“The terrible things done by the high”: Harry Truman to Bess Truman, October 1, 1935, Papers of Harry S. Truman Pertaining to Family, Business, and Personal Affairs, Box 8, Truman archives.
“We didn’t give him a chance”: Oral History Interview with A. J. Granoff (transcript), 1969, Oral History Interviews, Truman archives, p. 86.
“I am introducing a Resolution”: Harry S. Truman, speech on the Senate floor, Congressional Record, February 10, 1940.
“To thousands, the first question”: “Truman Report Wins Author Popularity,” Washington Post, March 8, 1942.
“Truman just dropped into the slot”: Jonathan Daniels, “How Truman Got to Be President,” Look, August 1, 1950.
“Bob . . . have you got that fellow”: Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 192.
“Good God! Truman will be President!”: Baime, The Accidental President, p. 35.
“The gravest question mark in”: Diary entry of Arthur H. Vandenberg, April 12, 1945, in Arthur H. Vandenberg Jr., ed., The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1952), p. 165.
4. “I Was Amazed at How Calm He Seemed in the Face of Political Disaster”
“blooming chrysanthemum”: Diary entry of Henry A. Wallace, July 9, 1946, in Wallace, The Price of Vision, p. 583.
“You will look toward Washington”: Ibid.
“was impossible under the present”: “Stalin Sets a Huge Output Near Ours in Five Year Plan,” New York Times, February 10, 1946.
“From Stettin in the Baltic to”: Winston Churchill, Iron Curtain Speech, March 5, 1946, YouTube video, AP archive, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2FM3_h33Tg.
“I have been increasingly disturbed”: Henry Wallace to Harry Truman, July 23, 1946, in Wallace, The Price of Vision, p. 589.
“It looks as though Henry”: Donovan, Conflict and Crisis, p. 221.
“That’s right . . . Yes, that is”: Diary entry of Henry Wallace, September 12, 1946, in Wallace, The Price of Vision, p. 612.
“The President apparently saw”: Ibid., p. 613.
“no time to read the speech”: “The Truman Memoirs: Part V,” Life, October 24, 1955.
“Mr. President . . . in a speech”: The President’s News Conference (transcript), September 12, 1946, Public Papers, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/public-papers/216/presidents-news-conference.
“I am neither anti-British”: William E. Leuchtenburg, The American President: From Teddy Roosevelt to Bill Clinton (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), p. 262.
“You and I spent 15 months”: James F. Byrnes, Speaking Frankly (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947), pp. 241–42.
“We can only cooperate with one”: Diary of Arthur H. Vandenberg, excerpted in Arthur H. Vandenberg Jr., ed., The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg, p. 301.
“has been no change in the”: Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman, pp. 316–17.
“worse as we go along”: Harry S. Truman to Martha Ellen and Mary Jane Truman, September 18, 1946, Papers of Harry S. Truman Pertaining to Family, Business, and Personal Affairs, Box 19, Truman archives.
“The public is profoundly”: Diary entry of Henry Wallace, September 18, 1946, in Wallace, The Price of Vision, p. 618.
“there is a school of military thinking”: Ibid., Henry Wallace to Harry Truman, July 23, 1946, p. 589.
“You don’t want this thing out”: John C. Culver and John Hyde, American Dreamer: The Life and Times of Henry A. Wallace (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000), p. 426.
“I called him and told him”: Harry Truman to Bess Wallace, September 21, 1946, Papers of Harry S. Truman Pertaining to Family, Business, and Personal Affairs, Box 15, Truman archives.
“I believe he’s a real Commy”: Harry Truman to Bess Wallace, September 20, 1946, ibid.
“I have today asked Mr. Wallace”: Transcript of the President’s News Conference on Foreign Policy, September 20, 1946, Public Papers, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/public-papers/219/presidents-news-conference-foreign-policy.
“There were audible gasps”: Diary entry of Eben Ayers, September 20, 1946, in Ayers, Truman in the White House, p. 158.
“Well, the die is cast”: Ibid., p. 159.
“The Wallace thing is getting”: Harry Truman to Bess Wallace, September 17, 1946, Papers of Harry S. Truman Pertaining to Family, Business, and Personal Affairs, Box 15, Truman archives.
“To be a good President”: Harry Truman to Margaret Truman, letter quoted in “HST Talked of Ethics, Scorned Snivelers,” Atlanta Constitution, December 3, 1972.
“Had enough?”: Numerous mentions in books and in the press, such as “Had Enough?,” Los Angeles Times, October 21, 1946.
“Well, the show’s over”: “Truman Votes at 9, Heads for Capital,” New York Times, November 6, 1946.
“I was amazed at how calm”: Clark Clifford, with Richard Holbrooke, Counsel to the President: A Memoir (New York: Random House, 1991), p. 83.
“I am only suggesting that”: “Fulbright Invites Truman to Resign,” New York Times, November 7, 1946.
“Senator Halfbright”: “New Faces of 1946,” Smithsonian, November 2006.
“the Great White Jail”: Numerous references in Truman’s letters and diaries, including Harry Truman to Bess Truman, September 28, 1947, Papers of Harry S. Truman Pertaining to Family, Business, and Personal Affairs, Box 16, Truman archives.
“The damn place is haunted”: Ibid., Harry Truman to Bess Truman, September 9, 1946.
5. “You Are Getting as Much Publicity as Hitler”
“confusion and chaos”: “Dewey Appeals for All to Vote,” New York Times, November 5, 1946.
“Dewey for President!”: Herbert Brownell, with John P. Burke, Advising Ike: The Memoirs of Attorney General Herbert Brownell (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1993), p. 44.
“What has happened today”: “Dewey Rides Crest of Wave Toward Nomination in 1948,” Christian Science Monitor, November 6, 1948.
“riding the very crest of the 1946”: Ibid.
“Governor . . . are you ready”: “Dewey Not in Race for ’48 Nomination Now,” New York Times, December 19, 1946.
“This didn’t make him popular”: Brownell, Advising Ike, p. 40.
“A good many people have”: Scott Farris, Almost President: The Men Who Lost the Race but Changed the Nation (Guilford, CT: Lyons, 2012), p. 138.
“The long tenure of the Democratic”: Joe Martin, My First Fifty Years in Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1960), p. 163.
“The greatest advantage I had”: Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Touchstone, 1990), p. 36.
“Anyone seeking to unseat an”: Ibid., p. 41.
“The public’s reaction to last”: “Democratic Oblivion in 1948, Public’s Guess,” Los Angeles Times, December 16, 1946.
“The always efficient Gov. Thomas”: “Matter of Fact: The Dewey Jitters,” Washington Post, December 20, 1946.
“A ten-pound Republican voter”: Smith, Thomas E. Dewey, p. 60.
“it was one of those things”: Ibid., p. 61.
“To me it seems vitally important”: Henry L. Stimson, On Active Services in Peace and
