Where in the World Was Harry Truman?
Can you help me identify the location of two Truman photos?
In the spring of 1958, Harry and Bess Truman, 74 and 73 and five years removed from the White House, went on a Mediterranean cruise with another retired couple, their friends Sam and Dorothy Rosenman. Sam Rosenman had been a speechwriter for FDR (he coined the term “New Deal”), and he later worked in the Truman White House as well. Dorothy Rosenman was an advocate for affordable housing. (One of the Rosenmans’ grandchildren, Lynn Garland, née Rosenman, is married to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.)
My interest in this otherwise unremarkable vacation stems from the fact that, while in southern France, the Trumans and Rosenmans spent a day sightseeing with Pablo Picasso and Picasso’s compagne Jacqueline Roque. This improbable encounter between the man who authorized the use of nuclear weapons against civilians and the man who painted Guernica is the fulcrum of my next book, When Harry Met Pablo: Modern Art, McCarthyism, and the Day Truman and Picasso Went Sightseeing.
The Trumans and Rosenmans sailed from New York on the American Export Lines cruise ship SS Independence on Monday, May 26, 1958, and arrived at their first port of call, Naples, eight days later, on June 3. Two days later, after a brief stop at Genoa, the ship docked at Cannes, where the two couples disembarked. They would spend two weeks relaxing on the French Riviera before returning home on the Independence’s sister ship, the Constitution.
The Truman Library has about 30 photographs taken of and by the Trumans on this vacation (including one of Truman and Picasso shaking hands). I have identified the location of nearly every photograph — all but these two:
Both images, accession numbers 2009–1924 (left) and 2009–1925, depict Sam Rosenman (left in both photos) and Harry Truman. The curatorial text that accompanies the photos says they were taken “near Naples, Italy.” But the layover in Naples was only about 24 hours, and I have accounted for most of the couples’ time while they were there (a drive down the coast to Sorrento, a trip to the ruins at Herculaneum).
I suspect these pictures were actually taken near Vence, France, where the two couples stayed at Château Saint-Martin, a swanky, then-new resort. (It’s still there and it’s still swanky.)
The photos appear to have been taken on two different days but in the same general area. Can you identify the location or have any advice on how I might identify it? If so, please let me know!
My email address is mwalgeo@gmail.com.
© 2022 by Matthew Algeo
Matthew Algeo is an author and journalist. His latest book is All This Marvelous Potential: Robert Kennedy’s 1968 Tour of Appalachia (Chicago Review Press). His website is malgeo.net.
