The Daily Stoic - The Ordinary Brilliance Of President Harry S. Truman | David Roll

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

📚 Grab a copy of David Roll's Ascent to Power: How Truman Emerged from Roosevelt's Shadow and Remade the World and George Marshall: Defender of the Republic.X: @misterroll📔 Pre-order Right Thing Right Now: Good Values, Good Character. Good Deeds. at dailystoic.com/justice.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I'm Afua Hirsch. I'm Peter Frankopan. And in our podcast Legacy, we explore the lives of some of the biggest characters in history. This season we're exploring the life of Cleopatra. An iconic life full of romances, sieges and tragedy. But who was the real Cleopatra? It feels like her story has been told by others with their own agenda for centuries. But her legacy is enduring and so we're going to

dive into how her story has evolved all the way up to today. I am so excited to talk about Cleopatra Peter. She is an icon. She's the most famous woman in antiquity. It's got to be up there with the most famous woman of all time. But I think there's a huge gap between how familiar people are with the idea of her compared to what they actually know about her life and character. So for Pyramids, Cleopatra and Cleopatra's Nose. Follow Legacy Now wherever you get your podcasts. Or you can binge entire seasons early and ad free on Wandery Plus. In the 1970s John Todd burst onto the evangelical scene with a shocking tale. He claimed to be a former witch, involved in a then unheard of secret organisation called the Illuminati,

and urged Christians to prepare for a violent world takeover. First of all, the number one weapon in everybody's home should be a 12 gauge pump shotgun. Hear the amazing story of one of the originators of the modern day conspiracy theory. From Magnificent Noise and Sony Music Entertainment, this is Cover Up – The Conspiracy Tapes. I'm Alice Levine. And I'm Matt Ford. And we're the presenters of British Scandal. And in our latest series, Hitler's Angel, we tell the story of scandalous beauty Diana Mosley, British aristocrat, Mitford sister and fascist sympathiser. Like so many great British stories it starts at a lavish garden party. Diana meets the dashing fascist Oswald Mosley.

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When Britain took on the Nazis, Diana had to choose between love or betrayal. This is the story of Diana Mosley on her journey from glamorous socialite to political prisoner. Listen to British Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well

known and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are and also to find peace and wisdom in their actual lives. But first, we've got a quick message from one of our sponsors. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday and welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I fall in love with these sort of historic characters. That's what gets me really excited when I discover someone I didn't know anything about and then going down the rabbit hole of discovering their lives, what made them tick, the big moments, the little moments.

I mean, obviously that's the, Mark Cirillis is a big guy like that in my life, but a couple that you've probably seen as through lines in my books were George Marshall. And then you'll see this in the new book. I guess he's in the discipline book too, but you'll see this in right thing right now, which you can pre-order at dailystoke.com

slash justice, the new book. Anyways, a big one is Harry Truman. And these are two historical figures who I just cannot find enough about. And then I've had this mirrored process, which is there's someone else who's been falling in love with similar figures at roughly the same time. Now I met today's guest at a book signing I did

at Politics in Pros in DC, I believe I just finished Ego is the Enemy where George Marshall was a big character. But when I was writing about George Marshall, I was so disappointed there wasn't a great biography. And he came up to me and he said, as it happens, I'm working on a biography about George Marshall right now.

And I was so excited, I couldn't wait to read it. And this was extra serendipitous and wonderful because that man today's guest is also the father of one of my favorite people and one of my favorite writers and favorite podcasters, Rich Roll. And he not only did this awesome book on George Marshall, which I interviewed him about remotely a couple of years back.

And then he sent me an email and said he was working on a book about Truman as I was reading literally everything I could about Truman for this new book. And he sent me a copy of the book, Ascent to Power, How Truman Emerged from Roosevelt's Shadow and Remade the World. I loved this biography. I loved his book, George Marshall, Defender of the Republic,

both those epic, enormous biographies that I love that I don't think enough people read, but become the basis of the books that I write. And so I was really excited to have this conversation. He actually came out to another thing I was doing in DC a couple of months back. I was doing a talk to a group there, I believe in Georgetown or somewhere in DC

and David came out and we had a great little conversation. I said, you know what, you think you might wanna come out to Austin and do the podcast? And he did and I got a little bonus appearance because his son Rich came with him. So we had a wonderful conversation and I'm looking forward to you all reading this book,

Ascent to Power, How Truman Emerged from Roosevelt's Shadow and Remade the World. If you haven't read anything about Truman, I mean, anything you can get your hands on about this guy. He's fascinating, one of my favorite presidents. And I think as I talk about in my chapter on him in the Justice book, he reads Marcus Aurelius as a young man and it orients his whole life

around these cardinal virtues. And we talk about that in this interview. It was so fun to nerd out about this fascinating man and Rich was watching in the other room and he just said he didn't think any two people could have this conversation. So I'm really excited to share this with you. You can follow David on X at MrRoll

and do check out Defender of the Republic and Ascent to Power, two epic, awesome biographies. Mine is coming soon, so I'll share that with you. You can grab that at dailystoke.com. But in the meantime, here's a conversation I was very much looking forward to and I think you're very much going to enjoy. What is, was Tennyson a Lord or does his name

have Lord in it? I always got that. Lord Tennyson? Yeah. Yeah, sure. But it's out, but now there are so many. Alfred Lord Tennyson. Oh, you're right, right. So is that in his name?

I don't know, I don't know. Yeah, I never knew. It's very confusing. No, yeah. So there are so many Lords now that kind of lack out of it. In my discipline book, I wrote a lot about Queen Elizabeth the second.

And she gave out 100,000 awards in her life. Cause that's like the Queen's main job is like OBE. She gives it, yeah, a hundred thousand of them. Prince Charles, I don't know, sure. Yeah, he might not have that long. So, but yeah, a hundred thousand. Also, he might not have that long. So, but yeah, 100,000 words. Also, she met 4 million people personally. She shook hands with 4 million people as part of the job.

Not like waving to crash. How do you know that? Whose book? Well, so I emailed, I know him a little bit. I interviewed him on the podcast, but I asked Andrew Roberts, I was like, who is the best biographer of the queen? And he gave me a bunch of reciters. You asked Andrew Roberts, I was like, who is the best biographer of the Queen? And he gave me a bunch of recommendations.

