Philleo Nash Oral History Interview, August 19, 1966

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.

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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 It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.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 October, 1973
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

[136]

HESS: Dr. Nash, yesterday we finished up with William Hassett who was the Correspondence Secretary for Mr. Truman. He left in July of 1952. Did they hire someone else to take the post of Correspondence Secretary after that?

NASH: Yes, indeed, Jerry. When Mr. Hassett left he was succeeded by Beth Short, that is Mrs. Joseph Short, the widow of Joe Short who had been Mr. Truman's Press Secretary and who died on the job.

Beth, who is a very fine person, very experienced in the ways of Government; is in Washington now where she has been working on the Hill for the past several years; and Joe's sudden and unexpected death left her with two boys, and possibly a third child, but two that I know of, to look after and not too much to do with; and Mr. Truman, who was very understanding in matters of this kind, wanted to be certain that Beth was able to take care of herself in an adequate way and she moved into the Correspondence Secretary job, and was the Correspondence Secretary when we all went out on the

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20th of January, 1953.

HESS: And she fulfilled the same role that William Hassett did?

NASH: Same role. She was the Correspondence Secretary, the number three spot in the President's personal staff.

HESS: All right, fine. Now that, with what we had yesterday and what we had today, takes care of the three gentlemen who were Special Counsels and the Appointment Secretary, Matthew Connelly, and the two people that served in the spot of Correspondence Secretary. So now let's move on to the third secretarial position, which was Press Secretary. I think we will probably just discuss that in the light of just the White House press office. The first gentleman to have the job was J. Leonard Reinsch. Is that pronouncing his name correctly?

NASH: Yes, that's right -- Leonard Reinsch.

HESS: As far as I can tell from the Times Index, he was appointed a few days after Mr. Truman took the Presidency, but he did not hold the job very long. Can you tell me why he was appointed, and why he served for just such

[138]

a short time?

NASH: Yes. This is a well-known story. Leonard Reinsch was an executive of the radio network operated by Mr. Cox, who was the presidential nominee in 1920, the year that FDR was the vice-presidential nominee. Mr. Cox quite regularly made his executives available for special assignments. He was always interested in the Presidency, interested in Democratic politics, and interested in the White House.

In 1944 the vice-presidential nominee had to carry the burden of the campaign. The Commander in Chief was busy with the war and his campaigning was restricted to the "instant reply" which I referred to in an earlier interview.

J. Leonard Reinsch was made available to Mr. Truman who, of course, was the nominee, as press officer for the campaign. He was with him throughout the entire campaign, traveled with him on the vice-presidential campaign train, and I presume did the general chores of a personal campaign aide, that is everything from speechwriting to the press relations and the actual mechanical conduct of the tour. Consequently, when Mr.

[139]

Truman became President only a few months after the campaign, and had to put together a White House staff on short notice, he turned first of all, for the press relations function, to the man with whom he had personally been associated in this capacity only a few months before.

This led to an explosion in the press corps. The old established members of the White House press are newsmen, particularly the wire service men. They were then following the growth of radio news, and the soon-to-come growth of television news, with sensations of rivalry and all the jealousy and envy that goes with this traditionally proud craft. Consequently, it was unacceptable to the elite of the White House press corps, who run that group with an iron hand, that a non-print news media man should be their contact man in day-to-day affairs with the President.

The routine mechanics of the White House office are that at 10 a.m. everyday the Press Secretary holds a briefing in his office at which he tells the members of the White House press corps what the President's schedule is going to be, who he's going to see on the

[140]

record, and, if it is wanted for them to know off-the-record who is going to come in off-the-record, he tells them that. They ask him questions about upcoming plans, speeches, so that they don't get caught unprepared and their editors can make decisions as to how they want to handle the news. Otherwise you are dealing with news on a hit-or-miss basis and you will not get good coverage or proper press treatment.

Now, of course, there are other functions and other special activities that the Press Secretary will engage in, but from the standpoint of the working newspaper, radio or TV man, the big moment of everyday is the 10 o'clock briefing. Now this may be held at various times on different days -- 10 o'clock is a little bit late, but it is not so early that it is always on the morning papers time or the afternoon papers time and it is alternated back and forth. But everyday there's got to be a rundown, and in my time, as I recall, it was held at 10 o'clock. That's why I call it the 10 o'clock briefing.

