Tom L. Evans Oral History Interview, December 10, 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 It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.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

[538]

FUCHS: Tom, in the last interview we got to the point where you had talked to Mr. Truman on election night in 1948, and suggested that he come back from his retreat at Excelsior Springs to the Muehlebach Hotel around eight o'clock. Could you take up the story from there now, please?

EVANS: Yes. He said that that was fine, he'd be there about eight o'clock. So, as near as I remember, I decided to take Mrs. Evans home about four o' clock that morning and I did. I laid down to get an hour or two nap and about six o'clock someone called, I think it was Matt Connelly, and said the President had arrived. Being the early riser that he was, he was over at the penthouse in the Muehlebach at six o'clock. So I hadn't undressed and I hadn't shaved or I hadn't cleaned up, but I immediately went down to the Muehlebach

[539]

and went up to the penthouse. I think it was probably, then, about a quarter till seven, and it was a madhouse. The halls going into the penthouse were full and I walked in the penthouse and it was packed full. I remember walking in, and sitting on the arm of the chair with the President was a man that was in Dewey headquarters the night before. That made me mad. That man was Vic Messall, whom we've talked about before. He'd taken a plane when it looked like Mr. Truman was winning.

FUCHS: How did you know he'd been in Dewey headquarters the night before?

EVANS: Because our Secret Service had been talking to their Secret Service men at Dewey headquarters and asked who all was there, and among them they said Vic Messall was there. Here he was sitting on the arm of the chair where the President was that early morning. You, of course, will recall

[540]

the episode whereby he was not permitted on the campaign?

FUCHS: Yes, we have recorded that.

EVANS: You have that in '44. So, knowing that he had been in Mr. Dewey's headquarters the night before and I not having much sleep, I was a little upset and I guess I used some pretty bad language and said, "What the hell are you doing here?" And, actually, I was pretty much upset about it and the President looked up and smiling and he said, "Now, Tom, don't get mad. We're not mad at anybody you know. We won." And he was all joyous and everything. So, I thought, "Well, that's fine, if it's all right with him." But it was quite a party and the Secret Service men certainly did not have much control of who came in or out that particular morning. At that time, they were all friends--no enemies: I think that just about covers that situation then, and, of course, the President said, "Well, I told you all along what

[541]

was going to happen, but you wouldn't believe me." He was there quite a while and as near as I remember, Jim, he went to Independence about ten o'clock that morning. He took a number of personal telephone calls from people, but, of course, there were thousands of them that he couldn't take and wouldn't take. He went home about ten o'clock, and as near as I remember--I sometimes get confused between the '44 and the '48 campaign--but I think he left by special train that afternoon the day after election and went back to Washington.

FUCHS: Did this reconciliation of a sort with Messall result in his having ingress to the White House in the second term of Mr. Truman?

EVANS: No. I'm sure he never was in the White House any time that Mr. Truman was President, and during the second term it became pretty well-known that Vic did not have the entree that he was supposed

[542]

to have had, and his business--his so-called public relations business--went off.

FUCHS: We've both seen an account, I believe, where a friend of Mr. Truman's, Jerome Walsh, had a letter published in Life in which he mentioned that, among others, a Lyman Field was in the penthouse at the Muehlebach on election eve. Who was Lyman Field?

EVANS: Well, Lyman Field is an attorney here in Kansas City and was formerly a member of the Board of Police Commissioners here in Kansas City. Whether he was a member of the Board of Police Commissioners in 1948, I don't know. He may have been. I don't recall Lyman Field being there except in the afternoon of election day. I'm almost positive that he was not there that evening, because there were many people that wanted to be there and there wasn't room for them; so the instructions from Matt Connelly was, to the Secret Service, that nobody was to

[543]

be there except the staff, and outside of the staff there was Jerome Walsh and myself, and of course, Mrs. Evans. I'm sure that Lyman Field was not there that morning. And then that letter, as I recall, that Jerome Walsh, I think he must have been a little confused--says that the President came over--I believe I remember that he came over from Excelsior Springs about nine o'clock. Well, that isn't true; he came over bright and early, about six, after I had gone home.

FUCHS: Did Lyman Field have a particularly close relationship with Mr. Truman?

EVANS: No, just being a member of the Board of Police Commissioners here, and being a Democrat, he knew him, but not intimate.

FUCHS: What was the relationship between Jerome Walsh and Mr. Truman?