You asked Andrew Roberts? Yeah, yeah. How did you do that? I just emailed him. Yeah. I interviewed him on the podcast. I read his... Oh, you did interview him?

Yeah, yeah. I read his King George book, which I really liked. Yes. I have it, I didn't read it. I thought it was really interesting to read American history. Written by a Brit. Yeah, written by a Brit in the sense that-

His best book was Masters and Commanders. I haven't read that one. He was very young. What's it about? It was the British Masters and Commanders. It was Churchill and his war cabinet. And it was all about, it was that guy that the chief of staff of the army, Marshall's counterpart, I forget his name now,

Lord somebody, and he just did a magnificent job. That was one of the first books I read about World War II. Yeah. It was really good. Yeah, his Napoleon book is incredible also. I didn't read that. Did you read that? I didn't read that.

But so actually that's maybe a good place to start because when I read these biographies, or you read Robert Caro, or you read Andrew Roberts, you read Doris Kearns Goodwin, you read these, what, I feel like it's, when I read those, I don't think. Are we on right now? Yeah, yeah, it's just casual. When I read those, I think, I,

perhaps why I like them so much is it's inconceivable to me how a person could do that. Like how, like the person's life is incredible to me, but how a biographer can get into that level of detail and get the whole sweep of a person, what made you think you could do it? I don't know, I was challenging it. Particularly this last one with presidents because there's been so much written about them.

And so, you know, where do you inject your own interpretation of what makes this person click? And that's what you do when you're a biographer. You take risks about characterizing people. But it's not like you've been doing this your whole life, right, you came to be a biographer much later. Just started doing it. I think early on you're very timid.

And then later you just say, yeah, I'm gonna just say what I think about, let's take Truman's relationship with his wife. And I made a lot of statements about that and how I felt. Having been married for 60 years, you kind of have a perspective on what marital relations are like. And I found his to be very unusual

because I think she had such a hold on him. Yeah, I'm gonna bounce around by the way, but to speak to that specifically, he's gotta be maybe the only, at least probably the only five or 10 presidents who doesn't cheat on his spouse, right? That's right. I can't imagine Truman cheating on his spouse.

Yeah. You know, he was such a boy scout. Yeah. In that regard, and he got married late, but she had this grip on him. But when it came down to choosing the possibility of being president versus pissing off Bess, his ambition got the better of him, I believe.

She struck me as similar to Grant's wife, that they both sort of had a power over the person. Right. And there was, codependency sounds judgmental, but like they could not live without this person, functionally or otherwise. Right, right, I agree with that. Yeah.

I agree with that. And you know, when he made his famous dangerous trip back to independence, you know, when there was this huge storm and he risked his life and the New York Times got after him for that. And then he arrives and she's criticizes him for, you know, making up this story to come back to her.

And he writes this letter and fortunately never sent it, but he said, you treated me like I was a cat being brought in from the door. I need some help, I want some help. You know, so. He desperately wanted the approval and the affection of this person, even though he's the most powerful man in the world.

That's right, that's right. And he had a lot of confidence when he was dealing with, you know, Churchill and Stalin and all these people, but nobody had a hold on him like Bess. And she had some skeletons in the closet that he had to deal with. And one of them was that she didn't wanna be president because they'd find out about

how her father committed suicide. His mother-in-law was no fun person. Doesn't she have one thing to go by? Mrs. Wallace. Why are you running against that nice man, Mr. Dewey? She was a piece of work. Yeah, she never thought Truman measured up to her family. Truman never had a house of his own.

Never had his own house. It's just amazing. So he had to live under the roof of Mrs. Wallace until she passed away. Right. Yeah, there's something very ordinary about Truman. And there's that famous Dean Atkinson quote where he says,

everyone tells me how ordinary Truman was, but to me he was the most extraordinary man in the world. And there is something fundamentally extraordinary about how ordinary he was, if that makes sense? You know, like basically this, and this is what the earliest pages of your book are about, this small town Missouri farmer suddenly and unexpectedly finds himself

the most powerful man in the world at perhaps the most precarious moment in the history of the world. Look at what he was faced with, the global war when he was, the minute he was sworn in, global war. Global war. Soviet Union. Nuclear weapons about to be unleashed.

European ruins, the onset of the nuclear age, the organization of the UN, all those things. Plus a raging inflation at home. And on the cusp of what would become the civil rights movement, because of what World War II had sort of unleashed by transforming society, women are going to be entering the world.

Like essentially everything's changing. And it's almost like if you were to design a person who would be utterly ill-equipped to handle any of that, you would think a small town, uneducated, ordinary southerner would not be able to do it. And somehow Truman not only does it, but does it better than perhaps anyone could have possibly done it.

Like I'm not sure there's anyone you would go to, you know who would have been better at that job at that time. It's so-and-so. You know, I love that there was one, Harry Vaughn was one of his pals that lived in the White House, said, you know, we had 12 years of caviar.

It's great to have somebody like Ham and Eggs. Yeah, he was a Ham and Eggs kind of guy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he says to the, he has that sort of private meeting, that private session with a bunch of White House reporters after he gets the news. And he says, he basically, yeah.

And he says something like, I don't know if you've ever had a load of hay fall on you, but the whole world just fell on me. Like, can you help me out? But it kind of turns out that he doesn't need the help. Like he's much more able and stronger than perhaps he should know. I was thinking about this because there's this famous dream

that Marcus Aurelius has. So Marcus Aurelius is chosen unexpectedly to be the emperor. He's just this kid and Hadrian chooses a man named Antoninus Pius to adopt Marcus Aurelius, to set in motion this succession plan. And Marcus sort of is terrified at the notion of becoming the most powerful man in the world.

And the night before he's supposed to ascend to the purple, he has this dream and in the dream, he has shoulders made of ivory. The idea being that he's strong enough to bear the weight of this thing. And there's something about that with Truman where you wouldn't think that he'd be able to do it and you wouldn't think anyone would be able to do it.

It's just an unimaginable load. And somehow he has within him this sort of inner strength and capacity that I don't think ordinary circumstances could have revealed. And then he does remarkably well. You know, I remember when he was on his way to Potsdam to meet with Stalin and Churchill. I mean, here he is, meeting with Stalin and Churchill.