Now the oldtimers simply refused to sit still and receive this information at the hands of a rival media,

[141]

namely, radio. And their influence and their importance in the day-to-day conduct of the affairs of the Presidency are such that they were immediately listened to.

I don't know what your records show as to the time that Mr. Reinsch actually served; my opinion is that it was about three days that he actually served as Press Secretary. After that, other people stepped in.

Now, no doubt, he retained the title for awhile and a good face was put on it -- I mean, that nobody had any desire to hurt him. His boss called him back because of very important duties in connection with the Cox chain of radio stations, and so on, and he couldn't be spared for this purpose, and so he just gradually went on back. Well, we all know what that means. Now he has had a very active and successful career since then. You will find him as the pressman, at I think every Democratic nominating convention from 1948 on. He's very important to Democratic politics, very important to the Democratic National Committee and a very popular and well-liked person.

Now whether the same thing would happen today with TV fully established as a news medium, equal in every

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way, except maybe in the hearts of the oldtimers, with the printed page and telegraph, I don't know, but I don't think you will find a Press Secretary in modern times who has not been a working newspaperman, that is, a writer of news for newspapers.

This conflict was especially acute because of the well-known dispute that centered around the death of FDR. The top White House staff was in the process of being reshuffled after the 1944 election. "Pa" [Maj. General Edwin M.] Watson had died at sea. Steve Early was slated to succeed him, Jonathan Daniels became Press Secretary, Dave Niles took over the minority assignment, which is how he inherited me from Jonathan; and at the time of FDR's death the notification in the normal course of the events would have gone from Jonathan Daniels to the press. Actually, this was handled by Steve Early who simply moved in behind the desk and took over.

HESS: He was not Press Secretary at that time?

NASH: No. Steve Early was Appointment Secretary and Jonathan Daniels was Press Secretary and Early just moved in. He had been with FDR for so long, he had that function and he was, of course, emotionally involved, and he was

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not about to let someone else handle this one for his old boss, so he just "dood" it. I don't think Jonathan will ever forget it or ever forgive him.

HESS: Steve Early was Acting Press Secretary in 1950 for two or three days between the death of Charlie Ross and the appointment of Joseph Short, I think from the sixth to the eighth of December of '50.

NASH: Who was?

HESS: Steve Early. But in April of '45, he was not Press Secretary. Is that right?

NASH: No, he was Appointment Secretary. He succeeded "Pa" Watson, who was dead. You see, Watson had been Appointment Secretary, Early, Press Secretary, and I don't know who the Correspondence Secretary was, if, indeed, there was one. "Pa" Watson died coming back from Yalta, I think, or maybe it was one of the early summit conferences. At any rate, it was one of those. He died and was buried at sea; and he was almost irreplaceable to FDR, but Early was his next closest intimate and he moved Early into Watson's slot, Daniels then into Early's slot, and this was very, very late in the Roosevelt administration.

[144]

But you can see with this kind of confusion and Daniels having been in, and then being edged out, and then a new President coming in, and he doesn't really know who he wants or how he wants to work with them, turns to the first person available, just grasping at straws, picks Leonard Reinsch, and the press corps, with whom he has to work, explodes. At this point then, the President turned to one of his oldest and closest friends, Charlie Ross.

Charlie Ross, of course, was a great liberal newspaperman, really a giant figure in the newspaper world going way back into the '20s. He was about the same age as Mr. Truman and they had the same grade school teacher. Charlie was, I think, the family's closest friend.

HESS: They were in the same class in high school.

NASH: So, here was a man who nobody could say wasn't fitted to the job, and Truman was desperate and he sent for him, and Charlie agreed to do it. I became very attached to Charlie Ross and I would say that I would put him second only to Clark Clifford in his influence on the liberal Truman policy. Maybe I've

[145]

got that in the wrong order.

HESS: You think maybe he had more influence than . . .

NASH: He might have had more

HESS: . . . than Clark Clifford?

NASH: . . . he might even have had more. After all, with a person like Mr. Truman to whom the past and the associations of the past mean so much, somebody that you grew up with is very important when it comes to seeking advice.

HESS: Can you relate an incident that might illustrate Charlie Ross' importance, or his particular relationship with the President?

NASH: Well, once again, these individual things are hard to recall twenty years after. I can tell you a c