Tom L. Evans Oral History Interview, June 13, 1963

Notice
This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for the Harry S. Truman Library. A draft of this transcript was edited by the interviewee but only minor emendations were made; therefore, the reader should remember that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written word.

Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview.

RESTRICTIONS
This oral history transcript may be read, quoted from, cited, and reproduced for purposes of research. It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.

Opened August, 1966
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

[330]

FUCHS: Tom, the last time, we had just finished discussing the first mention you remember of Mr. Truman being a possible candidate for the vice-presidential nomination in 1944. You recounted an incident in the Kansas City Club where he was shown a magazine article, which proposed or said that they should begin thinking of him as a potential candidate. Now, you said that was your first recollection. Do you have any other recollections of the idea being broached that he would be a good vice-presidential candidate?

EVANS: Well, at that particular time, when we read this at the luncheon of the 822 Club, he, of course, laughed it off, wasn't interested in it at all, there wasn't anything to it--I mean, it was just a huge joke as far as Mr. Truman was concerned. Then as time went on, and we, in those days, had lunch often together, and there was

[331]

stories constantly appearing, more and more so, and he continuously just laughed them off whenever somebody at lunch would bring it up, and so forth. Actually, he never appeared at all interested or serious about it and I again say, just a joke. I recall, it seems to me like it must have been--maybe I'm wrong--that it was over two weeks before the National Convention in Chicago that he was getting ready to go up. That's an awful long time before a convention to go to a convention, but I'm sure it was over two weeks before the convention--he talked about going and he and Mrs. Truman was going to drive up. I remember some of us jokingly saying to him, "Well, you're going up to try to get the vice-presidential nomination." No, he was going up to try to keep from it, but always joking and in jest. And he did leave, at least two weeks, I'm sure, before the convention. He and Mrs. Truman may have stopped someplace, I don't recall, but the next thing I knew about the thing--let's see, the convention opened on a Monday, and I am sure that it was on

[332]

Monday or Tuesday before the convention opened on a Monday, that I got a call from him in Chicago (long-distance call) and his first thing when I answered the phone was: "Are you my friend?"

And I said, "I hope so, why?"

And he said, "If you are, I need you up here to help keep me from being Vice President. How soon can you get up?"

"I can come right away."

He said, "Well, come on; I need you."

That was what he wanted me up there for, to help him keep from being nominated for Vice President of the United States.

FUCHS: How did he think you could help him?

EVANS: Well, he didn't elaborate over the telephone. I guess probably what he wanted was for me to go around to various delegates and tell them that he was not interested and wouldn't serve, and so forth. That's usually customary when you want something, you do that, and when you don’t want

[333]

something you do that, so I presume that's what he had in mind. Anyway, I took a plane and went right up to Chicago as soon as I could get a bag packed, and went to the Steven's Hotel; I believe it was Tuesday before the convention actually opened on the following Monday.

FUCHS: You mean, that far before the convention opened. I believe the convention opened the week of Monday, July 17, and the convention convened on Wednesday, the 19th, as I recall.

EVANS: I thought it opened on a Monday, but...

FUCHS: Well, perhaps the preliminaries did occur that early.

EVANS: Anyway, it was at least five or six days before. I thought, "Well, what do you do?" But I found a lot of people there, a lot of delegates there that early alright.

FUCHS: In other words, you would have been up there as early as the 12th or 13th of July?

[334]

EVANS: Yes, that's right. And when I got to the hotel, I inquired of his room number. I didn't even call; I went right up on the elevator to his room (he had a parlor and a bedroom), and knocked at the door and he opened the door. That's where I found Mr. Roy Roberts, president of the Kansas City Star, who was a great friend of mine, Republican, incidentally; and he's sitting there with Mr. Truman and I said, "Well, what are you doing here, Roy?"

He said, "Well, I'm Harry's campaign manager for Vice President."

I said, "Well, you're fired; I'm taking over."

He said, "You mean fired."

I said, "Yeah, fired, get out:"

And he left. Of course, we were good friends and that was in jest, but Mr. Truman and I visited as old friends would and I said, "What's this story about you don't want to be Vice President? You know who I am, I'm Tom Evans, you can talk frankly to me. Of course, anybody wants to be

[335]

Vice President, so you don't have to kid me."

