Dr. Raymond W. Miller Oral History Interview

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 It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.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 September, 1970
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

[1]

HESS: Dr. Miller, to begin, will you give me a little bit about your background. Where were you educated, and what positions have you held?

MILLER: I was born in San Jose, California, 1895, January 21st. I spent most of my life basically, as a farmer in Linden, California which is still Mrs. Miller's and my domicile. I went to the old San Jose Normal School which is now San Jose State. And I'm one of these people that believe you -- you asked me where I got my education, I get it every day. I've been to many schools,

[2]

so forth, so on and I figure this way that the world changes so fast, you've got to keep up. I lectured at the Harvard Business School from 1949 to 1964 on the faculty. I had a general program of public relations seminars and world affairs seminars. And then I've written a few books, one of them called Can Capitalism Compete? which I was very fortunate in having my old friend, who in those days I called by his first name, Dick Nixon, he's now the President, he endorsed it. The then Speaker of the -- then head of the Democratic Party in the Senate, Lyndon Johnson, endorsed it. So, the bright thing the publisher did, he came out with two jackets. One jacket had Nixon's name on the top and the other one had Johnson's.

HESS: Bipartisan.

MILLER: Yes, and in other words it's been -- and I've

[3]

written several other books and I enjoy writing. I've acted as an adviser to a good many corporations, and companies around the world, but basically, most of my original activities have been in agriculture. We still farm in California and in Oregon.

HESS: How did you come to be interested in economics and the economic conditions in foreign countries?

MILLER: Oh, it would take me a long time but I think the first project, the first -- in other words, I had no more idea of doing anything than farming than the man in the moon. But suddenly through no credit of mine at all, accidentally I became precipitated into first the state, then the national and then international projects in regard to explaining what business, private enterprise, or profit business was in regard to communism and so forth. And that's a long

[4]

complicated story, but it was all very interesting to me and it dated back to the fact -- farmers are very independent. The average farmer is a pretty independent sort of a chap. And my philosophy has always been that in the long run the country is important to -- can get along so long as its people can feel they are individually a part of it. But when you get them in the mass, I don't know what'll happen. So, I got involved in this by acting as adviser. We've operated all over the world. We changed names once or twice. We originally called it Agricultural Trade Relations, then we shifted to Public Relations Research and a subsidiary called World Trade Relations and in it we have been advisers to governments to a certain extent, business a good deal, churches, religious groups and I've kept myself, in a way, to where I could do personally the things that I really

[5]

wanted to do and take time out and not have too many deadlines. For instance I happen to be Protestant and a Mason but right now and for the last two years, my chief personal project has been to write a story as to what happened that the Roman Catholic Church got this Vatican II and I'm doing it at the request of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, who said that we happened to know more about it than anybody and I guess maybe we did. I mention that particularly because it brings in Monsignor [L.G.] Ligutti who was the man who actually started what now is the Vatican II and Monsignor Ligutti was, and is, a great friend and admirer of President Truman and if you haven't got Ligutti into this thing, Ligutti can add greatly to it. And he was here the other day from Rome and he and I talked some about President Truman. All right that

[6]

answers the question I think.

HESS: All right, fine. What can you tell me about the origin of point 4? How did point 4 get started?

MILLER: Well, may I put it this way. I think there are at least five people that are dead certain they know how point 4 started and probably each one of them is perfectly honest and there may be a certain amount of truth in each one of them and I'll tell it to you just as though you had me on the witness stand and I'd sworn to tell all the truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.

In January, 1949, I went over to the Longfellow Building, which is in this city, which was then the headquarters of the Food and Agricultural Organization of United Nations. That's before it had voted to go to Rome.

[7]

And I went over there to see a man whom I had known for many, many years who was the head of the FAO, Norris E. Dodd, who was the Director General. He had been elected a few months before and we were very close friends. I went over, frankly, just to pass the time of day with him, to chat with him and compliment him on being in this job, tell him how good it was for the world. We chatted for a little while and the upshot of the conversation was that he told me, he said, "Listen, Ray, I need somebody to troubleshoot for me around the world, and the other things, and I've been looking for a long time and I finally found the person I want."

I said, "Good. I'm glad you have."

Well, he said, "I'm glad you're glad, because you're the man."

I said, "Me? Good Lord, I've never been

[8]

off the continental United States and Canada."

He said, "That's all right now. I've got to have somebody. I'm riding herd." (These are his exact words.) "I'm riding herd on these countries."

At that time there were about fifty-four, I think, in the FAO. And he said, "They're going all directions at once and I've got to write world programs and so forth." And he said, "I wish you would consider it." He said, "By the way, I want you to look at something." And he opened up his pocket and he took out an envelope, torn just like a -- he was a farmer and so am I. Maybe you're not a farmer, I don't know, but anyway farmers always write their stuff on torn envelopes. We don't carry a notebook. So, on this torn envelope, I can't tell you the exact words, but he had basically, the idea of self-help and international affairs and so forth and

[9]

so on and he said, "What do you think of that?"

I said, "Wonderful, I think that's just wonderful."

"Well," he said, "let me tell you something," he said, "that's notes I made last night after dinner I had with President Truman." You see he knew Truman very well, because he had been Under Secretary of Agriculture and Truman had really engineered to get him in the head of the FAO. That's a long story. Boyd Orr was head of it and he was a great scientist but not the best administrator. So, he said, "Do you like that?"

And I said, "I do."

"Well," he said, "that's a double reason you have got to troubleshoot for me because," he said, "the President is going to put that, if he can get by the hurdles of State Department."

[10]

(That's his exact words.) He said, "If he can get by the hurdles of State Department, he's going to get that in his inaugural address. He'll be inaugurated in two weeks from now," whatever it was. Of course, he said, "I know you didn't vote for him but he said he's going to do that."

And I said, "I think that's a wonderful thing." I said, "I've never met Mr. Truman."

"Well," he said, "I want you to help."

"Well," he said, "he gave it to me last night, some ideas, and I wrote them down on this envelope and he wanted me to try them out." He said, "Several of us are trying it out." And he said, "I'm going to report back to him."

And then he, he Mr. Dodd, turned to his secretary who later became Mrs. Dodd. After his wife died he married her some years later. She is a wonderful woman. And he turned to her and

[11]

he said, "Well, you write that up in a memo now for President Truman, what I think he ought to say about it."

And I never saw what he wrote. And then later, answering your question, later I had occasion to meet a Mr. Hardy, I've forgotten his first name.

HESS: Benjamin.

MILLER: Benjamin Hardy. I met Hardy and came to know Hardy quite well. Hardy was working then as an adviser to Truman when I met him. Later I went on and became Dodd's adviser around the world. And I met Hardy, had several visits with him and Hardy told me the background of how he happened to get involved in this which I know that if you've seen Mr. [George M.] Elsey, Elsey can give you the whole thing.

HESS: Will you tell me what the background was to

[12]

that anyway. Even though we've seen Mr. E1sey.

MILLER: All right. The best of my knowledge and belief is this that this young man Hardy -- Benjamin Hardy -- I had forgot his first name, was working for State Department in some capacity which I don't know. And he was a very devout religious gentleman, I've forgot what faith, I think Baptist, but I won't swear to that. And he became very much concerned about State Department and our Government and everything spending so much money and energy and effort in military affairs. He wasn't opposed to it, he wasn't one of these beatniks, he wasn't like these birds that's going to pull this show off tomorrow wherever it is that you got. He felt that the United States should put into international use the same type of thing that he'd seen his mother and his grandmother and those people do in their women's missionary

[13]

societies. And that he felt that the United States owed a duty that we had received from the, whatever you want to call it, the reservoir of God's knowledge, we'd received certain basic knowledge as to how to increase food production, how to sanitize things, how to do various things in regard to food and rural living because he was very much sold on the thing -- that's where Hardy and I hit up such a friendship. He was completely sold on the idea that most of the world's problems were rural. I'll never forget the day I sprung that idea -- that name on him -- and he grabbed it right away. And incidentally, I wrote about that later that most of the world's problems were and are rural. And so he tried this out and wrote it in a little memo to whoever his superior was, I don't know, in State Department.

