January 4, 1973
Page 364
HARRY S TRUMAN
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I know I speak with Senators on both sides of the aisle in expressing deep sadness over the death last week of President Truman, one of the truly great statesmen of our time and a man revered and liked by all Americans.
Harry S Truman was an uncomplicated man – a plain-talking, unaffected man faced with some of the most complex problems of 20th century America. He met the problems head on, developing in the process a foreign policy which still shapes America's thinking abroad, and offering a domestic program which formed the basis for progressive legislation in the postwar era.
Truman served ably and effectively in this body for 10 years – gaining stature as a watchdog over wastefulness in military spending. He did not seek the Vice Presidency, and when he was nominated and then elected, he mourned:
I was getting along fine until I stuck my neck out too far and got too famous – and then they made me V.P. and now I can't do anything.
Eighty-three days later, with the death of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman was President of the United States. He said:
I felt like the moon, the stars and all the planets had fallen on me.
But although he assumed the Presidency with the barest of preparation, President Truman immediately established a pattern of courage, directness of judgment, decisiveness, and self-confidence that became hallmarks of the Truman Presidency.
When Russia, our ally, became our adversary in the cold war, Truman found a simple solution – to make our World War II enemies our allies. In those tense, sometimes terrifying postwar days, Truman made the decision to develop the hydrogen bomb, broke the Soviet blockade of Berlin, laid out the Truman doctrine to meet a Soviet threat in the Middle East, formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to present a solid front in Europe, and through the Marshall plan helped avoid an economic collapse in Europe.
His tough, no-nonsense approach to foreign affairs has had many critics, but the economic strength of Europe in the 1970's and the rapprochement with Soviet Russia may have proved Truman right.
Truman is better known for his foreign policy decisions, but in domestic affairs he proposed major civil rights, labor and social welfare legislation, began desegregating the Armed Forces by Executive order, and committed the Federal Government to a policy of high employment and a strong economy. And while he lost most of his legislative battles, the theme he sounded was picked up again in the 1960's.
What do these ideas and accomplishments tell us about the man? He was a man of conviction, and he was willing to stand by his convictions, whatever the pressures to change them.
He demonstrated an understanding of the uses and limitations of military and political power which has scarcely been equaled since his administration. He knew the effectiveness of military strength to prevent aggression. And, more importantly, he knew the limitations of military strength over conquered peoples.
In addition to his major accomplishments, Harry Truman possessed qualities which commanded the admiration of his supporters and the respect of his opponents. A fair-minded, straightforward, honest man, Harry Truman acted with conviction and accepted full responsibility for his actions.
He added a phrase to our language – "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." And because of this same directness and strong sense of purpose, he was "Give-'em-hell Harry" to millions of fond Americans. Here was a man who never quibbled and never stood on the sidelines waiting for events to determine his decisions or actions.
He gave me good counsel when I became a candidate for the Vice Presidency in 1968. When I asked for his advice during a visit in Independence, he said, "Tell the truth." When I replied that my way of telling the truth was not the same as his, he gave me a second piece of advice. "Be yourself," he said. Since then I have always tried to follow that advice.
America and the world owe much to Harry Truman – the man who never lost touch with the man on the street and never forgot his Missouri roots. He was a great President and a strong, but compassionate man who directed America's energies into creative and constructive channels. In times of stress and anxiety he never faltered, never failed the American people. He served her well and brought honor to the office of the Presidency. He bravely led America into her new role of responsibility within the world community.
We shall all miss his quick wit, his disarming humility, and his deep and abiding faith in the intelligence of the American people. We must never forget what he stood for and loved: honesty, integrity, strength, and freedom.
When it was over, Truman himself summed it up better than we can, and provided history with a most fitting epitaph. He said:
I have tried my best to give the Nation everything I had in me. There are probably a million people who could have done the job better than I did it, but I had the job, and I always quote an epitaph to a cemetery in Tombstone, Ariz.: "Here lies Jack Williams. He done his damndest."
