?" "That's right." I said, "Twelve o'clock?" "Oh yes, oh yes." About fifteen minutes later I had a telephone

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call from Tom Evans. Tom said, "Rufe, did the Boss ask you to go to lunch today?" I said, "Yes." "Did he tell you what he wanted? "No." "Well, he wants to start the Library next Monday." And he said, "We can't let him do it." I said, "We can't let him do it?" He said, "Yes." And I said, "Why include me? You might say it, but you don't have to include me." "Oh," he said, "we don't have any plans and specifications; we don't have any contract; we haven't got any bids. He just wants to shake hands with two friends and let them build the Library for him, at cost."

I said, "Well, if he wants to do it, why should you object?" "Well," he said, "it's trust money that they're spending." I said, "Well, they trusted him; they didn't trust you or me." He said, "Well, he shouldn't do that and we shouldn't let him." I said, "you be there at noon today; you tell him, don't tell me."

Mr. Truman introduced me to Mr. Massman and Mr.Patti. I said, "I know them both." He said, "They're ready to build the Library for me for $1." I said,

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"Chief, let's shake hands on that; you can't get it any cheaper." "Well, I've got to give them a little cost," he said, "but you go and make it legal."

JOHNSON: Cost plus $1.

BURRUS: I knew what he meant, and I went to their lawyers whom I knew. We dictated a letter that was only about twelve or fourteen lines at the time, telling what he was going to do --give $100,000 to them to start with, and maybe some more. Later, a new letter was put into the file that was more formal than that first one. That first one I can't find anyplace, but I've found the other one. It was bought in the name of the Truman Library Corporation. That was a not-for-profit corporation that could save some taxes for the builder. They got the job done, for $1,750,000, including the furnishings and things that had to be done to get the building finished.

JOHNSON: So you had something to do with the legal work there. You were the one that took Truman's informal agreement with Massman and Patti and put it into writing.

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BURRUS: Just shaking hands; that's all there was. Then we had this Clerk of the Works, and he was the fellow that ordered the materials and handled the workers, and to whom the money was furnished. We had a right to check but we knew they were doing a good job and Mr. Truman was out here every day seeing everything. He got acquainted with those workmen. They weren't working for Mr. Massman or Mr. Patti; they were working for Harry Truman.

So instead of getting an eight-hour day from them he got what was equivalent to twelve hours from the most expert, competent, and capable artisans.

JOHNSON: Were you what would be called the family lawyer, for the Truman family?

BURRUS: Yes.

JOHNSON: They did use lawyers for other things too, I guess, like the contract on his book, his Memoirs, Sam Rosenman helped him in that.

BURRUS: Yes.

JOHNSON: Then there was the Arthur Mag firm, I believe.

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BURRUS: Mag's firm, yes. Truman had made a will back in Washington that Rosenman had made. After he came back here, they sent it to Mag's firm. He was a friend of Truman's, and he had other folks in there besides that to work with him. I knew him too and I knew Mr. Mag. We got along all the way. When it came time, though, that Mr. Truman wanted to have a codicil to the will, he told me he wanted me to prepare it. He wrote it out, and I prepared a codicil for him. I said, "This must be put along with your will, and I would hope that you go to the same witnesses, if you had any witnesses that were local, so you won't have two groups of witnesses, one for the will and the other for the codicil." Well, he had already made one codicil, I understood. I took the new codicil over to Mr. Mag. I said, "Now, Mr. Truman's going to be over here and execute this, and we have these same witnesses." So that's what happened there.

JOHNSON: Was that a final will, so to speak?

BURRUS: Final codicil, yes. That's the one where he wanted to leave some money to some of his folks. He left

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one nephew, John, out because he was in the priesthood. He didn't say so, but I know he had in the back of his mind that his nephew couldn't have money and that it would go to the Catholic hierarchy, instead. After a time, though, John withdrew from the priesthood, and everybody in the family wanted to have him included. So he finally got the same recognition as the others did.

JOHNSON: I suppose he took a vow of poverty while he was in the priesthood.

BURRUS: That's right, and Truman knew that.

JOHNSON: What was his name?

BURRUS: John Truman. He was Vivian's oldest grandson, J.C. Truman's son. J.C. lives here in town; he's the oldest son of Vivian.

JOHNSON: You had a business relationship with him, with Truman, being the family lawyer, but was it still a pretty informal and rather personal kind of relationship?

BURRUS: That's right.

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JOHNSON: I notice that he sent you some money because you weren't billing him. Didn't you start billing him at some point?

BURRUS: No.

JOHNSON: Never did?

