Dr. Benedict K. Zobrist Oral History Interview

Dr. Benedict K. Zobrist

NPS

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH DR. BENEDICT K. ZOBRIST

AUGUST 30, 1990
INDEPENDENCE, MISSOURI

INTERVIEWED BY JIM WILLIAMS
ORAL HISTORY #1990-6
This transcript corresponds to audiotapes DAV-AR #4135-4140

HARRY S TRUMAN NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

EDITORIAL NOTICE

This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for Harry S Truman National Historic Site. After a draft of this transcript was made, the park provided a copy to the interviewee and requested that he or she return the transcript with any corrections or modifications that he or she wished to be included in the final transcript. The interviewer, or in some cases another qualified staff member, also reviewed the draft and compared it to the tape recordings. The corrections and other changes suggested by the interviewee and interviewer have been incorporated into this final transcript. The transcript follows as closely as possible the recorded interview, including the usual starts, stops, and other rough spots in typical conversation. The reader should remember that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written, word. Stylistic matters, such as punctuation and capitalization, follow the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th edition. The transcript includes bracketed notices at the end of one tape and the beginning of the next so that, if desired, the reader can find a section of tape more easily by using this transcript.
Dr. Benedict K. Zobrist and Jim Williams reviewed the draft of this transcript. Their corrections were incorporated into this final transcript by Perky Beisel in summer 2000. A grant from Eastern National Park and Monument Association funded the transcription and final editing of this interview.

RESTRICTION

Researchers may read, quote from, cite, and photocopy this transcript without permission for purposes of research only. Publication is prohibited, however, without permission from the Superintendent, Harry S Truman National Historic Site.

ABSTRACT

Dr. Benedict K. Zobrist was the assistant director of the Harry S. Truman Library for two years before becoming the director in 1971. He retired in 1994. As director, Zobrist worked to develop the library as a research institution. At the request of Margaret Truman Daniel, he directed his staff to complete an inventory of the Truman home in 1981 and 1982, then oversaw the transfer of the home from the National Archives to the National Park Service after Bess W. Truman’s death in October 1982. Zobrist discusses his relationship with Harry and Bess Truman, his work as director of the Truman Library, and his memories of National Park Service employees with whom he worked to develop Harry S Truman National Historic Site.

Persons mentioned: Harry S Truman, Philip C. Brooks, Margaret Truman Daniel, Edgar Hinde, Sr., Bess W. Truman, E. Clifton Daniel, Jr., Rose Conway, Paul Burns, Lyndon B. Johnson, Wallace H. Graham, Paul Miller, Tom Evans, Ernest Connally, Hazel Graham, Arthur Mag, Donald H. Chisholm, Norman J. Reigle, Thomas P. Richter, Pat Kerr Dorsey, Elizabeth Safly, J. Edgar Hoover, May Wallace, Sue Gentry, Ardis Haukenberry, Thomas G. Melton, Robert L. Hart, Ike Skelton, Tom Eagleton, Steve Harrison, Clay Bauske, Samuel Gallu, Ronald Mack, William Southern, Mamie Eisenhower, and John Whitman.

