Mr. Truman’s

Ghosts

My father knew Mr. Truman well enough to introduce me to him when I was five years old. The former president seemed genial, but I have no other clear recognition of that moment. I was called precocious, but I cannot remember the man’s face, though I know his public pictures and signature spectacles. Before the introduction, my father wanted me to know that I would meet the American Cincinnatus. He was referring to the ancient Roman who departed politics to return to the plow. Dad said he admired Truman’s decision to drive his own car back to his home in Independence, Missouri, after his last term in the White House.

I forgot about that meeting for many years. I took no stock in trafficking on name dropping. I wanted to make a name for myself. That turned out to be a conundrum since I became a black military operator whose job was to stay in the shadows. I only thought of Truman when my duties involving nuclear command and control gave me no recourse but to seek the man out in the only way I could. I drove to Independence to visit the Truman Archives.

There, I discovered the well-known letter Truman wrote to his wife about the ghosts he encountered in the White House. The archivist at the Truman Library informed me that precious little documentary evidence remained of Truman experiencing the presence of Abraham Lincoln’s ghost or his daughter’s similar experience. What intrigued me was the tradition of Truman’s ghost. The archivist counseled me to visit the Truman Estate where his ghost still dwelled.

So, I went to the house, on whose front steps I had met citizen Harry Truman, to inquire about his ghost. I felt awkward posing as a seeker of paranormal experience. My purpose was not voyeuristic. I was on a Top-Secret mission that I could not divulge to anyone. Even the current president was not privileged to have access to the caveat I haunted. It was a black compartment, unacknowledged and accessible to a handful of people. I was in charge and had the responsibility of making a difference, perhaps by stopping the next nuclear war—or starting it.

Harry Truman was the only president who had ordered the use of nuclear weapons. I had no argument with him doing what he did to unleash the atomic weapons that ended World War II. He was, after all, the Commander in Chief of U.S. Forces at the time. He had to live with his difficult decision. As he repeatedly said, “The buck stops here.” I had to admire the man’s convictions.

I was certain that no one like him had inhabited the White House since he left it. However, I needed to know a few things about how his decision had been made. One question kept running through my mind: did the ghosts he experienced have anything to do with his decision to drop the bombs?

Since the archives were mute on this matter, I had to go to the source. My concern involved one of the most sensitive sets of secrets in the country, the President’s Eyes-Only material that is passed from one president to another. It is seen by no one except for a president. My quandary was that I needed to know things I could not ask any living person about. A ghost might give the answers I needed if I could just get its attention.

The Truman Estate is on the list of Historical Preservation sites. Its curator was a font of information about the Truman family, legacy, and, most pertinently, the ghost. He was enthusiastic as he took me to the places where the cold spots were located, the presence had been sensed by sentient people and sightings occurred. He took me on a circuit of walks the ghost of Harry Truman haunted. He told me of strange electrical charges detected with paranormal sensors. The Ghostbusters movies came to mind. At the end of the personal tour, he gave me the standard brochure documenting everything he had shown me. The brochure had the bibliography I had already researched in detail. I was not satisfied.

I asked my guide, “If a clairvoyant were to attempt to contact Mr. Truman’s ghost, how might that happen?”

He thought for a moment before he responded. We had crossed an invisible line between the factual recounting of third-party experiences and the paranormal experience of an actual encounter. It was not the first time he had been asked to cross the line, but he didn’t expect the question from someone with military bearing. He decided to cross the line with me.

“A reader advisor and medium here in Independence claims to have successfully contacted the ghost on at least two occasions. No records exist to document this. I cannot vouch personally for the information. If you want to go any further with this line of inquiry, I suggest you make an appointment to see her. I’ll give you her contact information and business card. If I can be of any further service to you, please don’t hesitate to be in touch. Good day.”

I decided to spend the night in Independence and visit the seer the next morning. I managed to book a room in a bed and breakfast with the requisite Missouri ghosts in residence. It was a refurbished edifice originally built in the 1850s. Ghosts of a Confederate soldier and a Union soldier from Buffalo, New York were reported to haunt the place. I heard groans, moans, and footfalls during the night but saw no ghosts. I felt no threats whatsoever. I dreamed of that meeting with Harry Truman that my father brokered. His image in the dream was much clearer than any prior memory I had of him. At the time, I figured my active imagination had conflated the many pictures I had seen with my vague, lingering memories. Looking back, I should have considered other possibilities.

The next morning after breakfast, I went to visit Madame Savant, a gypsy fortune teller whose establishment was a ramshackle two-story building on the outskirts of Independence. Her emblem was a neon hand. Her sign read, “Madam Savant, Reader Advisor, Fortunes and Palm Readings.” When I entered her business, only she and I were present. She kept scurrying around her shop and straightening up. I suspected she was trying to size me up, so I decided to be direct.

