"Rose, File It. H.S.T."

By Paul Gray

STRICTLY PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL: THE LETTERS

HARRY TRUMAN NEVER MAILED

Edited by Monte M. Poen; Little, Brown; 210 pages; $10.95

Dashing off a letter in high dudgeon can be good for the nerves and soul. Not sending it can be even better. Self-restraint ennobles outrage. The aggrieved correspondent can have all the fun of venting strong feelings, coupled with a gratifying sense of condescension toward the addressee. There, but for the grace of the writer, goes one angry and insulted so-and-so.

The 33rd President of the U.S. seems, at first blush, an unlikely practitioner of this secretive art. "Give-'em-hell" Harry made plain speaking his trademark; he spared few enemies, in or outside politics. When Washington Post Music Critic Paul Hume panned a singing performance by Margaret Truman, the letter sent by her enraged father made headlines. But H.S.T. was not always as impulsive as his public tongue-lashings suggested. Another review by Critic Hume annoyed the President, and he complained in writing to Post Publisher Philip Graham: "Why don't you fire this frustrated old fart and hire a music reviewer who knows what he's talking about?" This time, though, the letter went unsent.

Editor Monte M. Poen discovered 140 such unmailed missives, dating from 1945 to 1969, while doing research at the Truman Library in Independence, Mo. He shelved his planned project, a biography of Truman after he left the presidency, in favor of this trove of letters, and his decision was a happy one. Strictly Personal and Confidential offers a unique look at a man reacting naturally to enormous pressures. Truman often had second, more prudent thoughts about what he called his "spasms." Sometimes he would scribble furiously and then stuff the result into his desk while he cooled off; on other occasions, he dictated blisterers to Rose Conway, his longtime personal secretary, and then returned the typescript with a diplomatic directive: "Rose, file it. H.S.T." In either case, he left behind a trail of entertaining and often fascinating documents, a short history of the frustrations of power, written at white heat.

Peppered by criticism in what he called "our sabotage press," Truman frequently read the newspapers and blew his cork. He lectured reporters on the sins of their profession, calling William Randolph Hearst "the No. 1 whore monger of our time" and Columnist Westbrook Pegler "the greatest character assassin in the United States." Other public figures earned his unposted scorn, including "Squirrel Head Nixon" and Senator Estes Kefauver, whom Truman called "Cow-fever." Explaining his decision to relieve General Douglas MacArthur of command during the Korean War, he mentioned the "insubordination of God's right hand man." During the 1952 campaign, the attempts of Democratic Candidate Adlai Stevenson to put some distance between himself and the President infuriated Truman. He issued and then withheld a threat to stop supporting Stevenson:

"I can't stand snub after snub by you." Although he came to admire John F. Kennedy in office, Truman privately called the 1960 candidate "the immature Democrat."

Anger was not his only goad. Requests to account for his decisions as President sometimes aroused his impatience and replies too blunt to send. A Harvard historian who queried him on the use of the A-bomb on Hiroshima did not hear the following: "It ended the Jap War. That was the objective. Now if you can think of any other 'if, as and when' egg head contemplations, bring them out." Truman felt that Stalin had betrayed the agreements of the 1945 Potsdam Conference: "And I liked the little son of a bitch. He was a good six inches shorter than I am and even Churchill was only three inches taller than Joe! Yet I was the little man in stature and intellect! Well we'll see." Many such salty observations about the Truman Administration's foreign and domestic crises were similarly kept to himself.

A softer side was hidden as well. Truman expressed affection as vigorously as dislikes, and both sometimes embarrassed him. His patriotism was firm but, in this instance, unheard: "This Republic of ours is unique in the history of government."

He loved his native Missouri and environs. His enthusiasm was unbridled and unmailed: "I know the Valley and every stream in it from Saint Louis to the Minnesota and Wisconsin Lakes and from Kansas City to Yellowstone Park and from the Rockies to the Illinois River. It is the most wonderful Valley in the world."

Remarkably, the spur-of-the-moment words that Truman squelched only enhance his reputation. They were some times petty and cutting but never devious or ignoble. Revisionist historians who insist on blaming Harry for the cold war will find little support here. "Our objective," he wrote in 1950, "is to revive that fighting spirit of all Europe and see if we can't impress the Russians so we will be in a position to get peace in the world. That is all I am trying for -- world peace." As to what he might think about the publication of these letters, the clue is obvious throughout the book: with a few expletives deleted, the old history buff would express pleasure at having added his say. --By Paul Gray

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