Lectures

Gammy and Grandpa: Growing Up Around Harry and Bess Truman

The architect of the Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine and the Berlin Airlift was a
terrible babysitter and subversive husband who would travel halfway around the
world to meet with Churchill and Stalin, but weasel out of mowing the lawn.

Harry and Eddie: The Recognition of Israel

They met in Kansas City when Grandpa was 21 and Eddie was 14 and struck up a
50-year friendship that spanned two world wars and a presidency. In 1948, Eddie
would risk it all for the sake of the nascent Jewish state.

Dear Harry, Love Bess: Bess Truman’s Letters to Harry Truman

Grandpa came home one day in 1955 and found my grandmother burning her
letters to him in the fireplace. “What are you doing?” he said. “Think of history!” She
said, “Oh, I have.” The 184 letters that survive paint an intimate portrait of my
grandparents’ marriage during Grandpa’s years as a county judge and US senator.

Beneath the Mushroom Cloud: Survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

My grandfather never spoke to me about the atomic bombings. In 1999, my son,
Wesley, brought home a book, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. It was the
first human story of the bombings I’d seen and it led to a meeting with Sadako’s
brother, Masahiro, a trip to the memorial ceremonies in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
and meetings – and friendships – with survivors.

This Place is Haunted Sure as Shootin’: The White House Restoration

The creaks and pops may have sounded ghostly, but they were warnings. Fire, marshy ground and decades of renovating, sawing and drilling had left the interior of the Executive Mansion sagging like a cooling soufflé. The lecture features photos taken during the 1948-52 restoration by National Park Service photographer Abbie Rowe.