FIFTEEN

The Truman Years

Herbert Hoover’s relationship with Harry S. Truman was more complicated than his association with Roosevelt. Truman was a professional politician, a product of the notoriously corrupt Pendergast machine of Kansas City who believed, as do most politicians, that survival came first, which meant winning. A political realist, he was not above hyperbole to win votes, and, as Hoover discovered, party loyalty sometimes came ahead of personal loyalty. He was politically expedient and willing to cut expeditious deals.¹

Yet by the standards of politics, Truman was an honest man. For Hoover, the new president’s temperament was a refreshing change after Roosevelt. He lacked FDR’s conceit, vindictiveness, and unquenchable thirst for power. Competent and decisive, though not brilliant, the former Missouri senator was an average speaker who did not dominate Congress as FDR did. He was kind, yet hardheaded and practical, less idealistic than Hoover, and more liberal. Basically fair, usually modest, he had never ambitiously sought the presidency. Like Hoover, he could be blunt, had simple tastes and a happy marriage, and was religious, yet occasionally profane. The product of small-town, rural America, Truman, like Hoover, had experienced poverty and had worked with his hands. Both men were individualists, sometimes pugnaciously so.

Self-educated, Truman was the last president without a college education. He was reasonably well-read, though he lacked Hoover’s erudition and philosophical depth. Still, Truman and Hoover enjoyed a mutual respect that deepened to affinity. As the only two living ex-presidents for a time, they developed a relationship that blossomed into empathy and friendship. Though they belonged to opposing political parties, their political ideologies were anchored primarily in common sense. Each man was suspicious of the liberal intellectuals who had gravitated to the New Deal and influenced FDR. Both men could identify each other’s inconsistencies perhaps more easily than they could see their own foibles. “One day I find in him a devoted public servant,” Hoover said of Truman, and “the next time I find him to be a Pendergast-machine politician who will do anything for a vote.” Truman could praise a Hoover speech as spellbinding in 1948 and a few weeks later accuse him of leading the nation into the Okefenokee Swamp of the Great Depression.²

Hoover’s intuition told him Truman would be a change for the better. FDR had trampled his reputation after the 1932 campaign, but he now hoped that the new president would dam the stream of vitriol. Truman soon began to invite Hoover back into the fold of public service with incremental steps, overtures of respect that in time blossomed into a cordial friendship, though never a political alliance, comparable to the twilight correspondence of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Unlike Jefferson and Adams, Hoover and Truman went beyond expressions of mutual admiration to active, nonpolitical collaboration.

Henry Stimson helped arrange the initial contact by inviting Hoover to meet with him, explaining Truman was amenable to befriending Hoover. The former president was wary at first, questioning the man’s motives. He wanted the invitation to originate with the president, he informed Stimson, partly because that was the only way to shield himself from the leftists in the Democratic entourage. They could hardly belittle the actions of their own leader. Several friends of Hoover talked with Truman, striving to set up a meeting. Truman was quite interested; he said the former chief executive would have his total attention and the visit would be substantive, not merely a formality.³

After turning down several invitations to meet with Stimson, who had now served in the cabinet of two Republican and two Democratic presidents, Hoover finally met with his former secretary of state on May 13, 1945. Although Stimson had never been Hoover’s favorite cabinet member, he was always deferential and had great respect for his former boss. Despite his initial misgivings, Hoover was encouraged by what Stimson told him about Truman. He departed with the impression that Truman could prove to be a better president than Dewey might have been. He seemed to have more steel in his backbone.⁴

In May, Hoover began to flesh out some ideas for a compromise peace with Japan that would save American lives, preserve Japanese sustainability as an economic power, restore Chinese sovereignty, and stifle Soviet expansion. He believed the Japanese had given Korea a better government than it had before they occupied the peninsula. He did not know the timetable of the plan to use the atomic bomb, but if he had, he would have opposed it. He later complained that the A-bombs that scorched Japan needlessly killed women and children and opened opportunities for expansion to the Soviets. Hoover discussed his plan with his friend Joseph P. Kennedy, who agreed on the main points, including Hoover’s idea of making it appear that the overture for peace originated with Chiang Kai-shek and permitting the Japanese to retain Emperor Hirohito.⁵

Hoover was concerned with Soviet expansionism in Asia, pointing out that Stalin had a ravenous appetite for swallowing smaller nations. To prolong the war against Japan, he observed, “we are likely to have won the war for Russia’s benefit just as we have done in Europe.” Hoover drew up a memorandum summarizing his plan for Stimson. He stated that Japan should be compelled to withdraw from China, including Manchuria, but retain Korea and Formosa. Japan would be required to fully disarm, but no reparations would be exacted. Hoover’s plan would preserve capitalism and free trade throughout the region and Japan would be spared an American military government. In many respects it might have produced a better outcome than the one that actually occurred. Because the terms were relatively generous and Japan would save face by keeping Korea and Formosa, as well as by surrendering directly to Chiang, it is reasonable to expect they might have accepted.⁶

