Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Truman's 1947 Diary

I used to have this fantasy where I gained access to the Harry S. Truman archives and discovered a reference to the Roswell incident. You know the bit. I ask to see some papers for a "book I'm writing" and the ambivalent attendant brings me everything he's got and more. I discover a non-descript Manila folder from 1947. It smells musty. In a long forgotten memo, sandwiched between newspaper clippings and boring missives on the state of the White House restoration effort, a brief memo with the President's seal mentions the flying saucer recovery effort in the New Mexico dessert. I glance around to make sure I am alone in the stacks, remove my Minox spy camera, and snap a picture of the first official acknowledgement of the legendary cover-up. Later, I appear on the Donahue show and have Thanksgiving with Whitley Strieber.

It never happened. I always meant to front that fake book idea and drive over to Independence, but do you have any idea how hard it is to get prints made for Minox snaps?

Imagine my delight when the article I was searching for in my deep purple conspiracy dreams was found at the Truman Library recently. Some curious soul found Truman's 1947 diary in a heap of books. Best of all, they transcribed it on line. I quickly turned to the July entries and found that he made no mention of anything extra-terrestrial. Too bad.

There's nothing during the Roswell window. The Truman entries stop July 6th and don't resume until July 21st. Hmm. Furthermore, the 7/21 entry is loose-leaf. The next entry in the book is July 23rd. Is it possible the Roswell entries were removed after Truman wrote them? Perhaps. Maybe it looked like this:

July 10th - Sorry I haven't written. I've just been so busy with work and the commie menace. Just returned from Ft. Worth and a review of the "little green men". I don't know who smells worse, the dead aliens or General Blanchard.

[J. Edgar] Hoover stopped by to tell me who's gay in Hollywood. Bess was not amused by his joke about Edith Head giving good costume.

Or this:

July 14th - Was playing poker with the boys when Rose delivered an update on the flying disk salvage in N.M. It was so shocking I folded with three tens off the deal. It doesn't use gasoline and there aren't any cup holders. Detroit's not gonna like it.

Phoned De Gaulle to wish him and Madame De G. a happy Bastille Day. Forgot about the time difference and ended up waking his French butt out of bed. Played the piano in cross hall until 11pm. Had ice cream in the kitchen, did 25 push-ups, and so to bed.

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