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH DR. BENEDICT K. ZOBRIST

HSTR INTERVIEW #1990-6

JIM WILLIAMS: This is an interview with Benedict K. Zobrist. We’re in the conference
room at the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, on the morning of
August 30, 1990. The interviewer is Jim Williams, a park ranger at Harry S
Truman National Historic Site, and also present is Michael Shaver, a
museum aide at Harry S Truman National Historic Site.
First of all, Dr. Zobrist, I’d like to know if you are a native of
Independence?
BENEDICT ZOBRIST: No, I’m not. I’m a native Illinoisan. But a Midwesterner. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: Could you describe briefly your education and employment experience before
coming to work for the National Archives?
ZOBRIST: [chuckling] How many hours do we have? You can take that one off the
tape. In my education I have a B.A., an M.A., and a Ph.D., all in history, plus
postdoctoral study at, oh, at least six institutions. And I’m also proud of the
fact that I have also been through the senior executive program at the
government in Charlottesville.
In my background, as far as my professional experience is concerned,
I started with the Library of Congress in their manuscripts division, and so
that’s probably the reason that I’ve always been interested in manuscripts and
libraries, and of course in history. After I left the manuscripts division, I
worked for a period with the Newberry Library of Chicago, which was a very
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fine experience, and then I spent approximately seven years as the command
historian of what was the United States Army Weapons Command. And then
I was a professor for about nine years, and I was also the chairman of the
history department at Augustana College, and so it’s from that background
that I came to the library in 1969 as the assistant director, and I became
director in the fall of 1971. And I might just tack onto that that Mr. Truman
died fourteen months after I became director, and I feel like I’ve been on a
merry-go-round ever since.
WILLIAMS: Who was the director before you were?
ZOBRIST: His name was Dr. Philip Brooks, and he had spent all of his career in the
National Archives. He had joined the National Archives in the early 1930s
when the archives was formed. And, of course you realize this is the second
presidential library, and it’s the first presidential library that really came into
existence under the Presidential Libraries Enactment, so this library really cut a
lot of new ground when it came into existence. And I also might say that the
library really led the way in a lot of innovative things, you know, setting the
pattern for what libraries were to be in the future.
WILLIAMS: How would you describe Dr. Brooks’s relationship with the Trumans?
ZOBRIST: It was not a very good relationship, and I don’t know all of the background of
it, but it was not a very good relationship. I recall that while I was at the
library that Dr. Brooks, and I don’t think I’m exaggerating, was just simply
terrorized when he knew that Margaret Truman Daniel was going to visit the
library.
WILLIAMS: So he did not have a good working relationship with any of the family?
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ZOBRIST: No.
WILLIAMS: And you don’t really know why that was?
ZOBRIST: Well, if I could surmise about this . . . And then let me say that I think very
highly of Dr. Brooks. He is a very fine gentleman. He was very kind to me,
and I would give him great credit, as I have previously alluded to, for really
establishing the foundations of this library and doing a lot of pioneering things
in the whole presidential library realm. I sense that the problem is that Dr.
Brooks was too “GI,” if I may put it that way. In other words, he felt that he
was very, very strictly bound by government regulations, and when you’re
dealing with a president and a presidential family, you just don’t do it that way.
WILLIAMS: Would you describe yourself as a Truman scholar before you came to work
here?
ZOBRIST: No, but my background is in modern diplomatic relations, and the twentieth
century is my field. Although Truman was not really a specialty, certainly the
postwar period, diplomatically speaking, was very much my field, and I had
written articles in that area. I think also the background that I had as a
command historian and writing about the military history during that period,
that certainly I had no problems in, say, just moving over a little bit into the
Truman field.
WILLIAMS: How well did you know Harry Truman?
ZOBRIST: [chuckling] I never met him until I came here. Often when I identify myself,
certainly in the early years, I was asked that question because I think many
people feel that my position is a political plum or something like that. I was
selected off of a government register, and the story that was told to me by Dr.
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Brooks himself is that when I had been selected by the National Archives, and
in fact I had been interviewed by Dr. Brooks, that Dr. Brooks took my
records down to Mr. Truman. Of course, you realize at that time that Mr.
Truman was no longer coming up to the library, and Dr. Brooks said that Mr.
Truman’s comment was: “If he’s good enough for the government, he’s good
enough for me.” And if I may, I’d like to tell the story of the first time that I
met him.
WILLIAMS: Please.
ZOBRIST: I came to the library in August of 1969, and when I knew that I had been
accepted for this job, and of course it had been a hectic year because not only
was I chairman of the department but I was associate dean and I was in
charge of the school’s summer programs that we were running abroad and all
kinds of things like that. But during the summer I did take the time to start
trying to get boned-up a little bit more on Mr. Truman, and when I dipped into
his memoirs in more detail, to my great surprise I realized that Mr. Truman’s
battery, when Battery D came back from France after the First World War,
came back on the very same ship that my father as a naval officer was
assigned to, and the ship is the U.S.S. Zeppelin. The ship was a German
intern liner. I inherited from my father, who had been deceased for a number
of years, many photographs from his career in the Navy. And believe it or
not, here was a great big, like about a two-and-a-half-foot by one-foot
photograph of the U.S.S. Zeppelin. So I took that along with me when Dr.
Brooks took me down to meet [Mr. Truman] for the first time.
And Mr. Truman, again if I may just divert for a moment, I was very
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impressed in meeting Mr. Truman. I would have to say that having grown up,
and of course I had been in service during the Second World War, anyone
who had grown up hearing and knowing and reading about President
Roosevelt with his wonderful, eloquent speeches, his fireside chats, when you
would hear Harry Truman with his Midwestern sort of nasal twang, and how
he would occasionally stumble over words, I was not really all that impressed
with Mr. Truman as an individual. But, let me say that when I met him for the
first time I was greatly impressed.
I met him in the little side room, the study, and there I saw him with
stacks of books around him that I’m certain that he enjoyed reading very
much. But even though he was somewhat infirm, he stood up and he gave me
a very, very firm handshake. And what I remember very much are his eyes,
those sparkling blue eyes. And indeed, as soon as he shook my hand and
greeted me, I knew exactly what the term charisma meant. So I was very
much impressed with him at that first meeting. He was very cordial, very
polite.
I would say that I felt that he was very informed about the library, and
I might also add this. You know, in subsequent years, many people have
asked the question: “Well, what did Mr. Truman do in his retirement, and
what was he interested in?” And the answer is: He was very, very interested
in the library and what was going on at the library, new collections that we
were receiving, what were the scholars writing, and so forth and so on.
But to continue the story, after I had been introduced to him, I
presented him with this photograph of the U.S.S. Zeppelin, and he was very
6
pleased to receive it, but he returned it to me immediately and said, “You take
this back up to the library,” and so indeed that’s what I did. But it was even a
more interesting meeting for me because while Dr. Brooks and I were meeting
with him and chatting with him and talking about the library, through the back
door came Edgar Hinde, Sr., who was the postmaster of Independence. And
of course Edgar Hinde had been an old, old friend of Mr. Truman, and the
two of them had served overseas. And of course Mr. Hinde being such a
friend, he didn’t come in the front door. I mean, he just wandered in through
the kitchen door, and he was considered part of the family. Well, in any
event, Mr. Truman showed him this photograph of the U.S.S. Zeppelin, and
for a few moments it was most interesting to see the two men reminiscing
about their return voyage. And the one thing that I do remember is both of
them recounting what a, in their words, “rough rider” the ship was, and
apparently it was a rather wild journey when they came home.
WILLIAMS: How long were you there for that visit?
ZOBRIST: Oh, I would say perhaps twenty minutes to a half-hour.
WILLIAMS: And the whole visit was in the study?
ZOBRIST: Yes, that’s right. And I did not meet Mrs. . . . I don’t recall meeting Mrs.
Truman at that particular time.
WILLIAMS: Did you come in the front door or the back door?
ZOBRIST: Yes, we came in the front door. That’s right.
WILLIAMS: How many times did you visit with Mr. Truman before he died?
ZOBRIST: Well, I really have no count, but Dr. Brooks and I, while he was still at the
library, would go down, oh, I’d say every couple of months and have a chat
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with him. I went down individually after Dr. Brooks retired, but only for a
very few times, and indeed when Mr. Truman’s health took a turn for the
worse, the visits were canceled.
The one experience or visit of his that I really do remember very
vividly is a visit that he and the family made to the library. And you see, he
died in 1972, and so this was the year before, in December of 1971. The
library had just completed a half-hour film, a, let’s say, general orientation film,
a film that described the decisions that were made during the Truman period.
Also it covered the ’48 campaign and a number of other related administration
events. But we had just received that film a few weeks before.
And I should really start at the beginning of the story, in that it was that
December that Margaret and Clifton and the boys came out, and the family, I
think, just had a very, very nice Christmas season. But Clifton Daniel called
me about the day before . . . We did this on . . . it must have been Christmas
Eve or the day before Christmas Eve. Clifton called me and said that Mr.
Truman would like to visit the library. And I said, “Fine.” Clifton said, “I
want you to arrange it so that we will do it after-hours”—that is, after five
o’clock—and he said, “just dismiss all of the staff that you can dispense with,”
which indeed I did. Of course, I did not tell the staff that the Trumans were
visiting after five o’clock, but they came up about a quarter after, twenty after,
and I was the only one here, plus the security people that we had. And I also
recall that Clifton said, “Don’t make it obvious, but you really ought to have a
wheelchair handy,” in case Mr. Truman would need one, and so I arranged
for that as well.
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Well, they arrived and it was just really a rather dark, dreary, wintery
night. I don’t recall if there was snow on the ground, but it was just not a very
pleasant night. But they arrived and I . . . First of all, we had just received in
our collection one of the Lincoln limousines out of the presidential fleet. And
at this point in time it had not been restored, but we had it out in what was
then the garage of the building, which would be next door to where we are
sitting, and of course now completely changed. So I walked them out to the
garage for him to see the limousine, and he just enjoyed that very much. And
then we walked back into the library, we walked down the hallway, and I
took them into the auditorium, and although I don’t know much about rolling
films, I got to do all of the honors that night, and fortunately . . . They sat right
in the middle of the auditorium, the whole family. The boys did not come, by
the way, but Mrs. Truman did come, and I went up to the projection booth
and I pushed all of the right buttons and it happened, and it just worked
beautifully! And after I got the film rolling I came down and I sat behind the
Truman family, and I could just hear him chuckling and commenting. He just
thoroughly enjoyed the film. And after the film was completed, then we
walked through the rest of the museum, and then they left. And he did not . . .
He walked the whole way. And I think he just thoroughly enjoyed coming up
to the library because, to the best of my knowledge, he had not physically
been in the building since his health no longer permitted him to come up, and
that would have been 1966. And of course we’re talking about 1971. But it
was a delightful visit.
I might also add, while we’re talking about visits, that in preparing for
9
the annual board meeting—that is, of the Harry S. Truman Library Institute—
which we hold in . . . then we were holding it in March of the year, I went
down to the house and had a brief visit with him. Then I had another occasion
to go down and see him, if I remember correctly, in May of that year, ’72,
and of course that’s the year that he died in December. And I would have to
say that of all of the visits with him, that last visit in the spring of ’72, the year
he died, was the visit that I found him really the most alert and the most
articulate.
WILLIAMS: Were all of your visits in the study?
ZOBRIST: Yes.
WILLIAMS: On these visits, did you notice any changes really in the house, the way things
looked?
ZOBRIST: No. No, there were no changes. In fact, moving on a little bit, after Mr.
Truman’s death and when Mrs. Truman was alone, occasionally Margaret
would call me and tell me that her mother wanted to redo the kitchen or might
