Philleo Nash Oral History Interview, October 31, 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.

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 It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.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

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HESS: Dr. Nash, as the beginning of today's interview, let's go back just a little bit to one of the important events of 1952, and that is to the address delivered by President Truman at Howard University in June. Could you tell me about the background to that speech?

NASH: Yes, indeed. Every President, since the modern era of Howard University, has gone out there to deliver a commencement address, usually to receive a honorary degree, for the last third to half century. President Coolidge was there, President Harding; not President Wilson, I think; President Roosevelt; and at the time we're talking about, President Truman, and it had been announced that he would not run, and, therefore, if he didn't go out at about this time it was going to be his last opportunity and he would end up as the only modern President -- contemporary President -- who hadn't gone out.

One of my jobs was to be in touch with the Nego university people and Howard represented this to me, not

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as a political matter, but just as a prestige matter for them and a commitment matter for the President. My recollection is, that by the time this came up, I was doing Mr. Niles' work and rather than make a recommendation to him, I brought it up to Don Dawson and eventually to Matt Connelly and to the President in person. The first discussion I can recall having with the President was in his Oval Office, and I told him substantially what I said just now, that this was the usual thing to do. And, he said that he thought he ought to do it, that he would like to do it, and then it also might offer a major opportunity for a civil rights statement that would represent both his views and would be helpful in the 1952 campaign. You see, this was commencement in the spring of '52 is my recollection.

HESS: June 13th, 1952.

NASH: So, the timing was just about ideal and it was the last opportunity and the last commencement. I've forgotten who was there in the office with us. I don't think there were too many besides the President and myself -- one or two others. I particularly remember his saying, "Well, I'd like to do it, and I think we'd

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better put on all the dog, in other words, I want all military aides to come with me, and everybody else."

And, then the question came up, "Well, what about the honorary degree?"

After all, he has to agree to do this if it's going to be done and he said; "Oh, yes," he'd like that.

And, then came the question, "Well, he should wear a hood shouldn't he from one of his other honorary degrees?"

And, at this point, he said, "Well, I think I'd like to take the most Southern that I have."

And, he did actually wear a Florida University hood when he received the Howard hood on top of it.

Now, came the question of the speech, and the arrangements, and so on. Now, on the speech I worked with Dave Lloyd. This was partly my speech and partly his, but I was also instructed to work out the advance arrangements on it, so I worked with the Secret Service on that. But, before we did any of this, I went out to Howard and talked to Mordecai Johnson who was then the President, and told him that I thought I had it agreed that the President would come, it wasn't a final decision, but a good deal would depend upon the arrangements. So,

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he turned me over to the marshal of the university, one of the professors who had this title and was in charge of the commencement arrangements, and also Mr. Nabrit who was the secretary, and, therefore, the chief administrative officer, and we went over the grounds and over the commencement programs of the past several sessions in detail. At this point, it breaks down into arrangements, speech and speech content, and the commencement proceedings themselves including the academic procession.

After talking to Dr. Johnson about it, I discovered the following, and I understood I was being sold something -- it was his job to sell me and it was my job to receive the offer -- that previous Presidents had made a "lightning" appearance at Howard University; what the aviation people would call a touch-and-go landing -- come in, made an appearance, made a little speech, and left. Even FDR only came in through the back of the building, went out on to the front, made a brief appearance, and left, so that he was not personally present at the moment of pride for the graduates and their parents, when they are actually handed their diplomas.

Well, I came back to report to Mr. Truman on my

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discussions as to the arrangement of the contents. Now, the basic suggestion as to the content of the Howard University commencement speech were actually made by Dr. Johnson, this was not my original concept, nor Dave Lloyd's, nor anybody elses, nor Mr. Truman's. It was what Mordecai Johnson thought ought to be . . .

HESS: Did he give you that in the form of a draft?

NASH: No, no I just sat down in his office -- I knew him very well, I had known him for many years -- and I went to call on him, and I said, "Well, now, I'm trying to sell this to the President and it might be done, and if it were to be done, what do you think would be the right way to do it?"

