Interview with Elizabeth Bradley Heffelfinger

Interviewed by James E. Fogerty

October 1978 - February 1979

JF: Today is October 25, 1978. I am James Fogerty of the Minnesota Historical Society, and the following interview is with Mrs. F. Peavey Heffelfinger. Mrs. Heffelfinger is a former Republican National Committeewoman. The interview is taking place in her home in Wayzata, Minnesota.

EH: I'm taking my first trip away for months and months and months on the seventh of November, for a week, so I thought maybe you could come out the weekHeffelfinger before that.

JF: Surely. I don't know how long this will take. It may take us quite a number of sessions in order to make sure we get everything. Bradley EH: Yes. Everything is "I, I, I." It's embarrassing. Society JF: Well, that's what we want, because you're the person we're interested in, so there's no other way to do it. Elizabeth EH: Yes, I guess not. with Historical JF: Beginning in the beginning--

EH: Don't ask which date I was born in. I don't like to be--

JF: I have no intention. interviewBut I would like to know where you were born. Where were you born? Minnesota EH: Would you like me to go back to my grandparents?

JF: Surely. Thathistory would be wonderful. Why don't you just start and talk about your family.

EH: I wasOral born in Lafayette, Indiana. I was dropped there, incidentally, by mistake, and since I was conceived in Tennessee, my father always called me a Southerner. However, when I had my first of five children, I didn't dare not tell the truth or I thought I might be stricken, so I had to admit that I was born in Lafayette, Indiana, instead of Tennessee.

My grandmother was quite a person, full of life, humor, and had the art of living down pat. She came over here from Rotohe, County Meade, Ireland, at the age of almost two years old--her mother having died on shipboard due to childbirth. Accompanying my grandmother was her father and some other brothers and sisters. They took a covered wagon and went out to Lafayette, Indiana, where they settled.

1

There was nobody like her. I had her here to visit me one time, and warned her not to go down into the first floor level because she might fall. I'd no sooner turned my back than she did fall and broke her hip, and then she said, "But the light was so pretty coming up, Betsy dear, I had to look at it."

She was excommunicated when a girl because she married outside of the church, and during the time of her illness, from which we thought she would never recover, she kept calling the doctors "Father," and the nurses "Sister." I asked her if she'd like to see a priest, and she said "Yes." When the priest came--he was there about a half hour--with the doctor outside--she had no pulse at all. When the priest came out, when she'd been given extreme unction, her pulse was like a young girl's and she said to me, "Thank you, Betsy. Now I know who I am."

Her daughter's name was Ella, my aunt, and she didn't have much of a sense of humor or sense of people, and she [Grandmother] said, "Ella won't ever bury me in a CatholicHeffelfinger cemetery, but I know who I am, and it doesn't make any difference where I'm buried. I'm back home again." I was very touched by that, myself.

On my father's side--he was from Tennessee, and his motherBradley was Margaret Houston of the Houston clan from Lexington, Kentucky. His great-great-grandfather, name of Houston, was the brother of the famous Sam Houston, of Alamo fame in Texas.Society Sam Houston sought notoriety and fame, and my grandfather obviously settled in Tennessee, where members of his family still lived until a few years ago. Elizabeth JF: Did your grandparents live in Kentucky all their lives, or most of their lives? with Historical EH: No. I have a book of Houston, and they moved from different places. It was really quite--it was mostly around Kentucky--Lexington, Kentucky--and then they fanned out to nearby states. I'm really not too well acquainted with that.

JF: Did your grandparentsinterview live in Kentucky, though, at the time of their deaths? Minnesota EH: Oh, no. No, no. My father...I was very proud of my father. He was a self-educated, self- made man, one who sought the better things of life for himself and his children. He was obviously veryhistory talkative, because after he married my mother, who incidentally was, I think, the first graduate of Purdue University, which is in Lafayette, Indiana. I asked her did she graduate in homeOral economics, and she said, "Heavens, no. I graduated in engineering."

JF: My goodness.

EH: However, after she was married, she taught. She worked in the field of education, and went to Paducah, Kentucky, where she met my father; and together they made a very wonderful life. My father was sent from place to place as his competence was noted.

JF: What field was he in, Mrs. Heffelfinger?

2 EH: He was in public utilities. He was sent...his different jobs working up to the top, his final job that he was sent by the Chase Bank to attempt to negotiate the sale of the public utilities which the Chase Bank was interested in, in the Philippines, to the Philippine government. However, the Philippine government was too smart for him, because they saw war coming and they did not want to put down the money that they knew that they would need to defend themselves later, is what happened.

I remember, as a baby, that I was taken to Utah. What my father did there, I don't know. But he tells the story that he came home at night and always found me crying, and his heart would sink. He didn't know, if there was no crying, whether I was dead or asleep. Finally, I got thinner and thinner, cried more and more, and so they took me fifty miles to a veterinarian, who told them to coat my stomach with white of egg, and then keep me alive on whiskey.

JF: And it worked? [Laughter] Heffelfinger EH: It worked. [Laughter]

JF: That's interesting. Just to clarify one thing. When you were talking about your grandparents, you were talking about your mother's family orBradley your father's?

EH: I'm talking about both of them. Society

JF: Both of them. Your Kentucky grandparents, though? Elizabeth EH: Lexington, Kentucky, was the Houston family, and that was my father's side. Houston, Margaret Houston, was his mother, butwith that was Historical about the third generation back. He was the brother of Sam Houston. So Sam Houston was my great-great-great--how many great-- grandfather's brother.

JF: And your Irish grandmother that you talked about, was that your mother's side of the family? interview EH: That was my mother's side.Minnesota

JF: That was your mother's mother. history EH: Yes. Oral JF: Okay. Your father was involved in...you said public utilities. Was it largely electric utilities?