want to redo one of the other rooms in the house, and I very strongly
discouraged her from doing that, to say the very least. And so I would say
that the house as I saw it is just exactly the house that you have today.
One other thing I might add is that I think that sometimes when people
see the house today that they think that the park service has phonied it up, in
terms of the hall tree in the back hall there with Mr. Truman’s coat and cane
and hat hanging there. But I would say that even after Mr. Truman’s death
when I would visit the house, that’s exactly the way I would see it. And so,
you know, really nothing has been changed, and I can assure you that . . . I
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would assure the public that you people are presenting the house very
accurately.
WILLIAMS: You said that Margaret told you that Mrs. Truman was interested in
redecorating?
ZOBRIST: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Do you think that was really Mrs. Truman’s wish, or was it maybe Margaret
speaking for her?
ZOBRIST: I would say it was Mrs. Truman, because as soon as I would discourage
Margaret . . . That’s the way I would read it, let’s put it that way.
WILLIAMS: So you think Mrs. Truman did have a genuine interest in sprucing the place up
a bit?
ZOBRIST: I think she did. That’s the way I would react to the conversations I had. You
know, along that line, and you may be asking me this later, but do let me say
that I think that even after Mr. Truman’s death that by that time that Mrs.
Truman, although I was not privy to the will at that time, but I’m certain that it
was the full intent of the family that the home go to the government.
One of the little sidelights that I would have to deal with from time to
time is . . . I can’t recall the gentleman’s name, but the person who did the
painting and took care of the home, let’s say the outside of the home, and I’m
certain I could find the name of this individual, and you may have even
interviewed him, but I recall him every once in a while either coming up to the
library or calling me and just saying, “Can’t we do something about the house?
The house is just falling apart!” And he would say, “I’m really almost literally
keeping the house together with baling wire and chewing gum.” And of
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course you realize at that time that the government had no responsibility and
could expend no money for the care of the home, and I just had to bolster his
morale and tell him to do the best job he could.
And thinking about that period, and I’m moving ahead in the story,
you may have some questions you may want to come back to, but another
issue that I would . . . The library and I being the people on the scene, so to
speak, we were the ones that got the public comments and the public
complaints. Mrs. Truman sometimes would not get the grass cut in a timely
fashion, and I would get complaints about that as to why isn’t the government
taking care of this or that. And of course I would have to try to deal with that
diplomatically, too. But I think that we realize that Mrs. Truman was way up
in years, and I think we all realize the difficulty of getting responsible help to
do things, and Margaret was of course in New York throughout this whole
period.
Although, while I’m on that point, many times I would get comments
from the community about “Well, why doesn’t Margaret come out and spend
more time with her mother?” and “Why doesn’t she visit more often?” that
type of thing. I think many people felt that Margaret was neglecting her
mother. And what I would certainly point out here is that you have to
remember that Margaret has four sons. Margaret had a lot of family
responsibilities during this period. I know that for a fact that she spoke with
her mother on the telephone several times each week, so Margaret was
always totally in touch, and also she was in touch with the friends and the
neighbors who worked with Mrs. Truman.
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WILLIAMS: When Mr. Truman was still alive and you would visit, who controlled the
schedule? Did you have to make appointments?
ZOBRIST: Well, yes. The way that it was handled is that we still had Rose Conway here
at the library, and as you know, she was the president’s longtime secretary, to
say the least. And really, when we would go down and see Mr. Truman, all
of the arrangements, the appointments, etcetera, etcetera, were made through
Rose. And indeed when we wanted letters signed by Mr. Truman or wanted
books autographed or anything like that—he was very good about that—it
was Rose who handled all of that.
WILLIAMS: We need to pause briefly.
[End #4135; Begin #4136]
ZOBRIST: Not at that time, but you realize that as long as Mr. Truman was living, his
presidential . . . whatever the term is, allowance, provided for her. And after
Mr. Truman died, the library took her on our staff, and she continued to
support Mrs. Truman. As you can imagine, over the period while the
Trumans were still living, there was still quite voluminous correspondence. I
got to know Miss Conway quite well, but I think that we all realize that she
was a very, very private person. She really dedicated her whole life to Mr.
Truman and to the Truman family, and as hard as we tried, we could never get
her to do an interview. And indeed even after her death she left very, very
few things of any significance, in terms of papers, mementos, or anything like
that. I would describe her as really one of those faceless, dedicated women,
totally devoted to Mr. Truman.
WILLIAMS: What were your dealings with the Secret Service while Mr. Truman was still
13
alive?
ZOBRIST: Well, that’s another interesting story. The Secret Service had already arrived
on the scene before I came, but . . . I’m telling you now both a story that has
been told to me, and of course I will also be speaking about firsthand
experience after I came to the library in 1969. Presidents did not receive
Secret Service protection, of course, until after the Kennedy assassination.
And I have been told that the first group of agents, I would imagine three or
four people that were sent out, that the Trumans just did not like them at all.
And I don’t even know the names of these individuals, but the Trumans were
never enthusiastic about the Secret Service. And of course you realize that
the city of Independence had provided protection for the president essentially
in terms of Mike Westwood. But to continue with the Secret Service, the
Trumans didn’t like the group that was sent out, and so they sent them back.
They went back to Washington. And then the Secret Service sent out another
group of Secret Servicemen, and I believe this group was headed by Paul
Burns. You know, I hadn’t expected to talk about some of these things, so I
don’t have perhaps a lot of these things at my fingertips. But I knew Paul, and
he was a very fine person with a very outgoing, optimistic sort of fun type of
personality, and so the Trumans accepted the second group that was sent out.
However, the Trumans would not permit them in the house. And I’m
telling you this because you asked the question, you know, “How did the
library relate to the Secret Service?” Well, what happened is that the Secret
Service was given a room at the library. In fact, the room that we gave them
was the room next to the garage, which is now my administrative secretary’s
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office. And you realize at the time that the library administrative operation was
on the far side, which would be on the west side of the building. Then you
have the Truman Wing, the Truman Administrative Wing here, and of course
we’re sitting in the conference room, and then you’ll see next to the garage, to
the east of us, was the room where the Secret Service operated. And it was a
pretty bare-boned room, to say the very least, but what they had done is to
install television monitors. And so they had, I think, at least the state of the art
at that particular time, the 1960s. They had the state-of-the-art television, and
also they had all types of electrical as well as electronic devices for opening
and monitoring gates and doors and things like that. But what it meant, and
we just really kidded these guys a lot, they would spend most of the day up
here monitoring the television, and they, of course, with their cars they would
swing by the Truman home occasionally. And then these poor guys, winter or
summer, rain, shine, whatever, snow, they sat out in an automobile right on the
street during the night to watch the Truman home. And that was their life for a
number of years.
Let me divert for a moment, in that I think that a lot of times the public
really questions the need for this type of protection. But let me say that even
after all of those years Mr. Truman would still occasionally get an intimidating
or a threatening letter and kooky types of things. I can remember one, a
woman who would write Mr. Truman from California, and she claimed that
she had been secretly commissioned a five-star general, and she would sign
her letters as “Generalissimo . . .” I don’t recall the name that she used, but
she would send letters occasionally. You know, not to divert into this, but all
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of these elements were checked out by the Secret Service. But in any event, I
can assure you that even after all of those years, this type of thing would go
on.
Well, let me get back to the Secret Service. The Secret Service, the
next phase that they went through is that they got a van, and so that made it a
little bit easier for them to operate and to monitor the home. But of course we
razzed the living daylights out of them, saying that, well, gee, they got a van so
that they could go fishing on weekends. However, the change really came
with the Secret Service in the protection that they could provide when they
were able to secure on a rental basis the home immediately across the street.
But again, you see, the Trumans would not tolerate them in the home. But at
least the Secret Service had a place where they could visually see the home,
and they could monitor it a lot easier, and they didn’t have to sit out in their
cars all night. It was quite a sophisticated operation. All of their monitors
were moved down there, and their whole operation was transferred down
there. And see, they had a big sort of front window in the home, and that’s
really where their operational desk was, and there was always an operator
sitting at that desk monitoring the front gate and the front door.
And I recall at that time when I . . . Well, at that time, my visits were
still . . . I guess you might say on a formal basis, in that I did not come in the
back door. But I would go to the front gate, and of course telephone
arrangements were made previously, and I would always wave and signal
over, and somebody would push the button and the buzzer would . . . you
would hear it and the gate would be opened.
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But I guess just one last thing I would say, the Trumans, the whole
family, liked Paul Burns, and his people very much, and I think that it was a
good relationship. I would have to say though that I felt very sorry for Paul
Burns because I think it was sort of like your organization and like the military,
that you don’t want to get stuck in an assignment for the rest of your life, and I
think that Paul had the Truman assignment for, oh, seven to nine years,
something like that—in other words, far beyond his tour of duty—and I don’t
think that helped him career-wise. But on the other hand, he was the only
person that the Trumans would accept. Later, he switched with the man who
headed President Johnson’s security, and so there was eventually a turnover.
But I think that tells about the Secret Service.
I might mention one further thing that comes to my mind, and getting
us closer to the time of Mrs. Truman’s death. Toward the end, I’d say about
the last three years of Mrs. Truman’s life, there was a lot of turnover in Secret
Service staff. And I guess you can understand that, because Mrs. Truman
was no longer going out and so she didn’t need escorts or that type of thing,
and I’m certain that the Secret Service used this as sort of a, what,
introductory or indoctrination, that type of basic training for the young fellows
that were coming into the system.
WILLIAMS: Were you ever in the Secret Service house on Delaware?
ZOBRIST: Oh, yes, many times.
WILLIAMS: Why would you go into the command post?
ZOBRIST: Well, I would simply go down to visit the fellows [chuckling] from time to
time. But more than that, I think that you need to realize that there was a lot
17
of planning with reference to Mrs. Truman’s funeral, and how . . . You know,
we haven’t touched on that at all, but even before Mr. Truman died, going
back to that early period, I would have every single week two or three
meetings with the Army, with the Secret Service, with GSA, and my staff, in
terms of the planning for the funeral, as well as the funeral director.
WILLIAMS: When Mr. Truman visited the library, you said in the winter of ’71, I believe,
was the Secret Service with him then? Did they generally escort him?
ZOBRIST: No. No, they didn’t. I don’t recall any Secret Service being there at all,
although they probably were monitoring the visit. But no, it was just strictly
the family.
WILLIAMS: When did you first meet Bess Truman?
ZOBRIST: I met her in the subsequent visits down to the house.
WILLIAMS: And how would you describe her reception to you?
ZOBRIST: Oh, very cordial. I liked Mrs. Truman very, very much. She had an excellent
sense of humor, she was easy to talk with, as Mr. Truman was, and even in
subsequent years when I would telephone her, when she was no longer really
that active and getting out, I always had just really very good telephone
conversations with her because I felt that she had such a nice, friendly
disposition.
WILLIAMS: At the time of Mr. Truman’s death, were you in the home afterwards, around
the time of the funeral?
ZOBRIST: No, I don’t recall that I was, not during that period, not in December or
January of that . . .
WILLIAMS: You didn’t accompany any of the dignitaries to the house?
18
ZOBRIST: No.
MICHAEL SHAVER: To back-pedal a little bit, you talked about all the planning that had
gone into this for a good number of years.