BURRUS: No. I came out here one morning and he said, "I want you to look after my sister Mary. She's got some things that need to be taken care of, some leases and other things. I don't want to have to do it myself; you see about doing it for her." I said, "All right." So I went out to see Miss Mary and told her Harry asked me to come out and do what she needed done. I knew her well. So we sat down and from there on she came to me.

One day Mr. Truman said, "You haven't sent me a bill for Miss Mary." I said, "No, I'm not going to send you a bill for Miss Mary, either her or you." He then sent me a check for $1,000 and I brought it back to him. I told him I wouldn't take it. I left it with him. A few days later he sent me another one. That check I never cashed. Every once in a while somebody

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would say, "You haven't cashed Mr. Truman's check." I'd say, "No, I told him I wasn't going to cash it. I sent one of them back and he keeps sending it to me, so I just quit returning it. I'm just going to put this one in the file," and I've still got it in my file now.

JOHNSON: Is that right? The second check?

BURRUS: That last check, that's right. I never did cash it. I took care of Miss Mary's will. We got that taken care of. It looked like earlier that she wouldn't have too much of an estate, because her land out there at Grandview didn't have then the value that it finally turned out to be. Her estate finally turned out to be a million dollars.

JOHNSON: Was that mostly the land that was bought by Truman Corners Shopping Center?

BURRUS: She got some money out of that, the Truman Corners part, but she had some land on Blue Ridge Boulevard that gained in value. They just got the estate of hers

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closed up now, and sold the last piece of land that she had. More than a million dollars finally came out of all of that.

JOHNSON: It's a fact, of course, that there was no pension for former Presidents when Truman left office.

BURRUS: Not for a long time, that's right.

JOHNSON: It was 1958, or about five years before Congress passed a law. So he had to raise his own money, so to speak, and I suppose use whatever savings he had. The book contract on his Memoirs must have been his largest single source.

BURRUS: But that cost him money to have that published, because he had to have people working on it. He said he hardly broke even on that. So he told me.

JOHNSON: I think the total contract came to about $600,000, which was a lot of money in those days.

The sale of land, farm land, for the Truman Corners Shopping Center--would that have been the other major source of income?

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BURRUS: He got some of it, Mary got some of it, and Vivian got some of it. That's right. Mr. Truman also had some land across the road, and he disposed of that too before he died.

JOHNSON: Was that about 600 acres total for all the Trumans?

BURRUS: That's right. As a matter of fact, it came from the Youngs; it was called the Solomon Young farm, and they had 5,000 acres altogether in the original part.

JOHNSON: You mean back around the Civil War period?

BURRUS: Well, after the Civil War too. I don't know exactly the period.

JOHNSON: Apparently he also owned land at one time which was right next to Cave Spring Park. Did you handle the legal details on the sale of the farm land for the shopping center?

BURRUS: Oh yes, I took care of that. As a matter of fact, they had a contract to buy. Included in the contract as a provision that it must be concluded at a certain time and on a certain day. We hoped that they wouldn't

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conclude the sale, because when it got to be known that that was up and for sale, other folks came up and wanted to buy. They would give us a better price for it. We thought maybe the buyer would stub his toe and wouldn't come in and complete the deal, but they did --just an hour and a half or two hours before the deadline. So we had to go through with that contract.

JOHNSON: He loved that farm, I think, from what I have read.

BURRUS: He did, and the house. That's the reason that the boys held out, the house, and finally sold it to the state. The Federal Government furnished some of the money for it. That's now a historical site.

JOHNSON: Also, wasn't it his idea to build the Library down there originally?

BURRUS: He talked about that, yes. But he concluded that it was out of the way for researchers and visitors to get there. Secondly, it would be more convenient for him if they had the Library here where it would be only a few blocks from his home on Delaware. It

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also would be where he had his boyhood, where his wife had lived, and where he had been all these years. He concluded it ought to be here. He even considered at one time having it down at Columbia, Missouri, but he decided that was not the place for it.

Also the City of Independence had a park that was a part of this land, and above it was higher ground, with some houses on it, and he said that would be a better place for it. Well, the city raised $100,000 and negotiated and bought those houses, and that became the eastern part of the Truman Library land.

JOHNSON: I suppose you were involved with those transactions.

