is a former senior editor at the new yorker and jeopardy editor of the washington post's outlook section. currently contributed to the new yorker and has written for a washington post the wall street journal of guardian book forum vogue and other publications. is the author of i can dig portrait of strange political marriage? and has written for novels among them the washington trilogy. and his co-author with diana krone frank of a translation of hans christian andersen stories that won the 2014 hand christian andersen cries. i was latest book. trials of harry truman showing you here the extraordinary presidency of an ordinary man 1945 to 1953 simon issues to publication 528 pages illustrated and is 32 dollars and fifty cents. you will get a book plate until authors start coming around again into our studio. you will get a bookplate that's signed if you order a book from us, and you'll get one of these special booklets that are are ourselves alone. i love the dust jacket just the it's but i want to ask did the beatles steal this image? it's a wonderful. it's a wonderful picture. it's a little bit of a cheap because it was taken after he was president, but it was but there he is walking is in independence square and down to in downtown independence when and and that's that's the that's the way that's the way he appeared if you were lucky enough to have a site he wasn't out all the time people tourists would have loved to have seen more of him, but he wasn't gonna go out and walk around for them. we were speaking before our show and that we noticed the period after the yes, which we never thought was there. but you tell us that. he had done that once and the truman library things. this is correct. well, i asked them i said there's been can we settle this once and for all or at least sell it temporarily? they said no, there's just a lot of evidence that that the yes the first place that children actually signed his name with. yes. sometimes his name would all get scrunched together and you couldn't see but but i think it's the preponderance of the evidence as that the esplan he actually does not stand for any particular name, but who would go to to to grandparents? and but that's but that's but they were real people and so so s and the s without appearing would have just look completely the odd so that's why i think truly sorry putting it in so that's all i can say. but anyway, i go along with the archivists and independence and i found this jeff excellent read really was especially with all the quotes that help the narrative move along. so i enjoyed reading from things that behind the scenes when i was a child, so it's kind of interesting to have delved into this now. i wanted to ask you there are many many books on harry truman. yeah many no david mcculloch's especially what brought you to this book why truman now, and how does this book differ from? previous books on harry truman. well at dana mccullo's book was a biography of true and this is a biography of a presidency. so in that sense, it's a more limited more limited book even though i do have a long prologue which brings him brings him brings him to the to the farm to world war one to the pendergast machine and so on but it's but and i think it's it's also i realized more and more as i thought about it. well two things one that i had finished this on eisenhower and nixon. i thought that and i was already and i found truman kept. showing up he was so in a sense truman was a natural prequel to the to the icon -- and also the i just thought everything our entire world came from that period and it was and i didn't realize it until i started getting into it. it was seven years this i i had cold feet more than once. this was just everything happened then everything happened. i mean the two wars ended the atom bomb was dropped for the first and i hope the last time ever nato was formed the civil right truman started began pushing for civil rights, even though he was not a great he was not a great job supporter of he was brought up in a segregation to slip it out a segregation is environment, but he did it anyway and everything. um everything we have today this and they say the alliance the and and the the sort of shape of american politics was sort of formed then too. we have the real the party. that doesn't doesn't anymore was but but you can see the you can sort of see the the new republican part of the goldwater party formed then after the 1948 convinced 48 election when the when when the south walked. and i know the democratic party and the republican party of his day. neither of them are the same today. no. no, so things have changed. what was his education you write that there were gaps. and where did those gaps reveal themselves were the consequences from that as his life went on. well, he was he really was a he really was an auto detect and ordered auto did act and he but he but he read and read and read that was really read history. he didn't always read it. the way we would read it, but he read it, but he read it. he read it with a extraordinary interest and i i found i found one letter what right in the middle of the korean war. he was suddenly he was suddenly discussing a sort of ancient battling greased. he just couldn't stop so he was so he was definitely someone he was and he was deeply engaged by the presidency. other former presidents sort of fascinated him and he would he would he would actually in his diary. he would write about it. i hear the ghost of of andrew johnson walking through the white house or this or that and he was and it was very very moving. he felt that he was part of this and he also felt that he also felt that he was in a way up separate separate from this. he also he would say that i i try to always remember that i'm harry truman and that there's the president and the second and the person sitting in his chair could be the president and so on he was separate himself from the office. he had real reverence for the office. you you just said something before about southern. qualities imbued in him we of course here at the abraham lincoln book shop studied the civil war. yeah, but truman's people lived through the confederacy and the war what southern thoughts that were imbued in truman when he was a kid of kansas nebraska troubles still resonated in his household going up. how did he get around there? well, he didn't i mean and i think that i think that he, you know on the farm and grandview was 40 miles from from lawrence kansas where they were quantrill had that massacre and he basically up in a house of confederate sympathies. he had confederate