Seth Andrew (RI '99), founder of three Democracy Prep charter schools, was quoted in the New York Times article, "Charter School Space: Free of Rent, Maybe, But Not of Hurdles."

Read the full article.

By Westbrook Murphy, General Counsel, Truman Scholarship Foundation

Sixty years ago today—April 11, 1951—President Harry Truman relieved General Douglas MacArthur of his commands in Japan and Korea.  Doing so firmly re-established the Constitutional principle of civilian control; of the military.  The back story also shows how Truman took responsibility for his decisions as announced by the famous sign on his desk: “The Buck Stops Here.”

MacArthur

Douglas MacArthur emerged from Word War II as a wildly popular general.  Like Patton in Europe, MacArthur’s campaign up the island chain from Australia was aggressive and captured large amounts of territory and enemy prisoners with a comparatively low ratio of U.S. casualties. 

And—like Patton—MacArthur seldom missed a chance to glorify his own reputation.  His ego knew few bounds.  As Truman wrote privately: “Unlike MacArthur, the Cabots at least talked to the Lodges before telling God what to do.”

In a precursor of his contretemps with Truman, in the early 1930s MacArthur had gotten away with openly defying President Hoover.  MacArthur then was the Army’s Chief of Staff. 

In the depths of the Depression, World War I veterans marched on Washington to demand that a deferred bonus due to them in two more years be paid early.  This so-called bonus army set up a makeshift camp on the eastern side of the Anacostia River—across the river from the present sites of RFK and the Washington Nationals Stadia. 

One day the bonus army crossed the Anacostia and marched in a demonstration up Pennsylvania Ave.  Shots were fired—no one knew by whom—and one or two people were killed.

President Hoover called out the Army to restore order.  Col. Dwight Eisenhower, then MacArthur’s principal aide, advised MacArthur to assign some other officer to lead the Army’s peacekeeping operations.  But MacArthur ignored this advice.  Putting on his full uniform, he took personal command of the operation.

President Hoover’s original orders were explicit: a U.S. Army detachment was to force the bonus marchers back across the Anacostia, but to stop there without itself crossing the river.  When Hoover sent a messenger repeating his order, MacArthur dismissed it, declaring that he was not bound by any so-called orders from the President.

MacArthur did not stop at the river, but crossed the Anacostia and razed the bonus army’s makeshift camp.  He then went to the White House and defied Herbert Hoover to challenge what MacArthur had done.  Hoover refused to do so.

You may read more about this and other events in MacArthur’s life in William Manchester’s American Caesar. 

The Korean Situation

The first few months of the North Korean’s surprise late June 1950 attack across the 38th parallel were highly successful.  They drove the United nations forces (mostly U.S.) into a defensive line around the southeast Korean port of Pusan. 

MacArthur conceived a daring plan of an amphibious landing at Inchon, a port mid-way up the peninsula’s western side—not far from the capital of Seoul and the 38th parallel.  If successful, UN forces then could cut off the North Korean Army. 

But the 20-foot+ tides at Inchon made the entire operation a huge gamble.  Landing craft could reach the shore only for an hour or so during the high tides that occurred about 12 hours apart.  The Pentagon brass was highly skeptical, but President Truman backed the Inchon landing.

The Inchon landing in September, 1950, turned the war around.  Many North Koreans were killed or captured between UN forces who had landed at Inchon and those who broke out of the Pusan perimeter.  The UN forces drove what remained of the North Korean army back across the 38th Parallel, and continued the campaign northward—but without any clear strategic goal having been established. 

The Wake Island Meeting

In October, 1959, President Truman met personally with MacArthur, traveling much further to the meeting place—Wake Island—than did MacArthur.  Two asides, before resuming the principal story:

• Mrs. Truman was deeply concerned about the President flying so far in what was then a propeller-driven presidential plane across so much of the Pacific—particularly the last leg from Hawaii to Wake Island.  White House Physician Wallace Graham told her not to worry:  the Navy would have a line of ships stationed along the route which quickly could go to the rescue if the plane should need to ditch.  When Mrs. Truman realized that the Navy lacked enough ships to cover that vast stretch of the Pacific, Dr. Graham reassured her that the entire route would be covered because, as the planed passed over the ship at the end of the line, that ship would steam around to the front.
• President Truman wanted to take with him a gift for Mrs. MacArthur: See’s chocolate candies of which she was known to be fond.  While the plane stopped over in San Francisco, he sent my father Charles Murphy out to search for candy.  My father could find only 1-pound boxes, and returned with five of them.  During the next stop at Honolulu, he tried again and found a 5-pound box for the President to give to Mrs. MacArthur.  I never learned what happened to five 1-pound boxes.

