Oscar L. Chapman Oral History Interview, February 9, 1973

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 It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.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 1980
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

[899]

HESS: Mr. Chapman, to begin this morning, let's discuss the events of 1952 concerning the election. When did you first become aware that President Truman did not intend to run for reelection in 1952?

CHAPMAN: I think that it kind of developed in my mind, and strictly in my imagination, as to what was taking place in the administration. I began to feel it without any expression from Mr. Truman one way or another. He at no time ever made any expression of whether he was going to or not going to run. But I gathered from the--you get as much from a man's smile as you do his words; but when he was talking to me one time, I got a feeling that he was telling me something that he wasn't saying in words.

HESS: Do you recall about when that was, what date?

[900]

CHAPMAN: Yes, that was about less than 60 days before that dinner was that night that he...

HESS: That's right, that was March the 29th of 1952 at the National Guard Armory.

CHAPMAN: That's right.

HESS: So this was about two months before then?

CHAPMAN: Just about two months before that dinner.

HESS: What did he say...

CHAPMAN: I began to get a feeling that he was thinking in his own mind of some new approach for his own life.

HESS: What did he say that led you to believe that?

CHAPMAN: Well, one comment he made during our little visit was a comment about some of the--well, just for classification purposes, I'd call them the more conservative group, some on the Hill that were critical of Mr. Truman instead of openly

[901]

taking the lead to support him and help him. They were letting their feet drag and weren't really helping us as they ought to.

During that conversation, as we were talking about this, he made a comment, and he was looking at me when he said it, and I was looking him right in the face, and as I said, a man's smile and his expression often convey an impression of a man, more than what he's telling you, his words.

And I got an impression from him at that moment that he was thinking of whether he should or shouldn't run. He made this comment when we were both a little critical in our discussion with each other. We were a little critical about a certain party who had been not helping us but handicapping us a little bit, and we made a comment and he said, "You know, what they don't know is I don't have to run for President." And he was looking at me right in the face, and I caught a grin on his face when he said that.

[902]

I said, "No, you don't have to, Mr. President, but you have an option, in this case. Not many people will ever have a chance to have the option that you have, because you have served, for all practical purposes, practically all of Roosevelt's fourth term." You see, Roosevelt was elected on the fourth term, but he served, what, up until April?

HESS: From January 20th until April the 12th.

CHAPMAN: Yes.

HESS: Two or three months, something like that.

CHAPMAN: Something like that, but Truman for all practical purposes served...

HESS: Just about eight years.

CHAPMAN: That's right, about eight years. And that law, the spirit of that law was really carried out the way Truman did it, the fact that he had...

[903]

HESS: Even though he was exempted.

CHAPMAN: He was exempted through a technicality here of a situation, but...

HESS: The 22nd Amendment, was it not? I think it is.

CHAPMAN: I believe it was. Yes, that was a Norris amendment; don't you remember that was a Norris amendment that changed the inauguration date.

HESS: I'm not sure, but the amendment that limited the times that a President could serve and cut it down to two terms was passed during Mr. Truman's administration, but he was specifically exempted in the wording of the amendment.

CHAPMAN: Yes.

HESS: It said something or other; the present holder of the office is not bound by this amendment or something like that. He could have run if he had wanted to.

CHAPMAN: That's right, he could have run.

[904]

HESS: In your opinion why didn't he run?

CHAPMAN: Well, I think it was just one of those things where he had his feet on the ground and was thinking solidly with the people. Why should he take on another four years when his own party wasn't giving him much help or trying to give him any help, and he was carrying the whole fight and was very successful in helping the party to hold itself together. Had we been able to get the more conservative group and some of the so-called liberals; a few of the liberals were not doing too much to help us.

Now, you see, lead that over into this problem that Stevenson was faced with in '52. Here he had been living, and did live, in a community where the Chicago Tribune was the dominant force of all the news media in that area, and so he saw something critical about Truman in every issue of the paper nearly. I think that he had been influenced to some extent, enough to feel that if he publicly tied himself to Truman, too--if he

[905]

did it too openly and too strong, he might hurt himself with the reaction of people who considered him a Truman man to the extent that Stevenson didn't want to be considered as anybody's man. But he didn't understand Truman. That was the whole truth of it there and it took him about four years after that campaign before he began to understand Truman and what his problem was; because Truman had served up through '52, and then when President Eisenhower defeated Stevenson for reelection in '52, Stevenson had time to do a little thinking, lecturing and writing some articles, and he was doing some thinking. He was quite a thinker and quite a writer and he was an extremely conscientious man, but he was--I was more or less like a go-between, between one group of the party element here and the other group.

HESS: Did you ever speak with Mr. Stevenson about his views on Mr. Truman? Did he ever convey

[906]

to you what he thought of Mr. Truman?

CHAPMAN: Oh, yes, we discussed it quite thoroughly, to a great extent. I went out and I did this at President Truman's request, now. I went out to Springfield.

HESS: About what time of the year was this?

CHAPMAN: I went out on Lincoln Day and gave the Lincoln Day address, at a luncheon that day.

HESS: February the 12th.

CHAPMAN: That's right. I went out there that day and spent the two nights with Stevenson at his mansion there. And Mark [Marquis] Childs was there spending a weekend with him, and I had quite a fine opportunity for really consulting with Stevenson and talking with him, going very deeply into his thinking about this thing. And I talked with him about this and I raised this question. I said, "Now, Governor, if you are thinking of running for President;" I said,

[907]

"I have not talked with you before. Let me say to you, I would like very much to see you run and I will certainly do everything in my power to support you, but," I said, "you've got a problem here. You've got to find a proper way to approach it to the public." I said, "Your expressions on Truman have been that you didn't entirely agree with him on some of the things he handled. You didn't seem to be in opposition to any particular policy that he was putting over; therefore, that left it more or less a personality difference of opinions of people." I made that statement to Stevenson.

He said, "Oscar;" he said, "my trouble is, he could get along with these fellows like [Richard J.] Daley out here in Chicago, and," he said, "I can't, I just can't get along with them. It isn't easy for me to get along with them, but I have no feeling against Daley. It's just," he said, "I find I let that run over into my thinking about Truman. I find it not easy for

[908]

me to be close to him in some way or another."

