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ADLAI STEVENSON. "He would never understand how you have to get along with people and be equal with them . . . That fellow was too busy making up his mind whether he had to go to the bathroom or not. That fellow didn't know the first thing about campaigning [in 1952], and he didn't learn anything either. He got worse in 1956."
THE KENNEDYS. In 1960, when John Kennedy was running for the presidency, Truman recalled, it was not the Pope he was afraid of moving into the White House. It was the Pop. "Old Joe Kennedy is as big a crook as we've got anywhere in this country, and I don't like it that he bought his son the nomination for the presidency. He bought West Virginia. I don't know how much it cost him; he's a tightfisted old son of a bitch; so he didn't pay any more than he had to. But he bought West Virginia, and that's how his boy won the primary over Humphrey."
As for Robert Kennedy, Truman said: "I just don't like that boy, and I never will. He worked for old Joe McCarthy, you know. When old Joe was tearing up the Constitution and the country, that boy couldn't say enough for him."
RICHARD NIXON. Truman was especially incensed by Nixon's attacks years before on the character of General Marshall, a man whom the former President venerated. Admitting his hatred of Nixon, Truman said: "Nixon is a shifty-eyed goddamn liar, and the people know it. I can't figure out how he came so close to getting elected in 1960." Later Truman noted: "They say Nixon has changed, but they'll have to prove it to me. Where that fella is concerned, you might say I'm from Missouri."