ZOBRIST: And we can talk the next hour on that one!
SHAVER: I think you’re the only library director that’s had the honor or horror of having
to plan a state funeral twice. As I remember you saying at one point in time,
and I’ve read in other places, there was a rather elaborate plan in the works.
ZOBRIST: Yes.
SHAVER: There were weekly meetings. In fact, Dr. Graham almost had the scenario of
how things would probably happen with Mr. Truman. When did you have to
essentially tear up the notebook and start all over again?
ZOBRIST: Oh! [chuckling] Can we close this part of the tape? [laughter] You know, I
haven’t thought about this for a long time. You know, really, to pick up on
what you’re saying, from where I sat, I sort of felt like I was in the center of
this storm that was swirling all around me, so to speak. In my observation, the
state funeral for President Truman was, in essence, run by the Army. And the
person there, and indeed you might want to interview him, was Paul Miller,
Colonel Paul Miller. You know, I would say that I was literally thrown into
this as soon as I came to the library.
And of course I will tell the story that others have probably told, of
how President Truman was finally gingerly approached by the military and
some of his old friends, and really it was Tom Evans who was the key to the
situation, and told that, “Well, you really ought to be making plans.” And as I
understand it, they finally did have one large meeting in his office, and it was at
19
that meeting that he told them where he wanted to be buried, and apparently
he pointed right out to the courtyard where he wanted to be buried. They
described, I guess in some detail, what a state funeral would be, and they did
it in a very somber fashion, very seriously, a very serious fashion. And Mr.
Truman supposedly cracked up the whole group by making a comment to the
effect that he was so impressed with all of the planning that he wished he could
be there.
But getting on with the story where I . . . See, the title of the whole
plan is called the “O Plan Missouri.” The “O Plan Missouri” was a book the
size of a Sears and Roebuck catalogue, and it was written in that much detail.
I was brought into this as soon as I came to the library, and to repeat what I
had said before, every single week there were two or three meetings. And I
would have to say that, knowing my background that I’ve already described, I
absolutely had no training in this type of thing at all. And quite frankly, there
was a time after several months that I just really became very depressed from
working with all of this, because it just went on and on and on. And
everything was planned in such extreme detail, and plans were reviewed, and
then re-reviewed. I guess I should have stated previously that the Army has a
special unit at Fort . . . I can’t think of it, in Washington—it’ll come to me—
but it was then headed by Colonel Miller. And that’s all this unit did was plan
state funerals. But to continue, Paul Miller would come up periodically and
re-review plans. I would have to say that we were all in touch with each other
continually. For the first time in my life, I had to carry in my billfold telephone
numbers of all of these people. When Mr. Truman’s health really started
20
deteriorating, if I went out of town, if I was beyond a telephone call, I had to
inform Colonel Miller. In other words, we were all very closely in touch with
each other.
Also, I think you need to realize that Mr. Truman’s health started
deteriorating, and then it went on for months. And of course, dealing with the
Army, with GSA, as well as the Secret Service, you would have new officers
and new individuals coming into the picture and older ones retiring and leaving,
and so it was a continual process of reviewing and updating.
WILLIAMS: How much input did Mrs. Truman and Margaret Truman Daniel have in the
funeral plans?
ZOBRIST: Very little at the outset. The instructions that Mr. Truman gave was that they
were not to be bothered or really to be consulted about this. I just have the
feeling that this was something that he just did not want to burden them with.
And so that’s the reason that things were so hectic in the very last days,
because, you see, the family in essence had not been privy to a lot of this stuff.
And then when we got to the point, there was a lot of changing. In fact, I
with some of my key staff . . . When Mr. Truman . . . when his death was
imminent, we were working complete weekends, updating lists and things like
that.
WILLIAMS: How did you find out about his death?
ZOBRIST: [chuckling] It’s interesting, and of course somewhat disappointing, if I can put
it that way.
WILLIAMS: Let me guess, a reporter called you. [chuckling]
ZOBRIST: No! [chuckling] Here I had been following everything so closely and had
21
been in telephone touch with everyone, and at that time I lived in
Independence, about twelve or fifteen minutes away from work, and I got in
the car that morning and the news came over the radio that morning, and so I
heard it on the radio driving to the library. But of course we knew that it was
imminent, but to me it was just very much of an anticlimax.
WILLIAMS: So once he had died, the family did make modifications to the plans?
ZOBRIST: They did, but this is something that I really cannot speak directly to because
you realize it’s the senior service, the Army’s responsibility, and so it was
Colonel Miller who really at that point in time dealt directly with the family.
And then after Colonel Miller had briefed the family on what the scenario
would be, it’s at that time that I began receiving direct instructions from
Margaret.
WILLIAMS: Let’s get back to more happier memories.
ZOBRIST: Yeah. [chuckling] But do let me say this. I know that this is not really what
you came up to tape me about, and that is a total story that may not fall within
your purview, but I could speak at least another hour on this subject, and we
have good resources in our holdings. I would hope someday that someone
would do a thesis on this, because it’s an interesting subject, and it should be
dealt with. But let’s move on.
SHAVER: I might take the opportunity to do that again sometime.
ZOBRIST: If you want to spend another whole morning, we’ll do that, okay? [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: When you visited Mr. Truman in the home, did he or anyone else ever offer
you refreshments?
ZOBRIST: No, these were always very businesslike meetings. And in fact, I might add
22
that by the time I came to the library I was not aware that the Trumans really
did any entertaining or anything of that type.
WILLIAMS: When it was just Mrs. Truman then in the house, how often did you visit her?
ZOBRIST: That was much more infrequently, basically because she did not have the
strong interest that Mr. Truman had. I might add that Margaret encouraged
me to talk with her and call her periodically, and I think more to want . . .
change her mind, I guess, and to let her know what was going on, to a certain
extent. Because Mrs. Truman really did not get out of the house very much.
Although, you know, let me say that in the years immediately after President
Truman’s death she did get out, I think, much more so in those years. Every
once in a while I would hear someone say, “Oh, I saw her at the grocery
store” and around town. I can remember my wife saying, “Oh, I saw Mrs.
Truman leaving the beauty shop this morning,” that type of thing. I don’t
consider myself any expert at all on what Mrs. Truman was doing during that
period, but I think you need to talk with some of her lady friends and the
people that lived down there, but it’s my understanding that she led a very
normal, active life and was very interested in what was going on in the
community.
WILLIAMS: Did she ever come up here to the library?
ZOBRIST: Yes, she surprised me. she came up one day, one afternoon. It was in the
summer. I can’t even tell you what year. But I was surprised by that visit.
She came up and she wanted to give me something, I don’t recall what it was.
She left the car out in the circle of the administrative entrance, and I took
what she was giving me, and I said, “Well, won’t you come in?” And I
23
brought her into my office, which is not my present office, but the office over
on the outside of the building. And, uh, we had a very pleasant, you know,
cordial conversation, but the thing that surprised me was that Mrs. Truman
said, you know, I have never been in this office before.” So I have the feeling
that . . .
[End #4136; Begin #4137]
WILLIAMS: When you visited Mrs. Truman in the home, where were your visits?
ZOBRIST: Oh, always in the study. I will take that back, there was one occasion that I
do recall where we sat in . . . I don’t really know what you call these rooms,
the room to the right as you come in.
WILLIAMS: The big living room.
ZOBRIST: Yeah, the big living room.
WILLIAMS: And did you have staff members going down to the home to see Mrs.
Truman?
ZOBRIST: No, not until . . . No, the answer is definitely not until . . . You know, she fell
in the early summer of ’81. And here let me tell you the story of our
involvement, really, with the home. It’s at that time when Margaret visited the
home, and of course visited her mother, and of course she would have been
out for our annual board meeting as well because by that time we were
holding the board meetings in May, that Margaret expressed a concern with
the home, that she had noted something was missing from the home. And I
don’t really even recall what it was. I think it was a small clock or something
like that. And I think that she realized that her mother was having more
difficulties, and she also realized that there were nurses attending Mrs. Truman
24
and also a continual stream of Secret Service in and out of the house, and it’s
at that time that she asked me to start inventorying the home very discreetly.
And that was where my staff members entered into it. I say staff members,
there were only three or four individuals, and these were longtime staff
members that I had great faith in.
WILLIAMS: Before we get deeply involved in the inventory, I have a couple more
questions.
ZOBRIST: Sure, go ahead.
WILLIAMS: Did Mrs. Truman have secretarial help at all?
ZOBRIST: Only Rose.
WILLIAMS: How long did that last?
ZOBRIST: Well, it lasted . . . I would have to say I draw a blank on that. I don’t
honestly remember. It lasted as long as Mrs. Truman needed secretarial help.
Let me add something into that, in that right after Mr. Truman’s death . . .
You see, at that time Rose would still go down to the house and . . . [tape
turned off] Okay, well, let me say that when Mr. Truman was living, and of
course after his death, in the early years after his death, Rose continued in her
office here, and she would go down to the home. But later on when
correspondence started dropping off, and indeed Rose was having some
health problems herself, the Secret Service would bring things back and forth.
I guess you might say it doesn’t fall officially under their duties and
responsibilities, but this was a rather, what, uninspiring type of assignment, for
openers, so indeed these Secret Service fellows . . . I mean they just enjoyed
getting out and doing anything they could to help Mrs. Truman and to help the
25
library as well.
WILLIAMS: On your visits with Mrs. Truman, did you ever take her gifts or anything?
ZOBRIST: Not that I recall. I would take down occasionally our newsletter. It would be
official things that I would take her.
WILLIAMS: Did you ever take her books from the White House Historical Association on
first ladies and the White House?
ZOBRIST: I don’t recall. I mean, if they went down, they would be sent down. I
wouldn’t do it myself.
WILLIAMS: We have several copies of these books, and we were wondering where they
might have come from, from that period.
ZOBRIST: You know, again let me make another comment that I enjoyed Mrs. Truman
very much. She was a wonderful person. I had excellent—when I say “I,”
the library and I had excellent relations with her. I think that you have to
remember that as I came into this job, and I’m not kidding when I said I feel
like I have been on a merry-go-round, see, I had only been director fourteen
months before Mr. Truman died, and I think that you need to realize that there
were just massive administrative and library responsibilities that I had, in terms
of processing new collections that we were receiving, you know, to say
nothing of the subsequent reception of the Truman papers. I was, boy, up to
my ears in library responsibilities. I had personnel issues and problems that I
had to deal with. I was establishing new administrative policies and
procedures and attempting to give the library newer direction. Just to give you
one example, the library had never embarked on an acquisitions program for
papers, and so this was a major undertaking. But this just gives you one
26
example of many, I guess we might say, initiatives and programs that I
embarked on. For example, I wanted us to publish a more sophisticated and
polished quarterly publication, and so, really, when you ask me these
questions, you know, the bouncing ball that I was following was the
administration of the library, and indeed Mrs. Truman was far from the center
of my focus, to say the least.
WILLIAMS: You let on earlier that later on you came through the back door when you
visited. Is that correct?
ZOBRIST: That’s true, but this was at the time after we started inventorying, and
Margaret had at that time given me and my selected individuals really
complete access to the home.
WILLIAMS: One more thing before the inventory, when you visited Mrs. Truman, what did
you visit about?
ZOBRIST: Well, that’s interesting, I’ve been asked that question many times, and people
expect me to give the answer that we talked about the weighty issues of the
world. And the answer is we did not talk about the weighty issues of the
world. It was more pleasurable conversation in which we talked about the
town. We didn’t talk about political issues, but we talked about the town,
what was going on at the library, the weather, that type of thing. In fact, Mrs.
Truman was very, I think, discreet in the conversations that she had with me.
Again, I may be presumptuous in making an observation like this, but I think
you need to remember that my predecessor did not have good relations with
the family. I have always felt that my job was to build bridges with people,
and I felt that my greater mission, if I may put it that way, was to get people
