Merle Miller

==''Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman''==

In 1962, Miller was hired by producer [[Robert Alan Aurthur]] as part of a team to interview and write the script for a proposed series on ex-President [[Harry Truman]]. He spent hundreds of hours with Truman both at the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, and at the Carlyle Hotel in New York City, but all three of the major networks were not interested in the series and turned it down. Miller felt that perhaps the time was not right, that many people were not aware of the greatness of the man, and that it was possible that the country was not ready to look back at the Truman years. He also felt one of the reasons it was never shown on television, even as late as 1962, was that he had been a blacklisted writer.<ref name=Sex>"Sex and Power in High Places. Merle Miller Speaks Out" by John Mitzel. Gay Community News. Vol. 4. No. 42. April 16, 1977.</ref>

Miller did not know what to do with the interviews, some on tape and some taking up four full-sized file cabinets. He wanted to write a book about Truman, but he did not want it to be a biography. Truman died in 1972, and Miller was asked to appear on television and tell some Truman stories, some of which he had been entertaining friends with over the years. Someone at the station suggested that he should write a book that made use of some of the stories. He still had the tapes and the mountains of notes he had made after each conversation, and so he went home and put together a thirty-page proposal. It was turned down by at least eight publishers before it was picked up by G. P. Putnam's Sons.<ref>Thirty page book proposal by Merle Miller sent to his agent in which he stated in part:...Just ten years ago now I spent more than a month with Mr. Truman preparing for a television series that never came off. But the nearly two hundred hours of conversation, some of them on tape, the rest taking up four full-sized filing cabinets, are intact. And there are at least that many more hours of conversation with members of Mr.Truman's Administration, everybody from Dean Acheson to Clark Clifford to Omar Bradley to Wallace Graham, his personal physician. And more than fifty people in Independence who had known him since childhood. None of that material has ever been published, frankly, because I didn't quite know how to use it. I did not want to do a biography of Mr.Truman. But this book I plan to write will make abundant use of it. It will not be a personal history, but in many ways it will make use of personal memory...</ref>

''Plain Speaking'' is a book based on conversations between Miller and the 33rd president of the United States, as well as others who knew Truman over the years. Robert A. Aurthur said, "No one will ever study or write about the time of Truman again without a bow of gratitude to Merle Miller. Never has a President of the United States, or any head of state for that matter, been so totally revealed, so completely documented...."<ref>Merle Miller: A Sense of History. Ibid.</ref>

In October 1974, on a stop in [[Independence, Missouri]], promoting the book, Miller was presented the key to the city by Mayor Richard King, who stated: "You captured the spirit of Harry S. Truman, and President Truman represents the spirit of Independence."<ref>Letter to Merle Miller dated November 27, 1974, from Mayor Richard A. King.</ref> While there Miller was interviewed by the editor of a local newspaper and asked if he had received any serious criticism of his treatment of the Truman tapes. "Only minor criticism," Miller replied. "One of the controversial points was Mr. Truman's interpretation of the meeting with MacArthur at Wake Island. I'm satisfied that the account Mr. Truman gave me is correct."<ref>Miller Says 'Real HST' Talks in Plain Speaking by Sue Gentry. The Examiner. Independence, MO. October 30, 1974.</ref>

The book received generally positive reviews, although one later critic—Dr. Robert Ferrell of Indiana University—has questioned the authenticity and accuracy of some of the statements that Miller attributed to Truman.<ref>Truman Library. Merle Miller Papers. Collection Description. Page 2 of 26.</ref>

Within a short time of publication, ''Plain Speaking'' was listed as number one on the New York Times best-selling list where it remained for over a year. It stayed in print, either in hard or soft cover for many years and, as late as 2004, was published as a "Classic Bestseller" by Black Dog and Leventhal.

