Harry S. Truman

Harry Truman conducted private interviews in September, October and November 1959 with David Noyes, an unofficial advisor, and William Hillman, a writer and author of the Truman biography “Mr. President.” The interviews, totaling about 12-and-a-half hours, were intended to be used by Truman in writing his autobiography “Mr. Citizen.”

“I don’t know of anything better in the world that a man can do that’s more helpful to the welfare of the nation than to get the youngsters to understand what they have and what they have to do to keep it, but I try to impress upon them that they didn't get this form of government for nothing,” he said. “It was gotten through sweat, blood, and tears, the shedding of a lot of blood. In fact, we had to spend four years whipping ourselves before we made up our minds that we wanted this form of government. We’ve still got it. It’s still the best government in the history of the world, and it always will be if the youngsters want to keep it up on the basis on which it was founded.”

Marquette University professor Ralph E. Weber published the transcripts of the interviews in the 2001 book “Talking with Harry: Candid Conversations with President Harry S. Truman.”

In the book’s introduction, Weber writes that the interviews “revealed a vivid personal portrait of President Harry S. Truman—frequently, ‘warts and all.’ Thoughtful and detailed questions … elicited frank, and sometimes caustic, replies. Threads of Truman’s political loyalty, bluntness, frustration, family pride, decency, thrift, humanity, and humor became a tapestry of his Presidential character.”

Additional Interview With Harry Truman
Truman gave a one-hour interview to David Susskind at the Truman Presidential Library in 1961.

To learn more about Harry S. Truman, visit his profile on findingDulcinea.