One of the main topics discussed on Wake Island was whether the Chinese Communists might intervene militarily as the UN forces pushed northward toward the Chinese border.  MacArthur told the President that the Chinese would not intervene, but—if they did—he pitied them.  They would be slaughtered like sheep.  In describing that conversation years later, may father said that MacArthur was the most persuasive man he ever heard.

When they parted, President Truman thought that MacArthur agreed with the President’s military aims as described below.

Differing War Aims

MacArthur—and Truman too—badly misjudged Chinese intentions.  In late November, 1950, tens of thousands of Chinese “volunteers” stormed across the frozen Yalu River and inflicted great casualties on the UN forces while driving them back to about the 38th Parallel.

President Truman’s goal in Korea was limited:  he wished to beat back the North Korean aggression and restore order on the Korean peninsula.  He feared that widening the war would give the Soviet Union an opportunity to initiate military action in Europe while the U.S. was bogged down in Korea, and might even lead to World War III.

Declaring that, “There is no substitute for victory,” MacArthur wanted to attack Communist China, and perhaps even restore to power the Nationalist Chinese under Chiang Kai-shek.  MacArthur made public his disagreement with the President through, inter alia, a message he sent to an American Legion Convention and a letter he wrote to Joseph Martin, the House Republican Leader. 

For more detail, read David Halberstam’s last book, The Coldest Winter.  You’ll find there that MacArthur was well past his prime even as a military commander. 

The Last Straw

In the spring of 1951 the Truman Administration had feelers out to the Chinese that might have brought an end to the Korean fighting.  MacArthur sabotaged these efforts by publically announcing that any truce would have to be negotiated with him.  Truman then decided that McArthur must be relieved of his commands.  But he kept this decision to himself.

He had a file assembled of the correspondence between MacArthur and his nominal superiors in Washington.  He gave copies of this file to each of one of the most sterling set of advisors ever assembled for a U.S President:

• Secretary of State Dean Acheson,
• Secretary of Defense George Marshall,
• Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Omar Bradley, and
• Special wartime advisor Averill Harriman.

He instructed each to read the file and then reassemble the next day.  They did so, agreeing that MacArthur should be relieved. Gen. Marshall, however, advised caution because of the expected public reaction.  Truman then told them of his decision to relieve MacArthur.

What a President!

Under my father’s direction the White House staff and the Pentagon begin to prepare the necessary papers to carry out the President’s decision to relieve Gen. MacArthur and appoint Gen. Mathew Ridgeway in his place.  Out of respect for MacArthur, they trued to arrange for Army Secretary Frank Pace, who then was in Korea, to fly to Tokyo and personally inform MacArthur that he was being relieved.  The effort to reach Pace was unsuccessful. 

Reacting to a possibility (false, as it turned out) that MacArthur had learned of the President’s decision and would try to gain a public relations advantage by resigning, the White House rushed to announce the President’s decision late at night.  About 10 p.m. President Truman, as was his habit before making an important decision, assembled his staff to ask their individual opinions.

A young aide to Averill Harriman named Ted Tannenwald spoke up to push an idea that my father had rejected earlier in the day.  Tannenwald urged that the White House press release should recite that Truman was acting on the advice of his principal civilian and military advisers—the group listed above.

Truman looked at him and said: “No, Son, not tonight.  All that will come out eventually.  But tonight this is the President acting as President on his own authority.”

In The Coldest Winter, supra, Halberstam calls this President Truman’s finest hour.

The day before MacArthur was relieved Herblock’s Washing Post editorial cartoon showed artillery captain Harry Truman cowering under his desk before the towering figure of the great General MacArthur.  Herblock’s cartoon the next day was simply a drawing of the White House flying a large American flag from the roof, with the caption: 48 Star General.”

Aftermath

Relieving General MacArthur created the greatest public furor of any of Truman’s decisions.  MacArthur returned to a hero’s welcome in the United States, including a tickertape parade down Broadway.  He delivered to a joint session of Congress his famous speech that “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.”

Truman, on the other hand, was accused of being mentally unbalanced.  There were calls in Congress and elsewhere for his impeachment.  Congressional hearings were convened.  But the MacArthur bubble burst when Army Chief of Staff Omar Bradley’s crisply summarized for the Congressional committee that: “Gen. MacArthur wanted to get the United States into the wrong war in the wrong place with the wrong enemy at the wrong time.” 

Westbrook Murphy serves as General Counsel of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation.

Seth Andrew (RI '99) wrote a piece published by The Huffington Post: "A New Approach to Holding Charter Schools Accountable."

