Historian: Truman’s Gross Hustle

In 1958, former President Harry Truman gave a TV interview in which he claimed that he was almost broke, leading to the enactment of a law granting millions of dollars in benefits to former commanders-in-chief — yet, Paul Campos writes at New York magazine, the 33rd president’s “lobbying effort was based on falsehoods.” Recently released dirt on his finances shows Truman left office with an inflation-adjusted private fortune of $6.6 million, much of it misbegotten, we now know, from a congressionally created expense account. He also “made a fortune” from book-writing and speechgiving. And “Truman’s wealth increased by the 2021 equivalent of another $3.7 million when Congress passed the Former Presidents Act five and a half years after he left office.” The FPA, in other words, rests on a tissue of Truman’s financial lies — and “the debunking of that myth should serve as an ideal occasion to stop subsidizing the lifestyles of our rich and famous ex-presidents.