At any rate, he was told to mind his own business. I'll never forget he told me, he said that his superiors in State just sat on him and said that was out of my jurisdiction. But he said he went home and I guess he was married, and either his wife or his mother

[14]

encouraged him and told him that ideas came from God. I'll never forget he told me that, ideas come from God and that he had an idea and that he -- no matter what the cost was -- he had ought to get it to where something can -- so he said, he just sat down and wrote a letter to the President, which probably broke all State Department rules and regulations and in the -- I never saw the letter, as far as I know Mr. Elsey still has a copy of it. At least I understood him to say he had Hardy's original letter. And, any rate, the letter got to Mr. Elsey, who was working with Mr. Truman as one of Truman's advisors and Elsey saw this thing immediately, saw the value of it. I think E1sey's a little modest about it because Ray Zimmerman told me this and a couple of other people who seemed to know, that probably if Elsey hadn't salvaged this idea, nothing would have ever happened.

[15]

As it was Elsey took it to the President, or passed it on to him, I don't know how, but Elsey was in a position to take it to him. And the President's reaction was immediate; and affirmative. And I would gather, based upon conversations of many, and I'd say my own conclusion, this is a conclusion which I couldn't prove, as a conclusion, I think President Truman grabbed at it very much the same as I did and a lot of other people did. If you're based upon a background of having had something to do with the old missionary barrels that went out. And Truman was raised in an atmosphere of this rural life -- see these were in the rural communities the women would get together and put together a missionary barrel every year and in it they would put seed catalogs and dress material, patterns how to make clothes, probably clothes didn't fit the people overseas but, be

[16]

that as it may, it was to send information. Anyway, President Truman, according to what Mr. Elsey told me, sparked at the idea and told Elsey to work on it, to put the idea into writing so far as I know. And then in the process, and I don't know the detail of it, except that Mr. Elsey told me that, and I think he said the President told him, maybe Mr. [Dean] Acheson told him, maybe he did it on his own, at any rate they moved Hardy from where he was over to work with Elsey to save him from trouble. And that was about -- so when I knew Mr. -- I never met Elsey until just a couple of years ago but Mr. Zimmerman brought him, we had lunch together. But I'd heard of Elsey, but I never knew him before. But Hardy I knew quite well. So that, I think, is the way the thing got started. Mr. Elsey probably polished it some, gave it to Mr. Truman, Mr. Truman I know had Mr. Dodd and who else I don't know, but Mr. Dodd said several

[17]

people at dinner. Dodd unfortunately, is dead, but I think it will be in Dodd's diary. Dodd kept a diary every day of his life from the time he was an adult and I would recommend whatever you do if you are interested in this part, you get ahold of Dodd's diary, which his wife had the last I knew. She told me on the phone one day she was going to give it to a university. Now whether she did or not, that I don't know.

HESS: Do you have her address?

MILLER: Yes, I have it, it's in -- it's the only Norris E. Dodd in the Phoenix, Arizona phone book but my secretary has it, I haven't got it right here at this moment. We've got it. She's a wonderful woman, wonderful, fine.

HESS: What were the nature of some of your duties working for Mr. Dodd on this matter?

[18]

MILLER: All right, now, I'll tell you. I went with Mr. Dodd basically for the FAO, which as you know is an international organization. And it was only indirectly that I became involved in this as a U.S. citizen to start, and then later on, I became very much involved in it. As a U.S. citizen, but working as a consultant, I took the title of Consultant to the Director General of the FAO. That was a nice title because it didn't make any difference. Nobody except my secretary knew exactly everything I was doing for it. He sent me to the ends of the earth and just a verbal understanding, but part of the process that he wanted me to do -- I made my first trip for him, I think it was about the 16th of January, or the 18th, it was just at the time that Truman gave this inaugural address. It was two weeks after I had first talked to him. I went just as fast as I could get my shots.

[19]

HESS: Where did you go?

MILLER: My first trip was to go to Bangkok. And I went over there as Mr. Dodd's advisor on an international meeting of rice. And then I troubleshot for him around the earth. I've traveled in the jungles and what have you and had a lot of experiences. But that's another story. But answering your question specifically, my unofficial duty was to explain to these Asian rulers; it was mostly Asia, where I was then, such people as, well later Syngman Rhee, Generalissimo of China, Mr. [Jawaharlal] Nehru, Mr. [Achmed] Sukarno, all those fellows. And what I was doing with them, I was helping them develop a FAO program, which was FAO of the United Nations, but along with it I would explain to them -- in the meantime the President had made this announcement and the Congress had not passed any bills, but I explained

[20]

to them what we, as Americans, felt we might do in regard to what we call point 4. That was to help people to help themselves by knowledge that we have gained. At no time did I or Mr. Dodd, and so far as I know President Truman, ever envision the idea of shipping great quantities of machinery, much of it obsolete, and so forth and so on, around the world. His idea was to help people to help themselves by our transfer of know-how and show-how on a reciprocal basis. I'll never forget the day I spent all the afternoon talking to Mr. Sukarno, in Indonesia and through an interpreter to his Cabinet. This was in '51, two years after when Sukarno first got going and he was just so excited about this he said, I'll never forget, he called me, he said, "That's economic democracy." And I, at no time, ever found any one of these leaders, these rulers or whatever you want to call them, of these Asian countries, and later I had the same experience in Latin America, I never found any of them that were adverse to this idea. But I could write a book on the ones that were adverse to the idea of our corrupting the back-bone of the farmers by shipping a lot of stuff

[21]

over there. Because the point 4 was basically envisioned, and I'll show you later, I think they are probably in your library, but before Mr. Truman went out of office I wrote him a letter at the suggestion of Jim Webb, who was then the Under Secretary of State, in which I told him the point 4 was getting away from him, and it was getting highly political and that it was being used too much as a give away program; and I suggested to him before he went out of office he make a new statement. And he wrote me back a very beautiful letter and he said he would; but he never did get around to do it apparently.

HESS: Did you think that the project got away from...

MILLER: Yes, it got away before Mr. Truman ever left office. And this had nothing to do with politics at all but right down the line from then on until --

[22]

as of now. I was over last week talking to the present administrator [John A.] Hannah, I've known him a long time; he's a long-time friend. I'm not going to say what's going to happen, I don't know, I'm not a crystal ball reader, but right down to now the thing has become a giveaway program of things, while with President Truman, the idea was a program of transfer of information. How to do things by show-how, and that was Ed Dodd's great contribution to it. But the -- I would suggest if you haven't already done it that you see Stanley Andrews. Have you seen Stanley?

HESS: No.

MILLER: Well, Stanley Andrews probably knows more firsthand what I'm talking about than any man alive. Stanley now lives in Alamo, Texas. He gets up here quite often. And when Mr.

[23]

[Henry G.] Bennett later was killed, Stanley was appointed by President Truman as the Acting Administrator and was Acting Administrator until President Eisenhower, at the change of administration, put Mr. [Harold E.] Stassen in. Nothing against Mr. Stassen, personally, but I don't think he ever had the least idea what this thing was all about. Least is too big a word, I don't think he understood. I had one long visit with Mr. Stassen, I liked him very much personally, but we just didn't -- I talked one language and he talked another.

