the first President to publicly endorse
government-funded health care. Gage
also elides Truman’s role in such achieve-
ments as the Berlin Airlift and estab-
lishing the Point Four Program, a U.S.
global foreign-aid initiative.
There are also notable omissions in
Gage’s sketch of Truman as a person
that contribute to an impression of him
as ill-suited for the Presidency. Gage re-
lates that, before his political life, Tru-
man was a farmer and a haberdasher,
and that he did not graduate from col-
lege. She does not mention that he served
in the First World War, commanding a
battery of two hundred men. Gage con-
trasts Dean Acheson’s invocations of
“ancient Athens and Sparta and Rome”
with Truman’s more prosaic references.
But Truman had a passion for history,
including that of ancient Greece and
Rome, pored over Plutarch’s “Lives” as
a boy, and counted Cincinnatus and
Marcus Aurelius among his heroes.
Fiona McCormack Foley
Norwalk, Conn.
1
MEMORIES OF BEATRICEI enjoyed Peter Schjeldahl’s piece about
Marcel Duchamp’s circle, as I, too, “like
thinking about Beatrice Wood” (Books,
March 14th). My husband and I pur-
chased a vessel of hers many years ago,
and its lustrous patina still amazes. Once,
we took our young sons on a visit to
Wood’s home, in Ojai. We wanted them
to meet this extraordinary nonagenarian
who threw pots, explored on her com-
puter, and was always in bright lipstick,
a shimmering sari, and jewelry—Tech-
nicolor from head to toe. Wood shared
a box of chocolates with the boys, giv-
ing them her full attention. It was a de-
light, for which we’re still grateful.
Jacquie Wolfe Friedland
Palos Verdes, Calif.HIDDEN DESCENDANTS
Jill Abramson’s thoughtful piece about
West Ford, a man who was enslaved
at Mount Vernon and whose descen-
dants claim that he was George Wash-
ington’s son, brought to mind the story
of Maria Carter Syphax (“Far from the
Tree,” March 14th). Like Ford, Syphax,
who was born in 1801, is linked to Wash-
ington’s family. Her father was George
Washington Parke Custis, a grandson of
Martha Washington and a step-grandson
of George Washington. Syphax’s mother
was Arianna Carter, an enslaved woman
who served Martha Washington. Syphax
was enslaved at Arlington House, the
mansion that Custis built in what is now
Arlington National Cemetery, where she
served her half sister, Mary Anna Cus-
tis Lee, the wife of Robert E. Lee. In
1821, Maria married Charles Syphax, who
was enslaved at Mount Vernon. Today,
Arlington House is managed by the Na-
tional Park Service, whose Web site de-
scribes Syphax as Custis’s daughter. The
Mount Vernon Web site, however, still
attributes this account of her paternity
to “Syphax family tradition.”
Toby McIntosh
St. Julian’s, Malta
1
RECONSIDERING TRUMAN
Beverly Gage’s review of Jeffrey Frank’s
book about Harry S. Truman focusses
on the extent to which Truman’s Presi-
dency was defined by his being thrust
into situations that were not of his mak-
ing (Books, March 14th). She refers to a
number of terrible possibilities that Tru-
man helped to avert, and to Frank’s as-
sertion that these deserve to be tallied in
“the historical discussion,” but, over all,
like Frank, Gage underemphasizes the
extent to which Truman shaped his own
circumstances, and those of the world.
Gage neglects to mention Truman’s
firing of General Douglas MacArthur,
who, defying Truman, proposed bomb-
ing China in what would have been an
escalation of the Korean War. She points
to Truman’s failure to win universal health
coverage, but not to the fact that he was
- Letters should be sent with the writer’s name,
address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to
[email protected]. Letters may be edited
for length and clarity, and may be published in
any medium. We regret that owing to the volume
of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.
THE MAIL