And he was complaining all the time, writing letters saying, oh, I hate this. I can't stand it. I'm not gonna, but as I say, he had confidence in himself. Yeah. You know, he used to always complain about himself, I'm too weak and all that stuff, but there was a steel in him and he, you know,

he got along with them both. He said harsh things to Stalin, things that needed to be said. And he certainly got along with Churchill. Yeah, I mean, Churchill was very impressed, right? Churchill's like, this guy knows what he's doing. Yeah, Marshall said, great wisdom, wise Marshall, just after he first met with Truman when he was president,

we will not know what he's like until the pressure is asserted and the pressure was immediately on him. Unimaginable pressure. He had the stuff. Yeah. He had the stuff. Well, I showed you, because Truman's one of the main characters in the book that I'm doing on justice,

and you were nice enough to give notes on that. I think that's twice now that we have overlapped, because when you were writing your Marshall book, I was doing my ego book, where Marshall's in and then Truman, but people were worried. They'd had basically 12 years of FDR. That was all they knew, and that was their model for the presidency. People were worried, they'd had basically 12 years of FDR,

that was all they knew, and that was their model for the presidency. So some people were quite worried that this totally unknown man was stepping into the Oval Office. And I found this quote from this Missouri railroad foreman that had worked with Truman, and he said, oh, I wasn't worried.

He said, that boy's all right from his asshole out in every direction. I never heard that quote. That's what he said about Truman. Who said that? Some guy that worked with Truman on a railroad when he was a young man. Yeah, yeah.

Like, weirdly, the press and the public was pretty worried about Truman, but the people who had met Truman and understood his character, there's just something in him that made them sense that this guy does have that stuff. Yeah, he did. It's remarkable.

He made mistakes. Sure. He made some blunders, some mistakes, and he had his faults. He made some mistakes. Sure. He made some blunders, some mistakes, and he had his faults. He used the N word until he died, playing cards with his buddies and stuff, racial jokes, anti-Semitism. When he confided in his diary, it were just shocking.

Yeah. And at the same time, you know, he's recognizing Israel. Because he has, it was, yeah, he couldn't, it was like he had this individual character and decency that guided him mostly, but he sometimes lacked an overall worldview that you might want from a president. an overall worldview that you might want from a president. But he, you know, both his sets of his grandparents

were slaveholders. His mother, he also called mama, would not sleep in the Lincoln bedroom. You basically have a guy raised by racists to be racist who joins the Klan like it's Kiwanis or Knights of Columbus. Like it's just any other social club. And yet when he becomes president, he does more for civil rights than any president up until that point. And he does it again civil rights than any president

up until that point. And he does it, again, yeah, not from, well, he does it from a sense of the constitution and the idea that all men are created equal, but then he also, I think, does it, what I took from my study of Truman is that he was horrified by the grotesque violence and cruelty of racism at that time,

particularly directed at veterans. That's right. And so he's coming at it from a- Isaac Woodward was the main guy that he, that's what turned him around, I think. Although he gave a speech when he was Senator called the Brotherhood of Man, which was the beginning of his transformation on race.

Roosevelt would never have gone that far. And they said, Truman really means it. Roosevelt, okay, we can deal with Roosevelt. Truman really means it. Except he had a sort of a different kind of view of discrimination and so forth. He's okay with trying to deal with discrimination, but social equality was different.

Clubs. He was okay with social discrimination, not legal discrimination, you could say, or segregation, I guess. I was actually talking to George Raveling the other day, who was there at the March on Washington. He owned the I Have a Dream speech. He was doing security for Martin Luther King that day.

Martin Luther King gave him the speech as he walked down the steps of Lincoln Memorial. And funny enough, he put- Gave him the speech. Yeah, he said, Mr. King, can I have a copy of that? And he just, King just thought it was, you know, just materials from the, it hadn't become, it didn't become the I have a dream speech

until history got to work on it, right? So funny enough, and Rich has interviewed co-traveling before, but he put him, he took this speech and he put it inside his other most prized possession when he got home, which was a signed copy of Harry Truman's memoirs. Oh, no kidding. Because they had won a basketball tournament in Missouri

and been invited in 1950, whatever, to meet the president at his presidential library. He had it. And I asked, I said, what was Truman like? Did you sense? And he said, it was totally fine. And it was, so he puts it in this copy of Truman's memoirs. But I said, coach, did you know that more than a decade

before the I Have a Dream speech, Truman addressed the NAACP on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and how radical that must have read to the country at that time. You know, I have a copy, a signed copy of the two volume Truman Memoirs? Volume Memoirs.

Wow. And I got it because of my law firm in Washington. Lewis Johnson was the guy that raised the money for Truman in the 48 election. And he was the founder, co-founder of our law firm, law firm, Stepdome Johnson. I took it out of the library when I was a, you know, like a new partner there, you know?

And that's how I started. My first book was about Louis Johnson. Yeah. So I still have it, I still have it. I'm taking this home with me. I gotta give it back. No, no, I think it's yours now. Once you biographize the person,

you get to keep the same time. It's like, you know, and I've used it a lot because he overemphasized a lot of his accomplishments. And he wrote about the bomb in the way that he wanted his legacy to be remembered, but it was not quite like that. I was blown away by the Merle Miller biography of Truman. I think that's one of the most unique presidential books.

Some of it is not, you know. Of course, of course. It's Truman as Truman would want to be seen, but it's also, it's so folksy and accessible. The crazy thing about that book where Truman intersects with my world is there's a scene in the Merle Miller book where Merle is asking him some question, Truman goes back to his room or his office or whatever, and he comes back

with his copy of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. And he gives it to Miller who goes through it and he sees. Truman had a cop? Yes, he goes through and he sees the passages that Truman has underlined. And it's stuff about how, you know, first off that, you know, the cardinal virtues,

it's stuff about how when people judge you, they don't understand your character, you have to ignore those people and just stick with what's right. And yeah, I just imagine like a Senator Truman who everyone thinks is corrupt, everyone thinks is bought, everyone doesn't, no one understands why he's there,

just sort of turning to this book and relying on it. I don't know, I'm trying to find that copy. When do you think he got the markers for a real estate? I don't know, I'm trying to find that copy. When do you think he got the Marcus realistic? I don't know. Let's try to figure it out. I emailed the Truman Library to see if it was in the archives and they said it wasn't. So I don't know if it's in somebody's private collection

or it was lost at some point. I'm gonna go there this summer. Okay, you gotta help me find it. Yeah. You know, he had, they say he was a great reader of history and obviously he was a great reader of history, obviously he was, but he made some strange judgments. He loved Andrew Jackson, for one thing.

