USS Williamsburg

USS Williamsburg was a commissioned presidential vessel that carried Harry S. Truman away from Washington for rest and, at a moment of conflict over foreign policy, provided the setting for a private confrontation with his Secretary of State. The boat’s meaning in Truman’s life rested on that double use: it could be a refuge from the demands of office, but it could also bring presidential authority into motion, out onto the river and aboard ship.

A Presidential Yacht and Retreat

Truman regarded USS Williamsburg as a welcome escape from the places and obligations that otherwise hemmed him in. He had long wanted to see Alaska, but chose instead to cruise to New England in August with an all-male party that included his old friend and best man Ted Marks, John Snyder, Charles Ross, Clark Clifford, Harry Vaughan, George Allen, Matthew Connelly, and Colonel Graham. The company and the prospect of an eight-handed poker game were part of the appeal; the cruise promised a change of scene without severing him from the familiar circle of friends with whom he could relax.

Truman loved being aboard. He told the vessel’s commander, Donald J. MacDonald, that it was wonderful because “In ten minutes I’m away from everything.” The phrase captures what the yacht offered him: not a permanent release from presidential burdens, but a short passage out of their reach. On the river, the Virginia shoreline slipped past and other boats came into view. When boaters drew alongside and waved, Truman seemed to enjoy the encounter. MacDonald recalled that the visitors were thrilled to see the President, and that the Secret Service could relax because, aboard ship, Truman was the commander’s responsibility. In that period, MacDonald said, no one thought of taking a potshot at him.

A Floating Office

USS Williamsburg was not only a leisure vessel. On December 28, after receiving news that James F. Byrnes had issued a communiqué about the Moscow conference before reporting to the President, Truman left for a cruise down the Potomac despite miserable weather. Byrnes, returning to Washington the next day, received a telegram asking him to report and discuss, among other things, the advisability of a broadcast. After a hurried flight by special plane, Byrnes came aboard at Quantico, Virginia, and met Truman privately in the President’s stateroom as cold rain fell on the river.

The setting made the yacht a temporary seat of executive business: the President closed the door and told Byrnes that he objected to being left in the dark about important negotiations. Truman insisted that, as President, he was entitled to know the progress of foreign-policy discussions and would not tolerate a repetition of the failure to inform him before a major communiqué appeared. The issue was more than a breach of manners. Truman regarded Byrnes as exceptionally capable, but had never entirely trusted him; their meeting aboard ship brought that distrust into a direct dispute over who controlled the conduct and public presentation of American diplomacy. The gray, rain-bound river framed a sharp exercise of presidential authority, far removed from the formal rooms of Washington.

Companionship and Leisure

On the August cruise, poker and old friendships mattered at least as much as the itinerary. Truman spent time napping, reading, and sitting on deck or visiting the bridge. For the first few days he gave up shaving and read Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.’s The Age of Jackson, but the companionship of his friends was the relaxation he most valued. Clifford later recalled that among them Truman did not have to be careful about his manner; jokes, drinks, and conversation could take a more informal course than they could in the White House. The vessel’s distance from the capital thus made room for a familiar, unceremonious version of the President.

Drinking aboard was governed by the distinction between the ship’s rules and Truman’s office. As a commissioned vessel, USS Williamsburg was not supposed to serve liquor, but MacDonald recognized that the Commander in Chief could drink if he wished. Truman’s consumption was described as moderate: he might request bourbon on deck, but could also nurse one drink through an evening of conversation and cards. Old Grandad was his favorite. The detail belongs to the yacht’s character as a private social space, not as evidence that the cruise was simply a drinking party: its central attraction was the ease of time spent with people he trusted.

Weather and the Limits of Escape

The vessel’s itinerary changed when the party met cold winds, rain, and fog in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island. Truman ordered the ship south to Bermuda, a retreat he knew had been favored by Woodrow Wilson. In better weather there, he enjoyed several days of peace and sunshine, writing to Margaret Truman Daniel that it was “a paradise you dream about but hardly ever see.” The turn south shows how the cruise’s promise depended on the conditions the ship encountered; the yacht could carry him away, but not guarantee calm.

The return made that limitation unmistakable. In Hampton Roads, USS Williamsburg sailed into a storm and behaved violently. The 244-foot vessel had been built in 1930 as a private yacht and bought by the Navy at the outset of the war. Even after several hundred tons of pig iron had been placed in its bilges to improve stability, it was never a particularly good seagoing vessel. Truman became violently ill and stayed in bed as furniture and belongings shifted around the stateroom. In letters to Bess Wallace Truman, he described chairs, clothing, books, luggage, pillows, and family pictures scattered together, with the room left in disarray. The storm closed the cruise not with the stillness he sought, but with a disorderly reminder that USS Williamsburg was a refuge only within the limits of its construction and the weather.