HESS: Really what went wrong, what could have been done to hold it to the original path?

MILLER: Well...

HESS: Better administration?

MILLER: I would say this and this isn't -- I'm a

[24]

great defender of private enterprises there is, but our people, I don't blame them, our companies, our labor union boys looking for jobs and so forth in companies and so forth, looked upon it as a great opportunity to keep the full lines of production going in this country and to have a place to...

HESS: Market their wares?

MILLER: Market their wares. For instance just take one example. I went to India in 1949 first, that was when I first went out for Mr. Dodd, and from Bangkok I went over to India and I helped lay out the FAO program for India. I traveled alone there and had the time of my life. And then in the fall I went back, in fact there's a picture over there on the wall at your back of the staff that I had up at Lucknow, India, an old picture there on the wall about thirty fellows. They

[25]

were the -- our staff we had, there was three of us there from the FAO, had a meeting of Southeast Asia people on farm cooperatives. And when I was over there the Indian Government in New Delhi, all these things sound egotistical, but they weren't wanting to see me, I represented Mr. Dodd and because I represented him, the red carpet was rolled out you know. And they were telling me about their need for more tractors and I had taken with me a friend of mine by the name of C. Leigh Stevens, unfortunately now dead. And Stevens in my opinion was American's number one industrial engineer in those days. And I got him to go with me and pay his own expenses and his own time. He finally, the rest of his life, put in six months of each year working for nothing to solve these problems. Well, the Indian Government, through Mr. Punjabe, who was the minister of agriculture, furnished

[26]

the plane for himself and Mr. Stevens. I didn't go with them at all but they traveled some twenty-five thousand miles in India, this was the fall of '49, checking up on tractors because my theory had been that the tractor that we were trying to ship to them was just too big, wouldn't work, and Mr. Stevens finally made a report to Mr. Nehru personally, that's before I met Nehru, I didn't meet him until a little later, later he and I became pretty good acquaintances. And Mr. Stevens gave him a report that 85 percent of all the horsepower of the tractors over there were broken down or inoperable. Those little farms of two and a half acres, and here was a great big tractor and they had ordered, I don't know how many of them. Well, Mr. Nehru cancelled the orders, took a chance of international lawsuit I guess. In fact, I think Mr. Stevens

[27]

and I are probably consigned to the tractor hell. There are some Canadian and American companies, they were certainly violent. They didn't happen to, get after me so much because they didn't know me, but poor old Stevens, he was big enough, he didn't care. And they said, "Listen, you're just destroying our market." Well to me it would be a whole lot better to help them with a little better -- Henry Bennett's great philosophy was non-motorized equipment or middle technology or whatever you want to call it. You couldn't just jump in. You'd just be sick to see these bunds, they call them bunds, I call them levees, two foot high dirt to hold the water. And there would be a poor old tractor stalled right there, it couldn't go either forward or backward. It just got straddle and sunk and there it was. And then they would ship these tractors away

[28]

off up in the Gangetic plains where there were no roads. How were they going to get gasoline for them? And nobody seemed to care. We found -- or he did -- found dozens of them broken down with carburetors off and this and that. There wasn't anybody to run them. But they still wanted to sell more and more and more. Now that type of stuff -- now those in '49 -- those were not actually point 4 sales because point 4 had not come into operation then. But it was that pattern that was transferred over into it if I make myself at all clear.

HESS: Yes, you certainly do.

Did you find that there were certain countries where point 4 seemed to work better than it did in other countries? Or was it just a general overall pattern?

MILLER: I would put it this way that the people,

[29]

the actual bona fide farmer out in the country -- now I'm jumping way through, because I traveled, I hadn't been overseas since '56, but between '49 and '56 I traveled I don't know, a half million miles or more over there. And I found no place but that the farmers, I don't mean the bureaucrats, good God they're a different breed, but the little old farmer, or peasant, or whatever you want to call him, the fellow who we were trying to help, and my notion is that if we can't get them interested in -- the real battle of the world is in the rice paddies. They are not in New Delhi and in Saigon, they are in the rice paddies. We're fighting for an understanding, but those people can understand point 4, they could understand the matter of some help. I'll tell you my extreme -- this is all I can tell you. In '52 or '54, I was in India one time and I went out to a village.

[30]

Of course, being a farmer myself, I just enjoyed going visiting. So I was out there at this village and they were building a road into the village; some of our point 4 program. And the road was being bulldozed by a beautiful American tractor and grader and so forth and here were the Indian villagers sitting out under a mango tree watching. I'll never forget the head man of the village -- it was a Moslem village -- the head man of the village, in very polite terms, he just very frankly asked me how big fools we could be. He said, "My people won't appreciate that road. They're not putting any of their own sweat into it." He said, "They're not going to learn anything sitting under these mango trees." He said, "They'd been a lot better off," he said, "if you could have got us a hundred shovels and a few wheelbarrows." Which I think he was right. Having been a

[31]

farmer myself why -- and we've taken too much -- and I'll say this that the last two or three years there has been a tendency of the present FAO setup to come back quietly toward the beginning of the original program.

We wrote an article on it three years ago which we called "Men or Beasts?" I don't know whether I ever gave it to you or not. And my friend Congressman [E. Y.] Berry from South Dakota who is on the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House, he put it in. Well, he didn't put it in the Record, he read it into the Record. He took an hour and five minutes of Congress' time to read it. I'll give you a copy of it. And that puts pretty much my philosophy of what I saw then.

In 1967, four or five of my associates, one of whom was Ray Zimmerman, sat down and worked out this document which I call "Men or Beasts?"

[32]

which is the basic philosophy that India has got to come to the choice as to whether it's going to be an animal economy or a man economy and I often think about it. If we were an animal economy and hadn't shot the buffalo, we wouldn't be able to rule the world with corn. In other words you have to -- conservation goes so far, I don't know how far it goes.

HESS: And that's what he read?

MILLER: He read it in Congress with the approval of the Speaker. Berry is Republican and the Speaker was a Democrat and the Speaker gave him an hour and he took an hour and five minutes and read this whole thing. I don't know if there were three members of Congress or fifty there when he read it. I don't have the least idea. At any rate, it's on the record, it's there. Well, in this thing, may I put it this way, and I would hate to swear to this but to the best

[33]

of my knowledge and belief, this is the first time in this record that the Truman point 4 message was ever actually put in the Congressional Record by anybody except possibly when he first delivered it. I pinned this entirely on President Truman's point 4 message. And many of the things that I might tell you in this little interview are spelled out in here.

HESS: Fine, we'll include that as part of the appendix of our interview.

MILLER: I would very much like to have it because this tells you exactly. This would be Ray Miller's philosophy and I'll put in here, I'm going to read you one sentence here. This is on the Record on page 6847, the first full paragraph in the first column:

President Truman's great Point 4

I mentioned earlier that I traveled to India on behalf of the Food and Agricultural Organization

[34]

of the United Nations. That had come about one day in January 1949 when Mr. Dodd...

I just told you that story.

We had finished discussing various aspects of the work he handed me a torn envelope...

Well, I've told you this story over again here.

Many interested citizens are wondering how we, as a nation, ever got caught in the quicksand of Indian population and food pressures. It's very simple. Our missionary tradition coupled with the vision of President Truman's point 4 ideas, stimulated an intense interest in the problems of India. Unfortunately, in our enthusiasm to "do good and save the world" we ignored the example of the missionaries who helped people to help themselves, and we appended a give-away concept with the Truman program which was never intended to be included. The inaugural address of 1949 in its entirety...