BURRUS: That's right. He wanted the Government, after the Library was built, to take it over. We would give it to them, but in order to do it, you had to have an Act of Congress, authorizing it. There was a lawyer that had been on his staff in Washington, and he came here several times, and he's the one that negotiated and got the thing started. It got through Congress and Congress made the transaction that authorized the

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Federal Government to take it over. I had the deeds all ready. I had prepared the deeds to make the transfer, and was informed the papers had been sent to the United States District Attorney for him to handle the legal aspect. I got hold of him and asked him what he wanted me to do. He said we would have to have a guaranteed title policy. I said, "You mean, when we give you something we've got to guarantee a good title to it? We're just giving it to you." "Yes," he said. "Now," I said, "that isn't real. You don't want to examine a title, you don't know whether the title is good or bad, you don't want to have to do it, and you want somebody else to do it for you. But if you want one you can pay for it. We'll go ahead and get one." He said, "Well, we'll pay for it."

So I made application to a title company, and the title company said, "Yes, we'll approve it, if you give us an opinion that the title's good." I said, "I sure will." I had examined the titles to the various tracts and I knew what they were. Upon my opinion they guaranteed the title to the United States Government and that still stands here since the time it was done.

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The Government paid the cost of the title policy.

JOHNSON: There were a number of fund raising projects, including the auction here in Independence. Do you remember that auction that they had to help raise money to build the Library?

BURRUS: I don't remember that particularly, no.

JOHNSON: Did you go to the 1956 Democrat Convention with Truman, or were you in Chicago for that event?

BURRUS: No.

JOHNSON: Did you involve yourself at all with any of his political activities from 1956 through 1960 when he went out to speak for Kennedy after a little controversy occurred? Did you involve yourself at all with any of this?

BURRUS: That was all taken care of by the National Committee of the Democrat party, and the candidates' folks. They are the ones that made contact directly with him about where he would go and what would happen to him. I didn't have any part in that.

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JOHNSON: Did he ever talk to you about any of the Democrat candidates? Do you remember any comments that he made to you about Stevenson and about Harriman or Kennedy perhaps?

BURRUS: He was a little bit hurt because Stevenson wouldn't make his mind up about what he was going to do. He kept holding back. Mr. Truman said he tried to impress on him that if he was going to be the candidate, he had to get out there and get it done. He couldn't just lay back and let the thing drag along.

JOHNSON: In 1960 he got embroiled in a controversy because he said that the Kennedys were rigging the convention.

BURRUS: Yes. Really he never relished the idea of Kennedy being a candidate. It wasn't because of the Kennedy boys, but it was their pop as he said. He said, "It wasn't the Pope, it was the pop." He said that he distrusted the old gentleman. Things had happened that he said he had known about it, and he just didn't want to have anything to do with him. Finally, John Kennedy disassociated himself from his father to the

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that it was evident that he was going to be his own man and that his father wasn't going to have control over him. He came out here as you remember. I was here when he came out.

JOHNSON: At that press conference?

BURRUS: That's right. Mr. Truman met him back in his suite there, got him by the arm, and said, "I want you to get up there and make this speech you need to make." He kind of shook his arm. And he said that from then on Mr. Kennedy got into it. Kennedy needed to be assured that Truman was really going to push him, and he did push him in the campaign.

JOHNSON: You were back there in the office?

BURRUS: Well, I would be there a little while. He talked with him by himself; nobody intruded themselves in there. But I would be available.

JOHNSON: Also at that conference were "Scoop" (Henry), Jackson and Stuart Symington.

BURRUS: That's right.

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JOHNSON: Were you acquainted with Symington?

BURRUS: Yes.

JOHNSON: Truman had supported Symington earlier for the nomination in 1960. Did he ever talk to you about Symington or Harriman and why he admired them so much?

BURRUS: Well, Symington was a local person and he made a good Senator. Truman thought that he had the ability, and he displayed that when he was Senator. Of course, Harriman, to him, was one of the best Democrats. He felt that Harriman was a loyal Democrat, but that he looked beyond the party to the broader picture. And he had the ability to understand and make himself under stood with foreign governments.

JOHNSON: Took the broad view.

BURRUS: That's right, with the British, and with the Russians and all the rest of them. He was a roving envoy for the United States Government, not just for the President who happened to be sitting at the time. Truman noted that on the political side he got to be a Governor, and that was a big thing for him to do that.

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He had to get out and campaign for that; he was able to do it, and did do it.

JOHNSON: You're on the Board of Truman Library's Institute [for National and International Affairs]. You're one of the charter members, I suppose.

BURRUS: I was one of the first members. I had done the legal work that had to be done to get it together. They just keep carrying me on as the registered agent for the Institute.

JOHNSON: Do you remember the early meetings of the Truman Institute's Board?

BURRUS: Yes.

JOHNSON: Among those attending were Charles Brannan, Dean Acheson, Chief Justice Earl Warren, and others. You got acquainted with all these people through your connections with the Board.

