ALS signed “Harry,” one page both sides, 7.25 x 10.5, personal letterhead, May 13, 1961. Letter to his former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, in full: "I'm sitting here this Saturday morning at eleven o'clock wondering what you may be doing at the same time maybe two hours later by that God awful mixed up time under which we have to live.
You know it took about fifty or sixty years to arrange the time zones and now they mean not a thing. Maybe we should have a rod in our back yards with a couple of poles on each side of it, pointing to true north, if such there is, so we may be able to tell when it is noon by old sol. But I'm thinking of you, noon or one of two o'clock.
I've been reading Attlee's book and his opinions of some of his associates are as frank as I'd like to be about some of mine! Your statement about Iran, Central America and Cuba please me no end. You are as right as rain on 'Brains are no substitute for judgement.'
Sorry Washington is so depressed. I'm to be there May 27th & 28th. We must have a go around for the benefit of both of us. The autographed and inscribed copy of your book came and I've read it again, and believe it or not so has the 'Boss.' There has not been a better one on the people of your and my time.
Sometimes I wish I'd gone back (if I could) and sometimes I wish I'd taken the appointment as Senator from Missouri a short time ago. But, I'm glad now that it didn't happen in either case. Tell Alice her picture still hangs in my reception room right outside the door to the private office and hundreds of customers have commented on it favorably. Hope Alice will take it as a high compliment from the clod hoppers who come to see me. Their comments are worth more than Churchill's and all the modern artists, in my opinion." In very fine condition. Accompanied by a typescript of a letter written to Truman by Acheson on May 3, 1961, as well as a newspaper article portraying one of Alice Acheson's paintings, 'Bus Queue,' displayed in the Truman Library.
Writing just weeks after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, Acheson had provided Truman with a candid evaluation of the state of things in Washington. The typescript of his letter reads, in part: "Why we ever engaged in this asinine Cuban adventure, I cannot imagine. Before I left it was mentioned to me and I told my informants how you and I had turned down similar suggestions for Iran and Guatemala and why. I thought that this Cuban idea had been put aside, as it should have been...So far as I can make out the mere inertia of the Eisenhower plan carried it into execution. All that the present administration did was to take out of it those elements of strength essential to its success. Brains are no substitute for judgment. Kennedy has, abroad at least, lost a very large part of the almost fanatical admiration which his youth and good looks has inspired."
In Truman's reply, he echoes the idea that "Brains are no substitute for judgement," and mentions that he sometimes wishes he were back in Washington. Notably, Truman generally declined to comment publicly on matters of national security, leaving only his private letters to reveal his opinion on matters like the Bay of Pigs or Cuban Missile Crisis. While Truman would not return to Washington, President Kennedy did take on Dean Acheson as a special advisor, specifically during the Cuban Missile Crisis—gaining some of the experience and judgment that the administration may have lacked early on. A fantastic piece of correspondence between important American statesmen.
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