"Well," I said, "I think, maybe, if you will forgive me for saying so; I think it's your approach to this, your method of handling it, that has created that situation more than anything else." I said, "You have known that Mr. Truman has spoken very kindly of you on several occasions, and I'm talking with you today to say that Mr. Truman wanted me to tell you that he was hoping you would run, that he'd give you every support he could, to do whatever you wanted him to do to help you. And he would help you, and he wanted you to run, and he told me that I could pass that on to you and let you know."

HESS: One thing I want to clear up; this was before the announcement at the National Guard Armory?

CHAPMAN: That was before the Armory thing.

HESS: Yes, see, the announcement at the National Guard Armory was March the 29th.

[909]

CHAPMAN: That's right.

HESS: The end of the following month.

CHAPMAN: That's right.

HESS: And this was February the 12th.

CHAPMAN: That's right.

HESS: So, this was a good indication, was it not, that the President did not intend to run?

CHAPMAN: That was one of the principal things that I put together that he was not going to run.

HESS: When did he ask you…

CHAPMAN: He never once told me that he was not going to run, one way or another.

HESS: What did he say to you when he asked you to go to Springfield and speak to Stevenson?

CHAPMAN: Well, we were talking and I told him I had an invitation to go out there to speak at the

[910]

Lincoln Day luncheon at Springfield, within a week or ten days or so, and asked if he had any message, anything he wanted me to convey to Mr. Stevenson. I said, "The last time I spoke with Stevenson has been probably six months before," and I said, "he spoke in a friendly tone towards you at that time." And he did, but when I spoke with him later, he had been worked on by somebody to get him away from Truman, to get a break in between them, whoever it was. I couldn't tell who was doing it, but there was also somebody influencing the President to turn him against Stevenson, and they were doing the same thing to Stevenson, some so-called friend.

HESS: Was it someone on Mr. Truman's staff?

CHAPMAN: No, I don't think it was anyone on his staff that was doing it. I think it probably was one of the Senators, some Senator that I think had a good deal of access to the President.

HESS: Who was the man?

[911]

CHAPMAN: I don't like to use his name; he's a sick man today, and I don't want to name him, but that was Clint Anderson.

HESS: What did he have against Stevenson?

CHAPMAN: I don't think he had anything. I don't think he had anything in the world against Stevenson. I think he really wanted Truman to run again. I think Clint really wanted him to run again. Clint thought he could make it.

HESS: He thought he would be reelected if he ran?

CHAPMAN: Yes, he really did. He thought he could. Now, I could be interpreting that wrong. That's my own interpretation I'm putting on this; it's not a direct statement from him that he said...

HESS: Did you ever hear him say that?

CHAPMAN: No. No, I never heard him say that, but what he did say, was the opening with an option here for Stevenson and Truman to work the thing out.

[912]

He was quite fond of Truman, I thought, but Clint was a fast footworker, when it came to the convention. He was a fast footworker, and he got around among the delegations very well and being Secretary of the Agriculture he made himself well-known and fairly well respected and liked among the farm groups.

HESS: Then he'd run for the Senate in 1948.

CHAPMAN: Yes, that's what he did.

HESS: What was your opinion? Did you think Mr. Truman could have been reelected in 1952 had he run?

CHAPMAN: I doubt it.

HESS: Why? What were the obstacles?

CHAPMAN: The obstacle was nothing but time. Time, and Eisenhower was a world hero at that time, but that made him an extremely popular man and...

[913]

HESS: One thing we ought to mention, too, is the Republican battle cry during that particular election was "Communism, corruption, and Korea."

CHAPMAN: That was the theme song that the Republicans put across on us pretty well.

HESS: The communism reference was to investigations about Communists in Government at that particular time, particularly the State Department.

CHAPMAN: You see, [Joseph] McCarthy had stirred up the people to create doubts in their mind. He had done a pretty good job of stirring up a lot of people. He particularly had certain church elements very concerned about this and of all the people in the world that could influence any church element, Joe McCarthy was the last man in the world you would look to to think that he'd be influencing a group of religious people. But it fitted into their whole philosophy and religion. Let me go back a little bit to clarify a little bit more of the importance.

[914]

We may go back to when Truman asked me to take that speaking date in Illinois and have a good talk with Stevenson and see if "You can't get him to announce himself as soon as he wants to, or whenever he wants to, it doesn't matter to me. If he wants to wait until the convention, fine, but if he'd give me a hint that he'd probably take a run at it, I would be laying the groundwork to help him. And it's in an area in the party where he needs some help." And that was so true. Stevenson needed help badly from what I would call the conservative group, from them; he needed help there more than he did anywhere else at the moment.

He had a liberal-tinged group that was supporting him, very strongly. I was very fond of Stevenson, but he was the hardest man to work with in terms of getting your guidelines from him to go forward on whatever you were working on, whether it was on your program or the election, the political phase of it. He was scared of politics; he acted like a man that was really scared of politics, whereas Mr. Truman just enjoyed it, like he was playing his last game of football or base ball or something. He's going to play his last

[915]

game. He was going to have some fun with it and Truman was having the time of his life; he really was. He was enjoying himself and he had made up his mind. And those were the two things there that were . . .

HESS: But you didn't have the feeling that Mr. Stevenson enjoyed politics?

CHAPMAN: No.

HESS: He didn't like politics?

CHAPMAN: Not a bit. He didn't like politics at all.

HESS: Did he feel uncomfortable with politicians?

CHAPMAN: Yes. Oh yes, very much.

HESS: You mentioned that with Daley and others...

CHAPMAN: Yes, he was uncomfortable with them; he didn't feel like he ever had a good rapport with the politicians.

[916]

HESS: Don't you feel that he viewed himself as more of a statesman than a politician?

CHAPMAN: Yes. That was it; he was thinking of himself more as a statesman. I said this to him once; I ran the risk of making him misunderstand what I meant, but I said, "Governor, some people can be statesmen, but not until they are elected to office, and after they are elected they can then become statesmen. But you don't usually find anybody in America that has become a statesman unless he has shown his political strength with the people on certain issues and things of that kind and is able to express himself to the people in such a way that he becomes a man that's considered a leader."

HESS: What did he say, do you recall, when you told him that?

CHAPMAN: Well, yes, he said, "Well, my trouble is, Oscar, I think you put your hands on it; that's one of my troubles. Now" he said, "I have nothing against Mr. Daley. Daley

[917]

is--he's a typical example of my trouble;" he said, "I don't have anything against him at all. But," he said, "somehow or another he has created an atmosphere, and has created a surrounding of himself, a psychological thing among the people, the public, that think of him as a politician, something that's evil and bad."