EVANS: His father was, I think a former United States

[544]

Senator and quite a lawyer of note, and I might say, of national reputation--he's been dead for many years--and I think, a United States Senator, but I can't be positive of it without looking it up, Jim. But he had a great reputation and was a great friend of Mr. Truman. And Jerome (Jerry, as we called him) being his son, was the primary reason that he was there.

FUCHS: I see. What about Charlie Ross election night. Do you have any tale about him?

EVANS: I expect I better just speak for myself. I never was very optimistic, as I've told you, despite the fact that President Truman was optimistic that he was going to win. Matt Connelly said very little. He didn't say he thought he would or he didn't say he thought he wouldn't. I mean, he was more or less quiet. Charlie, I think, bless his heart, was a wonderful guy, and I think he felt that the President

[545]

probably would lose. He was having a terrible time with the newsmen and there was many of them--I guess forty or fifty, at least--bothering him about where the President was and getting angry at him because he wouldn't tell them; and so, Charlie started (oh, long after midnight and after the President had said to us not to call him anymore, that he was going to bed) having a few drinks, and being worn out completely by the time I left the penthouse, which was 3:30 or 4 o'clock in the morning, to take Mrs. Evans home and get a little rest, Charlie, who was, of course, not a drinking man, but I think exhausted, and hadn't eaten anything, and he just was out like a light and in bed with his clothes on. And, in fact, I had gotten him laid down and he was sound asleep. I wasn't there to witness this, so this is a hearsay story now, told to me by Matt Connelly, that when the President came in he knew nothing about it—

[546]

Charlie--that he was coming, because he was out asleep and the President went into the room with Matt Connelly and some of them and some of the newsmen. They had Merriman Smith, particularly, and Tony Vaccaro were the leaders in the AP and UP. They stood there while the President sort of gently slapped Charlie's cheeks and when he opened his eyes, as they say, it was the funniest sight in the world, because he was just embarrassed beyond words. He got up, and much to his amazement, why, Mr. Truman had been re-elected President of the United States. That was the first Charlie knew of it because when he had gone to bed, it wasn't anything sure by any means.

FUCHS: That's interesting. How do you think that squares with this statement that Walsh, in this letter he wrote, incidentally, to Morris Ernst, and which was subsequently published in the November 22, 1948 issue of Life Magazine, said there wasn't "a drop of liquor around, by the way. It was

[547]

all black coffee and cigarettes and the four telephones jangling, as Boyle's sources reported, steadily."

EVANS: I think that was correct. I think what Jerry Walsh was referring to was in the penthouse proper; there was no liquor there that night. I never saw it. I don't believe anybody had a drink in the penthouse, but Charlie--they had headquarters set up down on another floor for the newsmen--I'm not so sure but what it might have been on the mezzanine. And the newsmen, I'll assure you, all had plenty of liquor in the room, and Charlie was being friendly with all of them and that's where he was doing his drinking; but I think what Jerry refers to was actually in the penthouse. There was no liquor, I'm sure.

FUCHS: Do you recall a J. Franklin Carter, sometimes known as Jay Franklin, as having been there that evening?

[548]

EVANS: I should know who Jay Franklin is, but I don't recall, Jim. Who is he?

FUCHS: Well, he is a writer and he undertook, more or less, secret intelligence tasks for Roosevelt, and then continued into the Truman era for a while, and he writes under the name Jay Franklin, but his name is John Franklin Carter. He wrote an article in which he stated he was there. I just wondered if you recalled, because I hadn't seen any other confirmation of this, that he was in the penthouse on election night.

EVANS: I don't believe he was there on election night, but if it's the man that I remember, I think he was in the penthouse that election afternoon. This is rather hazy in my mind because, of course, it's been a long time ago, that these men that I spoke about, Merriman Smith and Tony Vaccaro and a fellow by the name of Bourgholtzer, I believe, with CBS had heard that Jay Franklin

[549]

(this is the reason it's in my mind) was in talking to the President and they got a hold of Charlie Ross and just raised hell that an individual newsman, so to speak, should get in to see the President. I'm sure that's who that was, and Charlie pacified them by saying that he wasn't giving him an interview, it was just on an old friendship basis, but they weren't very happy about it. I couldn't swear that was Jay Franklin, but I'm sure he was not there election night, because as I have said numerous times, there wasn't anybody there except the staff, which, incidentally, was quite large, because they'd been on a campaign tour with the Preside