Prologue: Pieces of History

This self portrait, with carefully groomed mustache in the center, is a glamorous photo of a hardworking, groundbreaking photographer. James Stephen “Steve” Wright was from a working-class family in Washington, DC. By the 1940s he was head of photographic operations for the Federal Works Agency.

But like many young black men at the time, he began at the very bottom of the career ladder, working at the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works (FEAPW) as a messenger and chauffeur. However, unlike other young black men at time, Wright worked for FEAPW Administrator Harold Ickes, who fought battles over segregation and discrimination, and who hired like-minded people into his agency. Wright moved on to assembling newspaper clippings and eventually was recruited by the FEAPW photographic head Hyman Greenberg.

In an interview with Nicholas Natason, Wright recalled that “In those days, it was tough for a black man even to become a file clerk in the government . . . You had to mind your P’s and Q’s, because there were lower-level whites who resented the fact that you were doing photography at all and were waiting for you to stumble.”

Steve Wright, precedent-setting photographer for New Deal agencies and the Department of State, shown during his Federal Works Agency days.

But Wright was extremely good at his job; he was efficient, diplomatic and organized. As the New Deal picture units began to consolidate in the Federal Works Agency (FWA) photographic section, he traveled the country taking pictures for several agencies at the same time.

At 27, Wright became the Photographic Section head. He coordinated an operation that generated over 2,400 images a day. His six-man unit included another black photographer, Randolph MacDougall.

He also tackled a workflow problem that was racially charged: distributing the assignments. He told Natason that “I wanted to avoid the problem that Roger Smith faced at the OWI [News Bureau] where he was expected to do only the black coverages, and then felt that his work was being sabotaged [by whites] in the lab.” Instead, Wright arranged the workflow so that assignments were given to the photographer who was available at that moment, and that same photographer also did all the lab work. The subject matter—black or white—was not considered in the assignment.

Wright avoided being pigeonholed into photographing only black subjects, or photographing news from a “black angle” only. In 1945, he moved to the photographic lab at the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), where he was one of the photographers loaned to the Department of State to cover the United National Conference on International Organization in San Francisco. Wright covered the full range of signing and speeches by all delegates. His skin color made him stand out: “In a way, being black was an advantage because I was noticed immediately, and if I was going to encounter a problem from security people, it was going to happen early on and get worked out then and there. So after the first day, everyone knew me and I went wherever I wanted.”

The assignment led into a 25-year career at the State Department. In 1957, Wright was appointed as Photographic Branch Chief by Fernleigh Graninger. He created State’s first central file on diplomatic personalities, events, and facilities.

Wright’s contribution to the State Department was enormous. Wright and fellow black photographers Robert MacNeill and Whitney Keith created over a third of the 100,000 images taken for the State Department from the late 1040s to the mid-1970s.

This blog post was adapted from Nicholas Natason’s article “From Sophie’s Alley to the White House: Rediscovering the Visions of Pioneering Black Government Photographers” in the Summer 1997 issue of Prologue magazine.

Today’s guest post is from Sherri DeCoursey, who used the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library to find a special piece of history for her father.

Forest Delano Roosevelt Ferguson holds his prized possession: a photo of FDR and a letter from the President's secretary.

For as long as I can remember, a photo of FDR and a letter have hung side-by-side in the den of Mom and Dad’s home.  The yellowed letter, written by FDR’s secretary Missy LeHand, was in response to a letter my father wrote the President in 1941. My dad—Forest Delano Roosevelt Ferguson—was eight years old in 1941. Dad will be 80 in June of this year.

Letter from Missy LeHand, FDR's secretary, replying to the letter sent by 8-year-old FDR Ferguson

As familiar as that letter and the President’s photograph were to me, what I had never even pondered until last year was what my father wrote in his letter to FDR.

While visiting my parents in the fall of 2012, I looked at the framed letter and photograph and asked Dad what he included in his letter to the President. He couldn’t recall the details. Who could after 72 years? I continued to ponder what my father as a boy might have written.