"Well," I said, "how are you going to change that unless you change our system of government, and I'm not for changing our system of government; I like it like it is. I think it's pretty good; needs some changes here and there, but it's pretty good as it is and I like it."

He himself was his own worst enemy, Stevenson was; he really had a spark of greatness in him. He had a spark of genius, and a philosophy of concern for the poor man and the working man, but he didn't quite know how to approach them. He never quite--for instance, at no time did he ever reach the depth of love for him by the poor

[918]

people, as the poor people did for Truman. He never reached that point, at any place. Now, when I have said you've got to be elected and show your ability to do something before you can become a statesman, and people ought to remember that when they are trying to be a statesman before they run for office once, try it out.

HESS: At the time that President Truman was debating this in his own mind, whether to run, whether not to run, and he spoke to you about talking to Stevenson, were there others under consideration by the President? If he didn't run, was he thinking about other people who would be good men to run on the ticket, other than Stevenson?

CHAPMAN: I didn't get any firm statement from him as I did on Stevenson. There were others, no doubt, in his mind...

HESS: As you will recall, at the convention Senator--Vice President at this time--Vice President

[919]

Barkley, even though age was against him...

CHAPMAN: That's right.

HESS: ...he wanted the nomination in '52.

CHAPMAN: He did want it badly.

HESS: And there were others; Estes Kefauver, who went up to New Hampshire, ran in the primary in New Hampshire and out-polled Mr. Truman. And the New Hampshire primary, of course, was before the President's announcement that he was not going to run.

CHAPMAN: That's right.

HESS: There were those in the party that held it against Estes Kefauver for doing this, for openly opposing the President before the President's announcement that he did not want the renomination. So, there were others who would have liked it. Did you ever hear Mr. Truman say anything about Estes Kefauver's running against him in New Hampshire?

[920]

CHAPMAN: He thought it was an unfair political cut at him, and it was.

HESS: Because he hadn't announced that he wasn't going to run.

CHAPMAN: He hadn't announced. Kefauver lived three doors from me up there on Hillbrook Lane. And I saw a lot of Senator Kefauver, and I liked him very much, because he was quite aggressive in fighting for issues. He did a good job in the Senate on legislative matters. He worked hard and I give him a lot of credit on some of those good things that we did get through up there on the Hill; he helped them. But I know Mr. Truman had a right to feel that this was a little bit of an unfair cut from his own party to do this at that time. Now, he should have waited until Truman made his statement, and then he would at least have kept the door open for himself for friendship with that group when and if the time did come, you see.

[921]

HESS: You didn't hear President Truman speak favorably of anyone other than Stevenson?

CHAPMAN: Not favorable in a sense that he made any outright statements for some particular person running for President. Now, Jimmy Byrnes, he always thought Jimmy was still holding it against him from previous conventions, I think, and...

HESS: '44 in particular.

CHAPMAN: Yes. So, he had no--he didn't have that following with him in the party; Truman didn't, because whatever following Byrnes had--he didn't have as much as he thought he had, not by any means.

HESS: Was Richard Russell's name ever mentioned in 1952?

CHAPMAN: Only mentioned in a mixture of expressions of sentiment, "A southerner that's real conservative couldn't be elected anyway." And he never discussed it with any firmness that he thought he really...

[922]

HESS: Because even though Richard Russell was from the South he would have liked to have had the nomination.

CHAPMAN: He wanted it. That's the first time I ever knew he really wanted it. But he wouldn't have been elected either; he couldn't have been elected. You have to take things as they are and as you meet them. Now what you can do one year, you can't do a year later. Now if--here's what happened. Truman's situation fell almost in the same category as Johnson's fell in his category. Truman was nominated for Vice President with Roosevelt; Roosevelt was a smart political man, I don't care what anybody says, he was a smart politician, and he did like Truman.

HESS: I don't think you'll get too many arguments on that count.

CHAPMAN: I don't think so either. Any man who gets elected four times, you can't argue with that.

[923]

Well, he liked Truman, Roosevelt did, and I knew this. I knew he liked him and I had a very good relationship with Roosevelt. I had an excellent relationship when I was Assistant Secretary of the Interior, all the time I was in there under Ickes. He always helped me. Anytime anything came up that looked like there would be some problem for me, I would just go in and talk to Roosevelt. And I could talk with him on anything I wanted, and he was most helpful to me all the way through; he was helpful. I found out that Roosevelt was very fond of Truman; he liked him. He thought Truman had done a masterful job and a faithful job in that Senate committee, that he was carrying that investigation on.

HESS: Did you hear why he did not speak directly to Senator Truman in the entire time that they were selecting a vice-presidential nominee? I've always thought that was rather odd.

[924]

CHAPMAN: It was; it was odd from my reaction of playing the game, and how you would do it, guessing; but I did not take that as a feeling against Truman. Knowing Roosevelt as I had I am positive he would have said, "Well, I don't want Truman." If he didn't want him he would have said so to me; now, because he did say so about two men that he didn't want and I knew that.

HESS: But he did take him as a running mate in 1944 without speaking directly to him about the prospect, right?

CHAPMAN: That's right, but he wrote the letter; now you see he wanted...

HESS: I've understood that Roosevelt phoned Bob Hannegan when Truman was sitting--it was in a bedroom, and Truman supposedly was seated on a bed.

CHAPMAN: That's right.

[925]

HESS: ...right across from Bob Hannegan and Roosevelt phoned Hannegan to ask Hannegan if he had Truman lined up. And Hannegan said, "No, I haven't, sir, he's something like a contrary Missouri mule and he's sitting right here," but still Roosevelt didn't say, "Well, put him on the line. Hand him the telephone. I want to speak to him." It was all indirect and through a third party.

CHAPMAN: That's right.

HESS: That to me seems odd.

CHAPMAN: It was very odd. Knowing how smooth Roosevelt handled his politics, I was surprised that he hadn't cleared that out of the way before Chicago and let them be working; but you will find, if you check back through history then, that no Presidential candidate--well, very seldom, I wouldn't say any, but very seldom does the candidate want to pick the Vice President or want to be known to have dictated the Vice

[926]

Presidency openly. He’d like to do it quietly, but he doesn't like to do it openly. Now a lot have been like that.

HESS: In 1940 Roosevelt sent a letter to the convention stating something to the effect, "If you don't put Henry Wallace as the second man on this ticket, I won't run."

CHAPMAN: That's right.

