Edmund S. Muskie Oral History Interview

Senator Edmund S. Muskie and Harry S Truman in the living room of the Truman home, December 14, 1970. (Harry S Truman Library photo 71-920)

Truman Library

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH EDMUND S. MUSKIE

MARCH 18, 1992
WASHINGTON, D.C.

INTERVIEWED BY JIM WILLIAMS
ORAL HISTORY #1992-2

HARRY S TRUMAN NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
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Edmund S. Muskie
March 18, 1992
(National Park Service photo by Jim Williams)
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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. 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.
Jim Williams reviewed the draft of this transcript. His corrections were incorporated into this final transcript by Perky Beisel in summer 2001. A grant from Eastern National Park and Monument Association funded the transcription and final editing of this interview.
Special thanks to the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library at Bates College for providing materials to Senator Muskie before the interview and to the park before this transcript was finalized.

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.
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ABSTRACT

The purpose of this interview was to discuss with Senator Muskie his three visits to the Truman home, one in September 1968 while he was running on the Democractic ticket for Vice President of the United States with Hubert H. Humphrey, and two others in 1970 when he was in Independence for other reasons. The interview also covered background information about Muskie‟s association with Harry S Truman when both were in Washington, D.C., earlier in their careers. This interview lasted ninety minutes. However, a tape recorder malfunction on the day of the interview resulted in fewer than ten minutes of audible recording on the tape. The remainder is static. Therefore, this transcript includes portions of the first twenty minutes of the interview only. An attempt has been made to reconstruct the interview from the interviewer‟s notes made during and shortly after the interview, from the Muskie materials provided by Bates College, and from archival materials from the Harry S. Truman Library. Users of this transcript, therefore, should keep in mind the limitations of the materials provided, which cannot substitute completely for the information lost in the recorder malfunction.
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ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH EDMUND S. MUSKIE

HSTR INTERVIEW #1992-2

EDMUND S. MUSKIE: In September of 1968, when I was on the ticket with Hubert Humphrey, and I did visit President Truman, and it's my recollection that I really remember only one visit, and that was with my wife and myself. Records indicate that apparently Humphrey visited Truman with me, or I visited with him. I have no recollections of that. And I remember that my recollection, and I guess maybe I . . . Yeah, I've got a picture also, but I also . . . My recollections of the meeting that took place, aside from the picture, involved only President Truman and myself. So I'm not sure how history separates this out. But as I remember it, I went to Independence and visited him.
And I've got some clippings here from my archives that may be a little ambiguous. I do have this one, which includes Humphrey. On the other hand, there is this one which . . . and this headline which includes Humphrey, but devotes very little of the story to Humphrey's involvement in the meeting with Truman. And the first paragraph in this story is: [reading] “Hubert H. Humphrey made a political pilgrimage Saturday to the man whose 1948 upset victory he
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hopes to copy, former President Harry S. Truman, and then hurried to [unintelligible], Ohio.” And that paragraph is all that there is in there about the visit to Independence, except for the picture.
JIM WILLIAMS: What newspaper was that?
MUSKIE: This one is the Portland Sunday . . . the Maine Sunday Telegram of September 22, 1968. You can have all this. The Maine Sunday Telegram, which indicates that it came to my archives for the period between September 13th and 23rd.
Now this story, I don't know what newspaper it was, but it‟s also from the Bates [College] archives, so I assume that the name of the newspaper could be . . . Well, it‟s an Associated Press story, and the picture is an Associated Press picture, so you have that. But then you have this story of Saturday, September 21st: “Muskie to Pay Call on Harry Truman.” And that‟s from the Lewiston, Maine, Daily Sun. And that does not mention Mr. Humphrey. All I‟m doing is giving you confusion. This story is from the Portland Press Herald of September 21st, which does not mention Humphrey.
WILLIAMS: What may explain this, one of the articles said that Vice President Humphrey didn‟t decide to join you until the evening before.
MUSKIE: Well, I can remember that he was unhappy that I was going to see Truman and that he apparently could not.
WILLIAMS: Here‟s the same thing in the Independence paper. It says just you were
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going to visit, and then the next morning the paper has Humphrey joining you. So it must have been announced later.
MUSKIE: That may be accurate. And then here, of course, is the schedule from my archives, my schedule for Friday, the 20th of September, and Saturday the 21st, with no mention of Humphrey in any of that. So that‟s consistent with what you‟ve just said. And I do remember that when I told Humphrey, because we talked every day of course, that I was or had visited Truman, he was unhappy because he would have liked to have been with me. Well, that may explain, you know, what happened, that at the last minute he changed his schedule to be with me. And that probably fits.
But in addition to that, my recollection of the discussion with President Truman doesn‟t include Humphrey. Whether [Humphrey] walked in after I had arrived at Truman‟s house, or whether he came in first and then went on, I don‟t remember. But I remember Truman wanted to know how he . . . [audio problem]
. . . come the closest to resolving that missing gap. The other two meetings, both in 1970, the one on April 11, I take it, was on the occasion of my speech at . . . [audio problem]
. . . Israel to Moscow, to Egypt, to Berlin, in connection with that campaign. And I notice here that there are pictures which included some of the Jewish leaders in this country who traveled with me on that trip, especially to Israel. [audio problem]
. . . shooting match, had to borrow the money to do it, and got a
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commitment from the widow that if I could pay cash on the balance within six months she'd knock another $1,000 off. So that‟s what I did. I finally was in practice, having bought a practice for $3,000, and made a living almost immediately at those things. I mean, there were clients. You know, collection clients don‟t walk away just because a new young lawyer takes over. So I practiced on collections and small estates. I was busy and I made a living. I wasn‟t married at that time, so it was rather easy. But I decided that . . . I made an agreement with the secretary that she could stay on, provided I . . . [audio problem]
[Remainder of tape is static only.]
END OF INTERVIEW