EH: Yes, it was. Well, at that time, it was electricity and it was what they called streetcars and any way of transportation run by electricity.

But he lived, and I, of course, went along, tagged along, as a baby or a young, very young child, to Tacoma, Washington, where he had charge of building an inter[urban], as they were called, between Seattle and Tacoma.

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He was sent to Pottsville, Pennsylvania. I forget what he was there. He was only in these places two or three years. Matter of fact, if he wasn't moved every two or three years, my mother thought he was a flop, was afraid of his future.

We were sent to Galveston, Texas. That's where I first really remember what was going on clearly. And then to Dallas, Texas, and to Houston. He was in charge of the entire Southwestern United States.

Later on, after I left home, he was sent to Virginia. [Unclear]. He then went with Electric Bond & Share, another utility company, and was sent to Buenos Aires, where I joined him after I was married, for a few months. My mother was ill, and he wanted me down there with him. My husband, very nicely, allowed me to go. He wanted me to.

In Virginia, I was told by a woman...he always had believed in youth, andHeffelfinger he has had a number, five or six secretaries--and they were secretaries, male secretaries--whom he advanced. At the time of his death, about six of his erstwhile secretaries were heads of big public utility corporations themselves, like Pacific Gas & Electric and other things. So his belief in young people, pushing them, giving them the opportunity, was quiteBradley outstanding.

I remember, it was in the days when the early pioneers were Society working West and there was no what you might call [unclear] ethics, as we say we have today-- but I don't think we have. When I told him, when I became interested in politics, and I told him that I thought I'd go into politics, he died laughing.Elizabeth He said, "Betsy, who'd want you?" He said, "In the first place, you haven't got a price. I want to have a man that has a price. Then I know what he'll do, unless somebody outbidswith me at first.Historical In the second place, you don't know what the dickens you want in life. You have no philosophy. In the third place, you drool too much at the mouth. Who'd want you in politics?" Whereupon I became national committeewoman and the secretary of the Republican party. I often think I did it to really put him in his place. [Laughter] But he was very proud of it, but he did think it was very funny that I went into politics, because he'd lived in the days whereinterview you paid people. Minnesota One place he was sent was Pottsville, Pennsylvania, before he went to Texas, and he was sent there to influence the council or something. I said, "Did you succeed?" history He said, "Yes." Oral I said, "How did you succeed?"

He said, "I was seen with this man"--my father was a dedicated Prohibitionist--"and I'd find out that he went in the bar, and I'd always joined him in there. We were great friends in the public mind." I said, "Did you want him to be elected?"

He said, "Heavens, no. I wanted to beat him. That's why I was seen with him so much." [Laughter] I thought that was lovely. He didn't talk very much, but when he did, he was very

4 amusing.

JF: What was your father's name?

EH: Luke Calloway Bradley. Old biblical name, I guess.

JF: You said that the first time you really remember specifics was in Galveston. Did you grow up quite a bit in Texas, then? After that you mentioned Dallas, and then Houston. Did you spend a lot of your young years in Texas growing up?

EH: Yes. I went to Texas when I was thirteen--twelve or thirteen.

JF: And that was to Galveston first?

EH: Galveston. We lived in Pottsville. I remember that pretty well, beforeHeffelfinger we went to Galveston, and I can remember living in a hotel, and when we finally got a house to live in, he was sent to Texas immediately. So it was an up-and-down situation where we were living.

But I was brought up with the idea that you followed your husband,Bradley because he's the head of the house. Too many young people now say, "I don't want to move. I like this environment for my children. I want to stay here." And I think that if you marry andSociety you want to help your husband, you have to go along with him, what he is going to do. That's not the philosophy today, but I think it's a good philosophy. I think that's one of the reasons that the unit, the family unit, was so strong, because the woman did follow the husband,Elizabeth in order to help him in his life's ambition. And men do have, and women do like, ambition, so you can't stop a man. with Historical I know of one woman who liked the League of Women Voters in New York, and she refused to move into the city where her husband was working, and I said to her, "You have your seat in the League of Women Voters, but your husband may have another woman in New York," which is exactly what happened, and they got divorced, because she wasn't going to leave her little League of Woman Voters. It's a veryinterview narrow outlook, and I still think that when you marry, for better or for worse, I think if your husbandMinnesota is ambitious and wants to succeed, you have to give him a chance.

JF: In growinghistory up, Mrs. Heffelfinger, when you moved frequently, where did you go to school as you moved? Oral EH: In Texas I went to...I can't remember where I went in Galveston. But in Dallas, I went to the Hockaday School and then I stayed on there. It was a boarding school. When we lived in Houston, I was in boarding school at Hockaday, in Dallas. It is a very fine school, has a good reputation.

JF: Yes. So you had some permanence. You weren't moved from school to school constantly while you were in Texas.

EH: You adjust very easily. I can't remember ever being upset. My mother never was. She was

5 very happy. A happy life.

JF: When you finished prep school and you went on to college, where--

EH: I went to Smith [College].

JF: You went to Smith. Did you enjoy your college? What did you major in?

EH: I enjoyed it, because I'd been brought up very strictly, and I had never driven in a car alone with a boy until after I was sixteen. My father, when we lived in Galveston and Dallas, would take me to parties and then call for me.

I remember one time, when I just had moved to Dallas, and I got there and I didn't know anybody, and somebody, a very attractive young boy, cut in on me. He said, "You don't know anybody." Heffelfinger

I said, "No."

"Well," he said, "I'll dance around once with you and then youBradley can go to the powder room."