BURRUS: Yes.

I ought to remember Warren. I was going to take him to dinner before they had to leave on the plane. Some of them said they were going to go over to meet

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at the hotel, and we should go to the hotel. I said, "No, gentlemen, don't go to the hotel; in case you want to get a drink, let's go next door where there's a private place, at the Kansas City Club. Come on over as my guest."

So I took them over. There were some drinks to go around, and I said, "Now, some of you are going to have to leave on a plane here pretty quickly, and you can't get your dinner too soon. You can sit down at a table up here, and you can talk, and nobody is going to bother you. People will treat you with all the courtesies you're entitled to. Let's go over there." So we sat down at that table, and placed orders. Then I took Mr. Warren to the airport because he had to go earlier than the rest of them did. I came back, and some of them stayed there until after 10 o'clock. They had the most delightful time. John Snyder was there with them.

JOHNSON: Do you remember any of the others that were there?

BURRUS: Dean Acheson, I remember.

JOHNSON: In the same vein, let's say you had a group of

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Truman's friends meeting around a table, informally, and with Harry Truman there.

I was just wondering what kind of a conversationalist Harry Truman was. Was he one who would initiate conversation, or would he kind of pick up on something that somebody else started? Did he project himself, or did he kind of hold back?

BURRUS: He didn't try to dominate things. He would listen to see what they were doing, and follow along. It was just like what he did in the Board meetings. He didn't initiate anything on the Board; he never did when he was a member of the Board.

JOHNSON: So he would wait for somebody else maybe to initiate, and then he'd kind of pick up on it?

BURRUS: That's right. He knew what they had on the agenda, what they were going to do, and what they proposed to do. So he had his mind made up about it; he didn't initiate it.

JOHNSON: How did he view the purpose of the Library as you understood it? What did he think was perhaps

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the most important purpose?

BURRUS: It was for the purpose of having his letters and documents and all those things preserved and catalogued, so folks could come and see them. These were the original materials for history, and that's what they needed to have. He said that other Presidents had scattered their papers all over the place and some of them were destroyed. He said he wanted his papers here.

Then the other thing was to attract people to come see things like those Arabic swords and daggers, and costly gifts which he wouldn't accept for himself. He said that they were given to him because he was President of the United States, and they belonged to all of the people. Of course, that's the reason why exhibits have been set up here.

JOHNSON: Apparently he did not want too much focus on him personally in the exhibits of the Library.

BURRUS: That's right.

JOHNSON: Did you ever hear him talk about his view of the museum, what kind of focus it should have?

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BURRUS: The thing that he wanted and which was done was to have an exhibit about the six jobs of the Presidency. He wanted people to know that's what he said the office of the Presidency was.

JOHNSON: Did you go around with him through the museum several times?

BURRUS: That's right.

JOHNSON: Did he point to particular items as of particular interest to him, do you remember?

BURRUS: Yes. I would be with him when he would take people through, and hear what he had to say about it. First he would come into the big foyer there, where they have the big mural painting, "Independence and the Opening of the West." He would mention his sitting with the artist and concluding what they would do. They finally thought it would be good to commemorate the three big trails that start here, and depict the indigenous individuals that lived here. He wanted people to see that and he did point it out to them.

Also on exhibit in the main lobby area were some

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autographs of people like Mrs. Roosevelt and Eisenhower and other people. These autographs were in books that were opened up so people could see them. Then there were the daggers with the emeralds and other gems on the scabbards --the "hardware" he called it. I remember, too, there were gifts from Israel and the Jewish folks, such as a clay lamp that had a place for a wick and oil. That was one thing he would point out to them.

JOHNSON: He really liked that?

BURRUS: He liked everything.

Also, there was a big vase that had been put back together. He'd point out how that had been broken. Then, there was that mask--that helmet --that had been used in earlier times.

JOHNSON: You mean the Greek helmet?

BURRUS: That's right.

JOHNSON: How about your visits to the home? Did you visit in the Truman home occasionally? How often would you visit the family there, would you say?

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BURRUS: While he was still coming to the Library, if it was evening time and he was going someplace, I would take him. I'd go to the house and pick him up. I'd drive in the back yard, and we'd come out the back door and get into the car. We would come back out through the alley. When we returned, I'd take him the back way again. I'd come in through the house and meet him, and he generally was always ready for me. I had the hour and the time to be there, and he'd be ready. I'd come in the back door; wouldn't knock. I'd just come on in and say, "This is Rufus; I'm coming on in." "Come on. Come on," he'd say. I'd come through that back door into the kitchen and the pantry and the . . .