27
talking to each other. I wanted people to understand what we were doing at
the library, and I wanted the Trumans to realize that the library was here to not
only help enhance the image of Mr. Truman but basically to tell the story of his
administration and tell the story of his life, and so I purposely avoided
controversial issues. I can’t really stress this enough, because in my estimation
there was a lot of changing of opinions over the period from 1969 when I
came to the library till the time in ’71 when I became director, until ’72, until
you get past the death of Mr. Truman into Mrs. Truman’s period where she is
living at the home, where Margaret at that point in time perceived me and the
government, in a sense, as not being the enemies but . . . I know this is
somewhat of an overstatement, but perceived me and the library in a more
positive light in what we could do.
WILLIAMS: Why do you think Margaret’s opinion changed?
ZOBRIST: Well, again I don’t wish to take undue credit or more credit than I should. It’s
a question I don’t think that I can totally answer. I think that certainly part of
it, in my estimation, would be the positive image that the library and I tried to
project. I think that nothing is that simple. I think it’s also a matter of
Margaret perceiving that we did have a role to play in the memory of her
father, and also in the transfer of the remaining papers and the transfer of the
home to the government.
WILLIAMS: And at this time was she a member of the institute?
ZOBRIST: Oh, yes. In fact, President Truman had been the honorary . . . was the
founder and the honorary president of the institute, and when Mr. Truman
died, the board unanimously elected her to the board as an honorary member.
28
And she continues to be active in the organization.
WILLIAMS: Well, before Mr. Truman died, did you have any official contact with the
National Park Service?
ZOBRIST: No. [chuckling] Well, no, let me back up on that. The answer is yes, I did.
Really, it was a very delightful experience, and this is my acquaintance with
Connelly—I can’t even think of his first name.
SHAVER: Ernest.
ZOBRIST: Ernest. That’s right, Ernest Connelly. In that the park service apparently had
always wanted to recognize the Truman home. When the Trumans were first
approached, the Trumans declined the recognition. And it was not until some
years later that the park service, and namely Ernest Connelly, resurfaced the
issue, and if I remember correctly, this was around the time of the bicentennial.
But Mr. Truman was gone by that time. No, he was still living. The park
service exchanged correspondence . . . Okay, it’s all coming back to me
now. Yeah, in fact this was even before I became director. The park service
resurfaced this, it must have been in 1970 or early 1971, and at that time the
Trumans stated that they were willing to have the park service recognize the
home. But if I remember correctly, there were a couple of stipulations, and
one would be that there would be no marker, and if I remember correctly, I
think that there would be no particular publicity attached to the recognition.
So, in other words, you see, even when the Trumans finally did say yes, it was
in a very low-key fashion, to say the least.
But one other thing I do remember . . . You know, I wish I had
known you were going to ask me about some of these things. I would have
29
surfaced some of these names. The park service sent out a couple of their
historians, one a very distinguished gentleman, now retired. Can you give me
any names?
SHAVER: I have that study, but I can’t recall who wrote it.
ZOBRIST: But in any event, we gave these two fellows . . . I got such a kick out of this.
We gave them an office down the hall in the administrative wing, and that’s
where they operated out of for a number of weeks. But this probably was the
most unorthodox recognition that the park service handed out, to the best of
my knowledge, in that they were never allowed to go into the home, and so
everything was done, you know, remote control. But they spent many days
surveying the district. And also I think that this is quite different because here
you have a recognition that was initiated by the park service rather than
coming up from down under, so to speak, as most of the recognitions are
made. But I can recall visiting with these people, and they did a very thorough
study. I was interested . . . To me, you know, I had not been at the library all
that long, and let me say I am certainly not versed in how the park service
operates and how it sets out districts, but I was most interested in the district
that they did cut out, so to speak. And as I understand it, there was a small
version and a large version, and if I remember correctly, the final selection was
the smaller version of the area that had been marked out. And that was in the
early ’70s, and I would have to say . . . I mean, this is another long,
complicated story that we could spend a whole morning talking about, but
along with the Jackson County Historical Society—and the person that I
would single out there specifically would be Hazel Graham—Hazel Graham
30
and I and some other historically-minded individuals in the community
persuaded our mayor to establish the heritage commission, and that’s how that
whole thing was launched.
WILLIAMS: Did you have any other contact with the park service before Mrs. Truman’s
death?
ZOBRIST: No.
WILLIAMS: Did you know the provisions of Mrs. Truman’s will before she died?
ZOBRIST: Yes.
WILLIAMS: How long before that did you know she was giving the house to the Archivist
of the United States?
ZOBRIST: It was really a matter of years. And let’s talk about that point.
WILLIAMS: So she wanted you to know?
ZOBRIST: Yeah, she did. And let me say that I wasn’t all that happy about it at the time,
and my people in Washington weren’t all that happy about it at the time,
basically because although there are a couple of exceptions in our system, we
are not into the preservation business and into taking care of historical homes.
And indeed I did express to the lawyer more than once, and quite strongly,
that the will should be rewritten so that the home should go to the park
service. And I can tell you that apparently . . . You know, I did not speak
with Mrs. Truman about this directly at all. I did not feel that I had that . . . I
did not feel comfortable in bringing up a subject that delicate with her, but I
know that the idea was conveyed to her. But the point that I would make,
and the interpretation that came back to me was that Mrs. Truman was
comfortable with the National Archives and with the way that we had
31
administered the library, and that was the way she wanted it.
WILLIAMS: Was the attorney Arthur Mag?
ZOBRIST: Yes, and then subsequently Don Chisholm.
SHAVER: Did Mr. Mag come and visit you one afternoon, or call you, or did Mrs.
Truman convey this, or Margaret convey this to you? How did you first find
out?
ZOBRIST: No, Mag just simply sent it to me at the library. I would visit Mr. Mag
periodically at his office, but I guess when I look back on those days, the . .
. Well, Mr. Mag was cut out of a different cloth, I guess you might say, a very
distinguished gentleman of an older generation. And although I never had any
difficulties with Mr. Mag, he was always very pleasant with me, when Mr.
Mag would speak it was like God speaking, so to speak. [chuckling] And so
even though I would protest, it would always come back: “Well, this is the
way Mrs. Truman wants it.”
WILLIAMS: Did you ever try to talk to Mrs. Daniel about this provision?
ZOBRIST: No, because my relations with Margaret, I would say, were such that again
this was an issue that I didn’t feel comfortable in raising with her. Let me add
a comment to that, in that Margaret was, over the years in this period, not the
easiest person to deal with. And I know that she had a lot of other things on
her mind, including the illness of her mother. There were other issues from the
viewpoint of my organization, in terms of papers and other things that were
really a higher priority with me in dealing and in negotiating with her. And if
you prioritize all of these things, I guess I would just really have to say that at
that point in time the matter of the will was not that high on the priority list.
32
WILLIAMS: Would you have agreed to use your employees to do the inventory if you had
not known that the house was being left to the archivist?
ZOBRIST: Well, I think the answer would be no without the approval of my superiors,
because I would not be permitted to expend government money and
government staff to do anything like that. But we knew that the material was
coming [with] the house, and just to add to that, this was a period before the
park service really had been brought into it. Just let me lay out a couple of
things here. I think you know that even after Mrs. Truman’s death there was
still a considerable amount of time that lapsed until the house was transferred
to the park service. And I fault my superiors in Washington, because on their
end they should have been talking to the park service and informing them
what was going down out here while I out here was trying to talk with the
lawyer, and the simple matter is that they were not. And indeed, my end of
the government did not move. My superior did not even move on this. It’s
my understanding my superior, who was the, now deceased, assistant archivist
for presidential libraries, did not even inform the archivist, his boss, of this.
So, in other words, my people in Washington, although I was informing my
boss, it was not getting passed on to his boss, and the big boss was not talking
to the people over in the park service. And so we were at pretty much of an
impasse.
SHAVER: When did things begin to move in Washington, at least on your side?
ZOBRIST: Not until after Mrs. Truman’s death.
SHAVER: Did they move in a timely manner at that time?
ZOBRIST: In my estimation, no. And that is the reason that I was hung with certain
33
responsibilities during that interim period, and it’s the reason that the
government had to pick up the tab for that private guard service, which I felt
was an expenditure that never really had to be incurred. But you have to
realize that not only you had this period up until Mrs. Truman’s death where
we are inventorying as quickly and as intensively as we can, but then, you see,
after her death then you’ve got this period where we’re all sort of living in this
halfway world. In fact, one of the brightest days of my life is when I saw . . .
not Norm Reigle, but the young man who came out . . . Tom?
SHAVER: Richter.
ZOBRIST: Tom Richter. When I saw Tom Richter come in uniform, boy, I felt like the
Marines or the cavalry had arrived! [laughter]
WILLIAMS: So, in your view, if the preparations had been made, the groundwork had
been laid, the home could have been transferred much more quickly after Mrs.
Truman’s death?
ZOBRIST: Yes, absolutely. There is no question about it at all. In fact, I had hoped and
felt that that’s the way that it would be done, but there were massive delays in
Washington. And indeed, getting back to the inventory, this is the reason that
I wanted to inventory—and I would also use the words “and secure”—the
items in the house there as quickly and as efficiently and as thoroughly as we
could, because I figured that when Mrs. Truman died that the estate and the
home would just be locked up and that would be it. So we worked very
feverishly, especially in the days when Mrs. Truman was deteriorating very,
very quickly. Do you want to talk about the inventory?
WILLIAMS: Yes.
34
ZOBRIST: I know that you’re interviewing my people who did the inventory, and so you
have to realize that I’m speaking more as an administrator sitting away from
the scene, and of course I would go down to the home periodically to see
what was going on and would give instructions as to how things should be
done. But the way it started out, as I remember it, is we were just going to do
this inventory, you know, somewhat leisurely, and to do a very thorough job
of it.
WILLIAMS: Excuse me, we need to pause.
[End #4137; Begin #4138]
ZOBRIST: Okay, well, I was going to say that when we started the inventory, I felt that
we would just do it on a room-by-room basis and do it somewhat leisurely.
But then the two primary people that were working at the house would be
Pat, her name then was Pat Kerr, and Liz Safly, people I have the highest
regard for, but they began to realize and I began to realize that, my God, the
house down there is sort of like Grand Central Station, what I alluded to
earlier, in that there were a constant series of nurses coming through and
taking care of Mrs. Truman, and then there was the young men, the Secret
Service people coming in and out.
The one vivid memory that I have is one day, it was either Liz or Pat,
one of them told me that . . . She asked me if I remembered the ashtray that
J. Edgar Hoover had given to Mr. Truman. You know, it’s the ashtray that
has Mr. Truman’s thumbprint in it. And she said, “You know, that’s missing.”
I mean, we almost had a stroke! A couple of days later they told me that
they had found this ashtray, and the ashtray was out in the kitchen and one of
35
the nurses was using it. And we’re about having a stroke because we would
consider this as a prime artifact, to say the very least. So it’s at that time when
this was happening, and we were beginning to realize the situation that we
intensified our effort very much, and then we . . . I told my people, I said,
“Loose things like that and small things that could disappear very easily, let’s
secure them and bring them to the library.” And so it’s my remembrance that
a lot of these things were brought up to the library at that time just simply and
basically for security because of the amount of people going in and out of the
house. And of course, in the late period of Mrs. Truman’s illness, I just think
that she just didn’t even realize what was going on around her. And I can
recall that the nurses occasionally would move her from room to room, and
although we were doing this inventory fully at the instructions of Mrs. Daniel, I
think I can recall them saying that Mrs. Truman didn’t even recognize them.
So I tell this story simply to reemphasize that the situation was, in my
estimation, a very risky situation in terms of what was in the home.
WILLIAMS: Was it your original intent to remove things from the home?