He said, "The President ought to say three things. He ought to relate the civil rights movement in his program for civil rights to the rising Negro expectations in this country as a whole, but he shouldn't stop there, because this is just part of a rising revolution of expectations throughout the world, and therefore, this ought to be number three in the speech, and this is a commencement type address and it needs saying at this time, and it ought to be said by the President of the

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United States." I didn't say "yes" or "no," but I took it home and thought it over, and it made such good sense to me that I told the President that Dr. Johnson had suggested it, so, he characteristically said, "If this is what Mordecai Johnson wants, and it's his commencement, then that's what we ought to do." If we are going to do it, let's do it all the way, let's not be partial about it -- I'm not quoting him on it, I'm just saying, let's not be "chintzy" -- let's do it all.

So, this meant that he would walk -- and I said, "You mean you want to walk in the procession?"

And he said, "Yes."

And I said, "You mean you want to make a speech?"

And he said, "Of course."

And I said, "Do you want to hand out the degrees?"

And he said, "No," but he said, "I'm willing to wait while somebody else does."

And I said, "Do you realize that this means two or two and a half hours?"

And he said, "If we're going to do it, let's really do it."

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I said, "Okay, sir."

And that's the way we did it. I then went back to the university and I said, "All right now, we have some very serious problems here. I listened to what you said about what previous Presidents didn't do -- the quick in and quick out -- and the negative impression that they left. Now, here is a President that really wants to take part, wants to take part from the beginning to the end, but," I said, "we've got some security problems, and we've got some timing problems, so, send me to somebody that can make decisions and we'll talk about the whole ceremony."

This was when he sent me to Mr. Nabrit, and the marshal of the university. Then, we sat down and we worked out, we completely revamped the Howard commencement. We worked out a minute by minute timetable, how many minutes it would take for the procession to walk from here to there, and where the seating would be, and we sat the seats up in front of a different building so the President could come in from his car behind the building, walk through, go into a robing room, get out on the platform with a minimum of exposure, and a

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maximum of freedom of exit, this is very essential in security. So that he could stay through the whole thing with complete ease and comfort and everything else, and then I told him what a great musical organization the Howard University choir was, and so he asked for them to take part in the festivities -- this is fairly traditional -- so it wasn't very difficult to do, and he especially asked for them to sing The Battle Hymn of the Republic.

So, we worked out every detail of it on a minute by minute by minute by minute schedule. Now, in the meantime, Dave Lloyd and I were working on the content of the speech, and once the President had accepted the idea that we would talk about civil rights, domestic aspirations of people, and the submerged peoples of the world, as related to point 4 and all that, then, it was, I think, fairly clear what we had to do, and Dave really was the principal speechwriter on this. I worked out the arrangements, and all that, and I made my contribution and I'm sure my language is in there, but Dave made a very, very big contribution.

HESS: Did you get together with the President over the wording of the address?

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NASH: Oh, yes. This one he went over in greater detail than almost anyone I had been connected with. On the other hand, as you can see from the previous things I've told you, when he got to a civil rights speech, he wanted to know what was in it in detail personally, more than almost any other kind. Oh, yes, we went over that more than once with him. Bear in mind, however, that David Lloyd had been an Administrative Assistant for a couple of years, I was by this time his senior aide, as far as point of service was concerned, he had confidence in us, and we understood him, and we understood his way of thinking and his way of speaking, and had had a good deal of experience in casting things in his words, as well as expressing his philosophy.

HESS: In your files at the Library, in the particular folder on the Howard University speech, there are several drafts. Draft number one and four are marked with your initials, drafts number one and three are marked with "DDL," which of course is David Lloyd, and the fourth draft is marked "combined," also, so as you have said, it was a collaboration between the two of

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you, and also, in that folder is a very interesting clipping marked from the Star, which is probably the Evening Star here in Washington, of June the 14th, 1952, the day after the speech and I want to read just a couple of paragraphs from this.

From Senator Lehman, Democrat-Liberal, of New York came high praise for the address. He described it as 'a great speech, a statesman-like pronouncement,' and he said he would make use of it at the Democrati