“I’m here to discuss contacting the ghost of Harry Truman. Can you help me?”

“You are on a mission. You are military. Your work is very secret. You have met Harry Truman personally. These things I see already.”

“Yet you evade my question.”

“I did not evade your question, I answered it laterally. I may be able to help. Would you like us to do a séance?”

“I’d like to encounter the ghost of Harry Truman and to use you as the medium for the meeting.”

“Please sit down at the table in the corner. I take Master Card, Visa, and American Express, as well as cash. I don’t do checks—too many have bounced. My fees are competitive. A séance will cost you $100 for the attempt. If we make contact, an additional $200 will be required. If your questions are answered, and you are satisfied, then I will require another $200.”

“So, we are talking about $500 for the experience?”

“Yes, unless you discover in the séance that you have new questions.”

“Let’s cut to the chase. What if I want to follow the conversation wherever I want to go?”

“I can give you a cut rate. Usually, I charge a fixed price of $1,000. For you, I’ll quote $800.”

“Done.” I was unsure whether the woman was a charlatan, but my need was compelling. She knew that. If she were cheating me, I’d know very soon. I handed Madame Savant my American Express card.

When the $800 was approved, I signed the paper. Then, the medium prepared the office for a private séance. She turned off her neon sign, turned over the sign on the door to read Closed, dimmed the lights, and lighted a red candle at the center of the table where I sat. She joined me in a seat across from me and took my hands in hers. She asked me to close my eyes.

“My child, tell me how you know Harry Truman.”

“As a small child, I was introduced to Mr. Truman on the steps of his estate right here in Independence. That was the only time I ever met him. I don’t remember much about the meeting. Last night, I dreamed about the meeting. It was clearer than any of my prior recollections.”

“Why are you seeking his counsel now? If you cannot tell me that precisely, as I suspect you cannot, say what you want him to tell you.”

“First, I need to know about the presidential ghosts he saw while he was in the White House. I don’t just need the names of the ghosts. I need to know what he and the ghosts talked about while he was president.”

“Go on.”

“Second, I need to know how he made the decision to drop the first atom bomb. Specifically, I need to know whether the ghosts had some influence on that decision.”

“There’s more, isn’t there?”

“Third, I need to know whether he can influence the currently sitting president in her decision-making. I have a special request to make of him in that regard.”

“Is that all?”

“Once I know those answers, I may have additional questions. I must first know whether I can trust you as the medium to keep what I learn in the strictest confidence.”

“I am like a fiber optic cable extended between you and this spirit. I retain nothing once the connection has been made. Think for a moment, Colonel. I’m guessing you’re from the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Who would believe me if I told them what I already have divined?”

“Pardon me. You are right. Please proceed.”

“Think of your dream of last night. Bring it to mind and banish everything else from your thoughts. Can you see Mr. Truman as you saw him as a little girl?”

“I see him. He has kind eyes.”

“You shook his hand. How did his hand feel?”

“It was large and warm. He shook my hand gently, but firmly. It was a man’s handshake. I kept looking at his eyes.”

“I feel his spirit approaching. Do you see the spirit?”

“The figure holding my hand is nodding and smiling at me.”

“Ask your first question.”

“Which presidential ghosts did you experience while you were in the White House?”

“I experienced the ghosts of all my predecessors. I walked and talked with them whenever I needed to discuss important matters of state and sometimes when I faced personal issues depending on the office.”

“When you wrote about the ghosts to your wife, why did you mention only a few?”

“I thought I had trespassed to mention any. I alluded to a few innocuous meetings. There were many others. My wife understood my mention of ghosts as a joke. I never mentioned them again until Lincoln.”

“Was that because your daughter saw Lincoln’s ghost too?”

“Yes, partly. You must understand how very lonely it is to be president. The terrible responsibility cannot be shared. Others gave counsel, but in the end, each of us had to decide. Our decisions became our legacy.”

“How did you decide to drop the bomb on Hiroshima?”

“That was the most horrible decision I ever had to make. Imagine holding the fate of seventy thousand souls in your hands. It was, of course, much more than that. It was the precedent I was setting for the world. The legacy of that decision is still haunting the globe. To answer your question, I took counsel from every ghost of every president from George Washington forward. I tried to avoid making the decision for as long as possible. Finally, I weighed the fifty thousand coffins I had already ordered to accommodate the first wave of American soldiers who would be killed if we invaded Japan against the seventy thousand at Hiroshima and the warnings we had given the Emperor and people of Japan. I could not stand back from that decision. I prayed to God Almighty to guide me. I felt conviction. I decided. No one is to blame but Harry Truman.”