This is something, may I say this, as an American citizen of a different party than Mr. Truman is, I think that his 1949 message in total is the greatest state paper in my lifetime. That's my studied opinion.

The inaugural address of '49, in its entirety, is one of the really great state papers of

[35]

these times. Point 4 of the speech heralded the greatest attempt ever made by those who had discovered technical knowledge to share it with those who have not been exposed to its findings. In Mr. Truman's exact words...

And may I say I just quoted it all in here and Mr. Berry read all that. He said, "I read that and," he said, "the Congressmen really, most of them, never heard of it before. They knew it by name, they never studied what it was." These Congressmen, they've got "x" numbers of thousands of bills a year, they can't read everything. And the present generation of Congressmen, I'll make a guess that to an overwhelming majority of them, point 4 is just a name. It means certain things, but the philosophy that Truman had behind it, they never got. That's the reason, frankly, that I think I put the message thing in my report. This is what I would like to tell you. You say, how did it get off the track? This is one to get off the track.

The Marshall plan, also inaugurated earlier by President Truman, was proposed as the

[36]

world's most comprehensive rehabilitation program and is basically a plan to put Europe back on the production line. What we had developed in North America was largely the result of education, techniques and ability imported in Europe over the past three hundred years. We developed a climate of political freedom and individual initiatives..

and so forth and so on.

The Europeans have built a civilization... Then I go on to say that when we tried to take the same type of techniques, we had to loan money to Europe, their factories were destroyed and so forth, but Asia had never had anything of this sort. Certain politicians and business groups felt that they could transfer the Marshall plan to Pacific Asia. It worked in Japan because there you had a people who were industrious and mechanical. But it doesn't work in those other countries. But never a week goes by but that I spend at least one day with some one of my associates or friends that's just back and some of my friends have just been over in Vietnam -- General Bruce Clarke

[37]

and some of these. And those farmers over there in Vietnam, they are receptive to the type of thing that Truman talked about, but they're not receptive to the thing of suddenly being given great quantities of hair oil or shampoos or razor blades or some other things.

HESS: Or large tractors that they can't use?

MILLER: Yes.

HESS: Okay, fine.

MILLER: I'll rest my case with this.

HESS: Well, good.

MILLER: Then I've got this last heading: We Must go Back to the Basic Self-help Idea of Point 4.

HESS: We'll put that in the appendix.

One point on Henry Bennett: Why was Henry Bennett chosen to head the point 4 operation?

[38]

MILLER: I cannot answer that, except this, when you interview Jim Webb, Jim could tell you. Jim is the one man and President Truman, if he -- I don't know if he is able to or not, but Jim Webb could definitely tell you how. Now to the best of my knowledge and belief this is the story. I had known Henry Bennett personally since 1936. Henry Bennett was the president of the Oklahoma land grant college. You're familiar with land grant colleges?

HESS: Oklahoma A. & M.

MILLER: Oklahoma A. & M.

HESS: Which is now Oklahoma State.

MILLER: He was president of it. He and I together inaugurated a plan to keep Oklahoma green in the dustbowl days. Way back in the dustbowl days, I'd worked with him on that project.

[39]

I represented some California companies; Safeway Stores and J. C. Penney, I was their adviser on rural affairs for the country and I was down there working with Bennett. Any rate, all I can tell you is this in answer to your question and I don't know the date. But, whatever it was, the date that Henry Bennett was appointed as administrator of point 4, it's immaterial, and the next morning after President Truman had called him in and invited him to be, I was in Canada and I got a phone call in the Chateau Laurier from Henry Bennett. I hadn't seen Henry for four or five years, oh, about two years, I guess. And he called me and he said, "Ray, I'm to be the administrator of point 4."

I said, "Thank God, the President has done something good."

And he said, "Now, wait a minute, I want you to be my adviser of the world on this."

[40]

I said, "Listen Henry, I'm the adviser to Ed Dodd, at the FAO and I don't think I can do them both, but I'll try." We joked. I said, "You talk to the President and talk to Ed Dodd and if I can do it, I would like to because," I said, "the thing has got to go together. On the other hand, get somebody else."

He said, "How soon can you meet me?"

We agreed to meet in Minneapolis and that document I mailed you yesterday (Preliminary report on Public Relations Audit of United States Technical Cooperation Program in Latin America), did you get it yet?

HESS: Not yet.

MILLER: Well, I mailed it to you yesterday. In that document I tell how I happened to meet Henry Bennett and how he got me inveigled into this thing and that was where -- then Henry Bennett,

[41]

and this is a good place to shut off today probably -- Henry Bennett -- I left myself in Canada. A few days later I came back, I met Henry Bennett in Minneapolis on my way back from Canada and Henry was over there making a speech and we sat all morning up in his room. In the meantime he had seen Mr. Dodd, he'd seen the powers that be and we were -- and I was on the faculty of the Harvard Business School, all the time, all this whole time, and I had one of the faculty advisors to the Dean there with me in Minneapolis anyway. And he, Bennett and I worked out a program which I spelled out in that thing that I mailed to you yesterday where I would be Henry's adviser on a part time. And to the best of my knowledge and belief -- well, no wait a minute I got ahead of myself -- so then a few days later I came back to Washington and Henry called me up and he said, "Listen Ray, I want you to meet Jim

[42]

Webb."

I said, "Who's Jim Webb?"

He said, "He's Under Secretary of State."

I said, "I didn't know that," which I didn't. I hadn't paid any attention to it.

He said, "I want you to meet him and," he said, "he's from Oklahoma." He said, "He and I are good friends and," he said, "he's the man that really got me to take this job." And that's all I actually know.

So, I went over with him that afternoon and met Jim Webb. And that was the beginning of a friendship that has lasted a long time. I have great love and respect for Jim Webb.

HESS: What was Mr. Webb's connection with point 4 at that time?

MILLER: He was Under Secretary of State and he was the intermediary -- let me put it this way, of

[43]

course, Henry Bennett was killed not too long after that. The last real visit I had with President Truman was about how Bennett happened to get killed. My observation was that President Truman had Jim Webb channel to him information from the field about point 4. All I know is that I had several visits with Jim Webb. I never was intimate with him, never met his family, but I liked him as a man very much, and he and I had several visits and on each visit when I came back from some trip overseas, this was even after Mr. Bennett died, I would go in and talk to Jim and I had every reason to believe that Jim transferred it on to the President. I saw the President once or twice personally.

HESS: What can you tell me about the airplane crash that caused Mr. Bennett's death?

[44]

MILLER: To the best of my knowledge and belief this is the story. When we were up there in Minneapolis, Mr. Bennett and I sat down and figured out that -- I said, "Henry, the trouble spot that you might look at first is to get into this Near Eastern country. At any rate, he and I agreed up there -- well, put it this way, he was the boss, we agreed that he would go -- he'd start out on a trip around the world visiting the various countries in which we had missions which was Egypt, Greece, three, four others, and then he would go up into what we now call the Arab countries; Tehran, and Bagdad and those cities, and then he'd work on the way to the East. And would go through India and I made him a whole bunch of suggestions for India and Pakistan and Thailand, which by that time I had come to know quite well. And then some "x" number of weeks later, I would take

[45]

the plane and would fly to meet him in Hong Kong and he and I would have a two or three day visit out of which then I would double back where he had been and pick up the pieces he had left. That was never done because he was killed. Now that's the reason I bring in Monsignor Ligutti, because -- not only that but for many other reasons. Mr. Bennett had an idea of setting up an advisory committee to help him -- of citizens -- and Clayton Whipple, who unfortunately is now dead -- Clayton would have told you this whole thing. Clayton was his paid deputy for looking into it. And he set up a committee (I could tell you some funny things but it doesn't help the story any), and this committee was an advisory committee to the administrator and I went on the committee even though I also was in a double capacity. I was the personal advisor of this committee as well.