ZOBRIST: No.
WILLIAMS: That came along later?
ZOBRIST: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Did you keep Margaret apprised of the situation?
ZOBRIST: Yes.
WILLIAMS: How did you do that?
ZOBRIST: I would phone her. I can recall phoning her more than once and saying that
we were removing . . . and I would tell her what I was removing. And also
36
we kept inventories of the things that we removed. I think you need to talk
with Pat and Liz about this, because they can remember this undoubtedly in
more detail than I can, but you’re talking to an old Army type, so to speak,
and I wanted a piece of paper on everything, so that the government, and
certainly the library, could never be accused of taking things that should not be
taken.
But let me continue on and say that . . . a couple of other aspects. I
really can’t go into more detail than I have, because in my position I was
simply giving instructions. But things were removed basically for security
purposes. Things were also removed, for example, the letters, Mr. Truman’s
letters, basically because they were intended to come to the library anyway.
WILLIAMS: How did you know that?
ZOBRIST: Because that was in the will, in his will.
SHAVER: He had released all of his personal papers in the will. Is that how you recall it?
ZOBRIST: Yeah, and then we removed things that were . . . I guess the word I would
use, endangered. And I’m thinking of things that we felt were at risk. For
example, in the basement. And my God, you know, the basement was an
absolute disaster in terms of there was water seeping through the basement.
In fact, I can remember very vividly giving them instructions: “Don’t ever
stand in a pool of water and turn on a light switch in that basement or you’ve
had it!” I mean, really, I felt that it was a high-risk situation there, and I defer
to them. They can describe this, I’m certain, in a much better fashion than I
can.
And then the other high-risk area was the attic. Not only do you have
37
an unheated attic with great extremes of heat and cold, but there were even . .
. what was it, a raccoon or an opossum, whatever it was had gotten loose
upstairs there and had damaged certain things? And so the things that we felt
were of value, those items were removed as well. But the way that I look at it
is that it was more or less of, you might say, a rescue operation.
You know, one other thing that I remember during this period, we
took photographs of all of the rooms. And I know that these photographs
were passed on to the park service because it was my feeling that this would
certainly be the best indication of what was there, what had been there, and
where it was positioned.
WILLIAMS: Well, Pat Kerr showed us photographs that she took with her own camera. Is
that what you’re talking about?
ZOBRIST: Yeah, that’s right.
WILLIAMS: Did Margaret seem interested in the things you were finding or the progress of
the inventory?
ZOBRIST: You know, let me interrupt here and ask a question. You know, I’m telling
you guys exactly the way it is. Will I get a chance to read this thing?
WILLIAMS: Yes.
ZOBRIST: Okay, because I may want to, what, soften some of my statements here. But
I’ve always found Margaret not to be interested in the things of the house—
very much at all, not interested at all. Certain things, jewelry, certain things of
that type she brought up and she asked me to hold here in our vaults. But
another comment that I would make, and this is a true comment, if you’ve
worked with Margaret, she many times would shoot from the hip. And I can
38
just hear her saying, “Oh, Ben, throw that away! Get rid of it!” And indeed I
would have to say that I did not obey her instructions, and indeed let me say
that if I had carried out a lot of her instructions, I mean, our collection of what
we have and what you have down there at the house would be a lot thinner
than it is right now.
But let me also say that, in deference to Margaret, I think you need to
realize that this was a very trying period for her. I’ve lived through periods of
my life like this. You know, you get very impatient, and there are things you
just don’t want to be reminded of. There are memories that you would just as
soon forget, you know, things of that nature. But she was very liberal in telling
me, “Ben, get rid of it.”
But to move on, we did not dispose of anything. The only thing that I
can think of that we actually did dispose of, and I did this, what, very
discreetly, and I guess you might say with a grain of salt, in that she asked us
to get rid of a lot of her mother’s clothing. You know, all she would say is,
“Ben, get rid of it!” And then I got the problem of, well, how do you get rid
of it? The way we handled that, to the best of my memory, is that my staff,
being knowledgeable with reference to clothing, really just picked out the
worst dresses and the ones that really would never be used for exhibit
purposes—you know, her everyday dress, that type of thing—and these were
the dresses that we disposed of. It was sort of funny how my gang did it, and
you can ask them about it, but as I understand it, we wanted to be careful that
no one could ever say, “Oh, I bought a Bess Truman dress at the Salvation
Army,” or something like that. So my gang divided the clothing into groups,
39
and they dropped it off at a number of places like the Salvation Army. That’s
my understanding.
But again though, I’ve enjoyed working with the family, but perhaps I
had a little more perspective, if I may put it that way, realizing that my mission,
the library’s mission, was to save things for posterity. And as a result, I simply
did not carry out Margaret’s wishes.
WILLIAMS: You mentioned the family. Did you have any other contact with other family
members?
ZOBRIST: Yes, but in a minimal way. Going back, I’m afraid you’re going to get an
awfully scrambled tape because I’m bouncing back and forth here
chronologically. One of the first things that I did when Margaret asked me to
do the inventory was that I personally visited Bess’s sister-in-law May
Wallace, and I visited Sue Gentry, and I told them what we were about to do.
And of course I also visited Mrs. Haukenberry. That’s another whole story
by itself. You come back and interview me on that one when you get the
Haukenberry house.
WILLIAMS: Which may be soon.
ZOBRIST: Well, I’m delighted to hear that. And of course the minister.
WILLIAMS: Reverend Melton.
ZOBRIST: No, not Melton.
SHAVER: Reverend Hart.
WILLIAMS: Hart, the Episcopalian.
ZOBRIST: Yeah, the Episcopalian, yeah. Melton really never played much of a role in
any of this, to the best of my knowledge. But these were people that . . . It
40
was a very delicate situation, and I didn’t want to see in the newspaper:
“Truman Library staff inventorying Truman home in preparation for Mrs.
Truman’s death,” you know, something like that. And so this is the reason
that I visited a number of people and asked them to keep our confidence, but
I wanted them to know what was going on.
WILLIAMS: What happened to the objects and material that was removed from the home
once it got—
ZOBRIST: They were brought up here.
WILLIAMS: And what happened to them here?
ZOBRIST: We stored them in a room, I guess a couple of rooms, and the rooms were
secured, and only, what, approved people could work with it. I attempted,
and I think my staff . . . I shouldn’t say “I think my staff . . .” We attempted
to keep all this material as secure as we could. We did, as I understand it,
some preliminary, simple preservation type of work, if we could do it without
spending a lot of time, and then the thing that I was a real bug on was an
inventory.
WILLIAMS: So you kept an inventory of things as they came in?
ZOBRIST: Yes. My memory is somewhat hazy on that. You might want to ask Pat or
Liz about this, but the way I remember it is that we would spend a number of
days down at the house, and then we would spend a number of days up here
inventorying. However, I would say that when we got down toward the end
when Mrs. Truman was just really terminally ill—I mean, it was very, very
hectic—and I feel that it was somewhat of a problem to keep on course, so to
speak. But we did the best we could. And then I think you also have to
41
remember, and not to belabor you with my problems, I mean, this whole
operation in essence just came out of my hide, because it meant I was
diverting people from other responsibilities at the library to do this. And
indeed, if I had had more staff, and I guess I would have to say more
understanding from my people in Washington, this could have been done in a
much more efficient way. But in retrospect, though, although it was a very
hectic period for all of us, it was in many respects an emotional period that we
were going through. In retrospect, when I look at where we are today in
1990, I think my gang really did an outstanding job, and I would repeat myself
in saying that you wouldn’t have the home you have there today if it were not
for all of the anguish and gyrations and manipulations, and etcetera etcetera,
that we went through during that period.
SHAVER: Your superiors in Washington, was there any reluctance on their part to see
this take place?
WILLIAMS: Did you inform them that you were doing it?
ZOBRIST: Oh, yes. Yes. No, I wouldn’t say that there was any reluctance on their part
as far as the inventory. But I would have to say that I was yelling for more
help—personnel—all the time, and they were not listening to me. Of course,
they probably had other problems perhaps that they figured were bigger than
mine, but from my point of view this was a real strain on the staff. But really,
where I fault my people in Washington was in the transfer of the home, and
here is where I felt that they were definitely not responsive in carrying that
thing through in a timely and efficient way.
SHAVER: That’s interesting. Our folklore always has the paper put on somebody’s
42
desk in the Interior Department. I never felt like GSA had been—
ZOBRIST: Well, I think that if you check it out . . . No, let me say that I’ve heard that,
too, and I think that there was some delay and reluctance over in your end of
the government, but I’m talking about the delay that I saw in getting it over on
somebody’s desk over in the park service.
WILLIAMS: We usually blame the Secretary of the Interior. [chuckling] He at that time
was not a very . . .
SHAVER: Ike Skelton had no problem in blaming him.
ZOBRIST: Well, let me also add that when it got to that point, I would certainly speak
very highly of Ike Skelton and the role that he played. Ike has been a good
friend of the library, and I know that he knows Margaret personally, and
Margaret feels comfortable in speaking with him directly, so Ike can take
credit for what transpired as well.
SHAVER: Did you have any contact with Senator Eagleton or Mr. Skelton about this
issue? Did their staffs contact you?
ZOBRIST: No, not really. I did not. In my end of the government, and at least in those
days, and I will not give you a history of the National Archives, but I was
discouraged very, very much from speaking to any political individual.
I guess I would need to add one further statement to that, and this is
another whole story all by itself. My organization was going through major
organizational changes, and my organization was having tremendous problems
with General Services Administration, of which we were a part. And it’s
during this whole period, all of these years, that my organization was fighting
for independence. As you know, we’re now an independent agency. I don’t
43
want to get you into a lot of detail on that story, but I think that . . . Again
going back to what I have stated earlier, you have to remember that I had a
big library here with a lot of problems and new programs that I was operating
at the same time that a lot of this . . . the home was unfolding.
SHAVER: Viewed in that perspective, we can certainly understand. [chuckling] Did you
have much contact with the estate or the representatives of the estate during
this period, Mr. Chisholm or any representatives of that?
ZOBRIST: Oh, of the estate? Oh, yes, I had a lot of contact with Don Chisholm. You
see, by that time Arthur Mag had died. Yes, I have very, very high regard for
Don Chisholm, both as a lawyer and as an individual. He worked very closely
with the library, and in many respects I feel that he eased the way for us. I
would add, also, I think he represented his client, the Truman family, very
well. But at the same time, Don understood our interests. And when I say
“our interests,” our interests in the papers and our interests, the government
interests, in the home.
You know, I think you already realize this, but the park service was
not even in the picture at this time. There was nobody in the park service that
I was talking to, although I had a couple of unofficial calls that I made to
Ernest Connelly, but I had no official contact with the park service. And I felt
that here I was left to hang out and dry, so to speak, as an archivist and as the
senior government type here, you know, really trying to represent the interests
not only of my agency but also thinking in terms of the park service.
SHAVER: Where do you think they began to come into the picture? Was it here at this
level or there at the Washington level?
44
ZOBRIST: To the best of my knowledge, they came into play when Tom Richter arrived
that day, and that was it. To the best of my knowledge, I mean, they had no
contact with me, and I think that this is a question you ought to ask Don
Chisholm, but I think that he would probably give you the same thing.
Because I can remember conversations back and forth between the two of us,
and he would call me and ask me, “Well, what do you know?” And then I’d
call him and ask him what did he know. And usually neither one of us knew
anything.
WILLIAMS: To your knowledge, was Mr. Chisholm in the home after Mrs. Truman died?
ZOBRIST: Yes. In fact, after Mrs. Truman died he consulted with me, in terms of how
do we secure the home. Oh, gee, I am doing this from memory. I think that
Margaret gave him a key to the house, and she gave me a key to the house.
Have you talked with anybody else about that? I just don’t remember. But I
think that’s the way that it went. And I encouraged him to hire a guard service
for the . . . not to go in the home but to guard the perimeter of the home. So
Don and I worked together and would meet periodically, and of course we
were in touch over the telephone, in terms of how things were going in getting
