For immediate release: July 11, 2003
Contact: Daniel J. Linke, (609) 258-6345, mudd@princeton.edu
Princeton documents long affirmed recent Truman diary revelations
Krock Papers reveal Truman twice asked Eisenhower to run for president as a Democrat
PRINCETON, N.J. – The newly discovered diary of President Harry S Truman, which reveals that he asked Dwight D. Eisenhower to head the Democrat presidential ticket in 1948, finally vindicates a claim long documented in the Arthur Krock Papers held at Princeton University's Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library.
In 1951, Krock, a columnist for The New York Times, reported the Truman offer, which the White House denied. However, in Krock's private "black books" -- a collection of memoranda, correspondence and other papers that documented his stories' sources -- he noted that both Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas and two other reliable sources confirmed the conversation between Truman and Eisenhower.
Krock's black books contain a description of a White House meeting in November 1951 at which Truman not only alluded to his offer of 1948 but also announced that he had repeated the offer for the 1952 election that very afternoon. What makes this document especially interesting is the fact that Justice Douglas reviewed, annotated and signed it in order to establish its veracity.
Former ambassador to the Soviet Union and Democratic fundraiser Joseph E. Davies confirmed Krock's information in a conversation with him one month later. In a memo to Times publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger, Krock recounted how Davies had served as a go-between in Truman's efforts to persuade the general to run as a Democrat. Other documents reveal that Secretary of the Army Kenneth C. Royall also confirmed the facts of Krock's story.
Krock confidentially maintained his black books until 1968, when he presented them to the Princeton University Library, but they were only opened to the public in 1974. They may be viewed, together with Krock's other papers, at the Mudd Library's Web site, http://www.princeton.edu/~mudd/. For more information about this collection, contact the Mudd Library at (609) 258-6345 or mudd@princeton.edu.
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