[46]

This committee met about once every month or six weeks. Our reports are available, you've got them over there on my desk, they were -- and nobody got any pay for the committee. That's one reason it did some good; they wasn't just trying to look for per diem. And we had nine men on the committee. Most of them are now dead. Well, on this committee was Monsignor L. Ligutti who was the executive secretary of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference. He had gone on at my suggestion. He and I are very good friends. John Reisner was on representing the Agricultural Mission which was a Protestant group. At the last meeting of this committee, before Mr. Bennett started out on this trip where he was killed, we agreed that Monsignor Ligutti, who was going to be in Rome anyway visiting with Pope Pius and I think he made an appointment for Bennett to be with the Pope -- he

[47]

did at one time -- and then that he, Monsignor, would go over to the Near East where the Franciscans have charge of all the relics if you want to call them, in the Holy Land, or the property of the Roman Catholic Church which includes most of the Christian property no matter what order has it. It's administered by these people. I can well remember it -- we arranged at this meeting that Monsignor Ligutti would go to -- was going to Rome anyway at no cost to the U.S. Government. We tried to run these things without spending a lot of money. And that he would meet Henry Bennett and introduce him to the leading Arabs in this, from the lack of a better name, I'll say that Near Eastern country. So, they worked out the schedule and Bennett was to fly from Cairo to Tehran and they -- Mr. Ligutti was in the airfield to meet him and the plane crashed.

[48]

Incidentally, the last time I visited with President Truman, and don't think I visited him a lot, I don't think I visited with him five times in my life. But, the last time I visited with him was about, oh, I don't know what, maybe ten years ago. They gave a little luncheon here, supposed to be bipartisan, I don't know whether or not, at any rate we had President Truman. At the last minute somebody invited me to put up $2.50 and go to it. So, I went over and I was the last person to get in and I had to walk right in front of the speaker's platform. Charlie Taft was presiding, he's from Cincinnati. And I had to walk by to get the last seat there was in the room and just as I walked by, President Truman was looking at some papers and I, just in passing by, I said, "Hello Mr. President," or something like that and I didn't even stop.

"Hey!" he said, "Where the hell have you been?" or something to that effect. And he startled

[49]

me you see. And then he right off the bat, he said, "Why did Henry Bennett go to Tehran and get killed?"

I said, "Mr. President, I've always felt guilty about that. I sort of talked him into going up there."

"Well," he said, "I knew he was going, but I told him not to ride on one of those blankety, blank airlines." And he said, "Why couldn't he have gone some other way?"

I said, "I guess our committee's to blame. Monsignor Ligutti and I knew he was going." And that's the last actual conversation I ever had with the President. Incidentally then he and I got talking about a lot of other things and finally Charlie Taft interrupted, he said, "Wait a minute, you fellows are delaying this meeting."

So, I went and took my seat. And that was the

[50]

last time I saw President Truman.

HESS: I have several other questions but it's getting close to five…

MILLER: Yes.

[51]

Second Oral History Interview with Dr. Raymond W. Miller, Washington, D.C., November 13, 1969. By Jerry N. Hess, Harry S. Truman Library.

HESS: Dr. Miller, after reviewing the draft of our first interview, are there any points that we have covered that you think need some clarification?

MILLER: I'd say not. The only question is, this fellow Ray Miller repeating himself a few times. I've returned it to you with a few little minor suggestions. I've taken out some of my redundancies.

HESS: One point that I noticed: On page 15, we were discussing James Webb, and I think that maybe we could go into that a little further. Did you work with James Webb on matters pertaining to point 4?

MILLER: Yes.

[52]

HESS: Could you tell me about some of your involvement with Mr. Webb? Something that you may have worked on. If you could give us an illustration showing your involvement with him on a particular project?

MILLER: Well, I gave you a copy of the report I made of Latin America. That was made for Mr. Webb, not for him personally, but for the State Department.

HESS: That is the "Preliminary Report on Public Relations of the United States Technical Cooperation Program in Latin America.."

MILLER: Yes. And did I give you a copy of the complete report? That's just the preliminary.

HESS: Yes, I think the complete report is what we xeroxed.

MILLER: Yes. This report was made at the suggestion

[53]

of Mr. Webb, and I made the report to him through Stanley Andrews, who was his deputy in charge of point 4. You see, I had no direct relationship with Webb, except we developed a very good friendship, because I reported to the administrator of the point 4, who in turn reported to Mr. Webb.

HESS: Do you recall, were you ever told what Mr. Webb's reaction was to this particular report?

MILLER: It sounds very egotistical.

HESS: Go ahead and be egotistical.

MILLER: All right, let me tell you this: I never knew, until about five years ago in Chicago -- I was in Chicago at a meeting of the Transportation Association of America, whose board I happen to be on -- and Jim Webb was there to be the luncheon speaker. I was at the meeting,

[54]

and following the lunch, I got up out of my seat to walk up and shake hands with Jim, and there were a thousand people there, and Jim spotted me. He waved his hand and went back on the mike and told the assembled group there that Ray Miller had made a report for Latin America that was -- well, I'll let him tell you what he said. In other words, it made all my people there -- they thought I really was a whole lot better than I am. Webb was extremely eulogistical. He's told several people that this thing was one of the most comprehensive studies that he'd ever had made. And all I'd say is this, I don't suppose you'll interview our present President in regard to Mr. Truman, but I do happen to know that the gentleman who is our President now was extremely fascinated with this particular report.

HESS: How do you know that?

[55]

MILLER: Because he told me so, wrote me a letter or two about it. Here's a funny thing, this thing came out, and it was certainly bipartisan. By the time that I made this study from the fall of 1952, wound it up in '53, and I came back from my last trip, preliminary writing of this, on the inaugural day, when Mr. Eisenhower and Mr. Nixon went in. So when I delivered this to the State Department, Mr. Webb was actually no longer officially the Under Secretary, and I in turn, gave it to Stan [Stanley] Andrews, who was the administrator under him of point 4, but Webb saw it, and at Mr. Andrews' suggestion, we sent a couple of copies of it over to the then Vice President, whom I knew quite well as a Congressman, and as a Senator. His response to it was laudatory. That's enough.

HESS: Speaking of President Nixon, just what is his

[56]

view on aid to foreign countries, the value of aid to foreign countries?

MILLER: I have no right to quote him personally, but my book that I showed you before Can Capitalism Compete?, where I go very extensively into this aid business, the first endorsement on the back of it is by Mr. Nixon. He's not only never rescinded his endorsement, he has written me several letters about this idea. In other words, his philosophy, I would say, based upon -- I haven’t talked to him since he's been President -- but his philosophy, as I knew it, was parallel with President Truman's, and I know that Herbert Hoover's was, because Hoover told me so times. In other words, Mr. Nixon, whom I knew as a member of Congress and Vice President, was emphatic in his belief that we owed a duty to the world to take information and help people help themselves by the knowledge that

[57]

we've learned out of God's treasury of knowledge. He felt, in those days, and I have every reason to believe that he still feels, that direct aid, except in emergencies, of money and goods and so forth, does not in the long run help the person you're aiding. Now, I have no right to quote our President, but you asked me what I thought. Based upon my experience of years gone by, I would say those were his thoughts. He and I had at least five conversations on this.

HESS: What's your view of that? Do you think that aid of that nature is a valid way for a nation to give aid to another nation?