HESS: Very open. He said, "If you don't give me Henry Wallace I won't run."

CHAPMAN: That's right.

HESS: And then four years later...

CHAPMAN: He wouldn't say a word.

HESS: Wouldn't say a word, seemed disinterested as to who the party picked.

CHAPMAN: Well, you know there's a possibility that a good deal of that was in his mind, that he didn't

[927]

care an awful lot. That is he had gotten tired of the opposition about his running and about whether he should run or shouldn't, and he was getting tired of all that, I think.

HESS: But he still didn't make an announcement that--similar to the one that Stevenson made in 1956...

CHAPMAN: That's right.

HESS: ...when Stevenson said to the convention, "I'm going to leave it to you to pick the second man." That brought on the fight between Kefauver and Senator John Kennedy.

CHAPMAN: That's right, exactly.

HESS: But Stevenson at that time made it known very plainly to the convention that it was up to them to pick the Vice Presidential nominee and he would take whoever they picked.

CHAPMAN: And that was a good way to do it.

HESS: You think that's a good way to do it?

[928]

CHAPMAN: I think it's a good way to do it. Let it be known, "I'm not going to try to pick the Vice President." Now, sure as the world, if I were running, I would want to let my friends and the leadership know that I didn't want John Smith to be elected Vice President.

HESS: Well, in 1952 the man who ran with Stevenson was Senator John Sparkman of Alabama.

CHAPMAN: That's right.

HESS: Why was he chosen as second on the ticket in 1952, and who chose him; did Stevenson choose him?

CHAPMAN: No.

HESS: Who did?

CHAPMAN: Sam Rayburn.

HESS: Sam Rayburn.

CHAPMAN: Yes.

[929]

HESS: Why?

CHAPMAN: Sam Rayburn was obviously the turning point in the selection of John Sparkman. And he made the statement in my presence that he thought John would get more votes than anybody else for that. He had turned to me, Sam had, and he said, "Oscar," he said, "you'd have too many of these southerners on your neck before you even started; that's the trouble with your being the..."

HESS: Would you agree with that observation?

CHAPMAN: Yes. Yes, he was right, and there wasn't any question about it; I knew it. That's why I didn't try to push myself; I didn't.

HESS: Do you think you would have had a pretty fair following from the West?

CHAPMAN: Yes, I'd have had a good following.

[930]

HESS: Yes, since you were from Colorado and you were Secretary of the Interior, and the Interior is probably the most important department when you get out to the Western part of the United States.

CHAPMAN: I'd have carried Virginia, too.

HESS: You'd have carried Virginia?

CHAPMAN: I really would.

HESS: Since you were born there.

CHAPMAN: As a matter of fact, Byrd would have nominated me, or he would have seconded it.

HESS: Did you always have a pretty close relationship with Senator Byrd?

CHAPMAN: Yes, always.

HESS: Wasn't he usually known as the arch conservative; he was a fiscal conservative, isn't that right?

CHAPMAN: He was at that point; he was a fiscal conservative.

[931]

He was a financial expert in working out fiscal policies, and that was his field, really that he was an expert in. Now, I came in...

HESS: Would you find him a social conservative?

CHAPMAN: Oh, yes, he's a social conservative; he's not...

HESS: Because he's from Virginia.

CHAPMAN: Yes, he's a social conservative, too, and not just a fiscal conservative; he was a social conservative. For instance, he couldn't support Truman's liberal bills on...

HESS: Civil rights and...

CHAPMAN: None of those. He wouldn't support it, where Johnson I knew would. I knew Johnson would do that. It happened that Byrd and myself never had a cross word the whole time when he was in the Senate and I was in the Department of the Interior. Only once he came to me to get me to not change a park

[932]

concessionaire in the Smoky Mountains up here in the ridge--what do you call it?

HESS: The Blue Ridge.

CHAPMAN: Blue Ridge, where we had those cottages, things.

HESS: I believe there's a mountain down there called "Old Rag" that was his favorite place. He used to climb it.

CHAPMAN: That's right, that was his favorite mountain.

HESS: He used to climb it every year on his birthday.

CHAPMAN: Yes, he'd go up there every year and climb that mountain. Now, Byrd and I were very good friends; he was like Bill [William Munford] Tuck and myself. There wasn't a closer friend I had in the House then than Bill Tuck, but never once has there been any public issue on which he and I would be together.

[933]

HESS: Where was he from?

CHAPMAN: Virginia, my district. He was in my...

HESS: Southern Virginia.

CHAPMAN: Southern Virginia, Halifax County. He was right in there.

I had a client in here yesterday, and the boys brought him in. They had been working on his case for him and they brought him in to see me yesterday, and this fellow was talking to me and he started talking, and I said, "You are a Virginian aren't you?"

He said, "Yes, how did you know?"

I said, "You're a tidewater Virginian, anywhere from South Boston to Norfolk."

He said, "By God, you've hit all but the address. What made you think I was a Virginian?"

I said, "You look like a Virginian." He just looked like one. I said, "You belong to the changing group of aristocracy of the South, and your father was one of the aristocracy of the South,

[934]

Virginia. You inherited that good will of his and you're doing it well." I said, "That's why I recognized you as soon as you started talking. I recognized your tidewater brogue; it's totally different from up here around Fairfax County, anywhere else in Virginia, because the tidewater brogue is totally separate and different from any of the rest of the state. And if you're used to it, familiar with it in your younger days, you could recognize it." And I did. But it just buffaloed him. Well, anyway, he was talking to me just day before yesterday. He was in here and he talked with me about the possibility of the campaign.

"Well," he said, "we didn't have a chance in the last election to carry anything down in Virginia, not for the Democrats." He said, "As a matter of fact, I voted for Nixon myself." He said, "I don't know what was the matter with our candidate; he just couldn't get off the ground." He said, "Nixon got him down in the first round

[935]

and never let him up. He just kept him down during the whole fight." And he did, that's just what he did do.

Well, now, let's lead to something else.

HESS: I believe the convention in 1952 was held in Chicago.

CHAPMAN: Chicago.

HESS: What do you recall about that convention?

CHAPMAN: Well, that convention held some very interesting sidelights of history. First, you had a President there that had announced that he would not be a candidate for reelection, although he could have under the law run again. He was qualified, and was not disqualified because of that act of Congress which limited Presidential candidates to two terms. He was exempt from that, because he was President when the bill was passed.