the home transferred to the park service.
WILLIAMS: Were any things removed from the home in that two-and-a-half-month period
after Mrs. Truman’s death?
ZOBRIST: I honestly do not remember.
WILLIAMS: Were you in the home?
ZOBRIST: Yes. Yes, I was in the home. Let me say this, that whenever I or any of my
staff went in the home we always used what I call the buddy system, in that no
45
single person ever went into the home individually. So there were always,
whenever I or any of my people went in the home, there were always two or
more individuals. I guess that this goes back to my Army training and
intelligence training and all the security and all of that kind of stuff, but I felt
very, very strongly that, even though I had been given the key, I did not want
anyone to ever say that Zobrist went in by himself or anyone else went in by
themself. I feel very, very strongly about this issue, and to the best of my
knowledge, I think that we adhered to it very scrupulously.
WILLIAMS: To your knowledge, did Mrs. Daniel or her family take things out of the house
as they were leaving from the funeral or any time when you were in custody of
the home?
ZOBRIST: Yes. Yes, after the funeral . . . I think it was after the funeral, yeah.
Margaret asked me to go through the home with her, and again. You know,
to give my reaction, it was a . . . This probably is not the right word, but I felt
it was a good experience from the government’s point of view, in that she
took hardly anything out of the home. Really, I don’t know that I want to see
this in black and white on tape, but to just give you an example of . . . I think
this is a good story because it shows how authentic the home is. When we
went through the bedroom, I think that she took her mother’s false teeth and
her comment was, “I don’t want to leave this in the house.” See, something
like that. Unless you’ve found a set of false teeth [laughter].
SHAVER: No, no. I remembered that story.
ZOBRIST: Yeah. And, uh . . .
[End #4138; Begin #4139]
46
ZOBRIST: To Margaret, this was just to me . . . I guess I would say a warm experience.
I mean, she went through the home, making comments, sort of reminiscing, but
very little . . . I cannot remember anything, her taking anything of any real
significance out of the home.
WILLIAMS: Do you remember any of the comments she made other than about the false
teeth?
ZOBRIST: Well, that I remember very vividly. And you get into small little things like this.
She picked up . . . oh, if I remember, a couple of watches and said, “I want
you to send these on to me so I can give them to the boys.” And again I can
recall her going through a drawer with some of Mr. Truman’s shirts, and it just
sort of blew my mind, with her affluence and living in New York City, and she
said, “Well, send three or four of these shirts,” that type of thing. But that was
the experience. It was, I think, a very warm experience, a good experience,
and the home was kept very, very much intact.
WILLIAMS: Did Margaret ever express an opinion about the National Park Service to
you?
ZOBRIST: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: When she first found out?
ZOBRIST: Yeah. [chuckling] I could say at least originally she did not have very high
regards for the park service.
WILLIAMS: Why was that?
ZOBRIST: Well, [chuckling] I think, in my estimation, that it was because of the park
service sites, historical sites that she had visited. I can remember her making
comments about, “You know, I visited such and such a home, and it just
47
wasn’t done right. And I visited another home, and they had put plexiglas up
so that you had to look through the room through plexiglas.” You know, I
don’t think that she had anything personally against the National Park Service,
but she just was not enamored with the way the park service had presented a
lot of historical properties.
WILLIAMS: Did she draw any parallels to the Roosevelt family in dealing with the park
service?
ZOBRIST: No, I never heard her say anything like that.
SHAVER: Does she have a summer home on Fire Island, to your knowledge?
ZOBRIST: No, they rent that out there, to the best of my knowledge.
SHAVER: Because we’d gotten an impression that maybe some of her initial adverse
feelings toward us may have been resulting towards some policies that the
park service had had on Fire Island.
ZOBRIST: Well, it may be because they vacationed out there a number of summers. But
I think that—I could get on another tangent. [chuckling] I think that Margaret
does not like the sand and sun and the surf, and I have the feeling that she
went out there basically for the kids, for the boys. And now that the boys are
all raised and gone, I don’t think she’s ever going to go out to Fire Island
again. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: Okay. Did she ever tell you that she wished the home would not be open to
the public?
ZOBRIST: She didn’t express it in exactly those words, but Margaret was very adamant
about the upper floor not being on display. And I’ve always sensed that . . .
How do I say it the right way? I’ve always sensed that she has felt that the
48
public interest in the family is an intrusion, and I’ve had the feeling that her and
her family’s privacy are a lot more important to her than the story of her father
and the administration and that type of thing. I think, though, that you have to
understand her background and her own experience. And if you’ve lived in
the public eye the way she has, and remember going back to the kidnapping
attempt on her when she was a schoolchild here in Independence, to the great
publicity, both pro and con, of her singing career, and everything else, that I
think that a person in the public eye like that, you get to a point where you’ve
just more or less had it, so to speak. And I think that her feeling toward the
public is more that.
Do let me add to that, though, that you’re asking me to make a
judgment on a feeling that . . . I’ve known her for twenty years and I have the
feeling that her feeling has evolved to the point where now she has very good
words to say about the park service. I think it’s largely because you people
have done such a good job in the way you have presented the home, and so
when I talk to her nowadays . . . You know, early on when you people first
came on the scene, she wouldn’t even talk to the park service. It was
always—I’d get the telephone—and it was, “Ben, you tell Norm to do . . .”
[laughter] and then I got the laundry list.
This is one of the reasons that we might move into our relations with
Norm. I think very highly of Norm, as an individual, but totally aside from
that, Norm and I got along together very well. My feeling was that in this
whole story we’ve told today, I’ve always felt that I’m working for my end of
the government as well as working for your end of the government, because
49
we’re all really trying to tell the Truman story. But in any event, I purposely
invited Norm and his wife, when the occasion was proper, I invited them to
festivities and openings and occasions that we would have at the library
because it gave Margaret a chance to meet, talk with Norm, and to give him
more exposure so that he and the park service would be meeting with her,
let’s say, in a social scene rather than always on an official level. And I’m real
pleased personally. I don’t know how you fellows feel, but I’m personally
very pleased with where we are now in our relationship with the family.
WILLIAMS: Did you offer Tom or Norm any advice on how to deal with Margaret?
ZOBRIST: Yes, I did. [chuckling] Although, you know, again my feeling is I don’t feel
that I should impose my feelings on other people, so I’d have to say Norm
learned a lot of this on his own. But Norm and I worked very closely
together, and I would simply say Norm reciprocated and Norm has saved my
hide more than once, as well as I think I have saved his hide a few times. So
it’s been a real good relationship. But again, you know, when you are
working with a person like Margaret, I mean, we’re all trying to do the right
thing, and I think that sometimes Margaret tends to make very quick
decisions, and I think Norm and I always felt that if we could help each other
in telling the other person’s side of the story or what needs to be done, that if
we all work together it would work out much better.
WILLIAMS: Why did you offer the park service office space here at the Truman library in
1983?
ZOBRIST: Well, because I’m just such a great guy. [laughter]
SHAVER: You’ve taken in all sorts of stray federal agencies.
50
ZOBRIST: No, I’m being very facetious. Well, basically because at that point in time we
did have the room. I think it’s because we had the room, because it would
save the park service going through the contracting and all of that red tape.
Thirdly, I think that we felt that by working together, the curators working
together, that we could learn from each other. And do let me say that . . . I
can’t think of the name of the curator you had before.
SHAVER: Steve Harrison?
ZOBRIST: Was it Steve?
SHAVER: It was Steve Harrison.
ZOBRIST: Yes, Harrison. Steve, we thought, was a very competent guy. We were
sorry to see him leave. And we learned a lot of things from him; I’m certain it
was mutual. You know, let me make one other observation that I think you
realize. When we secured all of this material and brought a lot of it up here,
subsequently Steve and now my curator Clay [Bauske], we’ve had a good
relationship, in terms of when we have found things that we feel rightly belong
to the house, we have transferred things down there. And I think that you
people have reciprocated in certain things where . . . I think one that I think
of, where we have a gun that came out of the house and you had the holster
for the gun. So it’s just a matter of getting all of this together.
And then one other point that . . . and I’m certain that you’ve asked
Pat and Liz about this, but let me make this . . . This is a point I feel very
strongly about. We talked about all of these inventories. Margaret has
looked over all of these inventories. They have all been sent to her, and they
were sent to her essentially in terms of asking her: “Where do you want this
51
stuff to go? What do you want to be done with it? And you can see where
she has annotated many times, you know, “This belongs in the house.” And
there have been some things where she said, “This I want. Send this to me.”
And then there have been other things that have gone into the library, and
there also are a few items, you know, “Get rid of,” that type of thing.
So let me say that from my point of view I have never looked at the
inventory of the home as like “yours” and “ours.” I have always viewed this,
and Norm and I had many conversations about this and I feel that we have
seen eye-to-eye on it, and I think that we have looked at it more in terms of
you should have all of the things down at the house that will exhibit the house
so that the public can see it in the best way. I think that Norm and I have felt
that it was silly to leave stuff in closets that the public would never see and
stuff that would be in the closets, and if it stayed in the closets it would just
continue to deteriorate, so you might just as well put it in an atmosphere or in
an area where we can preserve the things properly.
And then I think that we’ve always had, at least verbally, the
understanding that . . . You know, Norm and I have talked about this many
times. If you people are doing special exhibits or if you want to do a room in
a special way, like a Christmas exhibit or something like that, if we have up
here things that you need, no problems in exchanging things back and forth.
And I might say that you may remember when we did the Greta Kempton
exhibit here at the library. One of the great pieces that she has done is the
painting of Margaret in the home. Of course, we couldn’t strip the home of
that because, my God, you’d just have a blank wall there. But on the other
52
hand, for the opening of that exhibit, Norm was kind enough to let us have it
for about three or four days so at the opening of the exhibit we had the whole
thing altogether. I could go on and give you a lot of other examples, but I feel
that it has been a very good arrangement, and to the best of my knowledge,
it’s worked out very well.
WILLIAMS: Was there any question of ownership of this material that was removed from
the home after Mrs. Truman’s death?
ZOBRIST: Well, I think I would . . . The way I would answer that question, and maybe
I’m not telling you what you want, but in my estimation there was never any
question of ownership. It was all Margaret’s! And this is the basis on which
those inventories were made and we operated, because we did not acquisition
or process anything until Margaret had signed off on it. And I would have to
say the only things that I really . . . The only thing I was adamant about is to
carry out the major mission of my agency, and that is the papers. And there I
would occasionally remind Margaret that, you know, this was in Mr.
Truman’s will, and it was the full intention that that material come to the
library, to the government.
SHAVER: You had to talk to her at least on that point about his papers and his material?
ZOBRIST: Yeah. Yeah, but I’ve never had any real difficulties with her on this. Boy,
here I’m opening up another real can of worms. The only, I guess you might
say, real problem that we ever had was the icon. You guys know the icon
story?
SHAVER: Oh, let’s hear your version of it. We’ll probably learn a lot more. [chuckling]
ZOBRIST: Well, I’m not going to go into great detail. In that period after Mrs. Truman’s
53
death and until the park service got here, I would get these phone calls from
Margaret, and she would say, “I want you to take so and so through the
house to see the house.” And one of the people that she called and gave me
direct . . . And you realize this is before it had been transferred to the
government, that she told me to take through the house was Sam Gallu. Sam
Gallu goes through the house, and I guess in a subsequent conversation she . .
. In a subsequent conversation Sam told her what a great visit it was, and then
Sam told her, “Margaret, I would never leave that icon in the house.” And so
I got a direct order from Margaret, saying that the icon was hers and that the
icon should be removed and she would make arrangements for it to be sent to
her. And I’m not going to go into all of this excruciating story, but that’s