What would an eight-year-old Forest Delano Roosevelt Ferguson write to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt? Perhaps about school? The farm? Family or friends? War? What it was like to grow up in Arkansas? Would any parts of Dad’s personality that I knew so well as an adult be emerging or evident when he was child? What did his handwriting look like?

Wouldn’t it be amazing, I thought, to have a glimpse of my father at such a young age—however small that glimpse was—if only to expand what I already knew about him as a father, business professional, family provider, veteran, jokester, and as we’ve grown older—a friend. What in the world would eight-year-old Forest Delano Roosevelt Ferguson have to say to the man running the country during such perilous times?

Seventy-two years after my father penned his letter, I discovered the answer to these questions in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library.

With Dad unable to recollect exactly what he wrote to the President, the mystery rooted in me and started sprouting. What if I could find that letter after all these years? During an Internet search, a website for the FDR Library and Museum appeared. “The perfect starting point,” I celebrated. “They have archives! I wonder if . . . oh, probably not. But maybe. Worth a try.”

I sent an email to the archival contact listed on the web site and waited. Within a week and a half, my inbox had a message waiting for me. I opened “Response From FDR Library Inquiry” and read the first paragraph.

Thank you for your recent message to the FDR Library regarding your father’s 1941 letter to President Roosevelt. I am happy to say that we located his letter, along with an enclosed photograph, and the carbon file copy of Missy LeHand’s reply. . . . This correspondence is a wonderful example of the affectionate mail FDR received from children, and the letter dates to the time of Roosevelt’s unprecedented third inauguration.

I cried as I opened the first attachment that Kirsten, the digital archivist, found and sent.  Immediately, my father’s original letter appeared on screen. His eight-year-old penmanship was, without doubt, the same penmanship I recognized from countless birthday cards and letters my father has written me over 46 years. Always block print, never any cursive.

FDR Ferguson's letter was still in the holdings of the FDR Library, more than 70 years later.

The second attachment contained a black-and-white photo of my father that he sent the President. He looked like he belonged in a “Little Rascals” episode as he stood between two yucca plants and grinned, his head tilted down. He had forgotten that he included a photo of himself for FDR.

FDR Ferguson's older sister took this photograph.

I thought of waiting until Christmas to surprise Dad with his letter and photograph, but couldn’t wait. Instead I made an impromptu trip to Memphis to “visit.” On the first night as we chatted in the den, I asked Dad if I could take a photo of his framed LeHand letter and FDR photograph for a friend back home who was teaching civics and was going to be covering Roosevelt. “She’d love to be able to show the kids a copy of this to encourage them to communicate with their legislators,” I fibbed.

“Want me to take it off the wall for you?” Dad said, already on his feet and moving toward the frame. He removed the framed items from the wall and sat down again on the couch with the frame against his chest, LeHand’s letter and FDR’s calm gaze facing me.

“That’s perfect, Daddy,” I said and pulled out a camera from my bag and began to take photos of him with his treasured correspondence. I put down the camera.

“Ok, Daddy, I need you to pass the frame to Mom now and let her hold it,” I said. “And now, I want you to take a look at these and tell me what you think.” I handed him two sheets of paper, print facing down. “What do you think of this?”  I picked up the camera again.

Dad turned the sheets over, immediately recognizing the top one as his letter to the President dated March 3, 1941. Silence. One hand moved to his mouth. Silence. Dad at a loss for words. The child who was spanked in first grade for talking too much, now speechless.

“It’s my letter,” he finally said, as I pulled out an additional copy for Mom to see. “How in the world.” A pause while he reread the letter. “That’s my writing,” Dad said softly.

Mom agreed. “That’s definitely your writing,” she said. “Look at how the writing slants down to the right. Even today, when you write anything it always slants down toward the bottom right-hand side of the page.”

“There’s more,” I said, and Dad looked at the second sheet, the photograph of himself at eight years old. He was flabbergasted that the FDR Library had retained his correspondence after all these years. A week later when he called the library to thank Kirsten, she shared that Missy LeHand was known for her respect of Presidential communications and her understanding that those communications should be kept for posterity.

FDR Ferguson, the original response, and his copy of the letter he wrote.