Read the full article.

State Representative Jake Zimmerman (MO' 95) was elected St. Louis County Assessor in the first election for that position in 51 years.

Read the full article.

The 2011 TSA national conference is fast approaching, and the TSA board has been working hard to put together an event that will be fun and inspiring.  We received great feedback to the survey that was sent out last fall, and thus would like to seek your input again by asking for proposals for breakout sessions for the 2011 conference.

Each "breakout session" will have multiple panels and workshops addressing a variety of topics, and scholars can choose which to attend based on their individual interests.  Panels will feature a moderator-led discussion among a number of expert panelists, and will seek to educate scholars and foster discussion on that panel's particular topic.  The workshops will also be led by experts from the field, but will be more interactive than the panels and will focus on developing a particular skill set. We are looking for proposals that highlight innovative research and public service representative of a broad field, and are particularly interested in seeing what scholars have accomplished in the years since being awarded the scholarship and graduating from school.

Proposals should be emailed to Michele Buckley (buckleymb@gmail.com) by April 15.  Please include as much of the following information as possible:

1. Name, scholar year and state, and title
2. Educational background
3. Title of breakout session
4. Brief summary of presentation
5. Who will be presenting? (We welcome both scholars and non-scholars to make presentations!)
6. What are the professional qualifications/education background of the presenters?
7. What are the key things you want to share in this presentation?
8. What are the "takeaways" from this presentation (new skills, information, methods, etc.)?
9. Any additional information 

Thank you for your help and we look forward to seeing you in July!

Maryam Banikarim (CA ‘87) has been named senior vice president and chief marketing officer of Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE:GCI).  She will be responsible for all companywide marketing, communications and research efforts.

Laura Peck ('92) is co-author of the latest textbook, American Public Policy: An Introduction, 10th ed. Boston, MA: Wadsworth, with Clarke E. Cochran, Lawrence C. Mayer, T.R. Carr, N. Joseph Cayer, and Mark McKenzie.

Brad Snyder ('93) continues to blog at http://www.ivebeentalkingtoyourkids.com/ about children, public affairs, public policy, the media and what we should know about from the latest research on children and adolescents.

Jake Zimmerman (MO '95) was elected as St.Louis (Missouri) County Assessor in the first election for that position in 51 years. He previously served as a State Representative. http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/article_71427cd7-5777-5bdf-8f53-50a472cb49b6.html

Kara Slaughter (KS ‘98) helped to organize the tractorcade that rolled around the capitol square on March 12 in Madison, Wisconsin to protest the governor's budget repair bill and biennial budget proposal.  Slaughter is Government Relations Director for Wisconsin Farmers Union, a grassroots family farm organization.  "The governor's proposals would decimate rural schools, tear the heart out of our state's farmland preservation program, and slash BadgerCare, which provides health insurance coverage for 11,000 Wisconsin farm family members," Slaughter said.

Wendi Adelson (FL ‘00) was appointed to the position of Clinical Professor at the Florida State University College of Law directing a Medical Legal Partnership. The law students will practice disability rights and immigration law while doing health law in a poverty context.

Kenneth DeGraff (TN ‘02) was appointed to serve as policy advisor for energy and technology issues to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). He previously served as Rep. Mike Doyle’s (D-PA) legislative director: http://www.washingtonblade.com/2011/04/01/pelosi-names-gay-adviser-for-energy-and-technology/

Melissa Boteach (MD ‘04), Director of The Center for American Progress Half in Ten initiative to reduce poverty, was interviewed on NPR’s Marketplace: http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/04/01/pm-employment-picks-up/?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4d977249be848ed5%2C0

Kendra Key (AL '09) was named one of "America's Most Daring Young Black Activists" by Campus Progress: http://campusprogress.org/articles/the_friday_list-down_10_of_americas_most_daring_young_black_activists/

Please submit Class Notes to news@trumanscholars.org.

By Lauren Hashiguchi (OR '10)

Eric Greitens, 1995 Truman Scholar from Missouri and Navy SEAL, has served on the front lines: in Mother Teresa’s homes for the destitute, with refugees in Bosnia and genocide survivors in Rwanda, in Navy SEAL training and counterterrorism combat, and with wounded and disabled warriors at home. In his book The Heart and the Fist, which comes out on April 11^th, Greitens shares the story of his extraordinary journey, offering his reflections on what it means to find fulfillment on the front lines of service as a both a humanitarian and warrior.

