Transcript: Chapter 09

On July 18, 1944, when the Democrats convened in Chicago, the rumors that Harry Truman was going to be the next vice president were still just rumors. He had, in fact, arrived at the convention prepared to nominate another man.

"I don't want to be vice president," he would tell anyone who asked.

He was convinced that the president did not like him. But in 1944, the president would not dictate the choice for vice president. In the next few days, Harry Truman's fate would be decided by a group of powerful Democrats meeting behind closed doors.

DAVID MCCULLOUGH: The future of the country and his own immediate future and fate are all in the hands of forces beyond his control ... and he can't be anything but a kind of a chip on the surface of the water being swept along.

NARRATOR: As the convention got underway, the Democrats prepared to give their nomination for the fourth time to Franklin Roosevelt. Many of them already knew it would be the last.

The president was ill. Diagnosed with heart disease, he had never asked, and was never told, the extent of his illness. But those close to him were frightened by the deathlike pallor that shadowed the once ebullient face.

PAT HANNEGAN, Daughter of Democratic Party Chairman: It was not spoken of, the fact that Roosevelt might die. That was a deep, dark secret.

It was war time and no one wanted to talk about the president failing in any way....[but] I think that had to be behind everybody's minds.

HARRY BYRD, Senator: It was in the minds of many delegates that whoever was nominated for vice president could very well become president within the next four years. The entire focus of that convention was on who would be nominated for the vice presidency.

NARRATOR: The current vice president, Henry Wallace, was the man to beat. A champion of civil rights and labor, he was immensely popular with liberals, but conservative Democrats opposed him. Many of them turned to Jimmy Byrnes from South Carolina, a former senator and Supreme Court Justice. An avowed segregationist, he was unacceptable to liberals. With the democrats divided, party leaders were searching for a compromise. Party Chairman Bob Hannegan wanted neither Wallace nor Byrnes.

PAT HANNEGAN: My father and the other political advisors felt that Jimmy Byrnes would be a liability to the ticket. Southerners were a drawback at that time. Labor was not particularly fond of him. And my father was very concerned about Wallace as a possible president. He felt that he was sort of flaky. And from a politician's standpoint my father couldn't control him. So, my father felt that Truman would be somewhat blameless. That he would have no real drawbacks.

ALONZO HAMBY: So he emerges as a compromise candidate. "The Missouri Compromise," some people say. He has conservative friends.

Southerners like him. But he's been a good New Dealer. He's got labor union contacts. He emerges as the person everyone can agree on.

KEN HECHLER: It was simply, actually a dipping into almost the bottom of the barrel, you could almost say, to appoint as vice president, and to select as Vice president on the ticket, a man who didn't have anything against him.

CONVENTION SPEAKER: Ladies and gentlemen of the convention ...

NARRATOR: Unknown to the delegates, the party bosses were determined to make Truman vice president. Two weeks before, they had made a trip to the White House.

DAVID MCCULLOUGH: One July night in 1944, the big bosses met with Franklin Roosevelt and it was a very hot night, very humid with the long French doors open to the air and the curtain blowing and what little breeze there was, and they all sat around in their shirt sleeves, perspiring, talking about who ought to be the vice presidential choice. And the bosses all said it could not be Wallace, it could not be Byrnes, and it ought to be Truman. Roosevelt later told his son Jimmy that, in fact, he really didn't care. He was a tired, sick, ill man and his mind and what energy he had was all concentrated on the war.

PAT HANNEGAN: I think my father and other party leaders did the choosing and Roosevelt went along with it. I don't think he cared at this point. I think it was, I don't think it was a matter of great concern to him. If it had been, he would have known very well how to put the matter to rest.

NARRATOR: The most important Democrats were now lined up behind Truman, and at the convention, Bob Hannegan told the senator the vice presidential nomination was his.

PAT HANNEGAN: Once my father and his friends had pretty much set Truman up, then they had to convince Truman that he was going to run. And he was very much opposed to it, and he said he wouldn't do it.