Dad’s letter and photograph sparked memories for him. He recalled writing the letter on the stone fireplace hearth inside his family’s small farmhouse on Blockade Hill. He chuckled at the reference to Miss Don, his elder sister and the teacher who gave him that first grade spanking for talking too much. When Dad shared the letter recently with 92-year-old Aunt Don, she said she didn’t remember spanking him, but Dad assured her that indeed she had. “The spanker may forget, but never the spankee,” he said.

We laughed about him signing his name as F.D.R. Ferguson and not sharing that his first name was actually Forest, not Franklin, and how it only made sense that LeHand’s response was addressed to Franklin. He looked at the photo of himself and noticed that far in the background there was an outbuilding, the old cow barn. Dad didn’t recall the photo being taken, but Aunt Don shared that she had taken it with the Kodak camera she purchased with her teacher’s salary. That same camera is now an heirloom in the possession of Don’s daughter.

A little boy’s letter and photograph from 1941. My love and admiration for my father today. My curiosity about who my father was as a child. All of these reconnect and reverberate in 2013 because of the FDR Library’s understanding that correspondence and photographs and all types of personal expressions have validity and significance—contributing not just to national history or a president’s legacy, but also to celebrating the personal histories of United States citizens.

Dad continues to marvel to this day that a letter from a “little country boy eight years old” was not only retained, but also found and returned to him so many years later. In appreciation of the FDR Library and as a 2012 Christmas gift to my parents, I made a donation to the library—celebrating the spirit of Christmases past in a way. One good deed always deserves another, and I hope others reading this story consider supporting the good work of this deserving organization.

Recently a Facebook friend shared a post about a daughter’s school assignment which required her to list the top three things she would do if she could travel backward in time. The child included in her list, “Meet my parents when they were my age.”

And that made me smile because, in a way, I did.

Today’s blog post comes from Susan K. Donius, Director of the Office of Presidential Libraries at the National Archives. This post originally appeared on the White House blog.

Last month, President Obama began his second Inaugural Address by saying, “Each time we gather to inaugurate a President we bear witness to the enduring strength of our Constitution.” President Obama’s words resonate as the anniversary of George Washington’s birthday approaches on February 22, popularly known as Presidents Day.

Over two centuries ago, on April 30, 1789, George Washington delivered his first Inaugural Address knowing that he had little to guide him in the job that lay ahead but the principles stated in the Constitution.  The Articles of the Constitution had been debated, discussed, and agreed upon just two summers earlier by the delegates of the Constitution Convention, and were still untested.  Nevertheless, Washington was a strong supporter of the Constitution and would look to it for guidance in his unprecedented role as President.

During Washington’s first year in office, Congress ordered 600 copies of the Acts of Congress to be printed and distributed to Federal and state government officials. The book compiled the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and other legislation passed by the first session of Congress.

George Washington’s personal copy of the Acts of Congress contains his own handwritten notes in the margins. The notes provide insight into his crucial role in the implementation and interpretation of the Constitution and the establishment of the new American government.

George Washington’s personal copy of the Acts of Congress. His signature appears inside. Printed by Frances Childs and John Swaine and bound by Thomas Allen in 1789. Courtesy of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association.

Washington rarely wrote on the pages of his books, and the presence of his distinct handwriting makes the historic volume even more remarkable. Customarily, Washington preferred to take notes on a separate sheet of paper, which he would insert into a book. But in his copy of the Acts of Congress, he not only wrote directly in the margins but also drew brackets next to the passages of particular interest to him.

Only three copies of this book are known to have survived: Washington’s copy and the copies belonging to Thomas Jefferson and John Jay. After his two terms in office, Washington brought the book home to Mount Vernon. It stayed in the Washington family until 1876 and then passed through a series of collectors.

Last year, the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association secured the book at an auction, bringing it back to George Washington’s home. It is now on display at Mount Vernon in Virginia through Presidents Day.  Beginning in March, Washington’s Acts of Congress will travel the country and visit the 13 Presidential Libraries of the National Archives through a partnership with Mount Vernon.

George Washington's bookplate, which he pasted inside the front cover of the Acts of Congress. The armorial bookplate features the Washington family coat of arms, with three five-pointed stars above two horizontal bars. The flag for the District of Columbia is based on the Washington family coat of arms. Courtesy of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association.