exactly what happened. She took it to New York City, and at that time . . .
And this was duly reported to my people in Washington, and I was not about
to confront Margaret on this because she was so adamant, but my end of the
government got in touch with her and retrieved the icon. And so the [icon] is
now back in our possession, and the last time I heard, it is still being
preserved. Here we get into a matter that still needs to be talked out with the
park service. You know, I have no problems in talking about this, but this is
an issue that Ron Mack and I will have to resolve one of these days. I don’t
have any particular desire to have that icon, even though in a sense it belongs
on my end of the government. I have not even talked with Ron Mack about
this, but Norm and I had discussed it. Norm’s position was, because you
don’t have humidity control and temperature control down there, that he
didn’t want it and that the park service would rather put up a reproduction.
54
Now that was the last turn of the screw, so to speak. And I would have to
say I personally have no strong feelings one way or the other.
WILLIAMS: Well, it would be nice to have something instead of the blank wall that’s there
now.
ZOBRIST: Yeah. But as I say, my end of the government, we have no strong feelings
one way or the other. But this is an issue that I think needs to be resolved
when we get the icon and we can see what the thing looks like. But this is the
only real excruciating experience that came out of the whole transfer.
WILLIAMS: Did Mrs. Daniel ever say to you that “there are just certain things that I don’t
want anyone to see, and as long as I’m alive, the park service can’t have
access to any . . .”? This is an issue that’s of particular interest to me, because
when I was doing research the first summer I was here I was informed that
some Bibles had been removed, family Bibles, and I was doing genealogy. I
guess, as I found out later, it was probably a misunderstanding, but I was told
that I couldn’t look at those because they were in the closed area. Later
Norm told me that if he had known, he was sure that I could have seen them.
ZOBRIST: Oh, yeah.
WILLIAMS: I was wondering if there was still any question, if those are considered part of
Mrs. Truman’s papers and those cannot be used?
ZOBRIST: I honestly can’t answer that question.
WILLIAMS: Mrs. Truman’s papers are still closed. Is that correct?
ZOBRIST: I guess, some of them.
WILLIAMS: Whenever we ask, that’s what we’re told: “Margaret hasn’t signed off on
them.”
55
SHAVER: Some sort of legal haze.
ZOBRIST: Yeah. Boy, I haven’t thought about that for a long time. You know, really I
just draw a blank. I just really don’t know where we are on that, and I don’t
think I really ought to expound on it because my mind is so hazy on this. You
know, really, I was not aware of your not being able to see the Bible or any of
that other stuff. And I can’t think of any good reason why you weren’t shown
it, other than that you probably were . . . my staff may have thought you were
a temporary or whatever and just flying through, or something like that.
WILLIAMS: Well, I was. [laughter]
ZOBRIST: Because our policy is that we really don’t make materials available to
researchers, and I think that that’s probably the category that you fell into.
We don’t make materials available to researchers until it’s in our possession.
WILLIAMS: Meaning legally in your possession?
ZOBRIST: Yeah, legally. Yeah, yeah.
WILLIAMS: Even if it was this material for the park service?
ZOBRIST: Well, if somebody had asked me about this case, I would have said, “My
God, no problem with this.” But what I am saying is that in all of the other
collections that we have the official policy is we can’t show anything to a
researcher until it’s legally been deeded to the government. But if I had
known about this, I would have made an exception. I don’t see any problems
with something like this.
WILLIAMS: That’s what Norm told me later, but by that time the summer was over and it
was too late. Did you ever envision the park service permanently operating
out of the Truman Library?
56
ZOBRIST: Say that again?
WILLIAMS: Did you ever envision the park service operating permanently out of the
Truman Library facilities?
ZOBRIST: No, I never did. But we have, at least we had at that time, enough space that
we were willing to consider it, but really, from our point of view, only on a
temporary basis. And I would have to say that as more time has evolved, I
think that that really . . . The only word that comes to my mind is the
healthiest arrangement is for us to operate the way we are. Because I guess I
feel that we, in a sense, both have different missions, and I think that if we
were to mix the pot together that we may not get, let’s say, as good a stew or
whatever as I think that we have gotten. A lot of things come to my mind. I
think you realize that the park service and our end of the government have not
had over the years good relationships in the Hoover Library, and I guess even
at the Roosevelt Library. The director of the Eisenhower Library, now
retired, [chuckling] I get a kick out of him. He would always say, “Don’t let
the park service in because you’ll have a situation like with the Hoover Library
or the Roosevelt Library.” But as things have evolved, I strongly think this is
the best way all the way around. I have no questions about it at all. You
know, really, when we were offering space, it only would have been on a
temporary basis, because you remember Norm and the gang were burned
out, so to speak.
WILLIAMS: Speaking of “the gang,” how would you describe their occupation, sort of, at
the library and their dealings with your staff, and just the whole atmosphere?
ZOBRIST: I think it’s real positive. I really mean it. In fact, I’m delighted to have you
57
people around because, for example, I wish that we had the staff and the time
to do tapes like you’re doing right now, and I hope that we can get copies of
what you’re doing. So I feel that you have been a plus all the way around. I
mean, I can think of nothing negative at all. I think we work together very
well. I think we realize that we have different missions, we have different
roles.
Really, you’ve asked the question, so I’m going to take the
opportunity to even put in another plug. You know, I would really like to see
your end of the government take the Truman farm home. I know that there
are a lot of bureaucratic reasons as to why it should not happen, including
money and that type of thing, but really I think that the park service, not only
the park service but the park service in particular, but I think all of us who are
interested in the Truman story can do a lot better job if we had your agency
with its expertise doing that part of the Truman story. I think it’s a natural.
WILLIAMS: Well, before the home opened, how did you see the addition of the Truman
home to the public, changing the visitor’s experience to Independence?
ZOBRIST: Very positive. And I’ve been in this town long enough that when I first came
to town, I mean, what was there to see? All there was to see was the
auditorium, the Truman Library, and the jail. Oh God, we could talk all
morning about this, or all afternoon, and I think, as you know, I’m involved in
a lot of civic things, the heritage commission . . .
In fact, by the way, realize . . . Let me just clarify that point. The only
reason I got involved in the heritage commission is because the park service
wasn’t around. And with my agency’s concurrence, I’ve always taken a
58
strong role in the heritage commission because I felt that the government
needed to be represented. I would be very happy to resign and give the job
to Ron Mack, really.
[End #4139; Begin #4140]
ZOBRIST: But let me say that, getting back on track, that I’m involved in a lot of things,
including right now I’m the chairman, they just reelected me, of Uptown
Independence. I like this community. I think it has a lot of potential
historically, and I look at the park service as being a very large part of that
whole package. I could go on in much greater detail but . . . [chuckling]
Anything else?
SHAVER: That’s the end of the tape.
WILLIAMS: Well, if you wouldn’t mind, maybe we could set an indefinite time to continue
the story in the next few years. [chuckling]
ZOBRIST: Okay. Well, I’ll tell you, you know, one of the things you might want to do is
talk about the heritage district and . . .
WILLIAMS: Oh, I have that on the list.
ZOBRIST: Oh God, well, that’s a whole afternoon all by itself!
SHAVER: Yeah, well, we’ve got another order for tapes. [chuckling]
ZOBRIST: Yeah, and, oh man, that’ll get my blood pressure up. And there are several
other people I think you need to talk with. You know, this damn town, it’s
like it’s two steps forward and then one step backwards, and we just keep
going back and forth like that. And I thought that with Barbara Potts that we
were finally getting our act together, and we were on the right track historically
in a lot of other ways, and now we’re back to square one again.
59
WILLIAMS: I would like to talk or have somebody talk to you more about the planning
and the coordination of things, but I realize I can wait for another time.
ZOBRIST: Well, you might want to do that after you get the home—I mean, get that
property.
SHAVER: We have heard some discussion with Norm and you, about Mr. Southern and
about that incident and how it ended up.
ZOBRIST: That’s right. I just cannot forgive him for the way that he handled that. And
again, I just ache over that whole situation. And you have to see it from my
point of view. Not too long after Mr. Truman died, and you see this was
years before Mrs. Truman was to pass on and the house came to the park
service, Mrs. Haukenberry told me that she was willing to give that house to
the government, and I assume with everything in it. I can remember . . . let me
talk about my agency, and they had . . . You know, we didn’t have the
money or any way of doing it. And I can remember, I think I called Ernest
Connelly at the time. I just think he’s a great guy. He’s still living, isn’t he?
SHAVER: Yeah, he’s still very active with the park service.
ZOBRIST: He was such a neat guy. And he told me, he tried to give me some ideas as to
how it might be done, but nothing ever happened. But if certain things would
have been in place, and again, you know, I won’t go on and on because
we’ve taken so much time, and I’ve taken your time too, but I look at this
Truman story, and if people would have died earlier or later than they did and
things like that, I mean, this could have been so different! Mrs. Haukenberry
at one point in time asked me to come down, and she talked very positively
about transferring that whole house to the government. But what really burns
60
me is that damn Southern. I mean, you guys are going to get the house, but
you could have gotten the house with everything in it.
WILLIAMS: I remember before she died—
SHAVER: Interesting that you and Norm call him by the same first name.
ZOBRIST: Oh, yeah. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: I remember before she died that her nurses had even supposedly straightened
up and thrown out a bunch of her papers and things. Just that things like that
happened that are very frustrating.
ZOBRIST: Yeah, but that I’m very frustrated about. But on the other hand, really and
honestly I think that when I look back on my life and what I’ve done, I am
very proud of the Truman home. And although there were a few bumps and
grinds in the whole process, I just think it’s an outstanding story. And not to
belabor the issue, but it is fun to talk about all this stuff. When I talk with the
people at the Roosevelt Library and the people at the other libraries, but in
particular I think at the Eisenhower Library, I mean, that experience really sort
of tipped me off and made me very apprehensive and cautious about the
Truman story because . . . And you probably know this story, but the
Gettysburg home out there, apparently Mrs. Eisenhower, if anybody’d come
in and say, “Oh, I’d like to have that,” I mean, she just gave the damn thing
away! And she gave a lot of stuff to the Secret Service, and she was not
thinking of the library, so John Whitman just got what was left over. And so
this story is so different from that story.
But again, you’re dealing with individuals. I like Margaret, and she
and I, we get along fine. I’ve had her all the way from . . . I hope this tape
61
thing is off, but I’ve had her all the way on the phone from her just being as
kind to me as she possibly could, to crying, to screaming at me over the
phone. But over the years, I have tried to cultivate a good, positive relation
with her, and I, in my small little world, I feel that I had a hand, and I’m glad if
I did have a hand, in sort of getting her off the ceiling and getting her to the
point where she’d take a more positive attitude.
WILLIAMS: Well, when I get frustrated I just remind myself of the Eisenhower home, and
also how much Margaret could have taken if she had had more of an interest
in it.
ZOBRIST: Yeah, that’s right.
WILLIAMS: It is very reassuring or comforting to know that she did take very few things
and was concerned.
ZOBRIST: Well, in fact, that thing there belongs to her, but she says, “Ben, I don’t have
any place to put it in my apartment.” So, great, I’ve got it. [chuckling] That’s
a story. You know, really it’s a good, positive story. I guess the only thing I
would say lastly is please let me read this thing before we make it public,
because I have no qualms in saying things the way they are, but I just . . .
SHAVER: We can wait a year or two.
ZOBRIST: I would not want to offend Margaret. And again, realize that Margaret is still
on my board and I still have things that I’m negotiating with her on. She still
has Truman letters that I want, and so this is the reason that I have to be
careful in what I’m saying. I don’t want to offend her in any way.
WILLIAMS: We’re not as efficient as you are about getting transcripts, so it may be many,
many years before anyone gets to see this. Thank you for visiting with us.
62
ZOBRIST: Well, thank you. It’s been a lot of fun, and I really sincerely mean it, that I
have enjoyed the park service being here.
END OF INTERVIEW

More on Dr. Benedict K. Zobrist

You can see the finding aid for the Benedict K. Zobrist Papers at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum by clicking here.