I was weeping now because his hands were so gentle and his eyes were riveting. “So, could you advise the current president on the terrible decision she must make?”

“Like the others, I’m always ready to help. You know the rules for the president, for the office of the president, and for the executive office of the president. You know the rules about Executive Orders. All the organizations combined can’t help the president when the moment to decide comes. If the president in the Oval Office calls, we always come. We are tethered to the presidency for all time.” He got a faraway look in his eyes when he said this. His hand remained gentle and firm.

“Even unbidden, can you approach the sitting president and give counsel?”

“That was how Abraham Lincoln came to me. I did not conjure him. He came of his own accord. At first, I did not know why he came. Then he went to my daughter. I knew then what his presence meant. I cannot speak about what we discussed. As you can imagine, the meeting of the minds has a different meaning when one of the minds is a ghost.”

“If I may be so bold, may I beseech you to go to the sitting president now and counsel her on her decision about deploying a new nuclear command and control capability for our forces?”

“What would you have me communicate?”

“Without an articulate, redundant, scalable, and survivable near-real-time command and control capability, America will not be able to survive a nuclear war. In your day, one man could make a decision, and everything could be executed afterward.”

“Not exactly. I gave the order, but it was broader than the Hiroshima bombing. It encompassed many bombs, which would have continued until the Japanese surrendered or until we ran out of bombs and began an invasion. Nagasaki was only step two in the larger plan. Don’t forget that our other adversaries were watching what we were doing. Fortunately, the Emperor chose existence for his people over annihilation.”

“Yet today, unlike then, many nations in the world have nuclear weapons. The stigma against using them is growing less persuasive by the year. Without a global nuclear command structure and a command and control capability, chaos might ensue. Then we’d have indiscriminate use of nuclear weapons. One nation could not be restrained in their use without becoming vulnerable.”

“I can approach and attempt to influence the sitting president. Do you have any other requests?”

“Is there any way that you can influence the sitting president to have the conviction you showed when you were in office? My father called you the American Cincinnatus.”

“Your father knew I loved the classics. I read Juvenal’s satires in the original Latin while I was in the White House. I knew enough about the ancient world to appreciate why Cincinnatus was unique. He stood out because he was so different from the rest. The personalities of rulers are vastly different. I won’t cast aspersions on my fellow presidents. I will suggest that you compare the Roman emperors. It was so good to live in a Republic like the Romans had before the Caesars. Anyway, I can try to influence the sitting president, but I cannot make a guarantee of my success. After all, my ghostly counsel will be one among many.”

“I feel you receding now. You’ve released my hands. I cannot see you anymore. Everything is dark.”

“Colonel, can you hear me? If you can hear me, please open your eyes.”

I opened my eyes and saw the flickering candle. I looked across the table into Madame Savant’s coal black eyes, their pupils dilated to the maximum.

“Did you hear what we said?”

“Said? Did you say anything? I heard nothing.”

“I talked with Harry Truman’s ghost.”

“Then the séance must have worked. I’m thankful for that. Did you get what you wanted from it?”

“Yes, I think so. I’m overwhelmed. I don’t know what to say.”

“Say nothing. I’ve done my job. Now you must return to do your job.”

She stood up from her table, extinguished the candle, and walked to the door. She turned on the overhead lights. She turned on the neon sign and flipped the sign on her door to Open. When she opened her door, I walked out into the sunshine and made my way to my rental car. I drove around the city meditating on what I learned from the séance.

I had no evidence that the séance had occurred. I had spent $800 on my own account that I probably could never recover through the normal vouchering process. Had I been dreaming? Had I been under the influence of some drug, induced by the red candle or the seer’s touch? Was the séance wish fulfillment or an encounter with a genuine ghost? I was skeptical now. I wanted to get back to reality. I had lunch at a McDonald’s. Then, I had the strongest impulse to go back to the Truman Archives for another look.

I spent the afternoon reading the materials in the archive about the country’s military plans for dropping atomic weapons after the bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Afterward, I understood what the ghost had told me. I read the materials about how the decision for nuclear release rested squarely with the president. That was what the “football” was all about some years later. I knew the history of nuclear command and control as America planned to counter the USSR and the PRC. My own involvement with hardened networks and verification protocols gave me the sense that we were in better shape than our adversaries to wage war with those terrible weapons and their descendants, hydrogen, and neutron bombs. Still, I felt that the mission I was performing was valid. I had made contact, and I had elicited a promise.

I had also learned about a kind of command and control among presidents that no one had been privy to outside the Oval Office. Only presidents were knowledgeable about the ghosts of past presidents. A single letter had led me on my quest. I did research at the Truman Library and the Truman Estate. More than that, I went into my own deep memories of my meeting with Mr. Truman. Somehow, I had held his hand and looked into his eyes while we spoke together in the séance.

