Details
TRUMAN, Harry S. Typed letter signed ("Harry S. Truman") to Dean Acheson, Coconut Island, Hawaii, 24 April 1953. 1 page, 4to, personal stationery.
"I DO NOT SEE HOW IT IS POSSIBLE TO GET THINGS IN SUCH A MESS AS THEY HAVE SUCCEEDED IN DOING IN NINETY DAYS"
It did not take long for Truman and his former Secretary of State to feel fed up with their successors in the Eisenhower administration. Here, at the end of an extended post-presidential vacation in Hawaii, Truman vents his anger to Acheson: "I am in complete agreement with you about the way our successors are acting. I do not see how it is possible to get things in such a mess as they have succeeded in doing in ninety days. It looks as if the President is giving all of his perogatives [sic] away and it will probably in the end appear to be just as well to have a British Legislative Government, although I do not think our country was cut out for that kind of Government. I am going to try to arrange that forthcoming book of mine so that we can show what really makes good Government and why it is necessary to have a policy and a program and the nerve to try to put it into effect." Truman sends Acheson birthday wishes and commiserates with him about having to return to ordinary life, after eight intense years of being at the center of national and global affairs: "I am sure you do not feel a bit older by being sixty. You are not yet living on borrowed time; in one more year, I will start on that program. I know just how you feel about going back to work. I hate to see next Tuesday come when we will be leaving this vacation Paradise."
"He missed the bright lights," David McCullough wrote of ex-President Truman, "He missed the pace of the presidency, felt strange without the constant pressures." But Hawaii brought him some reassuring attention, as well as needed rest and relaxation. The press and local politicos lavished attention on him. The University of Hawaii gave him an honorary degree. "[They] covered us with leis," Truman later wrote in his diary, "and smothered us with questions and flash bulbs" (McCullough, Truman, 932).
"I DO NOT SEE HOW IT IS POSSIBLE TO GET THINGS IN SUCH A MESS AS THEY HAVE SUCCEEDED IN DOING IN NINETY DAYS"
It did not take long for Truman and his former Secretary of State to feel fed up with their successors in the Eisenhower administration. Here, at the end of an extended post-presidential vacation in Hawaii, Truman vents his anger to Acheson: "I am in complete agreement with you about the way our successors are acting. I do not see how it is possible to get things in such a mess as they have succeeded in doing in ninety days. It looks as if the President is giving all of his perogatives [sic] away and it will probably in the end appear to be just as well to have a British Legislative Government, although I do not think our country was cut out for that kind of Government. I am going to try to arrange that forthcoming book of mine so that we can show what really makes good Government and why it is necessary to have a policy and a program and the nerve to try to put it into effect." Truman sends Acheson birthday wishes and commiserates with him about having to return to ordinary life, after eight intense years of being at the center of national and global affairs: "I am sure you do not feel a bit older by being sixty. You are not yet living on borrowed time; in one more year, I will start on that program. I know just how you feel about going back to work. I hate to see next Tuesday come when we will be leaving this vacation Paradise."
"He missed the bright lights," David McCullough wrote of ex-President Truman, "He missed the pace of the presidency, felt strange without the constant pressures." But Hawaii brought him some reassuring attention, as well as needed rest and relaxation. The press and local politicos lavished attention on him. The University of Hawaii gave him an honorary degree. "[They] covered us with leis," Truman later wrote in his diary, "and smothered us with questions and flash bulbs" (McCullough, Truman, 932).