Harry Truman Read Free Page B

himself, and about the wily, determined foe he was fighting - Joseph Stalin. My father felt we were very close to war with Russia. Even as we sat there, waiting for the Democrats to stop debating and orating, American planes were flying tons of food and clothing and other necessities of life into beleaguered Berlin. On June 24, 1948, the Russians had cut off all land access to Berlin, as part of an attempt to force the United States and our allies to withdraw from this symbolic city. On June 26, Dad ordered all the available planes in the European theater to begin a massive airlift of supplies. Twenty-five hundred tons of food and fuel were being flown into the city every day by 130 American planes. My father had made this decision against the advice of many of his closest aides and Cabinet members. “We will stay in Berlin,” he said.
    Later Dad recalled that he also thought about some of the presidents to whom he felt close. One was John Tyler, to whom we are bound by blood as well as history. Dad’s grandfather, Anderson Shippe Truman, married a direct descendant of John Tyler’s brother. Tyler was the first vice president to become President on the death of the Chief Executive - in his case, William Henry Harrison. Daniel Webster, his Secretary of State, and Henry Clay, the leader of the Whig party in Congress, thought they were going to run the government, but they soon found out that Tyler was planning to be his own President. When Dad is willing to admit that he has a stubborn streak (which is seldom), he humorously attributes it to his Tyler blood.
    Finally, at 1:45 a.m., my father was escorted to the convention floor. He had been officially nominated, beating Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, 947½ votes to 263. But the South was in such a truculent mood that Sam Rayburn, the chairman of the convention, and one of Dad’s staunchest friends, did not dare call for the usual extra round of voting to make the nomination unanimous. While the band played “Hail to the Chief,” Mrs. Emma Guffey Miller, sister of the senator from Pennsylvania, released a flock of doves from inside a floral liberty bell. She and her brother were part of the professional liberal bloc that was trying to convince the Democratic Party and the country that peace with Stalin could be won by appeasement. The doves were an incredible disaster. One almost perched on Sam Rayburn’s head as he was trying to introduce my father and Alben Barkley. Another blundered into an upper balcony and plunged to the floor, dead or unconscious. In the pandemonium, a reporter said he overheard a delegate from New York comparing Harry Truman to the dead pigeon.
    Ignoring this idiocy, my father strode to the lectern and opened a small black loose-leaf book in which he carried the notes of his speech. He never looked more like a leader, as he waited for the soggy, weary crowd to settle down and listen to him. He was wearing a crisp white linen suit, and he exuded a vitality which practically no one else in that muggy cavern of a convention hall felt, at that moment. He knew they needed an injection of his vitality, and he gave it to them with his first sentence.
    “Senator Barkley and I will win this election and make those Republicans like it - don’t you forget that.”
    An incredible current of emotion surged through the crowd. People who thought they were too tired even to stand up again were on their feet, shouting their heads off.
    For the next twenty minutes, he told them why he was going to win. He listed the failures of the Eightieth Congress and pointed out the tremendous gains that families and workers had made under the Democrats. It was one of the toughest, most aggressive speeches ever made by a presidential candidate. He brought the crowd to their feet again and again, roaring their approval.
    But only Mother and I and a handful of White House aides were ready for the totally unexpected climax.
    My father’s thirty-five years in politics and