PAT HANNEGAN: He didn't want to be president and he certainly didn't want to be president after Franklin Roosevelt. He didn't want to come in and try and have to fill those enormous shoes. He didn't think he was qualified to be the president of the United States. He was very happy where he was, in the Senate. He had gone through the trauma of the Pendergast years where his name had been rubbed in the mud along with Pendergast machine, and it hurt his family. He was a very devoted family man.

DAVID MCCULLOUGH: Bess had none of that kind of political ambition. She had no desire to see her husband become president. She certainly had no desire to be the First Lady. She didn't like the limelight and one of the reasons that they didn't want the nomination was a fear that her father's suicide would become public, that the country would find out that this disgraceful thing had happened in her past.

NARRATOR: But the momentum was building toward a Truman vice presidency, and Bess Truman would have to stand aside. On July 20, the party bosses summoned Truman to a suite in the Blackstone Hotel to listen in on a phone call that, unknown to the senator, they had rehearsed in advance with the president.

PAT HANNEGAN: My father got the president himself, President Roosevelt, to call him on the line and while he was on the line, he let Truman listen.

NARRATOR: The president's voice boomed so loud everyone in the room could hear:

"Have you got that fellow lined up yet?" the president asked.

"No," the president was told. "He is the contrariest goddamn mule from Missouri I ever dealt with."

"You tell the senator," Roosevelt said, "that if he wants to break up the Democratic party in the middle of the war, that's his responsibility." And then he banged down the phone.

"Well," Truman said, pacing up and down the floor, "if that's the situation I'll have to say yes. But why the hell didn't he tell me in the first place?"

ARCHIVAL SOUND ON FILM, CONVENTION ANNOUNCER: Harry Truman has received more than a majority. I do now declare him to be the nominee of the Democratic Party for vice president and the next vice president of the United States.

NARRATOR: On Friday, July 21, 1944, Harry Truman accepted his party's nomination for vice president.

PAT HANNEGAN: I think he was somewhat excited. I don't think Mrs. Truman was happy at all. I don't recall her ever smiling the whole time.

She was in a box not too far from us, and I don't recall any smiles down there. I think she was very unhappy about it.

ARCHIVAL SOUND ON FILM,TRUMAN: There's not much more that I can say to you except that I accept the honor with all the humility that a senator of the United States can assume in this position. Thank you very much.

NARRATOR: "After Dad's speech," Margaret Truman later wrote, "we were besieged by hordes of shouting, sweating photographers. Everyone wanted to touch us. Thankfully, the police formed a kind of phalanx around us, and we were able to get into a waiting car outside, where Mom looked at Dad, glared at him, and said, "Are we going to have to go through this for all the rest of our lives?"

As they headed back to Independence, Bess Truman refused to speak to anyone.

NEWSREEL OF TRUMANS READING LETTERS: Margaret: Dad, here's a nice letter from Marion.

TRUMAN: Oh, that's nice of Marion. You know I think Marion had a good time in Chicago. Here's one from your teacher, Miss Carr.

Margaret: Oh, Miss Carr.

TRUMAN: And here's one from Mr. Buger from St. Louis. Listen to what he says, "Please convey my congratulations to your loyal wife, charming daughter and dear mother -- whose great joy and happiness is shared by thousands of Americans. Isn't that nice?

Margaret: Certainly is.

PAT HANNEGAN: Once he was in it, he was all the way in it.

NEWSREEL OF TRUMANS READING LETTERS (SOF):

Margaret: Say Daddy, don't you wish you'd gone fishing last week.

TRUMAN: Well, I did go on a sort of fishing trip to Chicago, or at least it resulted that way.

PAT HANNEGAN: He was too much of a politician himself not to go for it all the way.

NARRATOR: Truman campaigned with his usual energy and determination, traveling thousands of miles, skipping meals, washing his socks in the basin of his sleeping car.

ALONZO HAMBY: He's designated as the party work horse. "This duty has been inflicted on me and I'm going to do it. But I'm apprehensive about the future."

NARRATOR: The night that Roosevelt and Truman were elected, Harry Truman could hardly sleep.

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