JOHNSON: Was that the entrance underneath the porch there?

BURRUS: It's above.

JOHNSON: Was it through the porch?

BURRUS: It's up on the porch.

JOHNSON: Okay, you came through the porch, the rear porch, into the kitchen.

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BURRUS: That's right. Sometimes, in the summertime, he'd be over there in the porch to the east. Most of the time, though, he'd be over on the north side, in the little den, in his chair, and Mrs. Truman would be over in her chair.

JOHNSON: You mean the study?

BURRUS: The study.

JOHNSON: You'd go into the study once in a while to see him?

BURRUS: That's right. When he was here at the Library, I'd meet him here on Saturdays, every morning generally, because nobody would be here in the morning at 10 o'clock or so. I'd come down 10 or 10:30 and see what was going on with him, and sometimes visit about what happened, and what had come in the mail. A couple of times some things came in the mail and he had to have something done about it right away. I took them to my office and he signed them and we got them off. I thought he was lonesome in the Library. Nobody was there with him, and I just didn't think that that was the way that he would like it. The mail would come in and he'd go through

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the mail and pick out what he wanted. When he quit coming down to the Library I then made it a point to go to the house on Saturday.

JOHNSON: And help him with the mail?

BURRUS: No, I wouldn't help with the mail, because that would be taken care of. But sometimes he would talk to me about people, and some of the events and things that he'd like to know about. We would talk about them.

After a time, Bob Adams was detailed by the Army, through the Reserve unit that he was in and in connection with the hospital, to be available to the Trumans. Bob would go with me there quite often. He'd come along with me, and visit with him.

JOHNSON: That was after July 1966 when he quit coming down?

BURRUS: That's right.

JOHNSON: Did you know Gene Bailey, one of his secretaries?

BURRUS: I knew him, but he died.

JOHNSON: Committed suicide apparently.

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BURRUS: That's right.

JOHNSON: What kind of a person was Bailey?

BURRUS: He was a retiring sort of a fellow; I didn't really get to know him.

JOHNSON: The Trumans had a cook at the house, I guess, a full time cook.

BURRUS: Yes. Vietta Garr.

JOHNSON: Yes, Vietta Garr. Would she usually be in the kitchen then when you came through the kitchen?

BURRUS: Sometimes she'd be in the kitchen, and sometimes she wasn't.

JOHNSON: One of the things that strikes visitors to the home, I think, is the simplicity of the kitchen, which seems to have been set up like in the 1930s. It wasn't changed. That is kind of interesting and perhaps a little bit unusual that they never did attempt apparently to modernize the rest of the house.

BURRUS: That's right.

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JOHNSON: Is the way it is now the way it's been for many, many years?

BURRUS: They've changed it since the time that she died.

JOHNSON: Oh, they have?

BURRUS: They've done lots to it. That's right. I haven't been in it, but I know they've done a lot of things to it because the plumbing, they've replaced that, and the wiring, they've replaced it...

JOHNSON: So, you haven't been in it?

BURRUS: I have not gone in it since she died. I just can't make myself do it. Some one of these days I will, but I just haven't got myself to that point.

JOHNSON: They've tried to keep it the way it was.

BURRUS: I think that they may have. On one occasion they had some storms here, and the roof leaked. It leaked through the attic, and from the attic into the second floor, and from the second floor down to the ceiling of the first floor. The snow backed up into the shingles and that's what caused it.

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Well, when that happened, I had known that they had an insurance policy--Joe McGee's company made it. I got word to them that we had some damage there, and he said, "Rufe, you just go out there and whatever you want to have done, you do it, and send the bill over and we'll pay all of it." I said, "All right." I told Mrs. Truman that the insurance company said they were ready to have all of the ceiling taken care of. I said, "We don't know for sure whether that plaster's going to be loose up there or not." She said, "Rufus I don't want anything touched." She said, "I don't want to be bothered. I don't want to have anything done. If it falls down, then we can do something with it, but if it doesn't fall down we're not going to do anything." I said, "All right, if you don't want to." And she never did. That was her request that we not do it. I got that word to Joe McGee [Joseph J. McGee, Jr.]. I told Joe that he could tell his insurance company that Mrs. Truman just didn't want to have anything done to it. I said, "It doesn't discolor very much, and she would rather have it that way than to be disturbed."

JOHNSON: What about the roof?

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BURRUS: They did take care of the roof. They did have the roof taken care of on the outside, but nothing was done on the inside.

JOHNSON: Did you ever get up on the second floor?

BURRUS: Yes, several times.

JOHNSON: How did that house strike you? Was it typical Victorian? Was there any other house like it that you can think of in town?