MILLER: I go along with Truman's statement that he made in the 1949 inaugural, which I said earlier, is one of the great statements of modern times. The whole idea was that we would

[58]

take information to help others to use it. I've yet to have anybody that I know, upon whom I put any credence at all, respect, from overseas, that I've seen there or seen here, that tells me that in the long run their community, their country, gains very much by the gifts that we give them. But when we give our information, and we give our knowledge, and make it possible to help them out with credit and so forth and so on, that works. I can talk all day, but I couldn't tell you any more.

HESS: Well, one question: During the days of the Marshall plan, we gave a great deal of aid, it wasn't just technical assistance, it was aid.

MILLER: When you talk to Mr. Ray Zimmerman, get him to tell you a lot about that. He was one of the key figures in the whole administration of the Marshall plan. I was not involved, but

[59]

I visited there a great deal. The Marshall plan, as I put in that report that I gave you the other day that Congressman [E. Y.] Berry put in the Record. In it I said, the Marshall plan was dealing with a different situation. We were helping people to rebuild something that they had already done. They had already done their research and pioneering. Furthermore, we didn't give as much on the Marshall plan as we're given credit for. But the Marshall plan was a success in most regards. On the other hand, I could take you to many people that I know in Europe that tell me that Europe would be much further ahead today if they had borrowed this money, and in turn had to pay it back now and then put it in a revolving fund to loan other people to help the rest of the world.

HESS: Can you give me any names?

[60]

MILLER: I have an attorney friend in Chicago, Ray Geraldson, and he and I are very close law friends. He came up with an idea about two years ago that we ought to work or plan out to have the money which is still owed us from the beginning of the world war of the 20th century, which most people call World War I, the money that is still owed to us ought to be paid not to us, but to an international pool, that we would largely administer, to help the rest of the world help itself. He and I put in a short document -- I'll give you a copy of it before you leave -- we gave it to Congressman Berry, who in turn introduced a bill based upon it. And it was thrown out two years ago. But this year, I happen to know, that it's up for very serious discussion by the powers that be in the State Department. The weak part of the Marshall plan was basically, as I see it, and I think Mr.

[61]

Zimmerman will tell you the same, that the Marshall plan ought to have been made into a revolving fund, and that the money be paid back with prosperity to help other people to help themselves, very similar to the Heifer Project. Are you familiar with the Heifer Project? May I say this, that to complete the Truman story, get acquainted with the Heifer Project. That was where thousands and thousands of bred heifers...

HESS: Oh, yes.

MILLER: The idea was from the Midwest, we helped work it out. I'll put you in touch with a man that can help you and give you the exact way of how President Truman put that on the track. I just know this by hearsay. You see, the whole philosophy of that was to ship bred heifers, and then the first female offspring,

[62]

the man that received the bred heifer was to give the offspring to a neighbor who in turn would do the same. I visited in Germany and saw the eighth generation heifer. This farmer was looking forward to the fact that he was going to pass a calf on. They sent goats to Taiwan, and I'm told that that's gone into the twelfth generation. In the long run, people appreciate -- we're all the same -- we appreciate something in which we participate in doing the same thing. Excuse me for longwinded philosophy.

HESS: That's quite all right. I want to read something off the book jacket here of your book, Can Capitalism Compete?, which was copyrighted in 1959, and this is what is on the back. What do you call this, an endorsement, an advertisement when they write...

[63]

MILLER: I guess you'd call it an endorsement?

HESS: An endorsement by Richard M. Nixon:

There is no doubt that this book fills a great need. I particularly like the idea that private enterprise is in a much better position to educate our friends abroad as to the nature of our economic system than are government leaders.

So that's into the record.

MILLER: May I say this, not quoting him, because I haven't seen him, but I do know that his top advisers, and two or three of these speechwriters, have in the past few months called me, or talked to other people, making reference to the fact that he still is very conversant with and suggests to them to read this book. It's out of print now.

HESS: We have brought up the subject of your Preliminary Report on Public Relations of the United State Technical Cooperation Program in Latin

[64]

America, and I have a couple of questions about that. That was printed as House Report 1454, dated February 29, 1952.

MILLER: No, this is pursuant to that report. You see, to give you the background of this thing, the House Report No. 1454, dated February, 1952, was a report in Congress, directing the Foreign Affairs Committee to have a public relations audit made of Latin America. The Foreign Affairs Committee, and the State Department, came to me -- in fact, it was Jim Webb that did it through Henry Bennett who got him started on it -- came to me to fulfill the part of this. I'll give you a copy of this House Report if you want it. And then my part -- you've got it there someplace -- all this was put in the Congressional Record, May 13, 1953, then I came back for the recommendations. Then, the final report, this is the preliminary -- the final -- I

[65]

added about four paragraphs to, and refined it a little bit. The final report, as far as I know, was never published by the government. The final report I gave to Mr. Harold Stassen, who was to follow through -- I was told by my Republican friends -- he'd follow it through as the administrator of point 4, and I don't think that he ever actually understood what I was talking about, and I didn't understand him. We had a most pleasant afternoon. It was probably my lack of understanding, but as far as I know, he buried the report. I don't think anything was ever done with it, except one thing on it for eight years. One thing on it was that out of it they immediately (the powers that be), put into operation a recommendation that I made to have a briefing station in Puerto Rico for a two-way station to help people understand Latin America who were going to Latin America, and Latin

[66]

Americans to understand coming here. I expanded it a little, and I put in the recommendation that there ought to be a briefing station in Hawaii. So, some years later, they finally did it, and they set up the East-West University over there. I'll give you a copy of that document.

HESS: Be that as it may, you gave in your report, as your first recommendation:

A technical cooperation program should stand on its own feet and not be linked to political or military aspects of foreign policy.

Do you think it's possible to separate any action which a government takes outside of its borders with the aims, either short or long-range, that that government may have?

MILLER: Here's my angle based upon a lot of traveling and experience in these things, and visiting with other folks. I think that if you're going to have an international operation of giving knowledge,

[67]

I don't think it ought to be tied up with the military. I'm very much of a pro-militarist in some respects. I think we have to have military to defend the country, but I do believe that this, with all due respect to the generals -- by the way, I'm just writing a book now called, The Sergeant Looks at the Generals, and it's very much in favor of a lot of generals, but I think the two will operate very nicely, separately. That's my personal opinion.

HESS: What about the separation from the political aspects of our governmental operations?

MILLER: It must be under the ambassador, there's no question about that. We've made a lot of mistakes around the world. We've had dozens of people working in countries that didn't report to the ambassador. The ambassador should be the President's representative, and

[68]

that's what he legally is. Whoever is there, representing the point 4, or whatever it may be, should report to the ambassador, and the ambassador must use the good judgment that a President uses to separate things from Cabinets, and so forth, separate Labor, Agriculture, and all that. I think the ambassador, I would say that phase of it -- I talked that over with at least eight ambassadors in Latin America at the time, and they all agreed with me. That, I could almost say, was a suggestion that I put in with the approval of all the ambassadors of all the countries whom I visited.

HESS: Back to a couple of questions that I have: Could you tell me about the involvement of Canada in the point 4 situation?

MILLER: Very little. You see, Canada became a part of the Colombo plan. The Colombo plan

[69]

is named because the meeting was held at Colombo in Ceylon. It was initiated there. The Colombo plan, started about 1951 -- the first five years of operation I know, lately I've been out of touch with it. The first five years of its operation, it operated almost entirely on the Truman idea of taking information. It was more Truman than was point 4. Now whether it is now or not, I don't know. It kept on a modest budget and it was to help people to learn how to fish, and to learn how to grow eucalyptus trees, and several dozen other particular techniques. Now, Canada was always friendly. I would say this, that during the time 1949-56 when I was helping, we'll say, in trying to promote this idea of point 4, I had many visits in Canada. Very often I would go by Ottawa either on my way to Asia or Europe. At that time, I visited with various members of

[70]

the Canadian Government, particularly with Senator A. Neal McLain. Unfortunately, Neal is now dead. He was Chairman of the Foreign Trade Committee of the Senate. Mr. "Mike" [Lester] Pearson, who was the later Prime Minister and recently made a report for the World Bank -- Mike Pearson was very conversant with this whole thing, and I'd say that he and I had several visits about it. At that time he was Secretary of External Affairs.