I had an afterthought that was sinister. I realized that Madame Savant’s office was not secure. She was not vetted. The things that were said in that place were beyond Top Secret. What had I done? I decided to return to be sure the woman knew the danger she was in. I drove well over the speed limit to her office. There I was horrified to see that the place had burned to the ground. Police cars and fire trucks surrounded the area. When I asked what happened, the scene commander told me that an electrical fire had engulfed the building and burned the only occupant beyond recognition. Her remains had been taken to the city morgue.

I was devastated. Another thought occurred to me. I went to the Truman Estate to see the man who had referred me to Madame Savant. He was not there. His assistant told me the guide had suddenly become very sick. Emergency medical technicians had come only three hours before to take him to the hospital emergency room. I obtained directions to the hospital, but when I arrived, I was informed the man had just died.

I returned to my room at the bed and breakfast. I was uncertain what to do next. I called the Truman Library, but it was late, and the archivist had gone home for the day. I asked for the man’s cell phone number, but the staff officer was not at liberty to tell me that information. I left a message for the officer to relay to the archivist: “You are in danger. Take all precautions. Colonel Starker.” I never found out whether the message got through. On the evening news, his death in a tragic one-car accident was reported in a sidebar.

All the events of the last two days began to become focused in my mind. I had followed my gut without factoring the danger my path meant for those who helped me achieve my goals. Madame Savant was dead. The guide at the Truman Estate was dead. The archivist at the Truman Archives was dead. That left me as the only one alive. I decided to pack my things and book a flight back to New England to brief the General about my findings. I sent the General’s aide an email to alert his boss that I was coming home. The return email told me the General had succumbed that evening to a heart attack. His relief was coming up to speed, but he knew nothing about my mission because he had not been briefed into our special caveat.

I was concerned about the safety of my team. I sent my team members an email alerting them to unspecified dangers. I wrote, “We are all in a red sector of unknown dimensions. Take all precautions and take no unnecessary chances.” None of my team members responded. I was driving to the airport when I received notice the flight I had booked was delayed. I proceeded to the rental car return. I got out of the rental car and noticed a nail had been driven into the side of my right rear tire. I had been lucky to arrive without mishap. Dazed, I wondered what to do next.

I decided to do the unanticipated. I went to the ground transport area and called an Uber cab. I asked the cabbie to take me to the nearest bus station. I spent the night in the terminal sleeping on a hardback bench. While I slept, I dreamt of my séance with Madame Savant. A figure like her appeared in my dream. She morphed into my image of Harry Truman. Then the figure was silhouetted in a nuclear blast. It burst into flames and instantly became a black, burnt corpse. It atomized as dust and dispersed in a nuclear wind. I awoke in a cold sweat. A bum was poking me asking for money to buy a coffee. Instead of giving him money, I bought him a coffee. I bought another coffee for myself.

Three uniformed Special Forces soldiers came into the terminal with weapons drawn. They came straight to me and told me to keep with them for protection.

Their commanding officer said, “We were dispatched when you departed from the plan. We’re under attack. The General is dead. Your team is dead. Our priority is to get you back to the bunker ASAP. We’re at DEFCON ONE.”

I didn’t know whether to feel relieved by the special guard or to be suspicious. I trusted my instincts and went with the SF soldiers. They drove to a black ops helicopter. We boarded and flew at maximum speed in darkness to the bunker where I was met by my General’s relief.

“Reporting for duty, sir!” I was at attention and saluted smartly. He saluted in return.

“Colonel, we have a situation. I’m glad they found you. I’m not cleared to know what you were doing in Independence or what your team was up to here, so I’ll leave that to you. Right now, we have a problem of nuclear command and control to solve, and you are right at the center of the solution.”

“I am?”

“Yes, you are. I don’t know why, but the President of the United States has requested you by name. My orders are to get you to Washington, DC, ASAP to the White House Situation Room. Tell me what you need by way of personal effects. I’ll have those things transported to meet you. Right now, you’re going to ride Air Force Two. It’s gassing up at Hanscom Field. The helo will take you there.”

“Yes, sir. I have everything I need in my carryon bag.” I raised the bag to indicate I was ready to rock.

“Godspeed, Colonel. One day I hope to be in a position to learn what is going on here.”

“Believe me, General, I feel the same way you do.”

I made the flights and ended up in the Situation Room to work with the president through the crisis. It was one of the headiest things I have ever been involved in. I cannot say what happened in that room. The report was written by someone else, and I never got a copy. All I knew was that I had seen the ghost of Harry Truman in Independence, Missouri. That apparently made a difference. Who can tell?