And I said, "Well, I didn't come here to go to the powder room."Society

"Well," he said, "you'd better go in there because you'll be embarrassed by me asking you to dance." Elizabeth

So he danced around, and he introducedwith me to somebody,Historical and the person he introduced me to was a very heavy beau of mine for years. As a matter of fact, he died just about three or four years ago. I used to hear from him every Christmas, even now.

JF: That's wonderful. interview EH: But I was afraid he was inMinnesota a nuthouse because he came from a very brilliant family and they all went sort of berserk, and when I didn't hear from him for so long...then all of a sudden, he called me up at Christmas, sent candy to the family. My husband called him my silver-tongued orator. But I understandhistory now he died.

So I wasOral always...never allowed to do anything. It's a wonder I didn't burst out of my jacket.

JF: Do you think, though, that growing up at that time, when that was the norm, you probably just accepted it more and didn't think about it much?

EH: Yes, I think it was done. I accepted it, but I didn't like my mother reading my letters. She would stand there, and I would read it, and she'd say, "Now give it to me to read." I didn't like that at all. As a result, I have never treated my own girls or my son like that at all. They have a right to their private life. If they want to talk to me privately, anything is private with them. Otherwise, I wouldn't think of listening in on a phone call or demand to read a letter. To me, it's

6 savage. [Laughter]

JF: Are there other things you can think of like that that were part of growing up?

EH: Probably. I was very naive. I thought I knew everything, but I didn't. I really was naive. When I went to Smith, of course, I went completely berserk. Because I had beau after beau, I nearly flunked out. My family was sending me to college. It was an effort to send me--financially--to college, so I should have responded by being good. My father was always after me, but it was never flung at me at all, that they were having a hard time making ends meet by sending me to college, because they knew I wanted to go. My father was delighted, because, of course, he'd had no opportunity to go. So he wanted it. Really, it took me...I was married my third year, junior year, and I might say something must have penetrated into this mind of mine, because I find that, unwilling as I was to learn anything, I must have learned a little bit by chance, because things have cropped up Heffelfingerlater proving that it wasn't entirely a waste of time.

JF: What subjects did you concentrate on at college? Bradley EH: Me? Society JF: Were you a history major, or political science?

EH: I concentrated in beaus. [Laughter] Elizabeth

JF: You did? [Laughter] with Historical

EH: I was flunking Latin. I just didn't know how to study. I didn't know how to concentrate. I was free for the first time in my life, and I just went to pieces, but I had a beautiful time.

JF: You mentioned a numberinterview of things that have changed over the years--for instance how much more strictly girls' activities wereMinnesota monitored years ago. What do you think about that compared to the way things are today? Do you think it's freer and better today, or do you think that maybe it's a little too free? Do you have any reflections on that? history EH: I think that my parents were the product of a really Puritanical background. You can't blame themOral for anything at all in the way of mistakes that they might have made. I think they did the best they could. You have to remember that we've come a step further, and of course our children and grandchildren have gone way ahead in another direction. But I think this generation in their teens--I'm talking about the generation of my grandchildren--I think it's a marvelous generation. They're very honest. They have a very healthy sex life. They're not bowed down in Puritanical restrictions. I think a little bit too much, frankly. But I think they'll start modifying.

I'm very close to my grandchildren, because I have never, never once made any suggestions. If they ask me, I tell them the truth, but I would never do it as so many of my friends do--on the long hair, for instance. I couldn't be bothered. There's so much else to encourage them in--

7 everything.

I had a brother who was five years younger than I am. He died. He was in the army, in the service during the Second World War and received a perfectly marvelous citation from the Order of the British Empire for his bravery in the face of death, time and time and time again going in and even bringing out Germans.

He brought out a German general one time. [Unclear], and the German said, "You're a damn fool American, damn fool American." Then he took his Iron Cross and gave it to my brother, and my brother said, "I don't want that thing."

"Well, what do you want?"

He said, "Give me your hat." Heffelfinger Anyway, the German did, and then he shook hands with my brother, and he said, "Damn fool American."

My sister is thirteen years younger than I am. Her husband wasBradley on the Supreme Court in New York. He just died during the year. It was a real love marriage. Very much interested in birding. Society JF: Oh, really?

EH: Yes. Mad for it. Elizabeth

JF: How many children were there in yourwith family? Historical You mentioned a brother and a sister.

EH: Just three.

JF: Three of you. interview EH: And we're separated, you see,Minnesota so it was never...one thing I wanted when I got married, I wanted a family and I wanted roots, because I hadn't had any roots. I think this was all very instinctive, because I can't remember doing very much serious thinking about anything. [Chuckles] history

JF: YouOral said you were married your third year in college.

EH: In college, third year.

JF: Did you remain in the East then, or did you come back to Minnesota after you were married?

EH: First we went to Canada, to Fort Williams and then we went to Winnipeg. Then we went to Duluth, and then we came to Minneapolis in '28.

8 JF: This was because of your husband's involvement in the grain business?

EH: Yes, he was earning a business degree.

JF: How did you enjoy living in those other places?

EH: I loved it.

JF: In Canada, for instance?

EH: I've always been a very joyous person.

JF: You enjoyed living at Fort William, then?

EH: Sure. Heffelfinger

JF: How many years were you in those cities, approximately?

EH: Not too many. About four or five. Bradley

JF: Then you have been in Minneapolis ever since? Society

EH: Yes. Elizabeth JF: Why do you think you became so interested in politics? Do you think it was anything in your upbringing, anything in your father'swith philosophy Historical or something that you inherited that way that made you interested in politics?

EH: No, I went into politics-- Do you want to get into the political thing now? Because there was the war first. interviewMinnesota JF: Right. I'm trying to--

EH: Really, at the time, I think I got interested in it because Harold Stassen was governor, and he made a veryhistory fine governor, and I really had to sit down and think--was I a Republican or Democrat. Because I'd never thought of politics before, but I thought he [Stassen] deserved supportOral of the party, because he was young and believed in the things that I believed in--United Nations, international cooperation. I was very much interested in the birth control movement. I don't know how he stood on that. But anyway, that was the reason I had to figure out what I was.