Now that convention gave you a lot of history

[936]

and watching the change take place from a middle-of-the-road, a liberal middle-of-the-road man, like Truman, against a fellow whom you couldn't place to save your life--Stevenson. He'd make a speech one week that you could kind of take as a guide for this direction, and the following week he'd make another speech that would look like he was leaving that road and going to another. And he didn't follow consistently with his public announcements--pronouncements, on policy of what he wanted to do. He wasn't consistent following through with them, not that he meant to be, he wasn't trying to be deceitful; it was one of the things that he had the right of a candidate to change his mind if he was given evidence and information to justify a change of his position.

HESS: What could the Democrats have done to have won that year, in 1952?

CHAPMAN: Nothing. You couldn't have won that year.

[937]

You see, you had up against us that year--I first said that Truman couldn't have been reelected; I want to hedge on that a little, because a man in office as President of the United States goes into the campaign with one leverage in his favor against the other candidate who's never been a candidate before, and he would have had an edge there that people never stopped to think very much. In the beginning, you see, they started a lot of wild rumors and wild talks against Truman, but that wouldn't have lasted through the campaign. I think Truman's method of campaigning in the previous election, '48 election, proved to me that with his method of campaigning he could have taken it again.

HESS: His give 'em hell type of campaign, and...

CHAPMAN: Yes.

HESS: ...taking the issues to the people.

[938]

CHAPMAN: Yes, and he would make no campaign against Eisenhower at all. Eisenhower was a military man, had served his term and retired. Truman had given him every cooperation that he could and supported him in his work, to help him close the war in Europe. I'm not so sure that Truman wouldn't have been elected. If he had taken the same type of campaign that he did in '48, I believe he would have done it, because Eisenhower did not fit that type of campaigning at all. He didn't fit it; he couldn't do that kind of campaigning and make any headway.

HESS: Still the election was held and Eisenhower won.

CHAPMAN: By a big majority.

HESS: By a big majority.

All right, how would you evaluate the handling of the transition from the Truman administration to the Eisenhower administration; was it a smooth one, was it not smooth?

[939]

CHAPMAN: Well, I didn't think it was very rough.

HESS: Who replaced you; who was the Secretary of the Interior for Eisenhower?

CHAPMAN: The Secretary's name who succeeded me was--the former Governor of Oregon. He died a few years ago, a couple of years ago.

HESS: We can add his name.

CHAPMAN: He was the Governor of Oregon and he was appointed Secretary of the Interior. He was Douglas McKay.

HESS: Did he send in delegates, or his representatives, ahead of time to work out a smooth transition?

CHAPMAN: He came himself. He spent nearly five weeks in my office, sitting there with me. And I let him sit in with me on every conference that I held about anything. I said, "Now, I want you to see what I have to do. Some of these things

[940]

being done, based upon the policy that's been established and thoroughly approved by the President, and that's what you will get as you go along here." I said, "You could get a great deal of feeling for this department if you sit in and watch the people who come in and see me and what they talk about, and I'd like for you to hear them, what they talk about."

Well, one committee of five people from Oregon came in to see me to get me to change the boundary lines of a reservation that we had set up and withdrawn that land in Tule Lake from public entry; that is so nobody could settle on it. We were planning to divide it up; we had come to an agreement with the Park Service and the Reclamation Service that part of this should go into Reclamation land and the rest of it should go into the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Well, I had gotten that case absolutely closed and had so notified them in my previous conference with them. I was going to approve the

[941]

recommendation that the two men had agreed on, the two directors. I was going to approve it, as I thought they were as near right as they could get, and it's a question of arguing about where the boundaries should be; how much of this should you put in Reclamation and how much should you put in Fish and Wildlife Service.

Well, I didn't want to open that thing up, because it was like opening up a beehive anyway; there was a bitter fight going on out in the state on that.

The Governor being the Governor of the State, never had anything to do with that kind of a thing at all; he didn't have anything to do with it, so he never had any experience with it. And when he heard me talk to those people; he heard what I said to them, and I said, "Now, Governor, I want you to know that I've made my mind up after very much conversation about this thing that this should be the line that we draw there and I wouldn't open that thing up for another hearing, because if you do you're going to have them coming

[942]

here by busses and you'll fill the auditorium down here for an all day hassle. That's all it will be, because you'll never settle it that way anyhow, but still there will be a whole crowd come in here and demand a day of your time in the auditorium down here." And I said, "I wouldn't open that up again if I were you. Now you're coming in; I'm not going to open it between this and the 20th of January, I’m not going to open it. So, it's up to you and I'm going to leave that up to you, but I'm warning you this is absolute political dynamite, but it's not Republican or Democratic politics." I said, "I'd warn you not to open that up, because you are from Oregon, and they'll crucify you." Well, they damn near killed him; they liked to have crucified the man. He made a mistake of saying out there on a visit one Saturday that he was going to give them another hearing. And so he did.

HESS: He opened up Pandora's box.

[943]

CHAPMAN: He opened up Pandora's box and all hell broke loose on him, and the conservationists just went after him from that day on. They never let up on him. Now, they hadn't bothered me; they had settled down to the fact that I was banking my reputation against theirs, and I was just as much of a conservationist as they were.

HESS: When he first came in he did want to cooperate?

CHAPMAN: Yes, he did.

HESS: Did you think that it went fairly smoothly in the other departments?

CHAPMAN: I didn't hear of any that was particularly disturbing. Certainly in mine, the Department of Interior, the transfer of mine couldn't have been easier.

HESS: Did you hear anything about Sherman Adams during this particular time?

CHAPMAN: Yes, I did. I heard...

[944]

HESS: He was concentrating his efforts, I believe, mainly around the White House...

CHAPMAN: That's it.

HESS: ...but I wondered if he had come in to see you or if you had any dealings with him.

CHAPMAN: No, he never saw me. No, never called me. I knew Eisenhower very well, I knew him when he was in the Philippines over there, when he was the shoeshine boy for MacArthur, and MacArthur treated him just like a shoeshine boy.

HESS: Did he?

CHAPMAN: He was so insulting I wouldn't have worked with him for five minutes! I wouldn't have worked with him, but MacArthur treated him like a messenger boy, that's all he was. Not that Eisenhower didn't have some ability, he did, but MacArthur didn't want his ability and his type of mind on his work. He

[945]

was considering himself the father of all military strategy; he was the top military strategist in America, of the world.

HESS: He wanted some "yes men" around...

CHAPMAN: Exactly.

