Seth Kaller, Inc.

“Dean, I’m sure they like us and if we had a Secretary of State and a President they’d love us as they did in the past.”

This remarkable and playful letter exudes friendship between former President Truman and his former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, as Truman tells Acheson some of his adventures on his recent grand tour of Europe. Truman’s personality and wit sparkle in this private letter to a close friend.
 

HARRY S. TRUMAN. Autograph Letter Signed, to Dean Acheson, July 20, 1956, Kansas City, Missouri. On “Harry S. Truman” stationery. 4 pp., 7¼ x 10½ in.

Inventory #27506       Price: $15,000

Complete Transcript
                                                                        July 20, 1956

Dear Dean: Your letter of the 17^th was as highly appreciated as your letters always are. I was so afraid I’d let you down at Oxford but apparently I didn’t.[1]

            Our trip was fantastic. At the ship going and comming we were treated as if we still lived at 1600 Penna. Ave! At Le Havre, Paris, Rome, Naples, Assissi, Venice, Vincenzia, Salzburg, Munich, Bonn, the Loire Valley, Brussels, The Hague, Amsterdam, Haarlem, London, Oxford, Chartwell,[2] 10 Downing Street, Buckingham Palace, Southhampton, we were overwhelmed with kindness.

            Paris, on our arrival from the ship on the way to Rome, they mobbed us. There were 2000 people at the station and only four police, two gendarmes, and one security officer. The Boss[3] and <2>Mrs. Woodward were squeezed out and almost mashed. I had to send a policeman for them. Rome same way, same experience.

            We went to the Greek temple area at Paestum and the ladies’ hair does were as now and so were they in Pompeii. My sympathies were with the slaves of the time, most of whom knew more than did their owners.

            Back in Rome we looked over some of the art of Michael Angelo. His David, about which there are ravings, is not a Jew at all. He is not circumcised!

            At Assissi the old priest who ran me upstairs and down, with a sprained ankle kept asking me what St. Francis had done for me and I told him nothing but give me a sore throat and a stomach ache in his town of San Francisco. Questions stopped after that.

            In Venice we had a very highly educated young lady who took us through St. Marks <3> Cathedral and when I asked her where the Venetian Doges had stollen this article and that she was very much embarassed. When I’d ask her which Doge authorized the great painting in the palace she could not tell me. She knew all about the artists and I was somewhat familiar with the men who made the artists possible. She wasn’t but I didn’t tell her!

            At Vincenzia we saw the first covered theater and an old bird put on a show for us by conversation. Margie had been there and signed the book and a program. I signed under her name and explained that I am Margaret’s pop.[4] It surprized the caretaker! It was the same all around the trip but it was a happy experience. <4>

            With the heads of State, Kings, Queens, Presidents, Prime and Foreign Ministers I had some most interesting conversations, as I did with cooks, waiters, taxi drivers, little merchants and farmers. Dean, I’m sure they like us and if we had a Secretary of State and a President they’d love us as they did in the past.

            In New York some fellow made the remark that it would be a terrible thing if Ike died and Nixon became President. The man he was talking to said he thought it would be worse if Sherman Adams[5] died and Ike became President.[6] I heard some more like that I’ll have to hold and tell you later.

            My best to Alice[7] and all the family. Glad they are well. Hope that internal machine of yours becomes O.K. Hope to see you soon

                                                            Sincerely Harry.

 

Historical Background
Former President Harry S. Truman and his wife Bess Truman traveled to Europe aboard the SS United States on May 8, 1956, Truman’s seventy-second birthday. After visiting France, Italy, Austria, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, they returned to the United States on July 8. Stanley Woodward and his wife Shirley Rutherford Woodward accompanied the Trumans on their European tour. Woodward, a graduate of Yale, had served as White House Chief of Protocol under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Truman (1944-1950) and as U.S. Ambassador to Canada (1950-1953) under Truman.

On May 9, 1956, Truman’s former Secretary of State Dean Acheson wrote to Truman wishing him a belated happy birthday and “every wish for a wonderful trip.” He also sent two books as “good ship-board reading and won’t immerse you in problems.” The books were Harold Sinclair’s The Horse Soldiers, a Civil War story, and L. E. Jones’s A Victorian Boyhood about Victorian England.[8]

After the Trumans returned, Acheson wrote to his former boss, “The trip was clearly a great success. One could see that you were having the time of your life and it was a fair inference from this that Mrs. Truman was too.” He mentioned an upcoming doctor visit “to see why some of my machinery doesn’t work better than it does.”[9]

The Democratic presidential primary season was underway, and Acheson observed that “you were wise in remaining neutral at this time in order to be effective later if the necessity arose in a deadlock.”[10] Truman later supported New York Governor W. Averell Harriman, but former Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson won the Democratic nomination on the first ballot at the convention in Chicago. Stevenson went on to lose in a landslide to incumbent President Dwight D. Eisenhower by a popular vote margin of 57.4 percent to 42 percent. Eisenhower carried 41 states with 457 electoral votes, while Stevenson won only 7 southern states with 73 electoral votes.

rry S. Truman (1884-1972), Thirty-third President of the United States. A Missouri native, Truman was first elected to public office in 1922, winning a judge’s seat in the Jackson County Court. After serving several terms, Truman was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1934, and in 1940 gained national attention for his chairmanship of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, which was eventually nicknamed “The Truman Committee.” Truman continued his political rise in 1944, when he was elected Vice-President as FDR’s running mate. After only 82 days in the White House, Truman was thrust into the Presidency when FDR died unexpectedly. His inheritance was a world at war. Germany had surrendered, but Japan refused to give up the battle. Truman, in a desperate move to avoid having to invade the Japanese mainland, ordered the deployment of two atomic bombs. They were dropped on August 6 and August 9, 1945. Japan surrendered on August 14, 1945. As President, Truman waged an undeclared war on the Soviet Union, drafting the “Truman Doctrine,” which proclaimed the United States’ willingness to provide aid to countries resisting communism. The Marshall Plan sought to strengthen the European economy in the hopes that this program, too, would prevent the spread of Soviet influence. Elected President for a full term in 1948, he also introduced United States troops into the Korean War (1950-1953). In addition to his cold war activities, Truman’s administration expanded the New Deal and promoted Civil Rights initiatives.

Dean Acheson (1893-1971) was born in Connecticut and graduated from Yale College in 1915. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1918. He served as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis from 1919 to 1921, then worked in a law firm in Washington. President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Acheson as Undersecretary of the Treasury in 1933, but he soon clashed with Roosevelt and resigned. Roosevelt appointed Acheson as Assistant Secretary of State in 1941, and Acheson implemented the Lend-Lease policy to aid Great Britain against German aggression. In 1945, President Harry S. Truman appointed Acheson as Undersecretary of State. He co-authored the Acheson-Lilienthal report on international control of atomic energy and initially pursued a conciliatory stance toward Joseph Stalin. He later helped author the Truman Doctrine to counter Soviet geopolitical expansion and aided in the development of the Marshall Plan to rebuild postwar Europe. In 1949, Truman appointed Acheson as Secretary of State, and he filled the position until 1953. As Secretary of State, Acheson was one of the chief architects of the Cold War. He convinced Truman to intervene in Korea in 1950 and to send aid and advisers to Indochina. He later counseled President John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis and President Lyndon B. Johnson on negotiations for peace in Vietnam.