And he gave a speech that nobody ever talks about, which in North Carolina, about Andrew Johnson and what a great president he was. Really? Yes. Johnson, not Jackson. Andrew Johnson, I'm saying Andrew Johnson. Yeah, like the worst president.

Yeah, because Andrew Johnson was born in this city that he happened to be talking. So he got this long screed about how he was a great constitutional president. That's like the opposite of what he was. And, you know, is responsible for the destruction of the reconstruction. Well, Truman was like, it's not fair to say

he wasn't educated, he was self-educated, but probably one of the most well-read of any of the presidents. Yes, he was well-read. Yeah. Sometimes took the wrong lessons from certain people. Well, yeah, he's very emblematic of certainly the sort of the lost cause framework of understanding history.

And then, yeah, obviously his views on Andrew Jackson also. He has, he has- Andrew Jackson and Andrew Jackson. Yeah, well, no, he has that view of American history. That's why I was surprised to hear him reading Marcus Aurelius or Plutarch. Yes. Most of his history was secondhand as opposed, like he was reading not primary texts,

but like sort of like the readers that they would give school children then, or essays about, like he didn't always have access to the best stuff, but he did love to read. And he has that famous quote about how all leaders have to be readers. Yeah, he was, you know, he had the bad eye set, and if that kid wasn't out there playing baseball

or anything like that with the other boys, he was inside reading books at a pretty young age. And, you know, yeah, self-educated, self-educated. There's a story in the Merle Miller book where he makes some obscure reference to something and a journalist goes, that can't be right. He makes some comment about Alexander the Great, like in a speech Truman does.

And the reporter goes, what's the president talking about? He's obviously wrong. And so he goes to prove that the president was wrong. So he goes down this long rabbit hole, all the experts don't know what he's talking about, blah, blah, blah. Finally, he ends up at the Library of Congress and he talks to the librarian who spent several days

tracking down this anecdote, and finds it in a book, in the Library of Congress. And they open up the front of the book, and in the library card, the only person to check out the book in the last 50 years had been Senator Harry Truman. Ha ha ha. I've been in that room. That's so great.

Yeah, he, one thing about stoicism, I don't know anything about stoicism, but one aspect or one characteristic of it, as I understand it, is selflessness. Yes. And I would regard Harry Truman as being selfless. That, you know, he did not, you know, he used to say about the Marshall Plan, you know,

Clifford wanted to call it the Truman Plan. Yes. And Truman had a great say, he said, if I send that plan up to the hill, it will quiver a couple of times and go belly up and die. Even the worst Republican would vote for the plan if it had Marshall's name on it. You know, that's a great selflessness kind of,

but I think he was, I don't think he tried to take credit for stuff that he wasn't, you know, that he couldn't justify. Hi, I'm Anna. And I'm Emily, and we're the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And we are really excited about our latest season because we are talking about someone very, very special.

You're so sweet. A fashion icon. Well, actually, just put this on. A beautiful woman. Your words, not mine. Someone who came out of Croydon and took the world by storm. Anna, don't tell them where I live. A muse, a mother, and a supermodel who defined the 90s.

I don't remember doing the last one. Wow, Emily, not you. Obviously, I mean Kate Moss. Oh, I always get us confused. Because you're both so small. How dare you. We are going to dive back into Kate's 90s heyday and her insatiable desire to say yes to absolutely everything life has to offer. The parties, the Hollywood heartthrobs, the rockstar bad boys.

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the Wondry Plus in Apple podcasts or the Wondry app. Well, I thought that's what your two books have in common. Marshall. Where they compare, is that they're both, the greatest moment of both men's life is defined by its magnanimity. So the scene that you tell beautifully in Defender of the Republic is FDR asks Marshall, does he want the command at Normandy?

And Marshall could have asked for it, he could have demanded it. He could have had it. Yes, and he lets it go to Eisenhower, even though as you quote him saying, like he wanted it more than anything in the world. I don't know if that's for sure, but anyway, nobody does. No, but you had a really good quote.

Someone was saying that in private moments, Marshall would let on that he did want it. It wasn't that he didn't want it. He wanted it in some way, but he wanted the country to succeed more than he wanted his own personal advancement. And then famously, he writes the little order. Like he signs the orders to Eisenhower and he says,

I think you wanna keep this as a memento. And then flash forward, years later, the Marshall Plan is up and Truman, as you said, understands he has a Republican Congress, it's dead on arrival if it has his name on it. So he gives it to Marshall. But I was thinking that those two things are connected in that part of the reason that they accepted it

with Marshall's name on it was because of things, because Marshall had a reputation for selflessness like that. Because Truman said that never did Marshall think of himself. And so when Marshall says, hey, I need 15, $16 billion, Congress knew there wasn't an ulterior motive to it,

or they knew that it was about, it truly was something selfless and great. That he was nonpartisan. Yes. Yeah, he told the president during that conversation about the command of overlord, that he did not want the president to make a decision based upon how he, Marshall, might feel.

Yeah. You know, he would always say, you know, I, the only thing I have feelings for is my wife or something like say, you know, the only thing I have feelings for is my wife or something like that, you know. Was a little bit too much, but you know, that's the way he was. It doesn't Truman do something similar to that towards the end of his life.

I think he had said once that he'd rather win the Medal of Honor than be the President of the United States. And Congress starts to make noise about potentially awarding the Medal of the United States. And Congress starts to make noise about potentially awarding the Medal of Honor to Truman. And Truman says, I don't want anyone to give me anything that I don't deserve. Right, right, right. His wartime experience, though, was transformational.

Yes. That was a very, very important part of his life. And I used to say, Roosevelt had a desk job during World War I. Truman was in heavy combat. And had every reason not to be. I mean, he's 33, he has poor eyesight, he's the sole provider for his family. He'd already served in the National Guard.