HESS: ...not some original thinkers.

CHAPMAN: He didn't want anybody to waste his time by arguing with him.

HESS: Just say "yes" and move on.

CHAPMAN: That's all. Say "yes" and move on, that's a very good one.

HESS: All right, in recent times some of the historians and revisionists have been finding all of the roots of present-day troubles back during the Truman administration. They see the roots of the difficulties we've had in Vietnam; they see the roots of the difficulties we have had with Communist China, with our views on communism.

[946]

What is your opinion of that general line of thinking?

CHAPMAN: I don't think that that's hurting Truman a bit. I think there are more people today that think Truman was right on his major policy positions that he had to take, and there are more of them that support him today than ever did before.

HESS: Some of those revisionists say that when the United States employed such programs as the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall plan and point 4, that to marshal public support behind those programs, the Government purposely set out to frighten the American people by invoking visions of Communist world conquest; and that the only reason we wanted to restore Europe and the other nations of Europe was to restore markets for our products. In other words, if Europe failed our markets would dry up and unemployment and depression would result; self interest in other words.

[947]

CHAPMAN: Well, let me look at it, point it up this way. Had I been President of the United States at the time Truman had it (God forgive that I would punish the people for that when they got a good man)--Truman thought these things out very carefully, very carefully; he was not, he didn't take any "yes man's" position on anything. He would talk to different people and get different points of view on a given thing. Now, when he made his decision to support the Marshall plan, I talked with him, and I supported him strongly in it; I felt very keenly. Now, I said, "This is a terrific load for the American people to carry, but what's the alternative; I think it would be worse."

HESS: What did you see as the alternative?

CHAPMAN: I said the alternative would be the industrial life of the European countries, being industrialized as they were, would go to pieces; they'd go down.

[948]

Their markets would be taken from them anyway, not by us particularly, but the Japanese would have taken a lot of it, and your powerful enemies in the war would have taken a lot of it back, and they would have gotten a lot of that market. In the meantime Russia would have pushed in and gotten a foothold in Europe to such an extent they would change the whole picture, the whole future, for Europe and they would be in time, straddling the horse, riding him right through the field, and they would be, in time, the controlling factor almost in that area. You once give them control of power of one area, or let them get it, and they expand it very fast with a machinegun or anything else they need to, just like they did Hungary. They had planned that for a long time.

HESS: Did you see our efforts in Europe as being along the lines of a containment of communism?

CHAPMAN: There was some degree in that, but I didn't think of it or take that too seriously as being

[949]

something they could succeed with 100 percent anyway; because you can't contain intellectual ideals, whether good or bad; you can't necessarily contain them in a geographical area.

HESS: Can't fence in an idea.

CHAPMAN: You can't do it. You can't do it. Now you may dislike it, fight it, but you can't fence in an idea and you can't contain it. Now Truman saw that just as plain as you did just then; you expressed it just right. It was an idea that you could not contain in the sense that the people were trying to think of it. The Republicans were particularly trying to--some of them were trying to lead the parade to turn the American people against Truman on communism, and that is why you couldn't get any of the usually more level-headed Republicans to take on Senator McCarthy and answer his stuff themselves, because they knew it was not true. They knew it wasn't true. Half of the stuff he was giving in his

[950]

speeches on the floor of the Senate, they knew was false.

HESS: But most of them didn't want to speak out.

CHAPMAN: They didn't want to speak out because they saw a possibility that we may be the defender of America against communism that's growing. It's growing.

HESS: If you'll recall, one person did speak out at first--Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine...

CHAPMAN: That's right.

HESS: …in her famous "declaration of conscience."

CHAPMAN: That's right. That's right.

HESS: Did you ever hear President Truman speak of that?

CHAPMAN: Yes, he did. He thought it was very fine.

HESS: He appreciated her support.

[951]

CHAPMAN: He appreciated her support. She was supporting the principles for the American people, and he didn't take it as a personal thing; he took it as a matter of conviction of this woman, and he appreciated it very much, he liked it.

HESS: In your opinion, what were Mr. Truman's major accomplishments during his administration and what were his major failings?

CHAPMAN: I think as we have been around and watched--you and I have been around here, now, since Mr. Truman left in '52 or '53.

HESS: '53, 20 years ago.

CHAPMAN: Twenty years ago this...

HESS: Last month.

CHAPMAN: . . . last month. That's right. January

the 20th.

HESS: January the 20th.

[952]

CHAPMAN: Now, we've been around here 20 years; we have seen the wheels change--it's gone almost 180° around, in circling around in favor of Truman as compared to being against him at that time. Back in '52 there was Eisenhower's campaign, and it was totally negative in every respect; it was a negative campaign. He had nothing but a few cliché’s; "my crusade in Europe,"...

HESS: "I will go to Korea."

CHAPMAN: ...and, "I will go to Korea." Now, you see, Nixon was trying to take that phraseology and put it into his capsule that he was working on here with the Vietnam war, and he was trying to time the Vietnam war effort to his campaign, and he did. He more nearly...

HESS: Just about like clockwork wasn't it?

CHAPMAN: Oh, he fitted it; every move he made was for his campaign. We'd have had the same offer

[953]

we've got today right down to the last dot on the "i" that we could have had a year ago, had he taken it, but had he taken it he would have been defeated for reelection. Now he kept the war going, that's cruel to say, and I hate to have to say it, but he did. I think he was conscientious about it; I think he really felt that that was important, but he also felt that it was important for him to be reelected than anything else, and so he was working to that end. And he timed those things so carefully, and it looks like the public had lost all interest in their public officials and whom they sent to Washington; it just looks like they had lost all interest and weren't taking much interest in it.

HESS: What would you see as Mr. Truman's major foreign accomplishments and then his major domestic accomplishments?

CHAPMAN: Well, lets take it this way: First, he was picking up the pieces to put together a great

[954]

economy that had gone through a world-shaking experience of the expenditure of money in amounts unknown before in history. And he had to spend it to bring an end to the war. They closed the war down, and Truman, in the sight of history, will sit in the focus of that conference to close the war; he will rise to be as big a man as any man who sat at that table, even including Churchill.

Now, they're far apart in their method of approach, but their hearts were pretty much beating the same. Truman had one thing that kept him on the straight and narrow path at all times; his heart was always with the little people of the country. He tried to help them. So, first he tried to do something to shift the changing economic situation from a war base to a peacetime base, and mesh them.

HESS: Right, reconversion to a peacetime economy.

