Auction Date:2011 Feb 09 @ 19:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
TLS as president, one page, 7 x 8.75, White House letterhead, July 25, 1951. Truman responds to Winton K. Sexton, Cass County, Missouri, Circuit Court Clerk and a former prisoner of war. In full, “I certainly appreciated your good letter of the twenty-first and I was more than happy to have the letter from Monsignor Joseph McGeough. I am returning it to you because I am sure you will want to keep it. Margaret had a wonderful visit in Rome and nearly everywhere else she went, except she was too much in the limelight. I appreciate what you have to say about the big General from the Far East. Sometime or other I hope to accept that invitation but you know it is almost impossible for the President of the United States to go anywhere without causing a disturbance and I don’t like that sort of thing.” In fine condition, with scattered light wrinkling. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope and the TLS from Monsignor McGeough.
On April 11, 1951, President Truman announced that he was relieving the ‘Big General’—General of the Army Douglas MacArthur—of command after MacArthur publicly criticized Truman’s Korean War strategies...something the president referred to in his diary as ‘rank insubordination.’ He then listed some of MacArthur’s previous actions, ending his diary entry with the thought, ‘I’ve come to the conclusion that our Big General in the Far East must be recalled.’
Interestingly, Truman uses a variation of that same phrase in this letter to Sexton, a man well-versed in the chain of command and respecting authority. Shot down and captured by the Germans during World War II, Sexton escaped and for nine months hid behind enemy lines in Italy. Letters from Truman relating to MacArthur’s firing are quite scarce, with virtually none featuring the reference to the ‘Big General’ that makes this letter unique.
Auction Location:
5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
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