In George Washington’s first Inaugural Address he referred to the new government as an “experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.” Fifty-six Presidential inaugurations later, Barack Obama spoke of the Constitution as an enduring framework for our government. The opportunity to see Washington’s Acts of Congress, complete with his carefully penciled notes, provides a rare glimpse into history that is as relevant today as it was 224 years ago.

The nationwide tour of the Acts of Congress is also an opportunity to reflect on the Presidency and to wonder what it would feel like to take on the role of Commander in Chief. We’ve put together a gallery of inaugural moments that feature holdings from the 13 Presidential Libraries.

And while there are no photos of America’s first Presidential inauguration, we’ve included pages from George Washington’s first Inaugural Address from the holdings of the National Archives, as well as Washington’s historic copy of the Acts of Congress, courtesy of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association.

Learn more about the Acts of Congress at Mount Vernon: http://www.mountvernon.org/actsofcongress/

The Acts of Congress at the Presidential Libraries of the National Archives: www.archives.gov/exhibits/acts-of-congress/

Page one of George Washington’s First Inaugural Address. National Archives, Records of the U.S. Senate. 4/30/1789. Transcript: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/american_originals/inaugtxt.html

Page eight of George Washington’s First Inaugural Address. National Archives, Records of the U.S. Senate. 4/30/1789. Transcript: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/american_originals/inaugtxt.html

Invitation to the 1949 Inauguration of Harry S. Truman addressed to The President and Mrs. Truman. President Truman’s handwritten inscription at top right reads, “Weather permitting I hope to be present. H.S.T.”

President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon leaving National Presbyterian Church following a pre-inaugural service. The service took place before the private swearing-in ceremony. Inauguration Day fell on a Sunday in 1957, so Eisenhower repeated the oath-of-office the next day in the public ceremonies. Shown from left to right are: Barbara Eisenhower, John S.D. Eisenhower, Mamie Eisenhower, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Tricia Nixon, Pat Nixon, Richard Nixon with Julie Nixon standing in front of him, and Reverend Edward Elson. 1/20/57.

Herbert Hoover takes the oath of office from Chief Justice (and former President) William Howard Taft. 3/4/29.

Lyndon B. Johnson’s family bible. The text embossed inside the front cover reads, “This bible was used by Lyndon Baines Johnson when he took the oath as Vice President of the U.S., 1961, and as President of the U.S., 1965."

Franklin D. Roosevelt takes the oath of office at his first inauguration. The now famous line from his first Inaugural Address, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” actually received little reaction from the crowd. It was also during his first Inaugural Address that FDR proclaimed “This nation asks for action, and action now.” 3/4/33. In 1933, the 20th Amendment was passed to shorten the transition time between administrations. As a result, the official inaugural date was changed to January 20. Franklin D. Roosevelt became the last President to be sworn-in on March 4 for his first inauguration in 1933, and the first to take the oath on January 20 in 1937.

Richard Nixon takes the oath of office, administered by Chief Justice Warren Burger. 1/20/73.

This bible was used to swear-in Gerald R. Ford as Vice President and later as President. The black cover with gold text reads, “The Jerusalem Bible.” Shown below is the oath of office “cue card” used during the ceremony when Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as President. August, 1974.

George Bush reviews his speech at Blair House prior to his inauguration. A grandchild’s toy sits on the patio next to him. 1/20/89.

13. Draft of William J. Clinton’s Inaugural Address. The handwriting and editing marks on the page are President Clinton’s. The time stamp from this draft is 9:50am on the morning of inauguration day. 1/20/97.

14. Ronald Reagan gives the Inaugural Address from the U.S. Capitol. Before Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the 40th President, inaugural ceremonies at the U.S. Capitol faced eastward. When Ronald Reagan’s team from California came to scout the location, they immediately moved to switch the ceremony to the west side of the building. From the west vantage point, cameras could pan out to an open view of the National Mall and its monuments. Since then, every Presidential inauguration has taken place on the west front of the Capitol. 1/20/81.