BURRUS: Well, the only one that would be somewhat like it would be farther down on Delaware Street; that was the Woodson house. But that was a brick house, and this was a frame house. I've been in that one.

JOHNSON: Did you have anything to do with the Heritage District, getting the Heritage District established?

BURRUS: No. That was done by other folks.

JOHNSON: Did the Trumans ever come over to visit you?

BURRUS: Yes, they came to our house several times. Especially when we came back from trips to Ft. Riley.

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John Snyder would be with us too. We'd always stop at our house, and Mr. Truman would sit on the piano bench and play the piano with Mrs. Burrus.

JOHNSON: This was back in the thirties, you're talking about?

BURRUS: The thirties, primarily.

JOHNSON: Did he ever visit your house after he left the Presidency?

BURRUS: When my mother died, why, both Bess and Harry came to the house to pay their respects. Of course, they went to the funeral service. When my father died, again they did the same thing. They'd come by, just drive by, and stop a minute and visit with us.

JOHNSON: Did you ever attend any social events with them after he left the Presidency?

BURRUS: Well, I have mentioned the time that Joyce Hall had an occasion to have General and Mrs. Eisenhower and the Trumans over there. Mrs. Burrus and I were there at that event. A couple of times we'd go someplace together and I'd take them together and bring them back. He often would say, "Rufe, put your uniform on when we go over to

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this next one." He would say, "You can get me in and get me out without having to shake hands with seven or eight hundred people. You can make a reconnaissance about how to get in and get back without having to go through the crowd." And I'd say, "All right."

So when I'd take him someplace, I'd say, "With uniform or without uniform." He'd tell me. Then he'd say, "Well, it will be a black tie." I'd say, "Yes, okay." I would come up with my black tie on, and I knew he was going to wear his. So one day he said, "Where are the ribbons for your jacket?" I said, "I don't have any ribbons for my jacket." He said, "Well, you're entitled to them. Your jacket, that's dress, that's part of your dress --get some." I said, "Yes, sir." So I proceeded to get ribbons for my jacket; had to put them on a thing that I could take off and on. One time after I got them, I came to meet him to take him. He was upstairs when I got there, but after he came down and saw me, he said, "Oh, you've got your ribbons on have you?" "Yes sir." "Well, just a minute." He went back upstairs, and he put them on his jacket.

JOHNSON: The Fourth of July ceremonies started here very early didn't they?

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BURRUS: After the dedication in July 1957. He said, "Now the next July the Fourth we want to have an observance on the steps out here." That's when we started it.

JOHNSON: He was the speaker for the first few?

BURRUS: That's right.

JOHNSON: Did he speak without notes? Do you know of any record of what he said at these Fourth of July speeches?

BURRUS: I don't know of any record, but he did prepare some of them I know.

JOHNSON: He didn't just speak off-the-cuff?

BURRUS: Sometimes he did, but most usually he had prepared notes.

JOHNSON: Do you remember the gist of those speeches?

BURRUS: It was an occasion about the birth of our nation, celebrating it as a birthday, as he put it.

JOHNSON: I suppose they had pretty good crowds?

BURRUS: Pretty good crowds, that's right.

JOHNSON: Of course, it's one of the annual events around here.

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BURRUS: And we still have them. The crowds are not as big as I would like to have them.

JOHNSON: Well, of course, he was quite an attraction himself.

Mrs. Truman and Margaret attended the Trinity Episcopal Church. Do you recall him ever going over there to attend church with them?

BURRUS: He did sometimes, yes. I never took him there, but I know he did go.

JOHNSON: The First Baptist is right down the street.

BURRUS: He'd just walk out the back way and down to the Baptist Church and make himself a place, and nobody would bother him, and he'd come on back home.

JOHNSON: I think Mr. Truman has been quoted as saying that he didn't go to church very often, mainly be cause he always ended up the attraction.

BURRUS: Here's another item here that I cut out about that too. This was on November 16, 1945. It's in the 40 years ago column.

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JOHNSON: That controversy about him playing poker and drinking some bourbon. He seems to have limited himself to two or three shot glasses of bourbon per day. Was that what you observed?

BURRUS: He wouldn't have that much though. In the evening time he might have a drink or two. Here's another one that follows up.

JOHNSON: At these poker games, would there be much drinking?

BURRUS: That was over at the Kansas City Club. I don't think they did much drinking over there either.

JOHNSON! This other Baptist leader, according to this article, was warning Baptists not to make a tempest out of a teapot.