This candid story of service speaks especially to the community of Truman Scholars. Greitens, reflecting on the central motivation for his service, remarks, “I think what’s at the heart of all of it is something that is probably at the heart of it for many Truman scholars, which is a passionate sense to use my time and whatever gifts I have been given to be of service to others.” With the support of the Truman Foundation, he completed his doctoral thesis, Children First, at Oxford. The thesis investigated how international humanitarian organizations can best serve war-affected children. He says, “One of the obligations that we have as scholars is to figure out how we use this tremendous gift and investment in our education to do the best possible service work that we can in our communities, for our country, and in the wider world.”

Central to Greitens’s motivation for writing The Heart and the Fist is realizing a flourishing and complete life through service. To Greitens, the bond between strength and compassion unify his service as both a humanitarian and a warrior. He explains “I think that The Heart and the Fist speaks to what every Truman Scholar probably knows instinctively, and that is that if you really love something, if you really care about something, then you have to act with compassion. But just as surely if you want to protect something you also have to respond with strength. If you want to be effective in any service endeavor…it’s going to take a combination of a compassionate response to people who are in need and the demands of courage that it takes to be effective at any level of the policy arena.”

Courage is especially meaningful for Greitens, who returned from service in Iraq to found The Mission Continues, a non-profit organization that empowers wounded and disabled veterans to find courage and purpose in beginning new lives as citizen leaders at home. Service is not easy, he remarks: “One of the things that I hope the book will also show is how difficult it was and how many times I struggled and failed along the way…I try to make clear The Heart and the Fist is that real courage is not just bravery that happens in a flash, in a moment. It is actually the courage of perseverance, the willingness to do that thing that has to be done day after day which actually helps people to transform their lives,” he says.

The ranks of Truman Scholars occupy a diversity of roles in public service, but at the heart of our collective service is the underlying passion to apply scholarship and leadership to the genuine service to others. By sharing the lessons he has learned from those on the front lines, Greitens hopes to help people approach service on their own front lines with greater purpose.

Lauren Hashiguchi (OR '10) will begin work as a Truman-Albright Fellow after graduating from Saint Louis University in May.

By Westbrook Murphy, General Counsel, Truman Scholarship Foundation

In the words of the old Kingston Trio song: “They’re rioting in Africa!”  And in the Middle East.  Tunisia. Egypt. Libya. Yemen. Bahrain. Maybe even Saudi Arabia and Iraq.  What should we (the Untied States) do?

September, 1953, Dean Acheson—Truman’s former Secretary of State (both then having been out of office about eight months)—offered advice that still may be pertinent. 

Acheson was concerned about what he called the “liberation ideas” of his successor, John Foster Dulles.  Acheson feared that Dulles’ talk of “rolling back communism” in Central and Eastern Europe would give the peoples of those countries false hope of U.S. support should they revolt against their Moscow-controlled dictators.  Such a hope, in fact, may have influenced the 1956 abortive Hungarian revolution, which was brutally crushed by the Soviet Military.

On September 24, 1953, Acheson sent Truman comments on draft of a speech Truman was to give four days later when accepting the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Award.  Acheson worried that—as written—the speech seemed to commit former President Truman—

. . .to an impossibility broad program and one which I am afraid will get you tangled up with the Dulles liberation ideas.  I do not think that you want to say that it is our task to establish the Four Freedoms everywhere in the world—Russia, China, South Africa, etc.—and that there is no end save victory in the struggle. . . .  Therefore, I suggest that this whole section be written as follows:

“It is not enough to defend our freedoms at home only. We must be concerned with a world environment in which free men can live free lives.  Franklin Roosevelt knew that we could not exist in an oasis of freedom in a world of totalitarianism.  ‘The world order which we seek,’ he said, ‘is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.’  The Four Freedoms for us, as for all free nations, depend upon a world in which peace and justice are maintained by the concerted effort of free nations.”

Good approach to today’s problems?

Westbrook Murphy serves as General Counsel of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation.

by Matthew Garza (CA '09)

There are countless maps and tourist guides for Washington, DC, a hodgepodge of monument circuits and invitations to ride a double decker bus. But as we prepare for the 2011 National Conference, we thought it fitting that the Scholar community have its own handbook for this historic city. Our namesake president had a remarkable tenure here, and so today we are excited to announce the Truman Scholars’ Guide to Washington, DC. After consulting with history books and the Truman Library staff in Missouri, we have compiled a series of locations in the city where you can visit landmarks relevant to the 33rd president.