John F. Kennedy’s reading copy of the Inaugural Address, page 13. On January 18, 1961, Ted Sorensen’s secretary typed a 14-page final version which was placed in a black three-ring binder. On the morning of January 20, Secret Service agents took the binder to the Capitol and placed it on President Kennedy’s seat. This is one of the pages President Kennedy read from at the lectern

16. Page two of the Reading Copy for George W. Bush’s second Inaugural Address. The underline marks were made by President Bush. 1/20/05.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter walk down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House during the 1977 Inaugural Parade. Jimmy Carter was the first President to exit the motorcade car to walk the parade. Since then, it has become a traditional part of the Inaugural Parade. 1/20/77.

18. Barack Obama pauses to look back at the scene before leaving the platform following the inaugural swearing-in ceremony at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Standing behind the President are First Lady Michelle Obama, daughters Malia and Sasha, and Marian Robinson. Official White House Photo. 1/21/13.

“I do believe before the day was over he did ask me to marry him and I thought he was just out of his mind.” Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” Taylor

LBJ sent this photo to Lady Bird during their courtship. The caption reads "For Bird--A lovely girl with ideals, principles, intelligence, and refinement from her sincere admirer, Lyndon" (Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library)

Two teenagers in love might exchange hundreds of texts on their phones. But during their two-and-a-half month courtship, Lyndon Baines Johnson and Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” Taylor were each writing a letter—and sometimes even two—every day in a constant overlapping correspondence between Washington, DC, and Karnack, Texas.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library is releasing love letters between the future President and the First Lady. Most of the letters have not been seen before by the public, and they offer a glimpse into the feelings and thoughts of the couple during this intense courtship.

It was a whirlwind romance. LBJ was 26, and Lady Bird was just 22 years old. They met in the office of a mutual friend in Austin, Texas, in September of 1934. Although LBJ had a date that night, he asked Lady Bird to meet him for breakfast. The breakfast date turned into a day-long affair as the pair drove around Austin.

LBJ even proposed! In an oral history interview, Lady Bird recalled, “I do believe before the day was over he did ask me to marry him and I thought he was just out of his mind. It was very—I’m a slow, considered sort generally, and certainly not given to quick conclusions or much rash behavior.”

Undeterred by her refusal, he introduced her to his family the next day. And when he had to drive home to Washington, DC, where he worked as a congressional aide, he dropped Lady Bird off in her hometown of Karnack, Texas, and met her father.

While Lady Bird remained hesitant at the speed of the courtship, her father seemed to approve of her suitor. According to Lady Bird, her father remarked: “You’ve brought a lot of boys home, and this time you’ve brought a man.”

Although she was more cautious—she wrote to LBJ that she wanted to wait six months before getting married—Lady Bird was certainly interested. Many years later in an oral history interview, she recalled that “The only thing I knew I didn’t want to do was to say good-bye to him and put him out of my life; that much I was sure of.”

A 1934 photograph of Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Taylor. In the corner, the inscription reads "With much love, Bird." (Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library)

LBJ returned to Washington, and the flurry of letters began. In less than three months, they had sent more than 90 letters, including pictures and books (even a congressional cookbook from LBJ). Despite this pace, the letters were not as immediate as texts. A letter sent from DC to Karnack took about two days, but a letter sent from Karnack to DC could take four. According to archivist Claudia Anderson, LBJ sometimes sent his letters by air mail or special delivery.

Anderson calls the letters during this courtship “ardent” rather than romantic. For her, the letters are fascinating for the glimpse they give into the future First Couple. “The letters show LBJ being really passionate about his job, and about helping people,” she says, noting that Lady Bird’s letter also reveal a love of flowers that that would become her well-known devotion to nature and beautification projects as First Lady.

But where Lady Bird was cautious, LBJ was determined to move ahead—or on without her. “Tell me just how you feel—give me some reassurance if you can and if you can’t let’s understand each other now,” he writes on September 15, just days after their first meeting. “I’m lonesome. I’m disappointed but what of it. Do you care?”