JF: We were just talking about your years growing up. You don't think...there was no political involvement in your family, no philosophy in your parents?

EH: Not the slightest. For years, my husband...oh, I'll tell you when I broke the bonds. My husband used to bring me the ballot and tell me how to mark it, and I would do it, do anything he told me to, until Herbert Hoover was running for office, and the big issue was Social Security. I

9 was very much interested in social services. I did do a lot of that at Smith College--I'd forgotten that--and I was very much interested in social service. I always have been. My father said I was a damned do-gooder. But anyway, for years I would vote as he told me to, until there was a lot of discussion about Social Security.

We went riding that morning--we used to ride horseback a lot--and we were with another couple, and I said I was disturbed between Roosevelt and Hoover. The issue was between Hoover and Roosevelt. And so when we got home my husband was suspicious of me, because I'd been talking what you might call "out of tune" recently. And he said, "You know, if you vote for Roosevelt, you'll be taking the bread out of your children's mouths." And I thought to myself, how dumb do you think I am on that deal? So I didn't say anything at all.

When I came out of the ballot box, he gave me one look, and he said, "Don't tell me how you voted. Don't tell me how you voted." Because I voted for Roosevelt. Heffelfinger Later, I met Mr. Hoover, and I knew his administrative assistant at the time that he was in Europe on the rehabilitation after the First World War. I found out a number of things that Hoover had been for, but he didn't have the ability to project things that he had been for. I called, and I asked him--I don't remember where I met him; I forget--I asked himBradley about different things--housing and this sort of thing. And he told me the things he had come out for. I said, "I never knew that. Why didn't we know about it?" I can remember him saying, "ThatSociety was one of the tragedies of my campaign."

JF: To backtrack just for a moment, you mentionedElizabeth that you were involved with social services when you were at Smith. with Historical EH: Yes. I was taking sociology, and there were a lot of factories around Smith College. So on Saturday afternoon I'd get a couple of girls to go with me, and we'd always go out and see the beautiful coloring up there--drink cider. I'd get them to go into these factories--remember it was a six-day week--and I'd go in and ask to see the women there, and then I would ask what wages they got, and did they haveinterview enough light, and what was the time off, what money they received, until several of the heads of theseMinnesota jobs of about five or six factories [unclear] and the president of Smith College was called, and told to keep me home. [Laughter] I thought it was very funny.

JF: Did he succeedhistory in keeping you home?

EH: I wasOral called into his office, and he said, "What are you doing over there?"

"Well," I said, "I'm learning all this in class, and I just wanted to know if they're doing it around here, if they're carrying through on what they should do." I was very much interested.

JF: Was that the first time that you can remember being consciously interested in that sort of thing?

EH: Yes. I was very much interested. Oh, I can remember when I was twelve, teaching Bible in Galveston. I don't know why. I don't know how I could have kept it. But as I remember, it was

10 down in the red light district and I think I was curious to know what was going down there, so I went in as a Bible teacher. I think that was the case. [Laughter] But it's always been in my blood--social service.

JF: That's interesting. Is there anything else you'd like to add, at this point at least, about your college years, your younger years? You can always go back and include this. Is there anything that you'd like to add now, that I haven't asked?

EH: No.

JF: Okay. So we have you back in Minneapolis after you'd been in Canada.

EH: Yes, I think I'd like to add one thing.

JF: Good. Heffelfinger

EH: They put me in "Spoken English" class, because my accent was so southern, and they wanted me to say "ba-nah-na" instead of "ban-an-a," and I said, "If I went home and began to `ba- nah-na' my parents, they'd keep me home, wouldn't let me goBradley to college." So I came out of "Spoken English." It was so absurd. I used to skip the class. I almost flunked out of college, because, really, my grades were awful. But I did pick up juniorSociety year. I finally got on my feet. I got some of this out of my blood, I think.

JF: Do you think that maybe just being awayElizabeth from home for the first time like that, and away from stricter control... with Historical EH: It just went to my head.

JF: Sure.

EH: Completely. interview Minnesota JF: That probably happens to a good bit of young people when they get the reins loose.

EH: Those reinshistory had been awful tight on me.

JF: BeforeOral you came back to Minneapolis with your husband, the last place you were was Duluth?

EH: Yes.

JF: How did you like living in Duluth? Did you like Duluth?

EH: Very much. It's a lovely city. Lovely. We had five children. I figured out one time that I spent thirteen and a half years having or nursing children, so I was really quite a vegetable. I was.

11

JF: Were all of your children born in Minneapolis, or were some of them born in Canada?

EH: Two were born in Duluth, and three in Minneapolis. Or the other way around.

JF: What are your children's names?

EH: Jinx was our eldest. She died several years ago. She was a dancer. She was with [Heinya Holm sp?]. She was an understudy of Mary Martin--"One Touch of Venus." She went to the [unclear]. All the girls went to the [unclear]. She had her education in the liberal arts, by experience, because she was getting up at four o'clock, five o'clock in the morning to dance. That was in her blood, that was what she wanted to do. So we let her do that and stop school. But she received her education; she was very artistic, knew art and felt art, and she came out a very beautiful person. Her whole "education" was in her dance. She learned music, she learned wonderful Matisse background they had at that time of the dance. Of course,Heffelfinger the music [unclear]. And the modern music. She learned color. So she got a wonderful experience in the field of theater that she couldn't have gotten, theoretically.

JF: Did she study in New York or in Europe? Bradley

EH: She studied in New York, then she got a job very easily duringSociety the war.

