Beyond Truman
Beyond Truman
Robert H. Ferrell and Crafting the Past
Douglas A. Dixon
LEXINGTON BOOKS
Lanham • Boulder • New York • London
Published by Lexington Books
An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2020 Douglas A. Dixon
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Is Available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020935397
ISBN 978-1-7936-2781-0 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-7936-2782-7 (electronic)
For My Wife
Who always supports my historical journeys
and
To the memory of Robert H. Ferrell, lifelong mentor
[In] the atmosphere of the Cold War . . . Communist advocacy of the interests of the masses, belief in the “laws” of history and progress, and enthronement of ideology and belief at the center of the historical process and historical interpretation were thought of by liberals and conservatives as principles to be combated in the interests of the freedom of the individual. Soviet historians, it was believed, had betrayed the ideals of factual accuracy, neutrality, and detachment in the same way as Nazi historians had. History had become a means of indoctrination, pressed into service of the state, and of the spread of Communism. Western history, on the contrary, was now held to represent the virtues of accuracy, objectivity, and truthfulness.
—Richard J. Evans, In Defense of History (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999), p. 30
Contents
1 Midwest to Yale and World War
PART II: BEGINNINGS AND SCHOLAR-ACTIVIST
4 Dear Senator Taft: “Heads Ought to Roll”
5 Traditionalists, Debunkers, and Revisionism
Robert H. Ferrell (1921–2018) earned the title “Distinguished Professor of History” at Indiana University in 1974. Some might honor him with a more colloquial moniker such as the Midwest’s best Ivy League storyteller. But in an era when the media emphasizes dramatic and overstated claims suggesting that someone is the best at anything will likely evoke skepticism, so it deserves explanation. Ferrell could claim to be the best Midwestern historian on any number of counts. He wrote or edited sixty books, many after his retirement; the writing continued into his eighties.1 The first volume, Peace in Their Time, came in 1952 and won top prizes at Yale and the American Historical Association. The most recent book, published in 2011, very likely showed a marked progression in subject focus in the eyes of postmodern critics—African American troops in the Great War, Unjustly Dishonored. Ferrell’s correspondence, however, reveals that his concern for others’ mistreatment did not come late in life.2 He also guided a record number of dissertations to completion as published books, perhaps seventeen at one count, and shepherded males and female students alike, despite a more Victorian-era view of women’s roles. On the basis of scholarship alone few Middle West historians of any stripe can best Ferrell.
The qualifier best could also attach to Ferrell’s omnipresence among colleagues, whether editing their work, founding or serving historical organizations, contributing as a highly sought-out publishing consultant, authoring a top-selling American Diplomacy textbook, and as importantly, serving as a friend and mentor to many in the field. The adjective best also may allude to a certain moral insight and behavior. Ferrell was an Eagle Scout, with a true compass that pointed the right way, in the Lincolnian sense, as God gives us the ability to see it. His moral rectitude flared in his role as historian as well as democratic citizen. U.S. presidents, senators, and military brass got the Ferrell treatment as did well-known fellow authors, academic or otherwise; David McCullough or Merle Miller are good examples of the latter. Ferrell called for President Clinton’s resignation after the pitiful dalliance with the well-known intern, and he had plenty of thoughts on Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Richard Nixon. This best historian also found critical words for other notable figures, Collin Powell or Margaret Truman.
From another vantage point, former Ferrell students attributed their professor’s exceptionalism to the helpful, if paternalistic, attitude he displayed as one found his or her way into that sparse Ballantine Hall office on the seventh floor. Surrounded by books and dressed in a clean, iron-pressed pin-striped dress shirt, Ferrell always had the appearance of professionalism and that of a busy scholar, more often than not facing a manual typewriter, yet he always found time for students. A former student of his, presently serving as an executive associate dean at Indiana University’s School of Global and International Studies, shared an apt illustration: One day I relayed the difficulties of student monies arriving after the semester started, which each year put me in a probationary status with finances. Professor Ferrell picked up the phone, called the Bursar’s Office, and solved the problem on the spot, then turned to me and said, now let’s focus on your interest in history. The present author can attest to the enormous