Matt Connelly

Matt Connelly became one of Harry S. Truman’s most trusted aides, serving first as a political right-hand man and later as the President’s appointments secretary. His career joined campaign work to the daily operations of the presidency, but its defining test came after Connelly left office: when he was imprisoned for income tax evasion, Truman pressed John F. Kennedy for a pardon, convinced that his former aide had been treated unjustly.

From investigator to political aide

Before Truman recruited him, Connelly’s experience had been as an investigator for the Truman Committee. Truman approached him after returning from Chicago to an office crowded with photographers and reporters. When Connelly locked the door to give him a respite, Truman invited him to the “doghouse” to talk. Truman said he needed to make a campaign trip and wanted Connelly to come along. Connelly protested that he knew nothing about politics; Truman answered, “You’ve got a pretty good teacher.” The exchange captures the informal trust behind Connelly’s move from investigative work into campaign politics: Truman did not require him to arrive as an expert, but expected him to learn close at hand.

Connelly joined Truman’s cross-country vice-presidential campaign, traveling with Hugh Fulton, Eddie McKim, and Fred Canfil in the Henry Stanley, an old combination sleeper and dining car. The route ran from New Orleans through Texas and New Mexico, up the Pacific coast to Portland and Seattle, and then east to Boston, before Truman returned home by way of Wheeling, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis. Connelly was thus present not just for the public speeches but for the traveling operation that carried Truman’s candidacy from stop to stop.

One campaign episode showed how Connelly helped navigate attacks on Truman’s identity. A newspaper story alleging that Truman had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan broke shortly before he reached Boston, where the Irish-Catholic vote mattered. At the same platform, former Massachusetts governor James Michael Curley turned the rumors into a joke, pointing to the conflicting claims that Truman was Jewish in California and a Klansman in the Midwest, then inviting him to join the Ancient Order of Hibernians. Connelly later recalled telling Truman, “That takes care of the Klan.” The story was not merely a comic interruption: its timing threatened the campaign in an important city, and Curley’s public intervention helped blunt the accusation before Truman’s arrival.

Campaign work and access to Truman

Connelly remained close to Truman’s political work. In 1948, he was among the staff members aboard the Magellan for the presidential campaign, alongside Charlie Ross, Clark Clifford, and George Elsey. Bill Boyle handled political chores and planned the itinerary, while Connelly traveled as part of the President’s working circle. The distinction matters: Connelly was not credited with designing the route, but his position gave him sustained access to Truman as the campaign moved across the country.

The crowds that greeted Truman helped challenge the assumption that the campaign was merely ritual. In Michigan, more than half a million people were estimated to have attended the candidate’s six stops. Connelly recalled that the gathering at Cadillac Square had been organized, but that people also lined the highway on the way to Pontiac, where the turnout was not organized. His account distinguished the planned spectacle from the spontaneous response beyond it. The crowds, present early in the campaign rather than appearing only in its final weeks, became one of the signs that Truman’s prospects might be stronger than observers expected.

Connelly also carried news of political defections directly to Truman. When he reported that Frank Hague had abandoned him, Truman replied, “All right, let him go. I never did like him anyhow.” Truman later recorded the defection in his diary alongside those of other Democratic leaders, calling them “double-crossers all.” Connelly’s role in delivering the news placed him close to the private reactions behind the campaign’s public contest, where Truman’s confidence coexisted with the loss of influential allies.

Appointments secretary and White House aide

After Truman became President, Connelly was one of the few members of the President’s own circle to make a favorable impression on the established staff. He became appointments secretary, a role that put him at the center of access to the President. Other Truman associates could appear unfamiliar or ill-suited to the Washington environment; Connelly, by contrast, was remembered as a capable aide. Truman’s trust in him was also evident in the way he spoke about his authority over former subordinates. When the question arose of sending Eddie McKim home, Truman reportedly reminded Connelly that McKim had once been a sergeant in his battery and added that he could discipline him again. The recollection links the President’s military past to the command style that persisted in his political relationships.

Connelly’s access was practical as well as personal. On election morning in 1948, he was among the handful of people awake at Truman’s headquarters in the penthouse of the Muehlebach Hotel. The rooms were in disarray after a difficult night, telephones rang, and the people there had been working on little but coffee and cigarettes. Truman arrived looking rested and asked how things were going. Yet Connelly, like the others in the headquarters, did not know where Truman had been during the night. His presence at the center of the campaign did not mean he had command of every uncertainty; the scene shows an aide working within a hurried operation whose key information could remain out of reach even to its inner circle.

Connelly’s service continued into the administration’s political life. In the aftermath of the 1948 election, Truman appointed Bill Boyle to lead the Democratic Party, while Connelly remained part of the presidential staff. He also became entangled, though not accused of wrongdoing in the account, in the controversy over gifts arranged through Harry Vaughan. A Chicago perfume manufacturer sent a freezer to Connelly, as well as to several other officials and associates. The disclosure fed concern about the judgment and propriety surrounding Vaughan’s favors. The evidence identifies the gift and the wider controversy, but does not say that Connelly kept the freezer or acted improperly.

Truman’s defense of Connelly

In May 1960, Connelly began serving a prison sentence for income tax evasion. Truman believed him innocent and believed that he had become the target of a Republican vendetta. He helped raise money for Connelly’s legal expenses, extending the relationship beyond the ordinary responsibilities of former colleagues. For Truman, the case involved both his judgment of Connelly and his insistence that a trusted employee should not be left to face what he considered injustice alone.

Truman appealed directly to Robert F. Kennedy, then attorney general, asking him to pardon Connelly and restore his full rights. Kennedy replied that he was studying the case, but no action followed the initial request. Truman wrote again with more background, and Kennedy again promised personal attention. By the beginning of 1962, Truman’s patience had given way to a blunt handwritten demand: “Matt Connelly has been abused and mistreated as I told you in my original letter. I want him pardoned and his full rights restored.” Truman warned that if Kennedy thought he enjoyed watching one of his best employees suffer mistreatment, he was mistaken, and urged him to do what was right by granting a full pardon.

In November 1962, John F. Kennedy pardoned Connelly. Truman sent the President a letter of thanks. The pardon did not erase the conviction or the years of conflict that preceded it, but it brought the campaign for Connelly’s restoration to a conclusion. Across the arc of Connelly’s career—from the campaign train and the Executive Mansion to prison and the appeal for executive clemency—his defining connection to Truman was a durable bond of political service and personal loyalty.