JF: What did she do? What was her job? Elizabeth EH: In the theater. She called a strike one time and got canned--I forget which show that was from--because she found out she wasn'twith getting Historicalwhat the other girl was, who was doing just the same job, so she called a strike. [Laughter] She lost her job. I thought that was pretty spunky of her.

JF: Yes, indeed. Who was your second oldest child? interview EH: My son, Peavey, Jr. He wasMinnesota with his father in the business. Then he went down to the Dominican Republic, and he's a freelancer. He went into veal, and then he went into raising of honey bees. He's not an organization man. He's been very successful. history JF: That's an interesting place to live, I would think. Oral EH: And they have three lovely daughters. One's a dancer, and another one went into drama. They all adore him.

JF: Who is your third child?

EH: My third one is Lucia DeGrazi. Her husband is Sebastian, and he teaches graduate students at Rutgers University. He also is a writer of political philosophy and political science. The most charming and lovely person. She is very well known in New Jersey in the field of crime. Jamestown, she's been on the board for juveniles for years. She was on the parole board. You

12 name it, and she's done it. She's had an extraordinary amount of influence in the whole field of corrections.

JF: That's interesting. Did you think she got that from you and your interest in social services?

EH: I don't know. She got just it from herself. But she does know her stuff. She went through the school of alcoholic studies at Rutgers, which supposedly is the best in the world, and she went for a six-week course. She went into certain courses. She is well thought of, extraordinarily well thought of, been appointed by the governor, and looked up to by all the people in her field.

JF: That's very interesting.

EH: She's quite a person. Heffelfinger And then my next one was Rosalie, who married Robert Smith, a publisher--who died, unfortunately. It was a very happy marriage. She was a business woman, in real estate, before she married. Her first husband was the son of Wendell Wilkie, and that ended in divorce. She has three children. Wendell, the second, is a Rhodes scholarBradley and has gone into law. Very serious. Then I have... Society JF: One more.

EH: Then my Millie, Mildred, who was namedElizabeth after my sister -in-law, who was killed in an automobile accident. She has five beautiful, lovely children. Incidentally, my Lucia has a boy and a girl. Jinx had no children. Pete haswith three Historicalgirls.

But Millie has four girls and a son. They move around quite a bit because her husband, in Pennsylvania, is a go-getter, and loves to...I call him an entrepreneur. They're now moved, I hope for the last time, to Santa Fe. They're living in a very old adobe house, very famous because the woman who built the houseinterview married the chief of the tribe, [unclear], and the name of the house is the [unclear] house. It's a kookyMinnesota house, but they're all kooky, the whole bunch of them, so they fit right into a kooky house. She was cutting down. They had a very large house--Victorian--and she was cutting down. So instead of each child having a bedroom, the five children have three bedrooms, becausehistory she said that they'd left home, but she got to Santa Fe and found out they'd returned, so there are now five children in three bedrooms, and one bath. [Laughter] Oral JF: They enjoy it, I'm sure.

EH: She said it's wonderful. But you never know which bed you're going to sleep in.

JF: You spent thirteen years, you said, raising your children?

EH: Yes, and nursing them. I nursed the first one eleven months. The doctor said, "What are you feeding this child?"

13 I said, "Me."

He said, "Well, why?"

I said, "Nobody told me to stop."

JF: During this period, you really didn't have any time, I'm sure, to become involved in any activities, during the time you were raising your children.

EH: Public events?

JF: Or civic affairs, or social services.

EH: No, I didn't have time. It was a very strange thing that happened--and I'm not hooked on horoscopes, mind you--but a strange thing that happened. In '39, I was downHeffelfinger at the old Radisson having lunch and there was a woman telling horoscopes, and she said, "I see you in 1940,"--that was six months away--"becoming very active in outside things. I see you traveling all over the world, up until [19]60, and making speeches." [Unclear]. "And then I see dark hills." Bradley And everything worked out. I was asked to take over the Women's Symphony, which I gave up because the war came on and Eleanor Pillsbury took it over. ThenSociety the war came and I was busy in the war effort. And in 1960, I had illness. Every one of the children was ill, very ill. My husband was ill. Just everything had worked out. I said, "How long would that last?" She just hit it right on the dates. Elizabeth

JF: How uncanny. with Historical

EH: Really.

JF: Very uncanny. interview EH: Because I thought at the time,Minnesota when she told me that, because I'd never made a speech, I'd never been in public life. I'd never done anything.

JF: Did you everhistory think about that prediction during the years as you went along?

EH: Yes,Oral I have, many times. It was very, very strange.

JF: As your children became grown, what would you say was the first thing?

EH: The first thing was the symphony.

JF: Were you asked to do--

EH: I was asked to take over.

14 JF: Be president of the symphony?

EH: The Women's.

JF: The Women's organization.

EH: Now famous, you see. Then, it was just starting. Then came the war. There had been a group of people headed by Miss Dorothy [Boling] in which there were about fifteen or twenty women who were Columbian. They were outstanding women and I decided to join them. I don't know why, because I certainly wasn't [unclear]. But we'd talk about the war. All of us thought the war was coming. And we felt we had to be ready for it.

Right after Pearl Harbor--this was just about a month before Pearl Harbor that we met--and Earl Gammons--who was then president, head of WCCO, a delightful person--called a meeting. Civil Defense had come into being and he was in charge of Civil Defense. HeHeffelfinger called a meeting, and three or four of us were invited. Whether we invited ourselves, I don't know, but I happened to be there. I think maybe I went without being invited because I felt the same [unclear]. I don't know, because I can't remember ever reading a paper or being up on anything, but it was just one of those things that happened. So he told what the men wereBradley going to do. After he finished, I said, "You don't realize there's a group of women, about thirteen or fourteen women, who have been meeting several times, and we're all organized and ready Societyto go, and you've never mentioned women. Yet they do all the work.