HESS: Did he play any particular part in point 4 matters?

MILLER: I couldn't answer you. My guess would be yes, but it would be pure hearsay. I don't know. I would make a suggestion to you, unless it's against the rules of the thing, that you ought to interview Mike Pearson. His name is Lester B. Pearson, but everybody

[71]

who knows him calls him Mike. I've received two letters from him the last three or four months. We're very friendly.

HESS: Do you know if President Miguel Aleman of Mexico had any influence on Mr. Truman's thinking?

MILLER: I haven't the least idea. It would be pure guesswork on my part. I have no idea at all.

HESS: In the thesis by Neal Steinert, entitled "Technical Assistance: A Manifestation of the American National Style," he states:

On the issue of technical assistance the transition from the Truman administration to the Eisenhower one was particularly smooth.

Would you agree with that statement?

MILLER: Yes, I would. On the other hand, I will say this. If I can refer back to my correspondence

[72]

and show you that I had here with President Truman. Before President Truman left office the program had literally got away from him and had gone out into big money and big spending for big things. It had been my dream that when (as I told you, I'm Republican), that when our Republican administration came in, I had high hopes that it would come back to the Truman idea. I sure couldn't quote him, but I have every reason to believe Mr. Nixon felt that way, but it wasn't done. I've known every administrator of the point 4 since it started except the very first one. I've known them all, and all of them had a different attitude. In other words, they wanted to give things away, as far as I know. Since I saw you, I had quite a visit the other day with John Hannah, who is the present administrator. I had no right to quote John Hannah in any shape, form or description,

[73]

but I have every reason to believe that Hannah has a dream of putting this thing back to the old Truman program as near as he can. We can't go clear back. That's my guess.

HESS: How does he intend to implement his wish?

MILLER: I have no way of knowing. I made an appointment with him. I've known him for years, I wanted to see him, because Mr. Geraldson was coming to town, and I wanted him to meet Geraldson, and we went over and talked to Hannah on this matter of the European gold debts being used for an international pool, and he was very nice and receptive to the idea and said he doubted if it would be able to be operative but he certainly made a lot of sense and he detailed three or four of these men to study it. That was a month ago. We agreed that along in November or December sometime that we would get together.

[74]

HESS: Slightly on a different vein, but also drawing a couple of quotes from the same thesis, on page 6, Mr. Steinert says in speaking of the American style:

As a result of the relative bloodless resolution of conflict within our own borders, Americans tend to view hostility as abnormal....The American style refuses to admit that a group conflict might be the norm.

Do you feel that those statements properly represent the present mood in America?

MILLER: Frankly, I read them, but I haven't thought about them. I just couldn't answer your question. I would want to study that.

HESS: In your opinion, where was there in Mr. Truman's background that would interest him in the development of the economic conditions in foreign countries?

MILLER: Well, never having known Mr. Truman even

[75]

as a Senator -- I never met him until he became President -- but having known many people who have known him, I would say two things: First his training and religious background in a semi-rural community. In nearly every rural community there was a group of women affiliated with one or more churches who packed missionary barrels every year, and who took an interest in the world. I got an interest in world affairs entirely from -- as a boy from listening to my mother and my grandmother in this field. That is where Harry Truman got the urge.

The second thing, Truman was a very high official in Masonic Lodge, and any man who knows Masonry knows that the study of Masonry, particularly in the Scottish rite, goes into the field of working with your fellowman. And Truman was one of the real students of Scottish rite Masonry. I have never discussed it with

[76]

him. It's purely my opinion, based upon a smattering of evidence.

HESS: All right, what is your evaluation of the success or the failure of the Technical Assistance Program?

MILLER: If you kept it to actual technical assistance, I think as a whole it's been quite successful. But the trouble is, technical assistance had been played down -- that is, the old Truman philosophy of technical assistance. But the plan of shipping equipment overseas and doing this and that and the other thing, is not working out. Now, one other thing, as long as you have asked me that question. I feel very strongly about it. I put it in this quote here in Can Capitalism Compete?, the one that we just looked at; and that was written ten years ago. I made the

[77]

statement in there that many times foundations had and could do a better job than government in these things. And take right now as an example. Right now, in the last year, the world has become quite excited with what is called the "green revolution" the matter of the world getting new breeds of rice, barley and wheat and so forth. It's having some fantastic results in many countries. Well, the interesting thing about this, it was practically all worked out by two foundations: Ford and Rockefeller worked it out by underwriting in the Philippines some experiments that had to do with food development, and it was not worked out under point 4. In fact, I wrote a statement about that last year, and gave it to my friend, Congressman Berry, and he in turn, as a matter of history, put it into the Congressional Record. The interesting thing is, that practically

[78]

every development that I know of overseas that's worked (in my experience, and mine goes back on a personal basis to '49, and I've been talking to other people ever since I was a kid), from '49 on, the real spectacular results of technical assistance, if you want to call it that, had come from foundations or church groups or sometimes individuals. When the government comes to do something, it's suspect immediately by the people who are afraid because their experience with governments is too much of trying to put something over on them. The Maryknoll priests of the Roman Catholic Church, particularly, I've watched them in many countries. A group of Protestants are lined up with the Agricultural Mission, Inc. -- by the way, right now, the secretary of that group, the assistant to the president of it, is a Roman Catholic priest. They have their office up in the National Council of Churches building

[79]

in New York. As Father Ligutti says, "There is no Catholic way to grow cabbages, nor Protestant way to catch fish." The churches have done a fantastic amount of actual, cooperative technical assistance, far more in proportion, I would say, than the whole Government agencies are doing. And they haven't had the backfire. The churches sponsor credit unions which have been fantastically good. These foundations, there are several foundations that have done an extremely good job. I would say this, the church groups, both Protestant and Catholic, and the foundations, have come much closer to following an injunction of Truman and the Truman point 4 program than has our Government.

HESS: What is your view of the law that was passed recently limiting the life of the foundations to forty years?

[80]

MILLER: I don't think that's passed yet.

HESS: Is that right?

MILLER: I think it's before the Senate Committee. I am not an authority; I haven't read it; it would be foolish to make a guess at it. I just don't know. I try in life to be fair, and what I've seen them do. This book Can Capitalism Compete?, I wrote that because the Ford Foundation sent Harvard University a grant, without my request, for $25,000, in which it asked Harvard to give it to me to spend to come out with a study of how to communicate overseas, The Fundamentals of American Capitalism. For instance, there's one paragraph in there, it is the results of one fellow's travel for ten thousand miles visiting in Europe. He was a Swiss, visited on both sides of the Iron Curtain as to what might be the future. He summed up in one paragraph.

[81]

HESS: What did he say, do you recall?

MILLER: He's the last name in the index. If you look at the last one in the index, Zuger, page 235.

Mr. Philip E. Zuger, the well-known Swiss student of international affairs, has recently visited a cross-section of Europeans and Latin American leaders to discuss economic and social problems of the world. [He visited with them because we got him to.] In a letter to the author commenting on the present world situation, he concludes 'The peoples of the captive satellite countries have conclusively demonstrated that although feverishly desiring to join the free world again, they will not agree under any circumstances to accept the old economic and social conditions and institutions of the pre-Communist times. They do not want to give back the factories; they do not want to give back the land.'