BURRUS: When he proposed that Mark Clark be named as envoy to the Vatican, some of the Baptists raised a big furor about it. Truman said that they didn't understand that the Ambassador was there to hear things, to discover things, and get information. He said that he didn't go there to represent him or anybody

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else, but just for the purpose of finding out all the things he can of value to us. One fellow someplace along the line said that he was going to have Mr. Truman excommunicated from his Baptist Church. Mr. Truman smiled and said, "He's not much of a Baptist." He said, "A real Baptist would know he couldn't do that, because he has to be a member of my church congregation. He doesn't belong to my church and nobody can ever excommunicate anybody from any church unless they are members of the same church." He said, "I won't pay any attention to him." He just ignored the fellow. Really, Mark Clark disappointed him because he didn't stay like he should have stayed. He said he just wouldn't take the heat.

JOHNSON: Get out of the kitchen.

BURRUS: That's right.

JOHNSON: In these Saturday morning get-togethers that you were mentioning, you said that he might talk to you about certain people or events.

BURRUS: Yes, he would ask me about some people that I knew

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or he knew, or take messages to him of people that wanted to be remembered to him. He in turn would ask about them.

JOHNSON: President Nixon came out here in 1969, apparently to try to patch up differences with Harry Truman. I suppose you were here for that event, when he brought the piano.

BURRUS: Yes.

JOHNSON: Did Mr. Truman ever talk to you about President Nixon or comment to you about Nixon?

BURRUS: No.

JOHNSON: I guess his thoughts about Nixon are pretty well known.

BURRUS: He said that it was the office of the Presidency that Nixon represented; it wasn't the man, it was the office. Mr. Truman said that as President, he represented the office and not himself as an individual. "Therefore," he said, "I respect him because he is the office," and that is as much as he would ever say

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about him.

JOHNSON: President Johnson was a close friend.

BURRUS: He came here too, yes.

JOHNSON: Were you here when the President came out for the Medicare ceremony?

BURRUS: Yes. He had a hard time getting Mr. Truman to be willing to take that too.

JOHNSON: Is that right?

BURRUS: Yes.

JOHNSON: We don't know where that card is, by the way. Do you have any idea what happened to these Medicare cards, numbers one and two?

BURRUS: I don't know.

JOHNSON: Why do you think he was reluctant to accept it?

BURRUS: Well, he told me that they wanted him to accept those cards for Medicare, but he said, "I don't think I need to do that." I said, "Need?" "Well,"

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he said, "that's for people who need to have someone help them take care of hospitalization." I replied, "No, Mr. President, everybody is entitled to it; it's a matter of right. It isn't a matter of need. If you don't take it, how do you expect other people to do it?" I said, "You've always been in favor of having people being able to have care taken for them when they were in need and that's one way it can be done. So, if you don't take number one and number two, and let it be known that you do it, other people will just say the same thing that you do and think they have to be poor in order to have it. That isn't what the facts are about it. I hope that you change your mind, Mr. President." I'd always generally called him "Chief," but this time it was "Mr. President."

A few days later he said, "Well, I called them and told them to come on out; let's take care of it."

He did. And he made a very nice affair out of it.

JOHNSON: He said a few things off-the-cuff didn't he?

BURRUS: Yes. I don't remember anything he said off-the-

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cuff, but anyhow he was very gracious about the acceptance of it.

JOHNSON: Did Medicare help take care of his medical expenses later?

BURRUS: Yes, sure.

JOHNSON: Even though he probably had a lot of insurance coverage.

BURRUS: Anyhow, the hospital took care of his hospitalization, with the help of Blue Cross and Blue Shield I believe, along with his Medicare.

JOHNSON: Blue Cross and Blue Shield was the other plan he had?

BURRUS: [Robert] Adams was particularly helpful in regard to hospitalization. They never did send any charges to him at all, that I knew about.

JOHNSON: Of course, the big issue of the mid-sixties was the Vietnam war, and Johnson's involvement as President, as Commander and Chief. Did Mr. Truman ever talk to you about the Vietnam war and President Johnson's policies?

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BURRUS: Only a time or two. He said, "He's taking it in little bites. He either ought to go all out, or else he shouldn't meddle with it." That's the way he put it. He said, "He's trying just to take it in bites, and you can't do it that way."

JOHNSON: We did have seven hundred thousand troops there at one point, didn't we?

BURRUS: He always said that the President of the United States is the one that's the Commander in Chief and he also makes foreign policy. Nobody else should second-guess him about that, especially a former President like he was. He said he shouldn't and wouldn't because he did not have access to the information that the President had concerning whether he should do this or that or the other. He said he was not ever going to do it. And he never did do it.

