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But in Nixon’s Senate office that warm early summer day, the two consummate politicians did what they knew they had to do. They dutifully posed for photographers, arm in arm, smiling broadly, their mutual contempt nicely concealed. (The papers would say the two men had “buried the hatchet,” a suggestion that made Truman laugh.)

To much applause, Truman was escorted into the Senate chamber by Lyndon Johnson and Senate Majority Leader William Knowland. Truman immediately walked over to Robert Taft, the Ohio Republican who was one of Truman’s fiercest opponents in the Senate. Taft was gravely ill, his body riddled with cancer. Thin and pale, he struggled to his feet with the aid of crutches. The two old foes shared a long, warm handshake. Taft, a perennial presidential candidate, turned to a Republican colleague, Andrew F. Schoeppel of Kansas, and said, “Harry and I have always had the viewpoint that he’d make the best Democratic candidate and I’d make the best Republican candidate for the reason that we each think that the other would be easiest to defeat.” A month later, Taft was dead.

Truman then walked over to his old desk in the back row. (At the time it was assigned to Hubert Humphrey, one of the three Democratic senators absent that day.) Truman smiled broadly as the applause continued. When it finally subsided, Nixon invited Truman to say a few words.

“I think I have told you before,” Truman said, “that the happiest ten years of my life were spent on the floor of the Senate. I used to sit in this seat; and I had a seat here for the simple reason that, when the going became too rough, there was always a way to get out.” Truman motioned toward a nearby door. The chamber erupted in laughter.

“This body,” he continued, “of course, has great responsibilities. Its members do not need to be told that by a former senator. But it is up to this body to keep the peace of the world. My ambition has always been to see peace in the world for all nations; and if that happens, it means peace and prosperity for our own nation.

“I have had a most wonderful experience in driving across the country as a chauffeur in an automobile—a privilege which I had not enjoyed for about eight years…. Mrs. Truman watched the speedometer very carefully and we arrived safely.

“I express sincere appreciation for the courtesy which this body has extended to me. I have enjoyed it very much.”

Applause filled the chamber again. Though brief, Truman’s remarks were historic: he was the first ex-president to address the Senate since Andrew Johnson in 1875. (Johnson, the only former president elected to the Senate, served less than five months before dying.)

As he departed the chamber, again escorted by Johnson and Knowland, an impromptu receiving line formed. Truman moved along the gauntlet, shaking hands. All the senators he greeted warmly—save two. William Jenner, an Indiana Republican, and John Marshall Butler, a Maryland Republican, received handshakes that, the New York Times noted, were “quick and perfunctory.” Both were allies of Joseph McCarthy.

McCarthy himself was conspicuously—and, some said, prudently—absent.

His private meetings with lawmakers not only gave Harry a chance to catch up on politics. They also gave him a chance to lobby—discreetly, to be sure—for a pension. The issue was not new. After Ulysses S. Grant’s financial problems came to light in 1880, his friends launched a campaign to raise $250,000 in private contributions for a trust fund, the interest from which would be paid to “the surviving ex-President whose Incumbency is most distant in point of time.” Grant, naturally, would be the first recipient. The campaign ended when Grant indicated he would not accept the pension.

After he left the White House, Grover Cleveland was asked if the best way to deal with ex-presidents wasn’t to “take them out to a five-acre lot and shoot them.” “Five acres seems needlessly large,” Cleveland replied, “and, in the second place, an ex-president has already suffered enough.”

In late