Plain speaking: an oral biography of harry s. truman [Paperback]

Merle Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1986

That plainest speaker of all, Harry S. Truman, comes to us alive, magically alive, in his own words and those closest to him, words masterfully elicited by Merle Miller. Plain Speaking is an evocation of one of America's great Presidents. It also details the critical events and the crucial background facts that marks some of the most momentous decades in modern American life, the years of the Depression, the New Deal, World War II, the postwar era, the advent of Nixon and McCarthy. Merle Miller unerringly produces for us here Mr. Truman's revelations, reflections, and insights on the men and events from the Founding Fathers through to Hoover and up to Nixon. We laugh aloud, we rejoice, we are dismayed, perhaps we may even cry, for we are moved. History comes alive in a manner so personal that few will put this book down without being emotionally charged.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Berkley (December 1, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425094995
• ISBN-13: 978-0425094990
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,353,494 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #58 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( T ) > Truman, Harry

More About the Author

Merle Miller was born on May 17, 1919 in Montour, Iowa, and grew up in Marshalltown, Iowa. He attended the University of Iowa and the London School of Economics. He joined the US. Army Air Corps during World War II, where he worked as an editor of Yank. His best-known books are his biographies of three presidents: Plain Speaking: An Oral History of Harry Truman, Lyndon: An Oral Biography, and Ike the Soldier: As They Knew Him. His novels include That Winter, The Sure Thing, Reunion, A Secret Understanding, A Gay and Melancholy Sound, What Happened, Island 49, and A Day in Late September. He also wrote We Dropped the A-Bomb, The Judges and the Judged, Only You, Dick Daring!, about his experiences writing a television pilot for CBS starring Barbara Stanwyck and Jackie Cooper, and On Being Different, an expansion of his 1971 article for the The New York Times Magazine entitled "What It Means to Be a Homosexual." He died in 1986.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Highly Entertaining, and highly inaccurate, September 1, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry s Truman (Library Binding)

When I first read "Plain Speaking" over fifteen years ago, I immediately thought that it was one of the best and most entertaining political books I'd ever read. And if I had to rate "Plain Speaking" on the sheer delight you get from reading it, I'd easily give it six stars instead of five. Unfortunately, recent research by historians at the Truman Library has revealed that at least some of Truman's statements in "Plain Speaking" were never spoken by Mr. Truman, but were entirely the products of Merle Miller's imagination. As a result, while "Plain Speaking" is still a wonderful read if you've got a few free hours, it is no longer taken as serious "history" by researchers and historians. "Plain Speaking" isn't a traditional, full-length biography of Truman, instead it is a brief "oral biography" of the man, presumably spoken in Truman's own words. Merle Miller, a veteran journalist, visited the ex-President in 1962 and taped a series of interviews with him. His hope was that he could sell these interviews to a TV network. But since no network ever bought the rights, in 1973 Miller simply printed the interview transcripts and turned them into this bestselling book. Miller clearly admired Truman, and as a result his questions are often partisan and/or favorable - Miller is certainly no Sam Donaldson or Connie Chung when it comes to doing "tough" interviews! In one question Miller asks Truman "Are they {the Republicans} just stupid?", and Truman gives a typically partisan response. Even so, many of Truman's replies to Miller's questions are delightfully blunt and laugh-out-loud funny: "I didn't fire General MacArthur because he was a dumb son-of-a-*****, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals...", etc. Over the course of the book Truman bluntly critiques Eisenhower, Henry Wallace, Douglas MacArthur, and even John F. Kennedy (whom Truman dryly calls "the boy" and matter-of-factly claims had his 1960 nomination and election victory "bought" for him by his sinister father, Joseph Kennedy). It's hard not to admire Truman and find him to be a refreshing change from the modern politician who calculates every word and lies constantly. Unfortunately, it turns out that at least some of Truman's statements were fake - they were nothing more than figments of Merle Miller's imagination. Truman even wrote a letter to Miller in which he strongly criticized Miller's "inaccuracies" in quoting him, and threatened a lawsuit if Miller ever tried to release the interview transcripts as factual (Miller waited until after Truman's death in 1972 to publish this book, thus making sure that Truman wasn't around to point out that a good deal of "Plain Speaking" is fiction, not fact). The fact that Miller ignored Truman's complaints and went ahead with this book's publication - and then presented himself as one of Truman's greatest admirers - leads me to give "Plain Speaking" no more than three stars. I suspect that Truman himself would be appalled at how Miller successfully passed this book off as an accurate portrait of what he said in the interviews. "Plain Speaking" is a great read, but as accurate history it is sadly lacking, and the reader should always keep this in mind.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Historical Masterpeice, June 1, 2000

By 

Melvin Hunt (Cleveland,, Texas United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Plain speaking: an oral biography of harry s. truman (Paperback)

This was a very good book. This book outlines how a man of very humble beginnings became the President of the United States. One of the more interesting parts was Truman's rise from a machine politician to a national figure. Also,I found amazing some of the historical roads that Truman had a role in traveling. His shaping of the world after World Wat II through the Marshall Plan was very readable. His role with Israel was also very noteable. His firing of General Mcarthur was laid out in great detail. I also liked reading his feelings and opinions about various political figures that we have come to know. Before this book I didn't have an opinion about Truman. After I read this book I became mightily impressed with Harry Truman. An excellent book.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars False quotations discredit fascinating account, February 29, 2000

By 

Geoff Pietsch (Gainesville, FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Plain speaking: an oral biography of harry s. truman (Paperback)

Having just read another biography of Truman, I was reminded of Plain Speaking and of the newspaper articles a year or two ago which discredited this book. An historian actually checked out some of the most colorful quotations attributed to Truman by Miller and found Miller had either altered the real Truman statements or dressed them up to make them more colorful. The historian listened to Miller's own tapes - which are, as I recall, at the Truman Presidential library - and was astonished at what he found. He had no agenda to discredit Miller; he had initally simply wanted to hear Truman's voice making the statements and to also gather fuller context. So, while most of what Miller recorded is accurate, the intellectual dishonesty of manufacturing quotes is unforgiveable.