Oversized vintage matte-finish 10.75 x 14.75 photo, signed and inscribed in ink “Kindest regards to Lt. Gen. J. E. Hull, Harry S. Truman.” Hull (1895–1975) was the Army’s Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations during World War II. In his 1966 history The Last Battle, Cornelius Ryan recounts that “On April 25 [1945] … Hull … was called into Pentagon office of General George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff. Marshall told him that President Truman was en route from the White House to the Pentagon to talk with Winston Churchill on the scrambler telephone…. Himmler’s secret proposals [for a negotiation] were supposed to be en route in a coded message from the American Ambassador in Sweden. Marshall told Hull to get the phone room set up and to find out right away from the State Department if the text of the message had arrived. ‘I phoned Dean Acheson at State,’ Hull said, ‘who told me that he knew nothing about any cable containing Himmler’s proposals. Actually, the message was then coming in to the State Department, but nobody had yet seen it…. When [Truman] got on the phone,’ recalls Hull, ‘the President did not even know what the German proposal was…. It was clear that Himmler wished to capitulate—but only to the Western Allies, not to the Russians….’” When Churchill asked Truman what he thought of the proposal, Truman replied, according to Hull, “‘We cannot accept it…. It would be dishonorable, because we have an agreement with the Russians not to accept a separate peace….’” In very good condition, with trimming as noted, scattered unobtrusive creases (touching signature), puncture to background at upper left (tape-repaired from reverse), and light silvering to dark portions. The writing is clear and dark. An association of uncommon interest in a photo of unusually generous proportions! Auction LOA John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and RRAuction COA.
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