Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure - Matthew Algeo [34]
“With friendly ease and professional aplomb,” Machael wrote, “the McKinneys hosted the luncheon visit in a manner as unflurried as if they were entertaining a group of their children’s friends.”
After lunch, the party retired to the porch to relax. The temperature hit one hundred degrees in Indianapolis that day, a new record for the date, but Harry Truman could stand the heat anywhere, not just in the kitchen. Dressed in a dark blue gabardine suit with a light blue shirt and polka dot bow tie, he betrayed not a hint of discomfort. Neither, for that matter, did Bess, who, Thelma Machael reported in remarkable detail, “wore a silk print jacket dress with a minute turquoise and purple design scattered over the black silk, relieved with a touch of white at the throat and mid arm.” A handful of newspaper reporters and photographers who’d caught wind of the visit were waiting out on the sidewalk. Truman, who had practically invented the modern presidential press conference, couldn’t resist inviting them up to the porch.
“Well-fed, and beaming with good humor,” Time magazine reported, “Harry Truman met the press, felt the cloth of a reporter’s cord suit and allowed as how he had one just like it.” He didn’t want to say anything about Eisenhower—he was saving that for his speech in Philadelphia. He also didn’t want to comment on the ongoing Korean cease-fire negotiations. But he answered a host of other questions with his usual mix of candor and humor.
Was he optimistic or pessimistic about world affairs in general? a reporter asked.
“I always have been optimistic that the peace of the world can be reached and maintained,” answered Truman.
“In our time?”
“I am not a prophet.”
Asked about rumors that his friend McKinney might be returned to his post as Democratic Party chairman, Truman enthusiastically endorsed the idea. “Frank’s the best chairman the party ever had,” he said, a not-so-subtle swipe at the incumbent, Stephen Mitchell (not to mention Adlai Stevenson). “Of course,” he added, seeming to catch himself, “the present chairman was duly elected and all that.”
Would he support Stevenson if he ran again in 1956? Truman said he was for “no candidate” at the moment, but “when the time comes, I’ll make my sentiments known.” But he promised to campaign for any candidate the Democrats nominated. “The Democratic Party has been very good to me,” he said. “It has done all for me it could do for any one man. I am very grateful.”
Would he consider running for office himself again? Truman’s ambiguous answer seemed to leave the door open. He said he was busy with other things at the moment, but he was still interested in politics, of course. What about Margaret? Will she run for office? “She’s over twenty-one,” he said, smiling, “and can do what she wants to.” (Privately, he joked that Margaret couldn’t run for Congress because “she’d never be able to get up early enough in the morning.”)
Truman just seemed to be getting warmed up when McKinney cut him off. “If you’re going to get across Ohio today,” McKinney said, “you’d better be on the way.” Truman concurred, ending the press conference.
Bess also granted an interview on the porch that day. That was exceptionally rare, because she guarded her privacy fiercely. When she became first lady, she steadfastly refused to grant interviews or hold press conferences. When in the fall of 1947 she finally consented to answer questions from reporters, the questions had to be submitted in writing—and her answers were hardly revealing:
Did she think there would ever be a woman President of the United States?
No.
Would she want to be President?
No.
Would she want Margaret ever to be First Lady?
No.
If she had a son, would she try to bring him up to be President?
No.
Did any of the demands of her role as First Lady ever give her stage fright?
No comment.
What would you like to do and