He did not need to go to France. As an older man, right. And he, yep, sorry. And yeah, and that's where he became a leader. Yes. A real leader. It's the first time he leaves the country. Basically the only time he leaves the country other than when he's president.

You know, when I still, I have not yet delved into and I don't see much evidence of it, is religious or faith. Yeah. Christianity. I mean, yes, as a young man, I didn't write about that, but into his presidency. Did he ever go to church?

I'm not sure. Yeah, that is interesting. I'm gonna delve into that in this coming month because I'm gonna give a talk at a church and I wanna find out, where was his religion? He always, he would use swear words. Yeah. Jesus Christ, he would say.

Jesus Christ and General Jackson. That's what he said when he found out that Roosevelt had died. First word, Jesus Christ. Maybe he was a Stoic. I mean, he said all you need to have a good life is those cardinal virtues. That's what he was saying.

So he kind of, he was, he came, maybe he came to some of those principles via other means. Now, Bess was going to church, you know. You heard the story when some of the Jewish leaders were in town well after the recognition. And they were in Kansas City and they called Truman when he was retired. Said, can we, I'd like to, this was Eddie Jacobson calling.

His Jewish friend from Boyard. Calling said, I got these guys, they wanna come and just say hello to you. And it was a Sunday. And Truman said, no, I don't think so. And he called him back and he said, best has just gone to church, have him come over. Yeah.

So that was the way it was with best. Yes. And with, he wanted to see those guys. And they called him Cyrus. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it is. I mean, obviously he knows Eddie Jacobson from his boyhood, but that's another thing

you can sort of tie to his wartime experience. It was that he goes out and sees the world. He meets people who are different from him from different places than him. And I think that's the first sort of bit of the expansion of the worldview. He had books, obviously books had exposed him to the world. Eddie Jacobson came to him because of the war.

Yeah. Actually, you know, Margaret Truman wrote a nice biography of her father. And in it, she wrote that, that Truman is really not good friends with Eddie Jacobson. I don't know why she wrote that. It's not true. Yeah.

I mean, they went into business together. And they lived, they were together when he was retired. There's this great photograph in my book of the two of them together, laughing about something. I mean, Israel would not exist if they were not close friends. He was the one who brought Truman to Heim Weizmann. Yeah, I mean, I was fascinated by that scene too. He drops in at the White House

without an appointment on a Saturday. He's a friend. Yeah, that's about as close as you can get. Yes. And says, and then I think he, you know, Truman's making all these excuses, thinks it's bad for the oil interests, he's been offended.

And he goes, this doesn't sound like you, Harry. And it's really a personal appeal from one friend to another that changes the face of the Middle East. You know, I wrote this to you this morning. Today is the 75th anniversary of the signing of the NATO agreement in Washington. And Truman gave an address. He didn't sign it.

It had to be signed by Atchison. Yeah. But the treaty was being celebrated then and was today. And I looked at Truman's speech this morning. Yeah. Just to see what he said during that event in 1949. And he kind of trolled Roosevelt. He said, this alliance is kind of like

it is in a neighborhood, in one's own neighborhood where we have a community and we wanna protect each other. It was kind of like Roosevelt and the Len Lise thing when he said, it's when you lend your neighbor a hose and the house is on fire. That was Len Lise. And here it was with NATO, a community kind of thing,

little community like Bastrop or something. I was just struck by the sort of the folksy way he characterized the NATO agreement. We're neighbors. This transformative, unprecedented. Unbelievable. Thing he sees in these kind of down home. transformative, unprecedented thing. He sees in these kind of down home. But then also, I think that's what is so fascinating

about Truman and why he's so fun to read about is that you have this down home folksy, it's like on the farm, a bale of hay fell on me. And then he's also coming at it from a person who has read probably every book on the history of warfare and geopolitics and Europe that you could imagine. So he's also thinking of the Peloponnesian League. He'd be thinking of the Greeks fighting the Persians.

He would have this also much larger sense of these things amidst this sort of down-home folksiness. His speech on the Truman Doctrine, I think, was the greatest speech he's ever given. And you see it crumbling today, but he was then, the speech was about giving assistance to Greece and Turkey, but he broadened it to just say that the United States policy

is to assist free peoples, free peoples from being subjugated by tyrannical governments. And that was the foreign policy, the nonpartisan foreign policy for decades, decades. And we're still trying to deal with it. And it's now in danger. So we have this idea that absolute power corrupts absolutely, right?

And in both biographies, in Marshall and in Truman, Truman obviously being more powerful than Marshall in some ways, although Marshall commanding an enormous army at various points, both of them have extreme amounts of power, but it doesn't seem to make them worse. They don't seem to have gone the way of MacArthur or Eisenhower or even FDR.

FDR is close to basically being, I am the state. But we don't see that in Truman and then Marshall. There's a selflessness and a sort of a soldier's sort of submission in him. What do you think it was that allowed them not to be exceptions to that rule, I guess? To- That absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Like they don't become these sort of imperial, egotistical, you know. Back to selflessness, it's a sense that, you know, you know, it's selflessness as far as I can tell. You know, one thing, one quote I found from Anna Roosevelt, from Anna Roosevelt, FDR's oldest offspring. She said of her father that, my father is cold, calculating, cunning.

And you don't know what he is thinking. You don't know what he's gonna do. I just thought to say that, and she loved him. She lived with him. She made his life longer than a year. But to say that about her father, and I think it's true. Yeah, but no one would say that about Truman. No, it's just the contrast or Marshall for God's sake.

And shrewd was the other word she used, shrewd. And he was, and that was part of success. Yeah. But did he have a lot of real good friends? Yeah, sure. No. Yeah, and maybe that's, maybe Truman couldn't have been president

except accidentally. Do you know what I mean? Do you think he could have like perhaps what may- I'll take you on on that. I think, yeah, they say he was an accidental president, but Roosevelt's death was by no means accidental. It was expected. Sure.

So I would argue that in a sense, Sure. So I would argue that in a sense, Truman knew long before Roosevelt died that he was going to peace. He told people that. And he told everyone who would listen that he didn't wanna go through the back door of the White House to get to the presidency.