And he turned to somebody and he said, "What'sElizabeth the name of that bitch?"

So when I got home that night he called.with "Well," Historical he said, "you talked yourself into a job. I want you to take over the women's division."

So I grew very fond of it. Delightful work. But we had...I think we did it in six weeks, but first of all, this was a most exciting job, because people were so patriotic. I loved Northeast Minneapolis--all the ethnicinterview groups to work with. That was my favorite. I belonged to the [Poloni]--you know, the Polish Minnesotagroup. I'm an honorary member. I got to know them all.

Anyway, when we organized we had thirteen top women. We had labor, we had AFL, the CIO, women from each.history This was before the United Fund ever had labor appointments on their board. We had labor, we had a black named Marshall. I remember her. We had a wonderful Polish woman Oralnamed Mary Sokolowski, an outstanding woman, came from Krakow, Poland. She was a woman lawyer, and she ran a small bar over in Northeast Minneapolis. Wonderful woman. We had a top Catholic. We had thirteen, and we had a meeting.

We divided it into districts, and I think there were fifty on the next step, fifty people. And then from fifty, the district people, then it was broken down into a block set-ups, and we were entirely organized in six weeks' time.

JF: What was the group called?

15 EH: It was called Victory Aides.

JF: You mentioned thirteen women. Was this pretty much the same thirteen that you--

EH: That was what you called the executive committee.

JF: Were these about the same thirteen you'd been meeting with previously, too?

EH: No, no. We got some advice from these people we were meeting, on whom to have. So we had the outstanding Catholic in that--I mean, the outstanding--we worked very close to the CIO and the AFL, and that was something.

But these thirteen women, they would meet maybe once a month. We never lost one. We never lost a single district, and I think there were something like fifty, of district people, so many block seats. We never lost one of them. Heffelfinger

We would occasionally lose a block worker, and the press loved it, because the Red Cross was doing a wonderful job, but, you see, these were people who never [unclear], where they would have assignments, and they could take their baby carriage andBradley go around and meet their neighbors for salvage. It was looking for nurses that had retired, to come back into work. We needed nurses. We needed foster homes. We had foster homesSociety for women who had children so women could go to work.

Then another thing, we sold war bonds, and weElizabeth were always 112 percent, or something like that, over our goal. And the press were absolutely marvelous. And one thing that came up, "Every Victory Aide was Santa Claus," and so withwe colle Historicalcted at the different firehouses, Christmas gifts for people around here--stationed here--and the Teamsters Union, headed by Sid Brennan, took them from the firehouses to a central location, such as the Armory, as I remember. But it was a marvelous job.

I remember when I went tointerview Sid that we also outfitted about twenty-eight rooms for OSS and we'd get the money from people whoMinnesota wanted a memorial to a son who died. I remember Jewish people, it was embarrassing, because they would always come along and pick it up and sell it to somebody else. history Then we'd pick up furniture at these firehouses, and again the Teamsters would get them and take them toOral a central place, and the upholsterers would do it free. We'd have to pay for the material, and they'd do it free. So it was a very exciting job. Marvelous job.

JF: You told me a wonderful story, though, when I met with you before, about a meeting that you had with the head of the Teamsters Union who wanted publicity or something.

EH: This was at the time of the furniture that we were asked to--. No, it was the time of the Christmas gifts. So I went in, I think it was Tony Schullo, a great big fat guy. I wanted to see Sid Brennan and Tony said, "Well, tell me!" And I said, "No, I want to see Sid Brennan." So finally Sid came in and he said, "Why don't you pay for it to be done? We do all this stuff for

16 free and we don't get any publicity." I said, "You get plenty of publicity for all these Christmas presents [unclear]." So finally I said, "Well, I haven't got time to spend. I'll go down and move the stuff myself."

He said, "Ah, sit down."

So I sat down. I said, "You'll get publicity. You should get it." And he did. He got the headlines [unclear]. So after that, he did anything.

I think the most exciting thing that happened--this was a time when no Negroes were being employed, and my very good friend, Cecil Newman, was head of personnel at Federal Cartridge, and I told him, "Here they were, looking for people to work, and they wouldn't hire Blacks." So I asked him, "I want to have somebody come in here, preferably a Black person."

He suggested Crystal Bird Fausett, who was assistant to Mrs. Roosevelt.Heffelfinger I didn't tell you this story, did I? But having come from what I call the South, I wanted to see her first. I went down and met her. She was a beautiful person, very articulate. She was meant for the legislature. She said that there was a Black, a Jew, and somebody else, and she came in because they thought that she'd be the least offensive. Bradley

Anyway, I went to the Senate with my husband, and I wanted toSociety ask her to stay with us--because, you see, she couldn't stay at any hotels at that time. And he said to me, "Why wouldn't you?" Just like you'd say, "Well, if you're thirsty, take a drink of water." And I thought to myself, I feel so guilty. Because I still had a hangover--mustElizabeth have been-- I never thought I had a prejudice.

So I called and asked if she'd like to staywith here atHistorical the house, and I worked her so hard that she absolutely lost her voice at the end. She could hardly speak.

It was a very reactionary kind of a house--legislature. I told Roy Dunn I had this wonderful woman, and asked could she speak to a joint session [of the Minnesota Legislature] and he said, "Yes." interview Minnesota So she spoke. And then, on that very day after she spoke, somebody got up and asked her where she was staying. And she was staying with us because she couldn't get into a hotel. Somebody got up and suggestedhistory they pass a resolution to desegregate the hotels, and it went through, completely, that one day. Oral And then she said, "Now can I go down there?" She said, "I've never been so tired in my life. I can't talk. I'm just tired of everybody. I want to be by myself."