sympathies. but he but he he evolved as we would say today and he never he actually and he never he never he never evolved to the point where he wanted social equality with blacks and whites, but he but he wanted fairness. he wanted fairness between black and he wanted he wanted he wanted a fairness the law. he was deeply moved by the by the brutality by the lynchings in the south and by and and by a particular case where a gi coming back from the war was blinded intentionally blinded by a sheriff in south carolina, and that that got to him so and and so by 1947 despite the spice that complaints actually of one of his sisters who said who said harry will never do this sort of thing. he actually came out very strongly for some for what was then a real a real change in in civil rights? he's interstate people. state travel and and he and he actually appeared on the stage with owner roosevelt walter white the head of the double and naacp and hugo black and and this was a real step forward for him and then he actually commissioned a panel on civil rights. and so it was it was something for someone his background. he never got over his his attitudes. he never he never liked the idea of interracial marriage. he couldn't stand that but he but he wanted he understood he had a certain duty to history and he tried to do the right thing and he really wanted to do he wanted everyone to have an equal chance. that was that was real. there were of course. i was going to ask this later on but since you brought it up the minorities, how how often did he really interact with minorities? i'm thinking of two that really feature in your book one, of course our african americans you just spoken about that and how about the jewish population? he had a a partner who was jewish and that certainly interceded in certain areas when he was president, but did he have a life with minorities at all? well, well, he actually that he got to know catholic story the first world war and you know, i was he actually he actually almost joined the ku klux klan long before when he found out they didn't they didn't want to help catholics. he want to know no part of it. he had you he had lots of jewish friends. i found that was interesting thing. i don't have to use whether you spotted it. it was in the prologue and i i never cracked it down, but it was a story in the kansas city star. i guess right after he was elected to something maybe the judgeship and they said he would go to pass over in the independence where the jewish friend and this is this was i didn't know there already jewish people in independence and and he was so that was one of truman's friend and and his friendship with with eddie jackson was completely real he had no social interaction with blacks. yeah, i can see. none, he actually with his and his few he was he felt he felt friendly toward walter white. that's for sure and he felt extremely angry about adam clayton powell. because adequate and powell had called had referred to his best germanist the last lady not the first lady because because of something she had done. yeah, tell us about his character. he certainly was a direct person and usually honest i know that with abraham lincoln wore lamin one of his colleagues and private protector said that he could lincoln could stretch the truth when necessary. what about truman? what was his character like truman? certainly? no truman could stretch the truth, too. he would remember things that never happened. i i was fascinated to find in one of his late books. he would just he carefully described a conversation he had with roosevelt discussing just discussing history. he never roosevelt had never actually never had would have a conversation like that. they had one meeting together a lunch in august of in august of 1944 before the election. he would he would show up with the white house, but but would sort of wanted this to happen. he wrote about it as if it had happened to give i mean to i will say that it was many years later that he wrote about it, but he really wanted so that really meant a lot he would definitely stretch the truth he would all so inflate himself there. early, it was an early meeting with molotov. who was the foreign minister for this for the soviet union, and this was very soon after he became after roosevelt's death and he referred to a conversation. it was not a pleasant conversation, but truman said i was i gave my right left to the john put him down and and that that never happened one of his ace said true. we did have this capacity to sort of inflate his his his what what he said and did in private and he could stretch the truth someone too, but he was but deep down he was an honorable man. and that's the thing about that. that's why you that's why you that's why you end up like that's why i ended up liking him. he is character about being so direct that that get in conflicts with others because of that they couldn't see past that. it's sure i mean he he was also but it also it also helped him it helped him with the voters sometimes and so on and he and of course, of course his directness his temper could also got get him in trouble. i was i i when i was i was at the washington post when paul hume was still alive, and i never asked him about that famous letter that truman said to him, so i was speaking about another example of directness. he was he certainly was he and again he would he would inflate himself and that there's no question in in the potsdam conference after the war when he met with with churchill and the stalin in in potsdam and he would in his diary he would and his letters he would say i told sal and this and i would tell him where to get off and he got off. well if you look at the transcripts of the other of the potsdam conference, which are not perfect, but there's not a hint of any of any of that and and in fact, he was always full of nice things about stalin uncle joe. he always thought the stalin was was being run by this by this was serious politburo if stella was a and sort of helpless helpless, but before before their power, how did how did churchill and stalin treat him? i mean he was new to things. when he had to meet them at the beginning of his presidency and near the end of the war wasn't done yet, but so what how do they treat them? well, i think actually is it i think churchill got really mistreated by roosevelt and stalin in yalta. that was our work. they treated proven with greatness with great deference. he was the after all he was the president of these others wealthy powerful emerging i mean emergingly powerful instead of words that'll work a powerful