Mr. President, I request at this time that the full text of my remarks at the Harry S Truman Institute April 7, 1970, be included in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the speech was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
PRESIDENT TRUMAN – 25 YEARS AFTER
When Dean Heller invited me to speak today, he asked that I "talk from the viewpoint ... of a public figure active today." I accept the compliment, because I hope those who doubt my public existence and question my activity will experience the same sense of wonder which came to Mr. Kaltenborn in 1948.
It is always an honor to be invited to pay tribute to one's heroes. I confess to my admiration for President Truman, but I would not want you to think that I am wholly uncritical of his record. I think he set a bad precedent when he made presidential piano playing respectable.
Years ago, an out-of-stater struck up a conversation with an elderly native – an octogenarian – in one of our lovely little Maine towns. "I suppose you have lived in this town all your life?" he inquired. The old man replied, "Not yet!"
In the same spirit this group gathers here in Independence each year–
To pay tribute;
To draw inspiration; and
To give continuity to those values, and qualities, and principles which are the mark of greatness in a man, and his community, and his country.
I remember that one of my first political acts after becoming a Democratic National Committeeman from the state of Maine in 1952 was to defend President Truman. The President had just visited the state, and had been subjected to an unwarranted and inhospitable attack by a Portland newspaper. I wrote a letter to the editor. The newspaper featured the letter and conceded, in an editorial, that it had been intemperate. I was pleased; the newspaper editor felt virtuous and I am sure the President – if he was aware of the exchange – smiled with the knowledge that his history would be the final judge. Incidentally, it was also timely reassurance that a Democratic point of view, vigorously asserted, could be influential in Republican Maine.
President Truman is one of those fortunate public men who has lived to hear the vindication of history. And if he takes some pleasure in the knowledge that he confounded the doubters, we can rejoice with him.
Each of us comes to this occasion with his or her own memories of April 12, 1945, and the years which have followed. And each of us, I suspect, must confess to a change in perspective toward Harry S. Truman and the Presidency since that date.
Today's observance affords a singular opportunity to use that perspective, as President Truman would, to learn more about ourselves, our country, and the qualities the times require of us.
The world of that dark Thursday afternoon in 1945 was once caught between hope and chaos. The President to whom the nation and the world had looked for twelve years for leadership, was dead. A terrible world war was approaching its end, and in its wake we could see a world order far different from that we had known before. No longer were there several major powers in Europe. Both the victors and the vanquished had been decimated by the war. In Asia, Japan was defeated and China splintered. In the world there were now only two major powers – the United States and the Soviet Union – about to confront each other in a new type of war – a cold war, generated by Soviet dreams of expansion.
What would this mean – for man – and his hopes and dreams for a better world and a better life?
At home, a nation weary of war desired a speedy return to peace and the comforts war had denied us. A few saw the difficult problems of reconversion from a war economy to peace, but most were oblivious to the backlog of crisis the President would face at home.
What sort of man was this who would now preside over our effort to influence the shape of an uncertain and perilous future?
Much of his background was humble. He had been reared in a small town in middle America. He had no formal education beyond high school. He had worked as a timekeeper for a railroad, in the mail room of a newspaper, as a bank clerk, as a farmer. He had been a small businessman, a soldier and a county judge. He had experienced the rough and tumble of local and state politics, and risen through the ranks. At one phase of his development he might have been classed – if I may coin a phrase – as a member of the "Silent Majority."
And so there were questions about the quality of the new leadership in the White House.
Walter Lippmann comforted himself by writing that "The genius of a good leader is to leave behind him a situation which common sense, without the grace of genius, can deal with successfully." He was wrong, both with respect to the situation and the quality of the new President.
Harry Truman did have an average American background, but he was not an ordinary man. He had zest, vitality and energy that were the marvel of those with whom he worked. He had a rare capacity for decision and administration. He had the judgment to realize what principles in American life were worth preserving and the courage to fight for those principles.