At the time FDR died, Hoover had written the new president, “All Americans will wish you strength for your gigantic task. You have the right to call for any service in aid of the country.” Thus Hoover had already made himself available when Truman became interested in seeking the ex-president’s advice about food relief. Truman also believed it had been rude of Roosevelt to exclude Hoover from any service or recognition. When the opportunity occurred, however, Hoover wanted a personal invitation from the new president. After his long absence, he did not want to seem presumptuous, and he also considered it beneath the dignity of a former president to call upon a sitting president uninvited. Hoover also knew that some of the New Deal holdovers in the new administration opposed inviting him. His pride was another factor, and he wanted to be certain he was welcome. Finally, on May 24, 1945, Truman wrote, “If you should be in Washington, I would be most happy to talk over the European food situation with you. Also it would be a pleasure for me to become acquainted with you.”⁷

When Hoover finally met Truman on May 28, he explained his plan for relief to the president, a plan he had already discussed with Stimson and with several of Truman’s emissaries. They had opposed some specific details, such as Hoover’s belief that the army was the institution best equipped to handle the logistics of relief. Hoover emphasized that the next ninety days were critical in averting famine. The two men discussed domestic food conditions, which Hoover said were entangled in red tape. Abroad, he urged Truman not to trust Stalin and to protect American interests. War would be folly, however. It might decimate the remnants of Western civilization. Truman listened carefully to a plan Hoover had earlier discussed with Stimson to make peace overtures to Japan through Chiang Kai-shek. Hoover’s plan would end the war quickly, before the Soviets could grab portions of the Japanese Empire. Truman asked his new friend to provide a detailed memorandum explaining the peace plan. Hoover hurried home to compose his memorandum and to summarize his thoughts on food relief. Though he liked Truman, Hoover did not seriously expect to be called to service. He speculated that his meeting was nothing more than a courtesy and assumed Truman might have political motives. In reality, Truman liked Hoover’s ideas, although he did not implement all of them. Further, he was impressed by the former president’s cogent presentation and the quality of his mind. Already, he respected Hoover at a distance.⁸

Early in 1946, after the president had abruptly ended the war by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and Nagasaki on August 9, Truman invited Hoover to visit the White House again. In a productive meeting, the men laid explicit plans to maximize Hoover’s availability to the new administration and tap his residual reservoir of humanitarian instincts. It launched Hoover on a second career in relief, provided him a sense of purpose, and, he later commented, added ten years to his life. The common purpose marked the genesis of a bond between the president and the ex-president. It also furnished the opportunity Hoover had long sought: the opportunity to resurrect his reputation. On March 16, 1946, the Master of Emergencies delivered a nationwide radio appeal for food conservation in order to save 500 million people from famine, then departed on a special C-54 christened The Faithful Cow. Hoover traveled throughout Europe, gathering statistical data, unplugging bottlenecks, and interviewing presidents, prime ministers, and food experts, as well as collecting documents for his War Library. He was received by Pope Pius XII, whom he asked to intercede with Latin American leaders, especially Juan Perón of Argentina, who controlled a large surplus of beef. The former president, constantly on the move, took no time away from work. The Chief seemed to thrive on activity. His most important assignment was to collect data on the precise food needs of the malnourished countries and to identify others that had surplus food to export. Everywhere, he preached the gospel of conservation. At the beginning of his tour, the Great Humanitarian had estimated an 11-million-ton gap in cereal necessities, yet he trimmed that by 4 million tons by implementing stringent conservation pledges. He also proposed to expand a feeding program for 40 million undernourished European children. At the conclusion of his travels he spoke to an international radio audience from London about “hundreds of millions” of people waging a personal war against hunger. Badly undernourished children were prey to diseases such as tuberculosis, rickets, and anemia in their weakened condition. Part of Hoover’s itinerary included the Indian subcontinent, where he talked with the country’s leader, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Mahatma Gandhi.⁹

In April President Truman feared the American voluntary food conservation program was faltering and asked Hoover to return to deliver a series of speeches inspiring his countrymen. Hoover dissented; he wanted to continue his mission through Asia. They compromised when Hoover halted in Cairo to deliver a radio broadcast distributed worldwide, calling for greater sacrifice to avert famine before the next harvest. The appeal seemed effective, and he continued his trek eastward. From Japan, Hoover distributed a press dispatch. The Japanese faced starvation. “Japan must have food imports,” he stressed. “Without them, all Japan will be on a ration little better than that which the Germans gave to the Buchenwald and Belsen concentration camps,” he pleaded. “Moreover, unless there are food imports the people will not have the stamina to work upon reconstruction or in the fields for the next crop.”¹⁰

