Vinson sat listening quietly to the president’s pitch. He had a face that registered little emotion, somber eyes unmoved under a pair of bushy gray eyebrows. The Kentucky-born justice was a towering figure and highly trusted by the president; Vinson had served as secretary of the Treasury before Truman had appointed him chief justice of the Supreme Court, and he had a calm, agreeable disposition. If anyone could talk sense into Stalin, Truman figured, Vinson would be a good choice.
“Mr. President,” Vinson finally said, “as Chief Justice I must decline to undertake this mission to Moscow. But if you make it as a presidential request, I shall have a clear duty to comply.”
“I am sorry, Fred, to do this to you,” Truman came back. “But in the interest of the country and the peace of the world I am compelled to request you to go.”
Vinson answered, “I’ll be ready in a few days.”
“I intend to discuss the purpose of this mission and mean to have the full agreement of our allies before you leave for Moscow,” Truman told Vinson. “I will also tell our own people. But first, everyone who is concerned will be duly informed before any public announcement is made. We must be careful in all respects, or this could misfire and be misunderstood.”
That afternoon, Truman met with his press secretary Charlie Ross and ordered him to notify the radio networks that the president would need a half hour for what he called “a public statement of major importance”—not campaign-oriented, and thus free of charge. Two days later, at 8 p.m., he had two senators—Democrat Tom Connally of Texas and Republican Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan—up to his second-floor study in the White House for an informal meeting. Connally and Vandenberg were the two most influential members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Much to Truman’s surprise, both senators opposed the Vinson mission. Truman wondered aloud if he should go to Moscow himself and meet with Stalin privately.
“You don’t know any Russian and he doesn’t know any English,” said Connally. “Besides there’s the question of authenticity. After you finish talking, what will you have? No witnesses or documents. And there’s no possible way of telling about commitments agreed upon or promises made regarding the future.”
After the meeting, Vandenberg told Connally privately, “He must be feeling desperate about the campaign.”
When Truman called Secretary of State George Marshall to brief him on the upcoming Vinson mission, Marshall was alarmed. He was in Paris for United Nations negotiations with the Soviets and others. Marshall told Truman he felt the proposed Vinson mission was a mistake; it would make the Paris negotiations more difficult, and it might be construed as undermining the United Nations. After the call, Truman met in the Cabinet Room with advisers and the debate about the Vinson mission continued. Some were in favor; others not.
“I have heard enough,” Truman said. “We won’t do it.”
Jonathan Daniels, who was in the room, recalled, “[Truman] got up and went out of the glass-paned door to the terrace by the rose garden and walked alone—very much alone that day—back [from the West Wing] toward the White House itself . . . The next time we saw him he was laughing with the reporters, the politicians and the police as he got back on that long train which everyone seemed so sure was taking him nowhere.”
The story of the Vinson mission was far from over.
On October 8 Truman was in Schenectady, in upstate New York, when he got ahold of the morning papers. The news was bad. The story of the proposed Vinson mission had leaked and the reaction was furious. The press attacked Truman for using foreign policy as a campaign tool, even though Truman had called off the mission before it had gone anywhere.
The Hartford Courant: “The capital was alive with reports . . . that President Truman has been planning a sensational move in American relations with Russia which he originally intended to announce to the nation and the world in a radio broadcast last Tuesday night.” The Los Angeles Times: “It is dangerous to the peace of the world to have a bumbler like Harry S. Truman handling any part of any international negotiations.” The Wall Street Journal called the Vinson mission “a resounding blunder in Mr. Truman’s conduct of foreign affairs. It is not his first mistake of this kind; but in view of the approach of November 2, it may well be his last.”
Even Strom Thurmond had choice words on the proposed Vinson mission, calling it “further confirmation of the incompetency of Truman.”
“This was the worst mistake of the Truman campaign,” Clark Clifford recalled.
Aboard the Ferdinand Magellan, the president sat with press secretary Charlie Ross, trying to figure out how to mitigate the damage. Ultimately the administration put out a long statement on the doomed Vinson mission. “But the damage was done,” Truman noted.
The day after the news broke, Truman awoke early as usual as the campaign train steamed through Ohio. In Akron, one hundred thousand people lined the streets to see the president cruise by in a motorcade to the Akron Armory. Akron was the unofficial rubber capital of the country, and on hand were well-dressed executives from Firestone, General Tire, B. F. Goodrich, and Goodyear.
“The Republicans have the propaganda and the money,” Truman told this crowd. “But we have the people, and the people have the votes.”
While in Akron, Clark Clifford slipped off the train and headed for a newsstand. A widely anticipated survey had been printed in the latest issue of Newsweek magazine, and it was expected to land on newsstands that day; campaigners aboard the Truman train had been talking about it for some time. Fifty political experts had been polled on the election outcome. When Clifford saw the story’s headline, it hit him like a kick in the