His capacity for decision may be the most fabled of his attributes.
He made it clear – in a way which was never fully understood before by grassroots Americans – that the White House was primarily a place where decisions are made – tough, potentially final decisions which cannot be avoided and which carry awesome implications for life in our country and on our planet.
And our people understood – more clearly than before – that such decisions should be made by men of capacity, understanding, and courage – who understand that a President must lead his people in the direction indicated by their best instincts and traditions.
And they came to the realization that Harry Truman was such a President – and they have given him his place in history.
There followed the many bold – often spectacularly successful decisions of the Truman Era.
Dean Acheson has described them:
"The 1947 assumption of responsibility in the Eastern Mediterranean, the 1948 grandeur of the Marshall Plan, the response to the Blockade of Berlin, the NATO defense of Europe in 1949, and the intervention in Korea in 1950 – all those constituted expanded action in truly heroic mold. All of them were dangerous. All of them required rare capacity to decide and act."
This was the leadership of a man who saw the world as it was – the need for new and unprecedented action – ranging far beyond any earlier concept of American responsibility in the world.
This man of ordinary background stepped out into the unknown-leading his people – unhesitatingly – clear-eyed – and wisely.
There have been a number of analyses of the Truman decision-making process. Dean Acheson, for example, in his latest book, "Present at the Creation," credits much of the President's capacity for leadership and decision to two qualities. First of all, the President had, Mr. Acheson tells us, a magnificent vitality and energy that allowed him to assimilate and understand a prodigious amount of material. Secondly, he had a passion for orderly procedure and a superb administrative ability which had been nurtured by his experience in local government.
Acheson reports that the President employed a brand of the adversary process, adapted from the law, and that, in keeping with another venerable legal tradition, he reduced all major decisions to writing.
One of the most delightful accounts of Truman's decision making process, however, came from Mr. Truman himself, reportedly in a question and answer session at the University of Virginia in 1960.
The question from the floor was: "Mr. Truman, how did you go about making a decision?"
Mr. Truman's answer was reported as follows: "I asked the members of my staff concerned to submit their recommendations to me in writing. In the evening, I read the staff proposals. Then I went to bed and slept on it. In the morning I made a decision."
The next question was: "What happened if you made a mistake?"
The answer: "I made another decision."
Decisiveness is a Truman characteristic. It is an important characteristic of leadership. As a quality, it can inspire confidence and trust in a people – impel them to risk change, to consider new values, to assume new responsibilities. But there must be more. The decision-maker must also be guided by historic principles and dedicated to their implementation. If the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution mean anything, it is that the goals of a democratic society are important, that they should be remembered and that our leaders should lead us toward them. Nowhere is this more important than in the case of civil rights.
From the vantage point of the Seventies, many of us tend to think of the 1954 decision in Brown v. The Board of Education as the watershed for civil rights in the nation. It was a tremendously important decision in the evolution of our country, but it followed by some years Harry Truman's drive to promote equality of opportunity. As President Truman put it in his characteristically blunt language: "The top-dog in a world which is over half colored ought to clean his own house."
I doubt that this man from Missouri gave a moment's thought to a Southern strategy.
He saw the United States as a divided country – divided by barriers that were unhealthy, unwholesome, and un-American; it was his responsibility to try to make it whole.
He supported his sentiments by action. He insisted, over considerable objection, that the armed services be integrated. He established a committee on Civil Rights to investigate the need for Civil Rights legislation and upon the recommendation of the committee, he asked the Congress:
To establish a permanent commission on Civil Rights, a Joint Congressional Committee on Civil Rights and a Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice.
To strengthen existing Civil Rights laws and laws protecting the right to vote.
To provide for Federal protection against lynching.
To establish a Fair Employment Practices Commission.
To provide for Home Rule and suffrage in Presidential elections for the District of Columbia.