Hoover returned to America to find imminent rail and shipping strikes and a crippling coal stoppage frustrating food deliveries to the hungry nations. He warned that the coal strike might cause hundreds of thousands of deaths abroad. “If the railroad strike takes place it will mean death to millions,” he continued. “If the shipping strike takes place it will be a holocaust. . . . There is only 30 to 60 days’ supply of food in the famine area of 27 nations. They have five months to go until the next harvest.”¹¹

On May 13 Hoover summarized his eight-week inspection in the form of a yardstick of hunger. Two days later, President Truman responded that “the collection of basic facts had been an arduous and difficult task” and that the former president had “provided a great service to your country and to humanity in making possible for each of us to know better the extent of world distress and to measure the magnitude of our responsibilities.” Truman then asked Hoover to undertake yet another journey, to Latin America, to ascertain the prospect of obtaining food exports to the famished nations. Hoover quickly consented, urging the grain-producing nations to undertake conservation to furnish grain to the bread-starved nations. One day later Hoover and Truman discussed his trip personally and issued a request to Stalin to join the food-conservation effort, though Hoover considered the prospect dim. The ex-president explained to the sitting chief executive that only a truculent attitude toward the Russians made the slightest impression on Stalin. On May 25 Hoover complained about the selfishness of labor unions that incited strikes, which caused suffering to millions. Long a supporter of labor, he now felt that leaders of big unions had grown arrogant and threatened not only American transportation but also international trade. They should not take prosperity for granted, he cautioned. America had suffered severely from the war, and self-seeking attitudes could devastate the economy.¹²

In late May, Hoover embarked on a trip of Latin America with a twenty-five-day itinerary. “Mr. Hoover’s willingness to undertake these arduous assignments underscores his deep patriotism and his high qualifications,” the Columbus (OH) Evening Dispatch wrote. Hoover elicited promises for the export of 2 million tons of food in the Southern Hemisphere. Argentina had been especially cooperative after President Truman’s emissary strove to patch up shaky relations with the southern nation. Hoover helped arrange the sale of the Latin American surplus, dispatching Liberty ships to transport the grain to European and Asian ports. The trip involved physical pain for the aging statesman. A fall in the bathtub caused a contusion in his back. Upon his return, Hoover’s friend the publisher John C. O’Laughlin informed him that the Truman administration was extremely gratified by his efforts. Truman was attempting to override resistance from holdovers from the Roosevelt administration to restore the original name, Hoover Dam, to the massive structure near Las Vegas that Harold Ickes had spitefully renamed Boulder Dam. O’Laughlin also wrote that Truman planned to continue to consult Hoover about national policies.¹³

On June 28, 1946, Hoover delivered his last major internationally broadcast speech about food relief at Ottawa via the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He thanked the Canadians for their contributions and explained that along with the United States, Australia, and Argentina, they had shouldered 90 percent of the burden of world relief. At Truman’s request, he had covered fifty thousand miles, including all nations experiencing food deficits and the major providers of surpluses, except for Australia and South Africa. He had “discussed crops, animals, calories, rations, stocks, ships, railroads, supplies and hunger with the Presidents, the Prime Ministers, the good officials of each of these nations.” The honorary chairman of the Famine Emergency Committee concluded that hunger had been arrested in every nation except China. He was still concerned about feeding the children and made recommendations that ultimately resulted in the creation of the United Nations International Children’s Fund.¹⁴

After years of neglect, Hoover now found himself influential in Truman’s circle. “I am delighted that you have come into your own again,” Ray Lyman Wilbur wrote to him. Chester Davis, the operational leader of the Famine Emergency Committee, had adopted Hoover’s recommendations and organized the committee as chiefly a conservation vehicle, creating local famine-emergency committees and retail organizations, and utilizing housewife pledges and a youth organization, all designed to continue at least until the harvest in August. A week later Secretary of Agriculture Clinton Anderson invited him to return to Washington for another round of discussions concerning food problems. Anderson wrote to thank the unretired humanitarian for his efforts in resolving worldwide food problems and averting a famine.¹⁵