Then later, Mrs. John Cowles, Betty Cowles, who was a supporter of human rights--I have always been an ardent supporter of human rights--[unclear] down there in Houston; I wanted to go down there and take part in it. Anyway, Mrs. Cowles was very much interested. So they had a meeting with the NAACP. I believe Mrs. Cowles was the honored guest, and I think Tom Hastings was down there, at the Nicollet [Hotel] at the time, and they got all black waiters in, instead of the regular white they had. He told me later they were so well behaved. I said, "What

17 did you think they were going to be, savages?" And it went through just like that.

Then the dinner came for us. It was very exciting, but just happening, you know. Crystal was very much interested. And I asked my husband, "She knows so many Scandinavians, particularly Swedes, that came up legislators, and why was that?"

"Well," he said, "There's always been a feeling against the Swedes in the past. They call them dumb Swedes and things like that." And they understood what she was talking about, which was very good.

JF: Very interesting.

EH: She was a remarkable woman. But the young people--she spoke at some of the private schools, and they came over here afterwards to meet her. They were my children's ages, you see. They were so interesting. I remember, one time, August [unclear], whoHeffelfinger was from the First District and whom I was very fond of, and he'd never voted anything for civil rights or foreign aid. I was in Washington at a political meeting, and there were quite a few delegates from Minnesota, and I asked them to come up for some drinks and some coffee after my conference, and I had some of the congressmen. I always included them.Bradley Crystal Fausett was there, and August came in. I took him over and sat him next to Crystal, and I noticed he turned around and looked at her and then turned his back, then he turned around. Society As he came out, he said, "Who was that woman?"

And I told him her background, that she was oneElizabeth of the legislators. I said, "August, tell me the truth. Have you ever sat next to or talked to a black in your life?" with Historical He said, "No." Yet he'd voted against them all the time.

I said, "You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Look at this woman. She's smarter than anybody you know." He laughed. interview JF: Did you convert him? Minnesota

EH: I don't know. He died shortly afterwards. I was very fond of August. I was far more progressive thanhistory he was, but I thought he was a sweet person, lovely person.

JF: WhenOral you were organizing the Victory Aides, you mentioned that it was organized in such a way that there were people who had block duties just on the city block. What things did they do?

EH: About every six weeks, we'd send them out--for war bonds, for instance. It's getting something extra from the house, you see. War bonds. Getting foster homes for working mothers. Getting nurses. Getting furniture for these people who had some [unclear]. Take it to the nearest fire station.

JF: Did they have meetings?

18 EH: Salvage. We went on these salvage drives. We were very active on that. Also, it was fun. But we did have some trouble with the two executive directors of the Red Cross, and the OCD. They were very jealous of each other. My social friends were all in the Red Cross, and it drifted down to us. I had a little trouble with my friends over that, because they agreed with their directors. I decided then and there that directors, by law, should be taken out and shot every ten years, because they get so jealous of their jobs that they bring on fights with other organizations. Nobody paid any attention to that. They're still in operation.

JF: Did you have meetings every month or every six weeks or so?

EH: That was very interesting. We not only had a woman every block, 8,000, but we also had a monthly meeting of the heads of every women's organization in the city. Churches--there were about 400 or 500 women. There are so many women who will work. You give a job to a woman, and she gets it done. She's thorough. And women want to do things, but they'd never had an opportunity. Here was an opportunity. They're well organized acrossHeffelfinger the country, and there's a different meeting every night. I think it's frustration with their husbands, probably, really. [Laughter] I think if their husbands had paid a little more attention to them, a bit more romantic, [unclear], there wouldn't be so many meetings. Silly, but that's the way I look at it. Bradley But anyway, they would meet, and the executive director at the Citizens Aid--our building was right across from the CIA--he used to have a fit, because he said,Society "You're getting all these people organized, then what are you going to do with them?"

I said, "There's going to be something done. IElizabeth don't know, but we're prepared to do a job." Of course, we got so many jobs that he didn't want anything to go to press, it went through him, and I paid no attention to that at all, becausewith the press Historical was dying for stories. It was very appealing to them.

We had our own staff. Mildred Coleman was the top executive, and then we had Mrs. Ray Scallen, and Mrs. Charles Arnao, and they each had their own divisions, you see. One had charge of getting the sponsorinterview for the OSS. Another one had charge of the cookies, the cookie jar, Mrs. Scallen did, but she didn't Minnesotado the churches.

Mrs. Ernest Storm had charge of filling about thirty speaking engagements a day on the war effort, and I rememberhistory I wanted that to be bipartisan, and it was before Humphrey became mayor, and she would say to me, "You know, I want to make it both Democrats and Republicans, but I can't getOral any Republicans to take these speaking engagements, but I can always depend upon Hubert Humphrey, and the chief of police, Ed Ryan." They spoke, and they were crazy about them. But you know Humphrey, beautiful speaker. So they took care of everything. Humphrey always told them, he said, "That was my beginning." When you have thirty speeches, then you have to find out the [unclear], then you have to get a speaker, then you have to find out where it is, then you have to...just back and forth. And she did the most beautiful job on that, a terrific job.

Then we'd meet together over at Charlie's [Cafe] once in a while. When we got mad at the Red Cross, we'd go over there and have a drink. One man, a waiter, said, "Don't fight the Red Cross

19 too much. You don't fight the Red Cross." I wondered who he was, I couldn't it figure out. Until one of our district chairwomen invited us up for luncheon one day at her house, and this man was waiting, opened the door, and proceeded to serve us, same as he did at Charlie's. It was her husband. [Laughter]

But we had so many laughs. We had beautiful ideas over at Charlie's. "Every Victory Aide was Santa Claus"--I think that was Mrs. Scallen's idea. But we really had fun. We only had one personality failure, and that was somebody who was writing the releases, and she'd write these releases for the paper without ever checking with the people who were doing the work. So we had to ask her to go, but that was the only problem.