So in a way, it wasn't accidental. It was, it was expected. Everybody in Washington knew that he was going to die soon. But do you think FDR knew? Like, do you think FDR chose Truman or choosing Truman was not, was a way not to have to face his mortality? No, I don't. I think he chose Truman because the big city bosses wanted him too.

And he didn't want Wallace and he didn't want Jimmy Burns. I guess what I mean though is there's something, I mean, Eisenhower is a great president for this reason too, but there's something about wanting the presidency that is almost self-selecting people who should not be president, right? And Truman was great because he'd studied history

and he wanted to be great, but I don't think he necessarily saw himself as needing to be the most powerful person to have an impact. And maybe was even afraid of or intimidated by the prospect a little bit, which is fundamentally healthy. But when it was offered, he grabbed it.

Yes, yes. Like Marshall would have made a great president because he didn't want to be president. Eisenhower. Marshall sincerely didn't want to be president. Sherman probably would have made a great president. Like there's something about wanting to be the thing that we should be scared of.

Is that ego? I think so. I mean, if there could be one most powerful person in the world and you're like, that should be me, there's something wrong with you. I agree with that. That's right. And you see it right now.

Yeah. Like Truman wanted to, Truman was a good, I mean, he obviously ran for office and he wanted, but yeah, he didn't from the beginning have this aspiration of getting to this point, nor did he think he was bred by birth and heritage to deserve the thing. He had a healthy...

No. He had a healthy... Senses himself. Yes. Of where he fit. Yeah. But he handled it. Yeah.

MacArthur, I contrast to Marshall in so many ways, right? You know, of course MacArthur thought he would be a great president. He thought he was smarter than every president he ever met. And that was, you know, ultimately his downfall. And ultimately Truman triumphs over Marshall, or over MacArthur, because he understood how things actually worked.

Jimmy Burns wanted the presidency desperately. You know, so I love the title of the book, a biography of Jimmy Burns, which was Sly and Able. What a great title. Yeah, that is great. I read a great biography of FDR as a politician and it's called The Lion and the Fox. Oh, I know.

Based on the Machiavelli line. Which is a great, that sort of confirms the quote from his daughter, it confirms that exact idea. So he makes himself kind of a machine or the position and his personality merged together. Truman held the office and when he left the office, he went right back to being Truman. That's why I liked writing about the contrast

between Roosevelt and Truman. They're so different in every way. And you know, one of Roosevelt's stories so different in every way. And one of Roosevelt's gifts was to be shrewd and calculating. Truman didn't have that. Yes. Yeah, there's a line, one of his advisors says, because there's some scandals in the Truman presidency. And he says, Mr. President, you've been loyal to people

who have not been loyal to you. And Grant had a similar problem. They were almost unprepared for... Schemers. Schemers, yes. People after him for various things. Do you think that kind of explains Truman's relationship with Pendergrast? Yes. people after him for various things. Do you think that kind of explains

Truman's relationship with Pendergrast? Yes. Because he kind of acted like, oh, he was like, for people who don't know, basically Truman is, Truman gets his first job in politics, gets the Senator, his job as a Senator, from one of the most corrupt political bosses

in the country. How does that happen? He goes, well, just one thing about it. He goes along with Pender, he takes all of Pendergast's guys that he wants jobs. Yeah. Truman hires them, all these dead heads. Yeah.

But he said, the bigger thing was that I saved millions and millions of dollars. He didn't let them steal. Yeah, right. Yeah. And so he felt that was a higher calling than hiring these deadheads. Well, we have this sense that like American politics today

is corrupt and the system is rigged, but, and we look back at Truman and FDR and Johnson as this sort of golden age, and it's like, it was laughably corrupt and rigged. Like, we talk about stealing elections today. They used to actually be stolen. Chicago and New Jersey and Brooklyn and all those places with the big city bosses.

Yeah. They were all- Basically the mob. Yeah, right the big city bosses. Yeah. They were all- Basically the mob. Yeah, right. And controlling politics. Yes. So how does Truman, so do you think Truman just kind of compartmentalized it,

or was he actually savvier and shrewder than maybe we give him credit for? I think a little of both, frankly. He thought he was doing the greater good by saving money and doing great, he did the road system in Missouri. And he was very proud of that. And he became an administrator of the road.

And yeah, he put those, the guys that he had to hire, you know, on the side, he paid them their salaries. Yeah. But, you know, he felt he had gone beyond that, that it was more important to do what he was doing. But he cut a lot of corners, you know, with Pendergast. And then he was loyal to him. Yes.

When Pendergast died, he went to the funeral. Yeah, we talked about all the things that are happening the days that Truman is becoming president. And one of those things is that his political boss dies and he goes to his funeral. He goes to his funeral. And I got a lot of criticism for that. They got Pendergast on tax fraud, obviously,

just like every other kind of scandal gets him. He was in jail. A great photo of Pendergast is in the book at the height of his power in 1936 with a big bros in his lapel with Truman, with Truman. And he kind of wants, I sort of made up that Truman becoming the Senator was a way of Pendergast getting him out of his hair. Like in Washington, Truman, if you're appointing someone to,

if you're rigging the political system and you wanna control local patronage and jobs and money, Truman's a perennial pain in your ass. You want him as far away from you as possible. I never thought of that, but that may be exactly right. And after, you know, his first term as Senator, but his second term as Senator, Pendergast was in jail. He couldn't help him at that point.

He has to win on his own. And he had to win on his own. He had to deal with Roosevelt, who wanted another guy to be Senator. One other thing that just is amazing about Truman's 48 election, just made me think about it, is he had to deal with the entire Roosevelt family

who did not want him to run as the Democratic candidate in 1948 because they thought he would lose. Who did they want? They wanted Eisenhower and three of FDR sons were outwardly, you know, trying to dump Truman and get Eisenhower. And Eisenhower didn't do the Sherman-esque thing until the very end.

And so Jimmy Roosevelt had a real confrontation with Truman over it. And Truman said, you know, if your father knew what it. And Truman said, you know, if your father knew what you were doing to me, you know, he asked me to be president and I took the job. I didn't want the job. And he would roll over in your grave. He knew what you were doing to me.

