“If we fail to approach them now”: Henry Stimson to Harry S. Truman, September 11, 1945, NuclearFiles.org, http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/library/correspondence/stimson-henry/corr_stimson_1945-09-11.htm.
“saving civilization not for”: Ibid.
“put an end to the world”: Diary entry of Henry Wallace, September 21, 1945, Wallace, The Price of Vision, p. 482.
“should continue to carry”: Minutes of Cabinet Meeting, September 21, 1945.
“Science . . . cannot be restrained”: Ibid.
“Their attitude will make for”: Diary entry of Henry A. Wallace, August 10, 1954, in Wallace, The Price of Vision, p. 475.
“The pressure here is becoming”: Harry Truman to Martha Ellen Truman, October 13, 1945, Papers of Harry S. Truman Pertaining to Family, Business, and Personal Affairs, Box 19, Truman archives.
I’M FROM MISSOURI: “The Buck Stops Here!” desk sign, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/education/trivia/buck-stops-here-sign.
“boldest, most vigorous”: “Truman Makes Strong Plea for Year’s Universal Training,” Christian Science Monitor, October 23, 1945.
“to maintain the power with”: “Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on Universal Military Training,” October 23, 1945, Public Papers, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/public-papers/174/address-joint-session-congress-universal-military-training.
“who work for a living”: “Special Message to Congress Recommending a Comprehensive Health Program,” November 19, 1945, Public Papers, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/public-papers/192/special-message-congress-recommending-comprehensive-health-program.
“socialized medicine”: Robert Taft, “Speech to the Wayne County Medical Society,” October 7, 1946, Detroit, Michigan, in The Papers of Robert A. Taft, edited by Clarence E. Wunderlin Jr., vol. 3, 1945–1948 (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2003), pp. 202–12.
“the extraordinarily dangerous situation”: Donovan, Conflict and Crisis, p. 128.
“going to do something with”: Diary entry of Eben Ayers, September 18, 1945, in Ayers, Truman in the White House, p. 81.
“My mind is not made up”: “Powell Says He Won’t Vote for Truman in ’48,” Chicago Defender, March 2, 1946.
“the biggest press conference in”: “Ickes Blowup Rocks Capital like an Atom Bomb,” Los Angeles Times, February 14, 1946.
“un-American . . . enemy of”: Alfred Steinberg, The Man from Missouri: The Life and Times of Harry S. Truman (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1962), p. 298.
“If I live and have my”: Ibid.
“I’m just mild about Harry”: William John Bennett, America: The Last Best Hope (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2007), p. 286.
“If we’re going to have”: McCullough, Truman, p. 521.
“a lot of second-rate guys”: “New Faces of 1946,” Smithsonian, November 2006.
“If Truman wanted to elect”: Donovan, Conflict and Crisis, p. 230.
“The undertaker described him”: Walter Francis White, A Man Called White: The Autobiography of Walter White (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995), p. 324.
“The facts discovered by our”: Ibid., p. 323.
“My God! . . . I had no idea”: Ibid., p. 331.
“I had as callers yesterday”: Letter, Harry S. Truman to Attorney General Tom Clark, with attached memo to David Niles, September 20, 1946, Research Files, President’s Committee on Civil Rights, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/letter-harry-s-truman-attorney-general-tom-clark-attached-memo-david-niles?documentid=NA&pagenumber=2
“I am very much in earnest”: Ibid.
“The main difficulty with the South”: Harry S. Truman to E. W. Roberts, August 18, 1948, Research Files, President’s Committee on Civil Rights, Correspondence Between Harry S. Truman and Ernie Roberts, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/correspondence-between-harry-s-truman-and-ernie-roberts?documentid=NA&pagenumber=3.
“Everything’s going to be”: Donovan, Conflict and Crisis, p. 33.
“loaded with political dynamite”: Diary entry of Henry Wallace, July 30, 1946, in Wallace, The Price of Vision, p. 606.
“You just don’t understand”: Ed Cray, General of the Army: George C. Marshall, Soldier and Statesman (New York: Cooper Square, 2000), p. 657.
“The Middle East could well fall”: “Memorandum by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the State–War–Navy Coordinating Committee,” June 21, 1946, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, the Near East and Africa, vol. 7, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1946v07/d489.
“After I set forth my reasons”: Oral History Interview with Loy W. Henderson (transcript), 1973, Oral History Interviews, Truman archives, p. 132.
“resist at all costs”: Nokrashy Pasha to Harry Truman, undated, Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, vol. 2, Years of Trial and Hope, 1946–1952 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1956), pp. 134–35.
“in Hitler’s concentration and extermination”: Robert F. Wagner, with signatures of eight other senators, to Harry Truman, June 20, 1946, President’s Secretary’s Files, Recognition of the State of Israel, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/assorted-members-us-senate-harry-s-truman.
“I am in a tough spot”: Oral History Interview with Oscar R. Ewing (transcript), 1969, Oral History Interviews, Truman archives, p. 276.
“Those New York Jews!”: “President Calls Pearson ‘Liar’ over Jewish Story,” Los Angeles Times, March 12, 1948.
“I’m sorry, gentlemen”: Donovan, Conflict and Crisis, p. 322.
“It was a cruel time to put”: McCullough, Truman, p. 482.
“God damn you”: Donovan, Conflict and Crisis, p. 165.
3. “Can He Swing the Job?”
“Here was a man who came”: Oral History Interview with Robert G. Nixon (transcript), 1970, Oral History Interviews, Truman archives, p. 159.
“by accident”: Truman, speaking in At Home with Harry & Bess, introductory film at the Harry S. Truman National Historic Site visitor center, Independence, Missouri.
“When I was about six”: Longhand note, May 14, 1934, Longhand Notes File (“Pickwick Papers”), Harry S. Truman Papers, President’s Secretary’s Files, Truman archives.
“You don’t want to marry”: McCullough, Truman, pp. 91–92.
“He ended up being paralyzed”: Oral History Interview with Mary Jane Truman (transcript), 1975, Oral History Interviews, Truman archives, p. 3.
“You have to understand how”: Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman, p. 6.
“Democrats were not made”: Ibid., p. 50.
“You may invite the entire”: Elizabeth “Bess” Wallace to Harry Truman, March 16, 1919, Papers of Bess Truman, Box 86, Truman archives.
“my Jewish friend”: A. J. Baime, The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), p. 61.
SHIRTS, COLLARS, HOSIERY: Ibid., p. 62.
“I am still paying on those debts”: Longhand note, May 14, 1934, Longhand Notes File (“Pickwick Papers”), Harry S. Truman Papers, President’s Secretary’s Files, Truman archives.
“How’d you like to be a county judge?”: Jonathan Daniels, The Man of Independence (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat, 1971), p. 109.
“Old Tom Pendergast wanted”: Oral History Interview with Harry H. Vaughan (transcript), 1963, Oral History Interviews, Truman archives, p. 12.
“Nobody knows him”: Oral History Interview with James P. Aylward (transcript), 1968, Oral History Interviews, Truman archives, pp. 62–64.
“Do you mean seriously to”: Ibid.
“Boss Pendergast’s Errand Boy”: Baime, The Accidental President, p. 74.
“Work hard, keep your mouth shut”: McCullough, Truman, p. 213.
“If you had seen Harry Truman”: “Uncompromising Freshman of 1934,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, November 11, 1942.
“not considered brilliant”: “New Faces in the Senate,”