CHAPMAN: That's right, and that's not an easy job;

[955]

that is a hard job. Now, Mr. Nixon is going to find out that that's a much harder job than just letting the boys get killed over there; and they still take it and go with him for a while; they did, and he knew that; he timed them just right.

Now, Truman was having to manage a change over from a war base to a peacetime base with our economy. That meant he had to do something without farm production right away. Our farm problem made its entrance very quickly. Now, I felt that Charlie Brannan made a good Secretary of Agriculture, and he didn't get the; kind of publicity that I thought he was entitled to, about some of his proposals. I'm not an economist in the sense of dealing within agricultural commodities, and I don't feel that I'm capable of judging his situation on that, but I felt that Charlie had made an honest effort, a real effort there.

HESS: All right, Mr. Chapman, what is your favorite memory of Mr. Truman?

[956]

CHAPMAN: My favorite memory of Mr. Truman is his constant thinking and talking about the farm problem, and conservation. He was far more conservation-minded than people realized. One of my great memories of him was that he supported me on my conservation program and I was considered right at that time--a little bit of a liberal on conservation, and Mr. Truman supported my program absolutely 100 percent.

One of the things that I ought to tell you about is something that I discussed with Mr. Truman, and this was about the time he appointed me Secretary. The Kerr gas bill passed, and I had been fighting it. I had been opposing it right along, and, so, I knew who at the White House was supporting it, who were not. But I played a very cautious hand there, and I got Mr. Truman one evening when about 10 of us were having dinner and they were playing poker; I don't play poker. Now, I just visited around with a few who didn't play like I did, but Mr. Truman enjoyed a good game

[957]

of poker once in a while.

They had us all at the Statler Hotel and we had a suite up there. Clint Anderson was there, and he principally set the thing up, Clint did, because Clint liked to play poker, very much. I got a chance to talk to the President that night by himself for a few minutes when some of the crowd wasn't all there; I got a chance to talk with him. I said, "Mr. Truman, Mr. President, I haven't talked with you quite fully enough to give you the benefit of whatever my ideas may mean to you on that Kerr gas bill." I said, "I want to let you know that I personally am opposed to it, and I don't think it's a good bill. I don't think it's really a good bill, and I hope it won't pass, but I think it will. If it passes they can't pass it over your veto, and I don't know what position you're in on it."

He said, "Well, are you recommending to me to veto it?"

[958]

I said, "I certainly am Mr. President; I will give you a justification memorandum for your reasons for vetoing it, which I think will be very strong and you will see then the reasons why it should be vetoed. I've got an economic memorandum prepared on it, and it will give you the benefit of protection for your reasons why you do it."

"Well," he said, "is this another one of those give-aways to the boys?"

I said, "This is not only a give-away, Mr. President, but they've got it limited down to just a few of--one of your friends, out there in Oklahoma."

"All right, don't tell me who he is; you just don't tell me who he is; you just send me the veto message at the bottom of the bill."

So, when the bill got to the White House, the President always sent them--as a rule, he would send an important bill back to a department head to look at before he approved it or vetoed it.

[959]

So, he sent this bill over to me that morning as soon as he got to his office; he had it sent right to my office. I got it, and I sent this memorandum I had already prepared. I sent this memorandum, which in effect was his veto message; he'd carve it up to fit and--I laughed, because Clark and myself are good friends, I'm very fond of Clark, and I think Clark made a great contribution for helping Truman.

HESS: Clark Clifford?

CHAPMAN: Yes. Clark Clifford really was a great help to Truman. I knew he was for this bill; he wanted it approved, and I didn't, and he knew I didn't want it approved. But you know I...

HESS: What was his connection?

CHAPMAN: He was a pretty close friend of Kerr's. He got to be pretty close to Kerr; and he was supporting anything like that for Kerr, if he could he

[960]

would support it--and there was grounds to support it if you had that philosophy about it, but it didn't have the economic soundness for the mass of the smaller producers, you see.

HESS: It was slanted for the benefit of a few bigger producers?

CHAPMAN: It was only good for about ten companies, I'll tell you that.

HESS: Kerr's oil company being prominent among those?

CHAPMAN: Kerr-McGee was among them.

HESS: Kerr-McGee being prominent among those.

CHAPMAN: That's right. They were the leader in that. They were the leader that would have gotten the benefit from this bill, and they were...

HESS: And it was vetoed.

CHAPMAN: He vetoed it. I was so pleased with that because he had talked about that to me. And he

[961]

remembered, when the bill got over, he had...

HESS: Do you think Mr. Clifford was giving him advice contrary to your advice?

CHAPMAN: I don't know that he was.

HESS: What I was speaking about was this particular measure, but you don't know if he was?

CHAPMAN: No, I don't know if he was; I just know how Clifford personally felt about the bill.

HESS: Because he spoke to you about it, did he?

CHAPMAN: Yes, he had talked to me about it; and I had told Clifford that I was going to oppose it. I'd have to oppose the bill, and hope we could stay together on it.

Well, he said, "We'll either stay together, or out of each other's way."

Well, he did; he stayed out of my way, but he was for the bill. How much he did on it, I don't know.

[962]

HESS: Do you think this might be an indication of an instance in which a President received advice from a White House staff member, certain advice, and then he received contrary advice from a Cabinet member, and accepted the advice of the Cabinet member? Might this be an indication?

CHAPMAN: Well, that's an indication, of course, of what Truman did with me. I can't name you a single case in which he went over my head, or my recommendation, when I put it on the record, and wrote him this--well, Clark I think rewrote the veto message, but it was all right; it was going to be vetoed, and how much he talked with Truman, I don' t. know.

HESS: Can you think of any indications in which your advice was not accepted by the President, perhaps because the President was receiving contrary advice from White House staff members? In other words, the Kerr-McGee was something you won; can you think of an indication of something that you lost?

[963]

CHAPMAN: This other occasion that I had in mind concerning conservation of a large area that I wanted to save if I could, I didn't win, but I didn't make the kind of a crusade, or the kind of a dead-end fight--you could go so far on certain things, you either have to resign or something, you can't work for...

HESS: What particular project was this?

CHAPMAN: This was out in California where I wanted to build this dam, and...

HESS: What was the name of the dam?

CHAPMAN: ...it was that one on King's River.

HESS: We can add it in later.