And he said, "No, I don't want to be Vice President at all; that's why I want you up here for, to help me keep from it. I want you to talk it around that I do not want it." I want you to let my friends know that I do not want to be Vice President."

And I said, "Why, that's ridiculous?"

He said, "Well, I don't want to drag out a lot of skeletons out of the closet."

I said, "Well, now wait a minute. This is something I don't know anything about. I didn't know you had skeletons. What are they? Maybe I wouldn't want you to run either, but you got to tell me; what are these skeletons?"

And he said, "Well, the worst thing is that I've had the boss," meaning Mrs. Truman, "on the payroll in my Senate office and I'm not going to have her name drug over the front pages of the paper and over the radio."

And I said, "Well, Lord, that isn't anything

[335a]

too great. I can think of a dozen senators and fifty congressmen that have their wives on the payroll. That isn't anything terrible."

"Yes, but I don't want them bringing her name up." He said, "I'm just not going through that. I'm satisfied being a senator and I think I'm doing a good job; I think I have done the country a great favor and I just want to stay there and be let alone; I'm happy. I don't want to drag her name out. There isn't any way you can get by," I'm quoting him now, "as a United States Senator unless you do have your wife on the payroll, because it's expensive to live and maintain your, so to speak, two homes."

And I said, "Of course, you can't," not on what they were paying in those days. If I remember right, Jim, and I'm not sure, I think at the time we were having this discussion a United States Senator's salary (and I'd like to have you check it sometime and let me know) was $10,000 a year.

FUCHS: I believe that's right.

[336]

EVANS: I thought maybe I was off. I believe today it's $22,500 and I think in those days they had an expense account of about $5,000, which they had to account for, and as I understand now, that expense account (and they still have to account for it), is about $50,000. So, anyway, if it was $10,000, certainly you couldn't live on it--unless you were being paid off on the side--unless you did have your wife on, and I sort of explained it to him.

FUCHS: Did you know she was on his payroll, or was it a revelation to you?

EVANS: I knew that she was in the office, because, of course, I'd see her there. And I knew she did a darn good job in the office, but it never crossed my mind of whether she was on the payroll or whether she wasn't. I mean, I just didn't even think about it. That's the first time I actually

[337]

knew it, and it was no shock to me by any means, because, as I say, I knew of at least a half a dozen senators whose wives were on the payroll and another half a dozen who had sons and daughters on the payroll and forty or fifty congressmen who had relatives galore on the payroll. So that wasn't anything. I said, "Well, what else keeps you from wanting to be Vice President?"

And he said, "Well, one thing, I just don't have any money; I can't go through an expensive national campaign." He said, "As you know, I'm still paying off on my last campaign; I never have been out of debt, and I just can't take on a campaign."

And I said, "Well, that doesn't need to be a worry. I can assure you that I can raise enough money for your campaign and it won't cost you anything. Your friends will take care of it."

And he said, "No, I just don't want to do it. I just want to be a United States Senator, and I want to hold that job as long as I think I am

[338]

doing a good job; and I just don't even want to think about it and I want you to do everything you can to keep them from considering me."

And try as I might to sell him on the idea, Mrs. Truman having worked in the office and him being short of money--and that's the only thing that was wrong--was no handicap, I had no luck whatsoever in selling him; and he made me virtually promise that I would help him keep from being nominated. I must say that I didn't do a very good job; I didn't do what he wanted me to. I said to what few friends I had around, that I thought he'd make a grand Vice President, but he wouldn't accept it.

FUCHS: To go back just a moment. In the days before the convention, in the Kansas City Club and other places, when he jokingly, as you say, protested against being considered for Vice President, did you think that actually he may have wanted to be Vice President?

[339]

EVANS: I actually thought, Jim, in those days, and many days when he laughed, and joked about it (and this was purely my impression), that he felt he didn't have a chance. This is my idea of his idea, do you see what I mean?

FUCHS: Yes, I certainly do.

EVANS: That this was just talk by newspaper people and there wasn't any chance of it and it was silly to consider it, and if he did, he really didn't want it. He was happy as United States Senator; that it wasn't serious enough to give it much thought; it was a joke.

FUCHS: Did you feel then that it was a little bit more of a serious matter with the people who were mentioning him and that he might have a chance?

EVANS: No, I sort of had the same feeling, that it was not too serious at that time; that it was more or less in the minds of the newspaper people, particularly, that had had contact with him on his