Yeah. It was a famous, but even Eleanor did not want him to run. And she kind of hid it. Yeah. The whole Roosevelt family was against him in 48. And then they eventually changed their mind. Guy Raz's How I Built This is a podcast where each week he talks to the founders behind the world's biggest companies

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But it's just like, it's been done. You know, I didn't want to, I was like, I don't want to be a follower. Hi, I'm Jason Concepcion. And I'm Shea Serrano, and we are back. We have a new podcast from Wondery. It's called Six Trophies. Woo!

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through all the craziness. Follow six trophies on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts, listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Both Marshall and Truman are such great men. There is a fear I have when I read about them. That there's gonna be something, you know? Like, I just hope there's not this secret

that's gonna come out, that's gonna change everything. You know what I mean? Oh, about them? About them, yes. That myth will meet the man and the man will be revealed. Was there ever a secret about Marcus Aurelius? Well, there's a few good examples. I mean, well, the big one for Marcus Aurelius

is that his son Commodus is about as bad as a bat of an emperor as there possibly could be. And Marcus Surilius allows him to succeed him. I don't know what he could have done about it, but it's pretty bad, right? So I think if somehow like at Pompeii right now, they're unveiling all these secret manuscripts that were trapped in the ash, right?

They're being able to read these century old papyrus fragments and it's incredible. Let's say we were to find out that Marcus Aurelius was actually a terrible father, that might change it for me. Or Marcus Aureliius' philosophy teacher, Junius Rusticus, is the adjudicator of the case of Justin Martyr, who's, you know, the word Martyr comes from Justin Mark.

You know, but he sentences all these Christians to death, somewhat unjust, I mean, very unjustly. There's a few things here or there, but I guess, 2000 years ago, I'm much more lenient about personal flaws than I am, someone that lived, when my grandfather was alive, right? So there is something, but I mean, reading your books and what I've read, I think that is kind of

the remarkable thing about Marshall and Truman. The more you read about them, the more you admire them. Or did you find anything that changed fundamentally your respect or admiration for them? You know, if there were to be somebody, some kind of scandal that would come out, versus Marshall versus Truman, it would be Truman. I can't imagine Marshall ever,

ever from the time he was seven years old or whatever, would have done anything that would be a scandalous. Yeah, there's just this sort of, in some, in many respects, they were greater than their times. And then there's a few instances where they very much were men of their times, which you talk about in both books. And now we're looking for men like them. Yes.

Men or women like them. And it's, you know, no one can come up with anything when it comes close to it today. Well, another way that they both come together, which I talk about in the Justice book, which I think is a scandal or a secret that made me think very differently of Eisenhower is the decision, so for people who don't know,

so Joseph McCarthy wasn't just framing random, innocent people and accusing them of communists. He was this deranged maniac who was accusing preposterously high level people of being communist sympathizers or agents. And at one point he accuses Marshall, the person who does more than anything to save Western civilization of being this communist agent.

And there's a moment where Eisenhower is supposed to defend Marshall. In a speech. In a speech with McCarthy on stage behind him. And the governor. And the governor and his courage or loyalty or, I don't know what you want to call it. They convinced him to take it out.

Take it out of the speech. Yes. And Truman never forgives, Truman doesn't forgive Eisenhower for betraying Marshall. And Mrs. Marshall Yes. Won't forgive Eisenhower either. Right.

But Marshall forgives Eisenhower. Really? Oh yeah. Yeah, he said it's politics, you know, but Truman did have a breach with Eisenhower. Largely over that, right? I mean, there's many things that happened in the campaign. And Eisenhower had good reason to dislike Truman

because during the campaign in 52, Truman called Eisenhower morally corrupt. He called him a traitor, you know, and mentioning the Marshall thing. So he said some bad things. So they had a real rift, but they ended up bearing the hatchet. So we talked at the beginning,

we were saying that Truman's probably one of the only presidents to actually be a good husband and loyal to his wife. What do you make of the anecdote, which Truman claims that he personally deletes or tears up the evidence that Eisenhower had an affair during the war. I never, no, that he tore that up?

Yeah, it's in one of his files and Truman says, I went in there and I got rid of it because he was protecting Eisenhower. Truman also claims, Ray, that he offered the presidency to Eisenhower. He also, Truman also claims, Ray, that he offered the presidency to Eisenhower. I mean, people knew that Eisenhower was having an affair with Kaye Summersbee. Marshall knew it.

And it was all around Washington. So tearing up what? Tearing up what? Summersbee wrote a book about it. She wrote a book about her affair with Eisenhower. So I questioned whether Truman tore up the only document that, you know, if that's what you're saying.

I mean, that's what he said. Do you think he offered to step aside for Eisenhower, like he claimed? Well, there's two different ones. When he was at Potsdam, he went over to the headquarters and this was 1945, well before the next election and so forth. And he did say, if I can do anything for you Eisenhower,

and he did say, if I can do anything for you Eisenhower, meaning help you become president if you wanna be, I will do it. It's a pretty remarkable thing. Meaning you could be, I'll step aside and not run in 48. And Eisenhower kind of laughed it off because who knew whether he was a Republican or a Democrat. But later, he allegedly made the same offer to him later. And again, Eisenhower brushed it off.

Yes, he did. Talk about, you know. Yeah, to me, there's no better qualification for being president than a willingness to step aside for the good of the country or what have you. Because his approval ratings were way down because of all the strikes and everything it was happening at home, the inflation and so forth.

Inflation was a big deal at that time. I wonder, and I wonder how much of this for Truman is like a grand gesture, nodding back to Cincinnati. Like, you know, he had that love of history. There's probably something in him that felt the power in giving power away, that gesture. I mean, obviously Washington does this. Yeah.

He did have a, he had a sense for the theatric in that sense, the sort of great moments of history. I think he did want to be that. And Eisenhower was the national hero. Yes. He was George Washington of his time, you know. Yeah. Well, you know, so in Marx's realises-

Marshall not. So Hadrian selects Antoninus to adopt Marcus Aurelius. The problem was that a previous potential successor for Hadrian had had a son. So the man had died and the son was there. So there's kind of these two potential heirs to the throne. And they're sort of both groomed, again, life expectancy at that time, it's nice to have a spare, right?