''Plain Speaking'' was adapted for television in 1976 by the [[Public Broadcasting Service]], for which [[Ed Flanders]] received an [[Emmy Award]] for his portrayal of Truman.<ref name="PBSShow">{{cite web |title=Harry S. Truman: Plain Speaking (TV) |url=https://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=ed&p=36&item=T:11444 |website=The Paley Center for Media |access-date=4 May 2021}}</ref><ref name="FlandersEmmy">{{cite web |title=Ed Flanders |url=https://www.emmys.com/bios/ed-flanders |website=Television Academy |access-date=4 May 2021 |language=en}}</ref>

===Controversy===
In 1995 ''Plain Speaking'' became the focus of a controversy. [[Robert H. Ferrell]], a historian who had also published a biography of Truman, asserted that Miller had fabricated many of the quotes in his book.<ref>Ferrell 1995. "Miller made notable additions, beyond simple rewritings"</ref><ref>[https://www.questia.com/magazine/1G1-16892412/plain-faking Plain Faking? by Ferrell, Robert H.; Heller, Francis H.] Note that the direct link to this article is missing the byline for Ferrell.</ref>

In ''Plain Speaking,'' Miller quoted Truman as referring to General [[Douglas MacArthur]] as a "dumb-son-of-a-bitch" and quoted Truman as asserting that [[Dwight Eisenhower]], his successor in the [[Oval Office]], tried to divorce his wife [[Mamie Eisenhower|Mamie]] in order to marry [[Kay Summersby]], his English chauffeur and secretary during World War II. In Miller's recounting, Truman claimed that General [[George C. Marshall]] wrote Eisenhower a letter threatening to ruin his career if he divorced his wife. According to Ferrell, Truman never actually said any of this,<ref>Ferrell 1995. "In the Miller tapes in the Truman Library there is no Truman conversation, nothing, about Kay Summersby."</ref> and he accused Miller of simply making up Truman's quotes to make his book more interesting and lively. A similar issue occurred with comments that Miller claimed Truman said about his former attorney general and later Supreme Court appointee, [[Tom C. Clark|Justice Tom C. Clark]].<ref>Alexander Wohl, "Writing Biography in the Age of Wikipedia: Removing a Shadow from the Life of Justice Tom Clark," ''Scotusblog'', September 23, 2013, http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/09/writing-biography-in-the-age-of-wikipedia-removing-a-shadow-from-the-life-of-justice-tom-clark/</ref> Ferrell claimed that Miller's papers on file in the Truman presidential library include no references to a number of Truman's quotes in ''Plain Speaking'', and in his opinion the quotes are most likely forgeries created by Miller, and are not real Truman quotes or statements. Ferrell also noted that Miller waited until nearly two years after Truman's death to publish ''Plain Speaking''. In 1963 Truman wrote a letter to Miller which read: "I thank you for sending me the article which you [Miller] proposed for the ''Saturday Evening Post''. I am not in favor of such articles, especially this one which has so many misstatements of fact in it. I am sorry that that is the case and if you publish it I shall make that statement public." According to Ferrell, Truman did not mail the letter to Miller, but instead chose to hire a law firm and threatened to sue, which forced Miller to withdraw the proposed article for the ''Saturday Evening Post'', and, in Ferrell's view, led him to wait until after Truman's death to publish ''Plain Speaking'' to avoid the possibility of any legal action.<ref>Ferrell 1995</ref>

Truman biographer [[David McCullough]] also criticized the historical accuracy of ''Plain Speaking,'' noting that in Truman's famous meeting with General MacArthur on Wake Island in 1950, "MacArthur [in the book] would be pictured deliberately trying to upstage Truman by circling the airstrip, waiting for Truman to land first, thus putting the President in the position of having to wait for the general. But it did not happen that way. MacArthur was not only on the ground, he had arrived the night before."<ref>(McCullough, p. 801)</ref> McCullough also wrote that "[in] many of his observations to Miller, [Truman] was more harsh than he meant or that he indicated at the time."<ref>(McCullough, p. 901)</ref>

With regard to any criticism of the book, Miller had this to say in the preface to ''Plain Speaking'': "Truman told it the way he remembered it. So as I think Mr. Truman would have said, the hell with the purists. There are already hundreds of books and there will be hundreds more to clear up those small details that Mr. Truman and his friends may have misremembered...."<ref>Preface to ''Plain Speaking'' by Merle Miller. P. 18.</ref>