At his insistence – with a full appreciation of the political risks involved – these proposals were also contained in the Democratic Party's Platform in the 1948 elections. He preferred to take risks that could lead to a united country to the risk of an increasingly divided country.
The result is well known. The Dixiecrats left the Democratic Party. In the perilously close election that followed, their defection cost the President four states from the supposedly "Solid South" that otherwise would have been in his camp. Mr. Truman knew he could have avoided this result. But he refused to compromise on principle. As he wrote in his memoirs:
"I believed in the principles these platforms advanced . I was perfectly willing to risk defeat in 1948 by sticking to the Civil-Rights plank in my platform."
Devotion to principle means a willingness to risk such defeat. It is also the only way to appeal to the best in men. It is a quality we need now – at a time when the country is even more divided than it was in 1948. It is a quality we must produce in our leaders, if we are to provide it in our people.
There is another example of that Truman blend of decisiveness, judgment and dedication to principle which has relevance today.
A principle in which Mr. Truman believed deeply – that the civilian government must at all times exercise ultimate control over the military.
It was one thing to state the principle. It was another to relieve General MacArthur of his command. The General enjoyed immense popularity at home. It was clear that MacArthur's removal could precipitate the biggest fight of his administration. And it did.
But Mr. Truman believed he had no other choice. As he wrote in his memoirs:
"If there is one basic element in our Constitution, it is civilian control of the military. Policies are to be made by the elected political officials, not by Generals or Admirals."
This was a deep-seated instinct, rooted in the experience of mankind. If any society is to climb toward the goals which are humanity's highest aspirations, the military response must be subordinated to non-military values.
Whenever man feels insecure – whenever he feels beleaguered by the hostile manifestations of frustrated hopes and dreams – he seeks security.
What may constitute security at a given time – in given circumstances can be a terrible judgment to make – requiring a sensitive and balanced appreciation of the nature of the threat and of the consequences of the available courses of action.
The principle of civilian domination over the military must be regarded as something more than a transient response to the experience of the American revolution.
It is a fundamental principle – enshrined in our Constitution – related intimately to the survival of freedom and the kind of lives our children will live.
It is a principle in which Mr. Truman believed – and for which he fought at great political cost to himself and to other causes he would have liked to advance.
It is a principle which has application to several difficult national decisions with which we are confronted today:
Our policies in Southeast Asia;
The dangers of the Nuclear Arms Race and the initiatives we should take to avoid them;
Our budgetary priorities;
The "Voluntary" Army.
In each case, which course offers the real security?
What values – military or nonmilitary – should predominate in shaping our answer?
Mr. Truman was a man of his time – keenly aware that his was the responsibility for dealing with problems in the "here and now."
He was enabled to do so by the personal qualities which we all know so well – and because American experience – and the principles and values which must be projected into the future, if the American experience is to survive.
All who observed the Truman years in the White House were often frustrated by the political "mistakes" he made.
The man in the White House is always the "Master Politician" – shrewd in the use of maneuver and expediency to reduce the political cost of his policies and to stretch out his political bankroll.
The perspective of time tells us that President Truman believed his political bankroll to be a resource – to be spent without stint in the country's best interests.
Time also tells us that the judgment of history is more likely to vindicate such a view of the Presidency than any other. Political sagacity is not enough to make a wise President. Energy is not enough to give him a forceful Administration. Mastery of the arts of communication is not enough to win the hearts of his people. Knowledge of the principles of public Administration is not enough to command the loyalty of public servants.
Leadership consists in appealing to the best that is in a people, not in exploiting their differences and weaknesses. And that leadership can come only from a man who insists on the best from himself, by knowing what history has to tell us, by understanding what is in the hearts of his people, and by exercising judgment, courage and dedication to principle in the office of the Presidency.
Undoubtedly Dean Acheson had these qualities in mind in dedicating his book to President Truman, saluting him as "The Captain with the Mighty heart."
And so he was and is.