On January 18, 1947, President Truman asked the elder statesman to again take wing, this time to inspect and report on conditions in Germany and Austria. Hoover insisted that his mission should go beyond food and include a survey of the entire economy in those nations, and that he would summarize his conclusions in a report. At that time, the so-called Morgenthau Plan was partially in effect for the defeated powers, providing for Germany’s deindustrialization and reduction to a pastoral state subsisting primarily on farming. Hoover viewed his expedition as a tool to gain leverage to pry Germany back into the European and world economies. Despite the atrocities committed by German leaders, Hoover believed a scorched-earth policy would drag down all of Europe, and America as well, into a pit of economic torment. There could be no European recovery without German recovery, he concluded. Germany must be permitted all heavy manufacturing except weaponry in order to obtain exports to exchange for badly needed raw materials. Nor should Germany be stripped of its industrial areas. Denying Germany its industrial prowess would be an exercise in self-flagellation for the rest of the world. Further, a pro-Western Germany would be a barrier to Communist expansion in the heartland of Europe. Hoover argued to Truman and his assistants on grounds of self-interest. Moreover, keeping Germany in poverty would require American taxpayers to support the German citizens. An unspoken argument was that Hoover’s views commanded influence among the new GOP majority in Congress and that any policy he opposed might be rejected. His impact on the foreign policies of the Truman administration, both because of policies he supported and because of those he opposed, was substantial. He had logic and his congressional clout working in his favor. Moreover, the British, who ultimately merged their zone with the Americans, agreed with much of Hoover’s philosophy.¹⁶

Although Hoover’s impact on Truman’s policies toward Germany was sometimes underestimated in America, partly because much of it occurred behind the scenes, it was appreciated in Germany. When the former president visited Germany in 1954, he was praised by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. “We . . . owe it to your political farsightedness, to your comprehensive knowledge of economic life that we could again build up our country and our economy after the ravages of the Second World War,” Adenauer explained. “The limitations upon our economy were relaxed and, thanks to the magnanimous aid of the American people, we could begin the reconstruction of our native land.” Hoover’s magnanimity also benefited Germany in other ways. In February 1947 Hoover testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in favor of Truman’s request for $350 million for relief of Germany and Austria, and he collaborated with Secretary of State George C. Marshall in shepherding the legislation through. Hoover lined up Republican votes for the measure in a Congress now dominated by the GOP. After the measure passed, Major General William H. Draper, economic adviser to the headquarters of the European command, wrote Hoover, “There is no question in my mind that your report on food saved the day for our deficiency appropriation and I hope will prove equally effective with respect to the 1948 appropriation.” Draper added, “Both Germany and all of those interested in the attainment of American objectives in Europe owe you a deep debt of gratitude.”¹⁷

As with Germany, Hoover was a voice of humane self-interest about policy toward Japan. Despite U.S. citizens’ understandable ill feeling, “we must confine punishment to the war leaders and we must live with his 80,000,000 people,” Hoover advised. Japan, like Germany, must be restored to its full potential of peaceful industry and take its place in the family of nations. As Germany was the cornerstone of prosperity and a barrier to Communist expansion in the West, Japan played a similar role in the East. Japan must export enough to pay for its imports; otherwise, it would be dependent on American taxpayers indefinitely. There was no point in the United States punishing itself simply to wreak revenge on the Japanese. “Chains on any productive area are chains on the whole world,” the ex-president warned. “We need a larger vision.” Japan posed a strong ideological dam against the spread of Communist subversion as well as against Russian military threats. Historian Gary Dean Best concludes, “Again, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Hoover had a decisive influence on the change of policy toward Japan for largely the same reasons as in the case of Germany.”¹⁸

Hoover was skeptical of the expansive degree of Truman’s defense commitments and insisted that financial assistance should be in the form of loans rather than grants, lest the demand for aid become open-ended. He had to be persuaded to support the degree of commitment implied in the defense of Europe in the Truman Doctrine, announced in early March of 1947. The president promised to thwart Communist threats posed against Greece and Turkey by Soviet expansionism with a $400 million appropriation for military aid, coupled with a broad statement that America would aid any nation threatened by Communist aggression. Hoover’s Republican friends in Congress frequently asked his opinion of this extension of America’s role as a defender of virtually any nation. Many Republicans feared this was biting off more than American resources could digest. Hoover remained discreetly silent in public because he wanted to retain clout both with GOP solons and with administration shapers of foreign policy and play the role of an honest broker. Privately, he was unconvinced about an unrestricted commitment. Similarly, Hoover publicly supported the Marshall Plan of economic aid to reconstruct the European economy and foster trade with America, yet he had doubts about its scope and some of its details. Further, he felt hurt about not being consulted before it was announced. The former president proved much more amenable to supporting a bipartisan foreign policy when he was taken into the confidence of policy makers. He believed Secretary of State George C. Marshall was out of his element in the intricate details of European diplomatic intrigue. He was inviting the Europeans to gang up on America for handouts. Some greedy nations might pit America versus Russia as rival Santa Clauses.¹⁹