JOHNSON: Did he feel it was up to Congress to decide whether to support the President or not?

BURRUS: Congress could do it, but he wouldn't make any statement to them about foreign affairs, even to the

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Congress. Oh, occasionally, when Eisenhower was President, some of his folks would want Mr. Truman to make some remarks about something or else. There was an exception when Senator Darby would make known that he would appreciate Mr. Truman making some remark about some particular thing. If Mr. Truman was in favor of it, he would do it. If he wasn't in favor of it, he wouldn't. Also, occasionally things would come from former Secretary Acheson and friends out East, and Acheson would relay that they would like to have him say something. Because they asked him to do it, he would --but only if he approved the same thing. He would not make a derogatory statement.

JOHNSON: Getting back to Truman's relationship with Eisenhower, I notice Mr. Truman didn't go to the dedication of the Eisenhower Library.

BURRUS: That's right. I was going to take him and he intended to go, but the death of his cousin, General Ralph Truman, precluded him from going out to that.

JOHNSON: He really did intend to be there?

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BURRUS: Yes, he intended to go there with us. We intended to take him; I'll put it that way.

JOHNSON: Do you recall when Truman went to the Hoover Library for the dedication there? Did you go out?

BURRUS: I didn't go with him to that.

JOHNSON: I happened to be there for that one, by the way; that was the second time I saw Mr. Truman.

BURRUS: I went up there later on another occasion, Bob Adams and I. We took a plane.

JOHNSON: Did you see Mr. Hoover? Did you ever meet Herbert Hoover?

BURRUS: Oh yes, I saw Herbert Hoover here several times.

JOHNSON: Of course, he was here at the dedication.

BURRUS: At the dedication, and he was here a couple of other times.

JOHNSON: You got to talk to him personally then?

BURRUS: Yes. I say personally; we just said a few words

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with each other, that was all. But I got to know him.

JOHNSON: He undoubtedly liked President Truman. President Truman had called on him for his services.

BURRUS: That's right. Well, one morning I came into Mr. Truman's office and he said, "You ought to look at this letter." It was one from Mr. Hoover. He said, "Before you look at that one, see the copy I have written to the President." The copy he gave me was not exactly the same as the one he sent Hoover, because he had changed the way it was arranged on the page, and sent him the other one. It was not a copy, but it had the same words in it. He said, "I didn't have anybody here to make a copy for me, to type it, and I didn't want to do it." His letter to Mr. Hoover was that he was glad to know he was back in circulation, evidently getting back in good health, and such things as that. You have the copy of the letter here, too, I know.

JOHNSON: Probably so.

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BURRUS: The letter that came to him from Hoover was that he thanked him because the boys had told him about his making inquiry about him, and he was glad to know that he was concerned about him. He appreciated all of that. But he said that this gave him an opportunity to say something to Mr. Truman that he had longed to say and should have said long ago. In essence, he said that as a young man he had made enough of the worldly goods that he could have his family taken care of, and supported. So he gave himself to the cause of Government. He said that when he finished with being President, he was cast into oblivion, until President Truman came along and gave him something to do, for which he had been everlastingly grateful. That was when President Truman asked him to come and be head of the Hoover Commission, about reorganizing the Government.

Well, that was Mr. Truman's way of telling me about that.

JOHNSON: Were you here for the presentation of the piano by President Nixon?

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BURRUS: Yes.

JOHNSON: Were you back there when they first met, when Mr. Nixon and Mr. Truman met? I guess they went into the office first.

BURRUS: I don't remember if I was.

JOHNSON: Any special recollections of President Johnson when he was back here? He was back here several times, a half dozen times I think.

BURRUS: Yes. When he was here to sign the Medicare bill and the Trumans and the other folks were on the platform, I saw him outside there and he was just waiting until everything was ready. So I stopped and said, "We're getting things all fixed up." He said, "That's all right; we'll get to it, we'll get to it."

Again I saw him in the eastern part of the state where the Congressman from that district had died, and they had his funeral. Johnson came from Washington. I took Mr. and Mrs. Truman in the car. They had a long service there for him. There was one thing he said to me; he said, "For goodness sake, tell the

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Masonic folks to cut their services down; don't let them get so long."

There were three different ones that participated in it. Well, anyhow that's what happened then.

JOHNSON: Any other thing that comes to mind about your recollections of Truman that we haven't brought up that we should wind up with?

BURRUS: We can wind it up now.

JOHNSON: If you think there is something more that ought to be on the record, feel free to do that. I appreciate very much your helping us out with this.

BURRUS: Well, I'm glad to get it done, because after all, I've just put it off longer than I really should have.

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