The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World

by A.J. Baime

Each official was assigned a mess area and times when he could eat, and given information on the locations of bars where Americans could gather, where films would be shown, plus the locations of barbershops and laundry. Each man received a “Safeguard Your Health” memorandum, with instructions to drink water only from “authorized sources,” not to enter unauthorized buildings, and to consume only U.S. ration liquor, as “the cleanliness and purity” of foreign liquors were questionable. To accommodate all these figures, the army had requisitioned an extraordinary amount of materials: 5,000 linen sheets, 50 vacuum cleaners, 20 lawn mowers, 100 bedside lamps, 250 bottle openers, 250 corkscrews, 500 ashtrays, 25 reams of paper, 100 garbage baskets, 20 electric typewriters, and 3,000 rolls of toilet paper. All of Truman’s food would be served at his villa, where also his valet would handle his laundry. The army had flown in a physician for the president—Dr. Wallace Graham, who had attended wounded men at the D-day invasion and the Battle of the Bulge and had been wounded himself in the fighting. A Missourian, Dr. Graham would become Truman’s physician from this point onward, for the rest of Truman’s life.

Potsdam