The Republican statesman had a more conservative and more cautious view of spending commitments than Truman and the Democrats. He believed that America should not pursue a unilateral foreign aid policy as a matter of prudence and economy. It should ask other nations who could afford to lend help, such as Canada, Argentina, and South Africa, which had not been damaged by the war, to chip in. The loans would become a political issue when the time arose to repay them, as they had following World War I, and it would be more appropriate to offer them on a multilateral basis. The United States and other contributors could utilize a vehicle such as the World Bank that would minimize nationalistic considerations. The contributing nations might purchase debentures in the bank, spreading the risk and the credit. As a moral matter, Hoover did not believe friends bought outright were any more reliable friends than ladies of the night. Moreover, if the European nations sincerely wanted to restore prosperity, they should tighten their belts and return to the six-day workweek until they surmounted the crisis. Further, the Europeans should create a “customs and transportation union” as “a practical first step towards a United Nations of Europe,” a prophetic idea.²⁰

Hoover was a fiscal conservative, but he was no Scrooge. In a memorandum to Massachusetts representative Christian Herter, an old friend, Hoover explained that Americans should not really expect the foreign loans to be repaid. They would actually be gifts, but to call them that would encourage a demand that would outstrip the supply. Some basic needs would be considered outright humanitarian relief. Other “loans” could be repaid in kind with raw materials and products America needed. Hoover also saw the reconstruction of Europe interconnected with that of Germany and Japan. “It is simply crazy for us to build up productivity in foreign countries out of American resources, and at the same time, to tear down productivity in these two areas.”²¹ Alf Landon worked in concert with Hoover on the Marshall Plan. He proposed to Congressman Joseph Martin that Congress should establish a board to administer the foreign aid appropriation and that Hoover should be a member. On the left, some feared Hoover was exerting entirely too much influence in the administration. Former vice president Henry A. Wallace, dumped in favor of Truman in 1944, now editor of the liberal New Republic, complained that Roosevelt’s successor had reversed many of FDR’s plans for the postwar world. Worse yet, “it is Hoover’s thinking which guides our foreign policy.” It was an exaggeration and a backhanded compliment, but a tribute to the distance Hoover had come.²²

Late in 1947 the Republican Congress passed and Truman signed an act that established a committee to study and provide recommendations for reorganization of the executive branch in the interest of economy and efficiency, and the committee members chose Hoover to chair it. This proved to be the Chief’s most sweeping contribution to domestic policy during Truman’s administration. The committee’s report was to be delivered after the 1948 election, and Hoover and congressional Republicans expected to be dealing with a Republican president sympathetic to paring down the bureaucracy and scaling back federal power, with a shift of responsibility to the states. Hoover labored strenuously to inject his vision of government into the committee’s report. After the reelection of Truman in 1948 he realized that his intention to reduce the New Deal bureaucracy would fall short of realization, yet the report nonetheless was stamped with his crafting. A steady stream of reports flowed from the commission to Congress recommending specific changes in the administrative structure of the executive branch. Hoover’s model provided for a clear chain of command, a reduction of the numerous agencies reporting directly to the president—grouping agencies by purpose and function—and the use of standardized language to describe specific tasks. His principle was to simplify, streamline, and trim fat. The commission proposed what became the General Services Administration to centralize purchasing and save money by bulk purchasing and the prevention of overlap. The commission proposed abolishing numerous government agencies, consolidating others, and returning yet others to the private sector. It called for centralization of all public works in the Department of the Interior. Another recommendation was creation of a new department to deal with welfare and education. Overall, the report reflected Hoover’s belief in the reduction of waste and duplication and his preference for decentralization and states’ rights.²³

Drafting a fine-tuned model government was one thing. Enactment encountered opposition from special interests and bureaucrats with turf to protect. Truman vowed to collaborate and congratulated Hoover on his gargantuan effort, but Hoover was not fully satisfied with the president’s follow-through. Fully aware of the political consequences of every change, Truman told Hoover he would have to take into account the viewpoints of the responsible bureaucrats, especially when changes entailed the shifting of tasks from one department or agency to another. Tucked into every nook and cranny of the government were enclaves of jealously guarded jobs, power, and prestige. Hoover’s friends helped organize and finance a private “Citizens Committee” to lobby Congress to enact the reforms. Hoover did not directly affiliate with the organization, but he complemented its efforts by delivering speeches and radio addresses and appearing before congressional committees.²⁴

Hoover was tied up pushing through Congress the recommendations of the Hoover Commission during the 1949 debate over American membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), but he considered the alliance a questionable proposition for Americans. It added nothing to U.S. defense and stretched thin America’s commitments, and the NATO members, except Britain, made paltry efforts to contribute to their own protection. During the Korean War, Hoover lamented that our NATO allies made minuscule contributions. He opposed MacArthur’s offensive north to the Yalu River and encouraged the general to use air power rather than ground troops as his primary weapon. Hoover considered limited wars against Communists worldwide diversions that might weaken America; he favored a powerful nuclear deterrent as an alternative. He supported Truman’s initial response, as he loyally backed every war, but he believed MacArthur, his close friend, had sapped American resources by taking the offensive. Although a warrior with words, Hoover was a reluctant combatant who was extremely wary about overseas commitments. A vehement ideological foe of socialism, Communism, and any form of collectivism, he also resisted militarism, which he considered a waste of lives and resources, except for self-defense. He would not strike first but when attacked would fight with every ounce of strength.²⁵