nation, and it was something to really truman. i think churchill churchill really really found on truman for the future of england england with the united kingdom was dead broke and he actually said at one point, you know, we're going to need your help. it's i say i say it almost sounds like a senator from a state hit by a tornado asking for that asking asking for national emergency and stalin stalin. it's tough stalin. basically, i don't think stalin much liked it or had a great deal of respect for him, but he didn't he wouldn't become impatient with him particularly particularly during the prosper during the pot. that was the only time they ever met and he definitely got angry with him from afar because of after the his confrontation with his foreign minister malikov, and also he got very upset with truman understandably so in truman invited churchill to come to the states and and sat on the stage and affordable basically attack, russia, but job, but they were very but they were differential to them. they understood that the world had changed. and and they also understood that that that america had for a while america was the was the um, it was was the power america was the only nation that had an atomic bomb and that counted it for a lot. yeah. um, we you had a wonderful photograph in your book of lincoln in a car touring berlin. yeah reminded me very much of abraham lincoln. who toured richmond right after the war so well, the war was still going on but in he went there and beginning of late and the march beginning vapor april 4th to be exact. alright so i can only think of them watching that what were truman's thoughts on this visit to berlin. did he change anything? did it anger him? how did you feel? no, it's interesting. i was always kept hoping that he would say something really interested. he said it just shows when people it this kind of tragedy. he wasn't very interesting on the subject. he didn't seem terribly moved by what he'd seen either others were coming. germany. berlin was a was a was basically rubble and people were you can see this was some amazing footage from that period you can just watch people sort of lining up and passing food and water and bricks and so on and and i and churchill churchill actually rather enjoyed it i think as after having wedding been through sure i don't think and so it wasn't ever you can't i couldn't compare it to lincoln's visit to richmond first place lincoln was visiting the they were his countrymen still and he was that he was their president these this was the enemy that really hated enemy and and they had and so i think so. i think truman just said, well, you know, this is what this what happens if you overstep and as he thought they had in a bit he meet did he go through any of the camps at the time? no, no never i isaac howard. did eisenhower did the famous quote eisenhower came out this first time in turn to said do you hate them now talking about the germans right now? exactly. yeah, he wouldn't. yeah, i'm sorry. no i'm saying he wouldn't shake the hand of of the man who came this just bring me the peace treaty or he just he found a way to avoid that. country this you're talking about is character. what about his humor? i have a letter of his in our stock right now that does to roger tubby a friend of his and this is in 53 and and i must want to read this kind of quickly. i appreciate it very much. your first editorial which was not enclosed you instructed me to read it, but i didn't and i don't seem to have had an opportunity. and then he says on. because tubby was taking over the adirondack daily enterprise and he says in an autographed post-grip. be sure to pay a lot of attention to local situation parties weddings funerals valedictorians parent teaches associations. nice of columbus masons be personal and accurate and leave politics to national issues roger. this is an ignoramus talking to an expert. what was his humor like it comes through in this certainly? i think his fuel was all it was there. it was real he would he was great. it's a self. it's sort of delves self-deprecating himself, and he i think was one place where he talks about the the sort of the people a short turning out of to see the president when he comes to town is oh everyone's coming out to see the cardiff the cardiff giant when he shows up he sort of he sort of made fun of himself at this and the and and the idea the idea people going out to see a great man. so he had a great sense of humor and it came through all the time some of his and even and even unintentionally i i love that there were these two very powerful colleges joe alsop and stewart. i'll stop and for them as a soft sisters. and that's a very funny and here it was almost inadvertent, but he was he didn't like them, but still it's a great coinage and i thought he had he had that talent and here that you get to the presidency, which is your book basically the theme of it. tell us how he came up through the pendergrass machine and tom pendergrass and of course he got into the senate harshly because of them, but then seemed to be able to wean himself away from that the second term. how did he do that? how did he blossom in the senate? and was there anything you see there that from undergrass time to the senate that for shadow that he could be who became in the presidency? well, he yeah, i mean he was he was loyal to to the pendergast after he got after he won this his senate seat. he had a he put a picture of tom pettegast on the wall. and and he was that's that he'll he owed a lot of people for his first for his first sentencing. he owed a lot of a lot of people found votes where they might not have been but he but he i think his real and when he came to town he was he was really looking as a provincial in debt to the machine, but i think you know, i think his real. breakthrough his real he became a real senator in this in his second term, which he just squeaked by again. and that was when he that was when when he started the children committee, which was basically to look at waste and fraud in in the defense and that was before the war and then he kept up during the war too and and it was it saved millions of dollars and it was and it was a it was the real thing and he and he got he cover of time magazine as and he was so this this this truman committee was really something and that sort of made him a network much more of a national figure and that's and then he became a real a real senator doing, you know trying to trying to do trying to do real legislation passed and that was something that the first time you didn't see so much the first term