And so when Marcus Aurelius is named emperor, there is this pesky thing, this man named Lucius Verus, who's younger than Marcus, but actually has a more legitimate claim to the throne than he does. So Marcus is now faced with this dilemma, like at a game of Thrones or something. And you know what he does?

He names Lucius Verus co-emperor in a nod to how in the Republican Rome, there had been two consuls who ruled jointly. And so, yeah, the first thing Marcus Aurelius does with power and with absolute power is give half of it away. And I think- And what happened? They rule equally as co-emperors for many years

until ultimately Lucius Verus dies first. Of natural causes. Of natural causes, yes. Probably of the plague. But it is kind of interesting to think, you know, Truman finds himself suddenly the president and almost immediately is thinking, is there someone more qualified than me?

I'll give it to them. You know, like he's thinking about giving, it is pretty, so not only it doesn't corrupt, but it doesn't, but the opposite is true. It doesn't, he's willing to give it up, which is probably what made him great. And I think of that moment, he's asked, you know, what he does his first day out of office.

And he says, I took the suitcases up to the attic. I just have quickly- The grips. Yeah, the grips, which means, that's attic. I just have quickly- The grips to the attic. Yeah, the grips, which means, that's what he would call a suitcase, right? Yeah, right. That's what they used to call it. Yeah.

Cause they didn't have wheels. In Missouri. They didn't have wheels back then. Right. But the effortlessness with which he returned to civilian life is pretty fascinating to me. Yeah, yeah. Walking through the streets of independence,

writing his memoirs, that was a real problem. Yeah. You know, he had lots of trouble with that. But the museum and the library was his pet thing. I loved it when, during later in life, when Nixon was president, Nixon wanted to come to the library

and he wanted to present Truman with the piano that he had used when he was in the White House. And Truman said, I don't want that son of a bitch. Yeah, he hated Nixon. He said he hated Nixon. He saw through Nixon like nobody else at that time. And Bess, however, said, no, we gotta, yeah, he's the president, we gotta invite him. So they have this great photo where he stands,

Truman has a cane. He's looking over the shoulder and Nixon is playing the piano that he brought and he's playing the Missouri Waltz. And Truman says, I hate that song. You know, another thing he did with Kennedy that I, you know, he wouldn't go to the convention in 1960. And you know, he's the former Democratic president.

He said, because Kennedy's father had it rigged. Yeah. You know, it's the first time I heard that. Rigged, you know, now that we're hearing true. Yeah, he had this remarkable sense. Who's the, who was, he's one of the wise men, I'm forgetting his name, Harriman. Yeah.

You know, Harriman, you know, wants to be president very badly. And Truman says, yeah, Truman says something like, it's not his fault his dad was a pirate and a robber baron. Like Truman had just a sort of like a real sense of who was crooked and who wasn't and who was like, you know, he, you know, even in the famous Truman commission, you know, he,

I think it's almost like he, because he came from that political boss era, he did kind of know how the bodies were buried and he knew how the system worked. And he had a real eye for people of bad character, people of bad morals. I think that's why he saw through Nixon. He just had a real folksy but astute eye

for who was on the up and up. And he wasn't. He knew Joe Kennedy, I think. Yeah, he knew he was a bootlegger and an asshole and all these other things. All right, well, last thing about Truman, and then I wanna go show you some books, and I have something very special to show you,

because I have some Truman mementos in my office. Oh my gosh. But, talking about flaws. Truman's one flaw, I would say, tell me what you think, Truman has an anger problem. Truman has a temper and his handful of mistakes as president are rooted in losing his cool. Well, yeah, I would say also he made big mistakes

because he didn't read documents that were given to him. Lend-lease with the Soviets for one thing. The biggest mistake I think that he made was when he tried to do an October surprise. And of course, in the face of Marshall, he was desperate to win the election against Dewey. In October of 1948, he decided to ask a Supreme Court justice, his friend, to go to Moscow,

to meet with Stalin and try to settle the differences without telling Marshall. Yeah. So anyway, that's a big mistake. Yes, he did have an anger problem and that caused a lot of problems. But a lot of that stuff was because of it, of what they said about his family,

Margaret being the main one. The letter he writes to the New York Times reporter who reviews her as a musician. That's right. And he is desperately trying to defend Margaret's, Singing ability? Her singing ability and the fact that she, couldn't carry a tune.

Yeah. Or allegedly was always flat. I think I have one of her books here somewhere. But yeah, like Lincoln would famously write letters, very angry letters about people he didn't like or things he was upset about, but he never seemed to send them. And I feel like Truman's problem was he put them in the mail.

Right, right. And he confronted physically reporters. Of course, he confronted Jimmy Roosevelt too. So he had these angry outbursts. And yes, he couldn't control his temper. There's this stoic line Seneca says like, the greatest empire is command of oneself. Yes.

He was talking about how there's emperors or kings or very powerful people who they command enormous territory or armies, but then they're slaves to their passions or their angers. And I think there's something in that of Truman, not in a hugely damaging way. He doesn't start wars over petty grudges or anything, but he had trouble going,

I'm the president of the United States. I'm much more powerful than a New York Times music critic. I have to just sit there and endure this negativity. I can't respond with the full weight of my anger and frustration as a parent and president in this moment. And after he told Oppenheimer, Oppenheimer said, I have blood on my hands in this famous conversation in the White House.

And then after he left, you know, Truman said, don't let that son of a bitch in this office again. Yeah. I'm not sure that's actually what he said. It's based upon sources. Would have been worse? Well, it could have been worse. Or he might not have said it, I don't know.

Sure. Yeah, but he would get angry and it would sometimes blind him to the bigger picture. Right. Right, and stoicism, I assume, is you're not supposed to get angry. Well, I think to me, stoicism, it's not that you shouldn't get angry.

It's that you shouldn't do things out of anger. So I make a distinction, you know what I mean? The distinction between, I think if anyone attacks your children, you're gonna get upset. But then you have to decide what the proper way to respond to your hits or what the office demands of you.

Write the email, but don't. Don't send it. Don't send it. Yeah, let it sit in the desk drawer. Well, I loved this new book. I was very excited that you were writing about Truman and I loved the Marshall book. And now I'm curious to see where we both

and who the next person that we both lock onto will be. I don't know. I haven't decided yet. Me neither. Yeah, okay. Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and would really help the show.

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