CHAPMAN: King's River. I'll get the name of that dam. It was a very big project, and I wanted to bring that water down from the curve up in Oregon, the bend of that river out of Oregon, into California in that point, and take it in

[964]

California on down the coast of California; and we could have carried it in the river bed without digging a ditch. We wouldn't have had to have dug a canal 25 miles all the way to Los Angeles.

HESS: And Mr. Truman did not okay that?

CHAPMAN: He didn't okay it. Now, he wasn't opposed to it outright, but he said if we approved that, "that's going to shake my budget pretty close, because I'm pretty close on the budget and that's a pretty big one"--and it was; we were talking about a 200 to 300 million dollar program that would develop out of that. We wouldn't build it all in one year, of course, but you'd be committing the Government to it; but that was why he expressed himself in those terms to me.

HESS: Was he usually pretty budget conscious?

CHAPMAN: Not too much. Not too much. He was more conscious of the importance of the project; did

[965]

it contribute anything to the community and to people as a whole? If he thought the bill was sound and had a contribution to make for the benefit of the people, he was not budget conscious in those cases.

HESS: His first consideration was the social betterment.

CHAPMAN: Absolutely! And I've seen him do that now, on--at least he did it with three cases of mine that I had, that I was recommending which he approved. Now that one, he couldn't approve and I didn't blame him because we differed not only on the benefit of this project, but we differed on the fact that I was willing to stretch the budget that much more into a deficit budget than he wanted to for that year, because that was a pretty good chunk of money for a civilian department. We didn't get the kind of money that the military got. But that was a pretty good slug of money to get into one bill in the Interior. He

[966]

said, "I think we better lay that off until next year and then put it in in the beginning of next year, and hit that first." Then he said, "That will keep out some other projects that are not, I think, as valuable or contribute as much to the benefit of the people as this would. And so, let's put it in a different order, and then I'll avoid for this year having to raise the deficit any more than we have, and I wanted to cut it down," he said.

I understood that and I mean I don't consider that being against my project, because later on he approved it; we got a--that's the only letter I ever got from Senator Nixon. He wrote me a letter thanking me for that project, putting it through. It was the canal connecting California with the Mexican connection--make that connection. We had to get enough water to fill that dam before we could make these contracts with the Mexicans down below, to give them a chance to use their land, and then we had to deliver a

[967]

certain amount of water to Mexico that had a certain percentage of saline water. It couldn't be above a certain amount, in the water. We were putting too much salt water in the Colorado River already, and that was coming out of the Arizona Central Valley project, the Arizona project. They had drilled those wells in the project to bring up water, knowing it was salt water and too salty to meet this treaty. And therefore, we destroyed their crops for two years down there, down in the valley of Mexico. On the Mexican side we destroyed all of their cotton crop. They had a good cotton crop, some corn, and they were really destroyed by this salt water.

HESS: All right, Mr. Secretary, after sixteen long sessions, do you have anything else to add on Mr. Truman, or your role in the Truman administration?

[968]

CHAPMAN: Let me say this, that I ended my public career with Mr. Truman's termination of his office and I never enjoyed an association with anybody in my life any more than I did Mr. Truman's. I never had better treatment from anybody in my lifetime. Nobody treated me any fairer than Mr. Truman did, in all of my dealings through the White House in every respect. That went through political matters which we dealt with and which I helped with a great deal. I tried to contribute something to the political situation, particularly of the West. I was recognized as somewhat knowledgeable about the western picture on that. And then Mr. Truman was the kind of man that if you worked with him a little while--you had to learn him at first--but if you worked with him a little while, you soon learned, you soon found out that what he said was what he was going to do. There was no pussy-footing with him, and he didn't try to kid you around; he

[969]

didn't try to pass me off to somebody else, to talk with them and get their support for this or that. If I came to him for a project that required the White House support, held make his determination as to whether he would support it or not after he interviewed whom he wanted, and he would either call me in, say, "I'm sorry, but I can't support that bill of yours," or he would go ahead and say, " That's all right, I'm going to support that bill for you."

This is something I maybe shouldn't say, sounds egotistical, but I don't believe any man in the Cabinet, anywhere in his administration got any more favorable approval of his work and helping him with his work, than Truman gave me. I don't believe any man was any more lucky than I.

HESS: You had a good relationship with him.

CHAPMAN: I had a good relationship. I had one of the finest relationships that a man could have. First

[970]

place, I didn't make a rush in there to be Secretary of the Interior when Ickes went out; as a matter of fact, I didn't want it at that time. And if I took the time to explain it to you, you would understand why.

HESS: I think we've covered that.

CHAPMAN: We've covered that and it proved I was right. And it worked out just right. Now, Mr. Truman fitted the needs of the American people just at that time, so definitely; he was the--I don't know of any man that could have followed Roosevelt, and I was close to Roosevelt, and I spent many weekends up there at Hyde Park. Rex Tugwell, Harry Hopkins, and myself, were the three that were usually together up there. We worked together on outside projects away from our departments, where the three of us were working together on something for Roosevelt, a project of some kind; and we worked together on that and I got wonderful support from Roosevelt, but it wasn't the kind of

[971]

support that I had from Harry Truman. By that I mean, Roosevelt might change his position on you without calling you, but Truman never did that.

HESS: Roosevelt would do that, but Truman would not, is that right?

CHAPMAN: Truman would not do that. But Roosevelt would feel that he had the right to do it, and he did if he wanted to.

HESS: And let you find out about it later?

CHAPMAN: But that doesn't make for good cooperation, you see.

HESS: That's right.

CHAPMAN: Truman never once turned me down like that, never once left me hanging not knowing where I stood. He was really a wonderful guy.

I told you how I was appointed. I think I gave, you that at the first part of this history;

[972]

and it was the most unusual thing you could conceive of happening. Nobody but Truman would do a thing like that, do it that way. Now, he had as much confidence in this as he thought was necessary; he knew me well enough that he thought--I think I know him well enough--he thought he didn't need anybody else. He went on and appointed me without talking to anybody. That day--I'll never forget that day. Charlie Ross called me from the White House; it was Armistice Day, which we used to have then, instead of--now we call it what, Military Day or something?

HESS: Veteran's Day, and they've even moved it into October. It's not even into November anymore.

CHAPMAN: And that's taking it out of context of history, because it was at 11 o'clock on the 11th of November that they signed the cease fire from the front lines.

HESS: And that's where they should have left Armistice

[973]

Day.

CHAPMAN: They should have left Armistice Day there.

HESS: I think we had better shut it off.