The GOP statesman was heartened by the thunderous Republican victory in the 1946 congressional elections. His party gained control of Congress for the first time since 1928. He considered it more than a turnover in personnel; it symbolized an ideological triumph. The New Deal had lost its luster, and the appeal of collectivism was fading. Hoover set an agenda for the new Congress. Foremost must come labor reform. Big labor had gripped America by the throat and now threatened to strangle productivity. Hoover took comfort in the ascendancy of Senator Robert A. Taft to the chairmanship of the Senate Labor Committee and worked closely with Taft to thrash out provisions for a new labor law restricting the power of big labor and ending abusive practices. He also helped assemble a GOP consensus for its passage. Hoover was disillusioned by the evolution of labor, which he had always championed, into a new form of monopoly that imposed its will on an unprotected public. He felt that big labor sometimes staged strikes for ideological purposes. Such strikes affected the lives of millions of innocent bystanders. Hoover believed the president and the courts should have the power to end strikes that threatened the public welfare. He also advocated compulsory arbitration. One of the principal accomplishments of the 80th Congress, in Hoover’s mind, was enactment of the Taft-Hartley Act, a GOP bill designed to restore balance to labor relations, which had shifted in favor of unions since the New Deal’s Wagner Act of 1935. Due to several crippling strikes in 1946 that caused national hardship, and the internecine labor wars of the 1930s, punctuated by violence, the public mood had turned against big labor. Hoover felt that the unions had grown enormously in size and influence and possessed more power in some respects than the federal government. Taft, one of the chief architects of the measure, became one of the front-runners for the 1948 GOP presidential nomination due to his pivotal role in enacting the legislation. The bill defined specific unfair practices by labor, limited the role of Communists in union leadership, and required a cooling-off period before strikes jeopardizing the national welfare could materialize. Fought bitterly by the Democrats, it was enacted over Truman’s veto.²⁶

Dewey and Taft were the chief contenders for the GOP nomination. Hoover believed either could defeat Truman in a year when the Democrats were splintered. Although he strongly preferred Taft, he designed a compromise to help avoid a deadlock resulting in the nomination of a weaker candidate. Should either Taft or Dewey stumble in the early ballots, the weaker would transfer his delegates to the leader, ensuring his nomination. Both agreed, and when Taft’s bid faltered, the Ohioan facilitated Dewey’s nomination. The New Yorker would run with a united party behind him. For many of the delegates, the pinnacle of the convention was Hoover’s speech. In his fourth consecutive address to a GOP conclave since departing from the White House, the ex-president delivered his most moving discourse. He attacked the New Deal’s foreign and domestic policies and peppered his speech with references to moral and spiritual ideals and bedrock Republican principles. He said the next president would serve during perilous times due to the Communist threat. Hoover insisted that America must conserve, set priorities, and curtail waste. Further, the United States should not foster an interminable dependency on America by the European nations, which must become self-sustaining. Hoover’s speech was an invocation to follow the Boy Scout motto: “Be prepared.” A journalist who heard the speech wrote, “Never in his 74 years has he had a higher moment. It was astounding,” he marveled. “They drew the man to their hearts as they had forgotten to do through his long period of public service. They seemed to be trying to make up for their lapse of affection and understanding.” Hoover told a friend that he had received a handwritten note from President Truman terming the speech the greatest “since Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.”²⁷

Hoover’s energy was devoted to his work chairing the Committee on Government Reorganization, and he made no plans to campaign. Yet when both Truman and Democratic representative Sam Rayburn of Texas resorted to Hoover bashing, reviving the epitaphs of Roosevelt’s ghostwriters, Hoover felt inclined to leap into the fray. Dewey, however, made no overture to the ex-president. Hoover felt that the bitterness of the campaign caused him to lose some of the gains he had made in restoring his reputation and he made no secret of his lack of respect for politicians who resorted to hypocrisy in the name of political expediency. Putting aside the goodwill he demonstrated earlier, Truman returned to his status as a machine politician. The Democrat and his surrogates blamed Hoover for single-handedly provoking the Great Depression, then sitting on it, without remorse. Truman veered left and tried to compete with the radical third-party candidate, Henry A. Wallace, in the North. Still a fourth candidate, Governor J. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, appealed to conservatives, especially the Southern bloc. Dewey tried to straddle issues, mimicking Landon and Willkie. Instead, he alienated regular Republicans such as Hoover. Truman marshaled a razor-thin comeback victory.²⁸