But Lady Bird could not be immediately persuaded. In her letter of November 8, she tries to explain her reluctance: “Darling, darling the reason I talk and act the way I do is because everybody is so constantly urging me to ‘wait two or three months,’ ‘wait-wait,’ ‘two months isn’t long enough to have known the man you’re to marry,’  ‘if he loves you he’ ll wait for you’—and so on until my head aches.”

But on November 17, 1934, Johnson and Lady Bird drove to San Antonio to “commit matrimony” as she would later describe it. Although LBJ had given her an engagement ring, they had no wedding bands picked out. Dan Quill, friend and Postmaster of San Antonio, bought a wedding band at the nearby Sears Roebuck for $2.50. And although she still had not made up her mind on the drive to San Antonio, Lady Bird decided to do it. They were married in front of a small group of LBJ’s friends at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in San Antonio.

The marriage lasted far longer than the engagement. LBJ and Lady Bird were married for 39 years until LBJ passed away in 1973. You can now read the letters on the LBJ Presidential Library web site.

Newlyweds Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson pose in a boat on the Floating Gardens in Xochimilco, Mexico, during their honeymoon, November 1934. (Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library)

Today’s blog post was written by Sam Rushay, a supervisory archivist at the Truman Presidential Library.

The application from Frances Curtis, part of the holdings of the Truman Presidential Library. Photo courtesy of the Truman Library.

In the late summer of 1945, Frances Sarah Curtis of Mt. Rainier, MD, applied for a White House pass. Curtis, a Treasury Department employee in the Bureau of Public Debt (BPD), had worked in the White House File Room for 10 days in June before returning to the Treasury Department.

Perhaps hoping for a permanent White House job, Curtis applied for a pass.

The U.S. Secret Service conducted a standard background investigation of Curtis. She did not receive a White House pass. Two reasons were given. The first reason was because she owed $100 in unpaid tuition to the Wilcox College of Commerce in Cleveland, OH, where she had taken secretarial courses from 1937 to 1939.

The second, more damaging, reason was the presence of her name on the mailing lists of the American Peace Mobilization (APM) and the Current Events Club, formerly the Council Education Alliance. The investigators note in the report that these “groups are considered Communistic in nature.” She had also contributed money to the APM. And while there was no evidence that she had ever attended any meetings, there also was “nothing to indicate that she was not active” with these groups. Known Communists had attended these meetings, although evidence suggested that Curtis herself was not a known Communist.

The evidence against Curtis was circumstantial and far from firm. The investigators report that “superficially, it appears that this applicant may have been directly connected with the Communist Party.” But they go on to state that “practically every person who has attended Glenville High School [which Curtis had attended], which is located in the Jewish Center of Cleveland, has, at one time of another, subscribed to one of these alphabetic groups, or at least put on their mailing lists.”

Page from the report on the application submitted by Frances Curtis. Photo courtesy of the Truman Library.

Frances Curtis had no police record, and her efficiency ratings as a typist at the BPD for 1944 to 1945 were “Very Good.” All of her personal references and employers submitted favorable information concerning her services, character, reputation, and loyalty to the U.S. Government. She was described as a single 26-year-old white female who lived with her parents.

There is no record that shows if Curtis was ever informed why she was denied a White House pass. Nor is there any indication that the Secret Service ever gave her an opportunity to explain her memberships. Curtis’s associations undoubtedly affected her career, even though she retained her job at BPD. This raises the question of how Curtis was too untrustworthy to receive a White House pass but trustworthy enough to continue her employment at the Treasury Department.

The investigatory memorandum for Curtis’s case reads as if it was written during the time of McCarthyism, although it predated that era by almost five years. During the Truman administration (1945–1953), the Secret Service denied few applications for White House passes. In one case, an application (file #5-P-2319) was recommended for a man who had been jailed for attempted rape in 1925.

The story of Curtis, who died in 1995, emerged from recently opened Secret Service records that are now available for research at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum. Her file, #5-P-2173, is one of thousands of background investigation files concerning applicants for White House jobs during the Truman administration.

George Drescher, a Secret Service supervising agent and author of the memorandum requesting a routine background investigation of Frances Curtis. Drescher is in the center of the photo, behind President Truman and Harry Vaughan, military aide to the President. Courtesy of the Truman Library.