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Journalists, friends and colleagues recall Harry S. Truman’s remarkable upset of New York Governor Thomas Dewey for the 1948 presidential election.

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“I sit here in this old house and work on foreign affairs, read reports, and work on speeches — all the while listening to the ghosts walk up and down the hallway and even right in here in the study.”

Letter from Harry S. Truman to Bess Truman. National Archives. Washington, D.C.

Harry Truman, the 33rd President of the United States, began living in the White House when the building was in great need of repairs. In a letter to his wife, Bess, who was away visiting relatives with their daughter, Truman imagines that the noises and drafts coursing through the White House were in fact being caused by ghosts.

THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON

June 12, 1945

Dear Bess:- Just two months ago today, I was a reasonably happy and contented Vice-President. Maybe you can remember that far back too. But things have changed so much it hardly seems real.

Letter from Harry S. Truman to Bess Truman. National Archives. Washington, D.C.

I sit here in this old house and work on foreign affairs, read reports, and work on speeches — all the while listening to the ghosts walk up and down the hallway and even right in here in the study. The floors pop and the drapes move back and forth — I can just imagine old Andy and Teddy having an argument over Franklin. Or James Buchanan and Franklin Pierce deciding which was the more useless to the country. And when Millard Fillmore and Chester Arthur join in for place and show, the din is almost unbearable. But I still get some work done.

Letter from Harry S. Truman to Bess Truman. National Archives. Washington, D.C.

Hope the weather lets up and you will be able to do some work on the house. The Gibson boy should have been taken care of long ago. I’ll see what’s happened. I’m not able to do as many things for my friends now as I did when I was just a dirty organisation Democrat and a County Judge.

Guess you and Helen will have a grand time. Hope you do. We are working on Dr. Wallace. Glad everybody was in his right mind at the family party. Undoubtedly they were walking the straight and narrow for your mother. But I’m sure you had a nice time anyway.

That address mixed up is causing me some embarrassment (if that’s the way you spell that blushing word.) I addressed a letter to you at 4701 Conn. Ave. Independence Mo., and another one 219 North Delaware, Washington, D. C. Now it seems I sent one to the Rolands. The boys in the House here didn’t catch that one but they did the other two.

Letter from Harry S. Truman to Bess Truman. National Archives. Washington, D.C.

I’ll have Reathal attend to the chores you suggest. I haven’t seen her but twice since you left. She comes in after I go over to the office, usually goes out to lunch and doesn’t come back until I am gone again and then goes home before I get over here.

Had Charlie Ross and Rosenman to lunch yesterday. We worked on my San Francisco speech. ,that date is postponed until next week now on account of the slow wind-up and Gen. Eisenhower’s visit.

Write me when you can – I hope every day.

Lots of love.

Harry.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-lyjHxrTAQ

Reporters ask former U.S. President Harry S. Truman how he feels about the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Truman’s response: “I was very much shocked and hurt when I heard. He was a good man, an able President and he did a good job. And it’s too bad these things have to happen particularly by some good-for-nothing fella who didn’t have anything else to do than to try and take the head of state away from us.”

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCOvCemH8AQ

President Harry S. Truman gives a speech about the ‘unity of determination’ and ‘finding a way to end war’ at the San Francisco Conference on June 26, 1945.

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Harry S. Truman Speaks at The San Francisco Conference appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWRZ0ABcpMU

Hear President Harry S. Truman’s address about the importance of implementing of the Marshall Plan after the end of World War II. Truman signed the Marshall Plan on April 3, 1948, authorizing $5 billion in aid for 16 countries affected by the war.

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Senator Joseph McCarthy sent a telegram to President Harry S. Truman on February 11, 1950, two days after giving a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia that claimed more than 200 members of the State Department were card-carrying members of the Communist party. In his telegram, McCarthy reiterates that he has names of communist employees in the State Department, and asks the president to provide Congress with a “full accounting of Communist infiltration.” In his reply, which was probably never sent, Truman responds that McCarthy is “not even fit to have a hand in the operation of the Government of the United States”–a biting response. Read the full exchange below.

Transcript of McCarthy’s Telegram:

Reno Nev Feb 11 1139A

The President

The White House

In a Lincoln Day speech at Wheeling Thursday night I stated that the State Department harbors a nest of communists and communist sympathizers who are helping to shape our foreign policy. I further stated that I have in my possession the names of 57 communists who are in the State Department at present. A state department spokesman [ripped text] denied this and claimed that there is not a single communist in the department. You can convince yourself of the falsity of the State Department claim very easily. You will recall that you personally appointed a board to screen state department employees for the purpose of weeding out fellow travelers. Your board did a pains-taking job. And named hundreds which it listed as “dangerous to the security of the nation”, because of communistic connections.

While the records are not available to me, I know [ripped text] that of one group of approximately 300 certified to the Secretary for Discharge, he actually discharged only approximately 80. I understand that this was done after lengthy consultation with Alger Hiss. I would suggest therefore, Mr. President, that you simply pick up your phone and ask Mr. Acheson how many of those whom your board had labeled as dangerous, he failed to discharge. The day the House Un-American Activities Committee exposed Alger Hiss as an important link in an inter-national communist spy ring, you signed an order forbidding the State Departments giving to the Congress any information in regard to the disloyalty or the communistic connections of anyone in that department, dispite [sic] this State Department blackout, we have been able to compile a list of 57 communist in the State Department. This list is available to you, but you can get a much longer list by ordering the Secretary Acheson to give you a list of these whom your own board listed as being disloyal, and who are still working in the State Department. I believe the following is the minimum which can be expected of you in this case

(1) That you demand that Acheson give you and the proper congressional committee the names and a complete report on all of those who were placed in the department by Alger Hiss, and all of those still working in the State Department who were listed by your board as bad security risks because of the communistic connections.

(2) That under no circumstances could a congressional committee obtain any information or help from the executive department in exposing communists.

Failure on your part will label the Democratic Party of being the bed-fellow of inter-national communism. Certainly this label is not deserved by the hundreds of thousands of loyal American democrats throughout the nation, and by the sizable number of able loyal democratics in both the Senate and the House.

Joe Mc Carthy U.S.S. WIS..

To see the original photos of the telegram, and President Truman’s response, visit the website of the National Archives of the United States.

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