Much of the battering he was taking from Democrats in the campaign was soothed by the glow of human affection when Hoover returned to his birthplace to celebrate his seventy-fourth birthday at West Branch, Iowa, on August 10, 1948. Columnist Anne O’Hare McCormick wrote that “the former President’s homecoming was the counterpart in personal terms to the address he delivered at the Republican convention a few weeks ago. In Philadelphia he was the elder statesman calling upon the party he once led,” she explained. “In West Branch he was the country boy grown old and mellow and renowned. The burden of his speech was not that he is self-made but that he is America-made, the product of this society and this system.” It was a poetic tribute to the nation that had helped make and mold him. “He has seen far more of this tortuous and tortured world than most political leaders, and the sum of his experience, distilled into this testament, is that there is nothing like America.” Newsweek explained that the outpouring of affection, at least in West Branch, brought a measure of redemption, an indication of how far he had come. “It also meant vindication for his ideas—ideas which had been jeered at during the depression but had since regained respect.” U.S. News and World Report heaped on another accolade when it wrote that “Mr. Hoover, a former President, may have more influence on the country now than he ever did while he was in the White House.”²⁹

A year later, Hoover celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday by delivering a speech at Stanford’s Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, which he had founded thirty-four years earlier. During these years, Hoover had helped raise more than $3.45 million in private contributions for the library, which had grown exponentially. Hundreds of individuals and some thirty-six governments had contributed to its holdings, he revealed. The institution preserved records of wars and revolutions, archiving the errors of troubled times in order to avert the mistakes of the past. Its documents in its area of specialization were unduplicated anywhere. It was not dead storage; it continued to grow as history evolved. The institution was funded entirely by grants and private donations. It never received one cent of government funds. Scholars from throughout the world utilized its resources. The library was not for his generation alone, Hoover explained. It taught stern lessons to coming generations in the hope that it could prevent future war, revolution, and genocide. Respect for Hoover attracted invaluable documents to the collections, and he also proved the library’s most effective fund-raiser. Along with the Boys Clubs and Stanford University, the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace constituted his chief charitable commitment. Hoover shifted his focus beyond the library to the world and to the next generation of Americans, and he sought to engage his audience in the quest for tempering the growth of collectivism—a dangerous fallacy, he believed. At best, it wasted money, and at worst it enslaved peoples. Americans must remain a progressive people, he said, and collectivism was the antithesis of progress. Hoover went on to describe the tangle of bureaucracy that had grown and the cost to taxpayers compelled to feed the weeds sown by gratuitous and misdirected spending. A major enemy of individual liberty had become the massive burden of red tape that entangled lowly individuals in its quest for infinite bureaucracy. Further damaging was the polarization of the country into rapacious private pressure groups.³⁰

Hoover now considered his abstention from the 1948 campaign a mistake. Thus, the seventy-six-year-old former president decided to deliver several speeches prior to the 1950 congressional elections because he understood the high stakes. However, he believed he could be most effective if he presented his addresses in a nonpartisan format. Most of his speeches were related to the great debate over military strategy that had recently commenced. Hoover argued that the policies of the Truman administration had overextended America and compromised the country’s ability for self-defense. Further, the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and NATO burdened American taxpayers. The great debate over military strategy began with Truman’s decision to enter NATO, extended through the Korean War, and culminated during the Eisenhower administration, when Hoover essentially won his point. His chief ally in reliance on use of air and sea power rather than on ground troops was Senator Robert A. Taft. Hoover, Taft, and Eisenhower himself considered air power a cheaper, more efficient weapon. Hoover went further than Eisenhower; he opposed stationing American divisions in Europe to flesh out NATO, arguing that they would pose little realistic resistance to a massive Soviet ground assault, which would overwhelm and slaughter the outnumbered NATO troops. Fighting a ground war against Communism in Europe or Asia would be brutally suicidal and accomplish nothing, Hoover argued bluntly. The elder statesman reiterated his complaints about the stubborn negligence of America’s NATO allies, save for Britain, to contribute meaningfully to their own protection, while simultaneously spending on extravagant social programs. Moreover, it was unhealthy for the Europeans to be completely dependent on the Americans. The GOP spokesman presciently pointed out that the United States could never fight everyone else’s wars for them; it was a task worthy of Sisyphus. In the long run, even after Communism imploded, this proved all too true. Where the local will is lacking, America cannot impose a stable, just world order. The United States must depart sooner or later, and its well-intentioned nation building only delays the inevitable. On December 20, 1950, as American forces were driven back by the Chinese in Korea, Hoover delivered a speech that called for assessing the strength of the ground forces arrayed against the United States before the country became engaged in another conflict such as Korea.³¹