HESS: Very perceptive.

MILLER: Yes, he had a long report. I said, "Brother, you've got all you want right in this summary."

HESS: What in your opinion were Mr. Truman's major

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contributions during his career?

MILLER: My friend, I don't know. The ones that I felt -- first and foremost -- was the fact that Mr. Truman, well, he was a man that any American that wanted to do so could understand. I've often thought of when he became President. He said he felt like when he was a boy hauling a load of hay and that load of hay fell on him. Well, anyone who had ever farmed could understand that. From experience as a farm boy I can understand that perfectly. I would say his major contributions, as I knew of as President -- remember, I didn't vote for him at all, and he knew it, but I think his major contribution, of course, was to wind up the war days, and he did it in an admirable way. The United Nations, I'll give him credit for trying to start it off right. I think it's become a debating society, but that's neither here nor there. It's

[83]

a whole lot better than nothing.

Behind the Marshall plan was Truman's support of our generals such as General George Marshall because they wanted to preserve the American system of life and Government, and when there came an opportunity, following the military victory, to take and help people to help themselves, these generals were for it. As far as I know, I have no right to quote him, but it is my opinion that the Marshall plan was very largely the result of the generals' thinking, a whole lot more than it was Mr. Truman's, or the Secretary of State. I have come to know quite a lot of generals, and I never knew any general but that was an enthusiast for the Marshall plan. He, in turn, you see, Marshall was ex-General, because he was Secretary of State when he made the speech about it. But I think that was a plan. In other words, the

[84]

military doesn't want war any more than you and I do. My rank -- a sergeant in the veterinary corps, World War. The military are there where the boys are all getting shot, and seeing their sons shot and their friends shot and everything. And they like to put out the causes of war. My own opinion is that the military men: Eisenhower, the whole group of them, Marshall, Bruce Clarke, I know him so intimately, he's a four-star general, and I know he talked about it. These fellows, I think, felt that probably the best way to keep Europe peaceful at all, for the next generation -- you see, we had two wars in one generation, really, without having to have another one that you had to have Europe be prosperous enough to hold the bulwark against the onrush of world communism.

HESS: You mentioned that you did not vote for Mr. Truman, which brings up the 1948 election. Just

[85]

one question: Why do you think Mr. Truman was victorious in 1948?

MILLER: Well, let's go back. This sounds egotistical again. I'm one of the very few people that actually said they felt he was going to be elected. I wrote a letter to several of my friends and said that he was going to be elected.

HESS: Why did you think so?

MILLER: I thought so, because, number one, he was a man who was so close to the people that a lot of people would vote for him who normally would be in opposition to him. I was torn in my own mind whether to vote for him or not.

HESS: What tipped the scales the other way?

MILLER: Oh, I guess because of my being a longtime Republican and another thing I think, I didn't like the word that he used and that Roosevelt

[86]

the Second had used so much, this matter of democracy. We don't have a democracy; we have a Republic. It had nothing to do with party. But we're going to have democracy out on the streets of Washington tomorrow. Democracy has always ended up in riots, and then ultimately ends up in chaos, and then finally a dictator takes over. I've studied it for many, many years. You see, Washington, Franklin, Madison, and all those that started our country, they would have no democracy; they wanted a Republic. I think that a lot of our Republicans use the name pretty loosely too. But on the other hand, the basis to me, of our form of Government, is that we have a Republic.

But I like Mr. Truman for what he stood for, I didn't always agree with him. I don't think he'd agree with everything that I do. I like what he did.

[87]

HESS: What is your estimation of his place in history? One or two hundred years from now, how will he be regarded by historians and members of the general public?

MILLER: Well, if they listen to what I'm putting on the tape, he's a good chap, as far as I know. You know, they say that history, a historian told me one time, a real professional historian, he said, "You know history, Ray, is the recorded distillation of the rumors of the ages." So I tried not to give you any rumors here. I've just tried to give you things that in my heart of hearts I feel.

HESS: Do you have anything else to add on Mr. Truman or point 4?

MILLER: No, except I appreciated the opportunity to put my opinion in your records and whoever reads them in years ahead, if they ever do,

[88]

can take them at least as told by a man who believed in what he had told you. I have no axe to grind, it's just my opinion as an American citizen. We owe a duty to record whatever he'd had an experience about to help somebody. Somebody will make a Ph.D. some day out of this maybe. Not all out of mine, but all of them together.

HESS: Thank you very much.

Agricultural Trade Relations, Inc., 4
Aleman, President Miguel, 71
Ambassadors, role of in foreign aid programs, 67-68
Andrews, Stanley, 22-23, 53, 55

Bennett, Henry G., 23, 37-49
Berry, Congressman E. Y., 31, 32, 35, 59, 60, 77

Clarke, General Bruce, 36
Colombo Plan, 68-69

Dodd, Norris E., 7, 11, 16-17, 18, 19, 22, 40

Elsey, George M., 11, 14-16

Food and Agriculture Organization (FOA), 7, 8, 9, 19
Foreign Assistance, role of churches and foundations in, 77-80

Geraldson, Ray, 60, 73
"Green revolution," 77

Hannah, John A., 22, 72-73
Hardy, Benjamin, 11-16
Harvard Business School, 2
Hawaii, briefing station in, 66
Heifer project, 61-62
Hoover, Herbert, 56

India, FAO program in, 24-28, 34

Johnson, Lyndon B., 2

Ligutti, Monsignor L.G., 5, 45, 46, 79

McLain, A. Neal, 70
Marshall plan, 58-59, 60, 83-84
Masonic order, 75
Miller, Raymond W.:

Nehru, Prime Minister Jawaharlal, 19, 26
Nixon, Richard M., 2, 55-57, 63

Orr, Boyd, 9

Pearson, Prime Minister Lester B., 70-71
Point 4 program:

• • and Bennett, Henry G., 38-45
    Can Capitalism Compete (book), author of, 2, 56, 62-63, 76-77, 80-81
    career summary, 1-3, 11, 19
    consultant to Director General of FAO, appointment as, 18
    estimate of President Truman, 82-84, 87
    foreign aid, philosophy of, 56-59, 60, 66-68, 76-77
    "Men or Beasts?" (article), 31-37
    "Preliminary Report on Public Relations of the United States Technical
    • Cooperation Program in Latin America," author of, 51-55, 63-66
    Presidential election of 1948, evaluation of, 85-86
    The Sergeant Looks at the Generals (book), 67
    Webb, James, relationship with, 52-55
  • Canada, role in, 68-70
    estimation of, by Raymond W. Miller, 72-73
    in India, 29-32
    origins of, 6, 11-16
    purpose of, 20, 22
    religious motivation for, 13-15
• Puerto Rico, briefing station in, 65

   

  Reisner, John, 46

  Stassen, Harold E., 23, 65
  Stevens, C. Leigh, 25, 26-27
  Sukarno, Prime Minister Achmed, 19, 20

  "Technical Assistance: a Manifestation of the American National Style," (dissertation

  • by Neal Steinert), 71, 74
  Truman, Harry S.:
  • and Dodd, Norris E., 9-11
    estimate of, by Raymond W. Miller, 82-84, 87
    Miller, Raymond. W., visited by, 48-49
    motives for adopting Point 4 program, attribution of, 74-76

  U.S. Congress, House Report 1454, February 1952, 64

  Webb, James E., 21, 38, 42-43, 52-55, 64
  Whipple, Clayton, 45
  World Trade Relations, Inc., 4

  Zimmerman, Ray, 14, 16, 31, 58, 61
  Zuger, Philip E., 81