Some sites include:

• Blair House - During the second term of the presidency of Harry Truman, the White House was found to have serious structural faults and was completely gutted and renovated. While the White House was undergoing renovation, the President resided at Blair House.
• The Mayflower Renaissance Hotel - President Truman stayed here for the first 90 days of his presidency, and this is the location where he announced he would run for a second term.
• The National Guard Armory Building - Truman's inaugural ball occurred here.
• The Omni-Shoreham Hotel (site of our conference) - To celebrate the inauguration of our 33rd President, The Democratic National Committee held a reception for Harry S. Truman here on January 21, 1949. 

If you get a chance to visit these sites, we would love to see some pictures we can share. So be sure to send those memories our way.

For the entire map, check out the Truman DC Sightseeing Map.

Matthew Garza (CA '09) is a research assistant at the Brookings Institution.

Hello from 2011 Conference Central!

The countdown to the conference has begun and we are less than four months away from the "don't miss" Truman event of the year. The TSA Board and particularly the events committee is moving into high planning mode as we finalize details for the July 22-24 event at the OMNI Hotel in Washington DC.

First, we have lined up two of your fellow scholars who have recently reached major milestones in their public careers. First, Senator Chris Coons (DE '83) will be our guest of honor on Friday, July 22 for a Gala Banquet. Second, Michelle Gavin (AZ '95), the newly appointed "Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Botswana" will be our guest on Saturday at lunch. We are very fortunate to have two public servants at such a high level agree to speak at our conference.

We are also working on bringing you informative and timely plenary sessions with speakers and topics that will appeal to the broad range of scholars. More information on the plenaries (general sessions) will be announced as it becomes finalized.

Recently the events committee formed a subcommittee to look at breakout sessions and develop a plan to have a good mix of both panels, speakers and workshops for the breakouts. We heard your feedback from the last conference and wanted to structure the breakouts a little differently this time. Thank you to everyone who submitted ideas and proposals. I'm sure the subcommittee will send out an announcement soon.

We have so many surprises and things we are working on. Recently Matt Garza (CA '09) created a map of "Truman Locations" for you to visit while you are in DC! Thank you Matt! We are also planning to request a White House Tour so very shortly we will announce registration is open and if you are interested please provide the security information requested.

If you or your organization is interested in being a sponsor, please email me or call me as soon as possible. Last conference we were able to keep registration costs down because of donors and a sponsor. Likewise, if you would like to make a donation to help offset costs and lower registration costs for everyone, please let me know.

Finally, I want to assure anyone with a dietary restriction such as: vegans, vegetarians, gluten free, kosher and others that the OMNI is prepared to have special meals during the conference! We appreciate everything the OMNI is doing to make the conference special. For those who do not have dietary restrictions, I can tell you that the dinner Friday night will be delicious. Recently Adair Boroughs (SC '01), Anthony Shop (MO '04), Kimberly Jones (CT '99) and I all had the opportunity to participate in a tasting at the OMNI. I don't think you will be disappointed with the food!

Watch your email and other Truman information sources for announcements in the coming weeks about registration and other details. As always, please contact me if you have questions.

A big thank you to the events committee for all their hard work: Chiraag Bains (MA '02), Michele Buckley (CO '06), Sarah Sattelmeyer (GA '04), Dara Purvis (CA '02), Katie Liberman (MA '06), Lyric Chen (WI '05), Matt and Adair. I takes many people to organize an event of this size--and in this case its being organized by Scholars volunteering their time to create an event that we will all remember.

Jessica Sotelo (ID' 00), Executive Director at Partners for Prosperity, is the 2011 Truman Scholars National Conference Director.

The Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation recently announced the selection of the 2011 Truman Scholars. The 60 Scholars were selected from among 602 candidates nominated by 264 colleges and universities. Read the full release.

Media from across the country, ranging from The New York Times to college publications, have announced the selections. A sampling headlines appear below:

2 College Students Are Named Truman Scholars, The New York Times

Boston College junior wins Truman Award; 7th to do so in BC history, The Boston Globe

Williams College junior awarded the prestigious Truman Scholarship, iBerkshires

Streak: Another University of Utah student wins prestigious Truman scholarship, Salt Lake Tribune

Student wins Truman Scholarship while clearing life's hurdles, WDAM-TV

UNL Student Wins Truman Scholarship, Lincoln Journal-Star

UAB junior Kimberly Everett wins Truman Scholarship, UAB News

BC Junior Aditya Ashok Named Truman Scholar, Boston College News

Corey Metzman of Penn Named a 2011 Truman Scholar, Penn News

Senior From Junction City Is K-State's 33rd Truman Scholar, KSAL News

Campus activist wins $30K Truman Scholarship, ASU News

Hendrix Junior Named Truman Scholar, Hendrix College

Stony Brook Student Named Truman Scholar, Newsday 

EKU Student Honored, Richmond Register