Hoover calibrated the odds of winning a worldwide ground war against the United States’ Communist adversaries. Opposed to some 800 million people and more than three hundred combat divisions available to the Communist world, the United States and its only reliable major ally, Great Britain, could muster only sixty combat divisions on the ground, yet the United States possessed an overwhelming advantage in air and sea weaponry. Moreover, trying to match the Soviet land forces would bankrupt America. Before agreeing to dispatch ground divisions to Europe, America must ascertain the degree to which the Europeans were willing to contribute. Yet air and naval resources provided a potent deterrent and, if necessary, a far more powerful offensive weapon. While these forces deterred attack, the United States and Britain could buy time for the Communist system to collapse from within. To act otherwise would engage additional Koreas, at great expense and loss of life, with negligible gain. This stood in stark contrast to Truman’s policy of dispatching Eisenhower to Europe to command American ground forces there. Press reaction could be calibrated by the political affiliation of the newspaper or journal. The Democratic press distorted Hoover’s message by labeling it “isolationist” or “appeasement,” a withdrawal to the Western Hemisphere. As Hoover explained his defense theories, it became clear that he intended to place limits on assistance only to countries who contributed nothing to their own defense. Moreover, he extended America’s defense perimeters to Britain, Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines, with Taft adding Australia and New Zealand, not to mention all of North and South America. The nuclear umbrella protected nations in Western Europe and Southern Asia. This defense would be more cost-efficient than attempting to match the Soviets and the Chinese and their allies man for man. Also, U.S. air power could strike anywhere, almost instantly, like a lightning bolt. Taft emphasized air power’s great mobility and offensive potential. The massive Soviet land army, its vast territory, and the Russian winter provided no defense against air power. Naval power could complement air superiority. The Soviets, with few warm-weather ports, were unlikely to develop a formidable navy. In the air, the United States had only to maintain the technological advantage the country already possessed. Further, the advocates of air power did not rule out ground support for nations that devoted sufficient resources to their own land armies. Because Hoover’s defense program promised more defense for less money, it appealed to fiscal conservatives. Later, it was described as “More Bang for the Buck.” Hoover’s plan was viewed as GOP doctrine. Some considered it dangerous because it left no option for fighting limited wars and potentially made every war a nuclear war.³²

After Truman excoriated Hoover for failing to end the Great Depression, Hoover refused to attend the ex-president’s seventieth birthday party in 1954. Hoping to repair Hoover’s hurt feelings, Truman paid a courtesy call on him in New York in October 1955 and the men chatted amiably. Later that month the GOP ex-president attended a meeting with sponsors of the Truman Presidential Library who were seeking to raise $200,000 in the Southwest as part of the $2 million they needed to erect the building in Truman’s hometown, Independence, Missouri. In July 1957 Hoover traveled to Independence, where he helped dedicate the Truman Presidential Library along with Chief Justice Earl Warren, Eleanor Roosevelt, Senator William Knowland, House Speaker Sam Rayburn, Congressman Charles Halleck, and other dignitaries. In a brief speech, Hoover stated that it was important that Americans disperse the history of the nation throughout the land rather than limiting it to Washington, DC. Libraries should go to the people as well as people go to libraries. Their status as the only living ex-presidents brought Hoover and Truman back together, the scars of the political wars healed, and the two men resumed their friendship. The ex-presidents genuinely liked each other and developed a relationship that almost approached intimacy. In 1958, Truman, who had had his gall bladder removed, consoled Hoover, who was recovering from a similar operation. A year later, Hoover sent an ailing Bess Truman a bouquet of white mums and yellow roses. He invited Truman to the Bohemian Grove and recalled that his friend’s visit to the Waldorf was “my intellectual stimulant of the month” after Truman visited in March 1960. Later, after Truman gave his friend a copy of his most recent book, Hoover wrote that “it goes into the file of most treasured documents.” Truman responded with equal kindness: “I didn’t receive a single birthday telegram that I appreciated more than I did yours.” He wrote in July 1963 that they understood each other. Indeed they did. Historians have compared their postpresidential correspondence to the twilight missives of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, old adversaries who consummated a profound friendship in their declining years.³³

Many gave Hoover credit for eloquently and tirelessly campaigning, election after election and in between, to educate the public and keep the flame of conservatism flickering. Journalist Mark Sullivan wrote, “It was during these years that Mr. Hoover, in private life, strove passionately with word and pen, in addresses, magazine articles, and books, to make America see the virtues of individualism, [and] the perils of the collectivism which threatened to supplant it.”

Sullivan believed, “That patient and laborious work of public education . . . will be Mr. Hoover’s real distinction in history.”³⁴