JF: You mentioned a program called "Every Victory Aide was Santa Claus." How did the work?

EH: Every Victory Aide was Santa Claus. Oh, that went over big. Heffelfinger

JF: How did that work?

EH: Well, we would take this idea to the head of the block.Bradley They would go down through everybody. First, we had the precinct, then we had down to the block worker. They would go around to the houses in their block and show them this is whatSociety they wanted, and tell them to take their stuff to the firehouse on a certain day. Just like that they came wrapped and everything. There was a mound as big as this house, of presents. Elizabeth JF: Were these destined for servicemen? with Historical EH: Yes, for servicemen.

JF: That's lovely. When did your involvement with the Victory Aides program begin? About what time, what year? interview EH: It started the day after, twoMinnesota days after Pearl Harbor. And a very funny thing happened. Marvin Klein was mayor, and he had a very officious secretary, and we had just finished our last drive, the war bonds, and I think we were 112 percent of our quota, but they had gotten just from people in the block.history So I took Mrs. Arnao and we said we wanted to speak to him. He was then head of WCCO [unclear], and so I asked Mrs. Arnao to come with me. I walked in, and he said, "I askedOral her to call you, I want your resignation."

I said, "My resignation? What do you mean?"

He had asked--his secretary--had asked for a name of all the Victory Aides that she was going to use politically, and I refused to give it to her. I said they would be burned, because I didn't believe in that sort of thing. I think people could follow what I did, because they use these things politically, and I don't believe in that at all. So anyway, I turned her down, and so he called and he wanted it delivered.

20 Now I remember. He called and asked me to meet him at his office, and bring him the list, and he asked first if I would talk to Mrs. Arnao. He said to bring the list.

I said, "No."

He said, "I want you to sign this resignation."

I said, "With 112 percent? Have you talked to Mr. Pillsbury--John Pillsbury--about this?"

He said, "No, why should I?"

"Well," I said, "he was head of the whole drive. And he [Klein] was very nasty. I said, "You can go straight to hell as far as I'm concerned."

The trap door, whatever you call it, ventilator, was open into the office, andHeffelfinger it was all over the office that I'd told him to go to hell. Then he followed me out, and in a loud voice he said, "This woman," meaning me, "is never to go on our television or radio again." I guess it was radio then. "She's through. She's never to come into this building. Never. She's insulted me." So they were all giggling. As I thought about it later, they really didn'tBradley like him any better than I did.

So we plotted how I was going to get on. Cedric Adams was ourSociety great friend. There was somebody coming on, and a salvage drive was coming up, you see, so somebody, Mrs. Arnao, was paying for this one advertising bit. They'd stick us on with regular advertising, and a person would pay for the advertising. So she went andElizabeth asked if we could say something about salvage, and the man said, "Yes, of course." So I waited until the last minute, just as Cedric was about to open up, and I walked in and he startedwith to laugh. Historical Did you ever know him?

JF: No.

EH: Well, he had the most infectious laugh, and he started to laugh, but he started to laugh so hard that instead of callinginterview me Mrs. Peavey Heffelfinger, he called me Mrs. Peavey "Piffelfinger." Then I started toMinnesota laugh. This went on for five minutes, because every combination that he could--I mean, he got it all mixed up. We were both laughing so hard, we couldn't talk, and they said the people listening in said they just died, it was so funny. Finally, he said, "Well, whathistory have you got to sell this time?"

I said, "Salvage."Oral

"Okay, go to it everybody, for Mrs. Heffelfinger Peavey, or something like that." So anyway, we got on. Oh, we laughed.

JF: Did you ever get any repercussions for having--

EH: I got repercussions. People who heard it were just in hysterics. But then later he [Klein] was fired, thank goodness. He was terrible. But he wanted it. He wanted to use that [list] politically. Terrible thing.

21

JF: How long did the Victory Aides program continue?

EH: It was to D-Day. I think it was about four years. Wasn't it '41 to '45?

JF: Right.

EH: Then we disbanded.

JF: You disbanded it after D-Day?

EH: Yes. I think we had one more drive or something. It was a very exciting thing. Then what we would do, when we had a drive coming up, and I did this personally. See, we were divided into wards, the top thirteen, and then we had thirteen wards, and then they had so many districts in the ward, it went down like that to the block person. I would attend everyHeffelfinger one of those wards the last three days before the drive. I knew where it was and it really was a job.

The worst thing was I couldn't stand the telephone work. For years after that I would just die on the telephone, because naturally, out of 8,000 people, you're Bradleygoing to get some drop-outs--you know, sick and stuff like that--but they'd call in. Mrs. Coleman finally took that. She could take it. I couldn't take that. I couldn't do the thinking. Planning justSociety drove me--I'd think the whole thing was collapsing. I still run into people in stores who say, "I was a Victory Aide."

JF: I imagine, because it reached so many people.Elizabeth

EH: I particularly loved the first ward,with all the activities,Historical wonderful people. One thing came up. We also got clothes for the survivors of Stalingrad. That was done by Mrs. A. E. Bowman. We had I don't know how many trainloads of cars filled with clothes. That was a statewide thing. We never heard from anybody, which was very peculiar.

But one day in the office,interview an Express man came in, and I got three or four big cartons of propaganda from Russia. InsteadMinnesota of doing anything official about it, because we were then friends, you see, with Russia. I called the CIA and I said, "Some of your damn junk is over here. Come over and get it." They laughed. Boy, they were over there getting it out of there so quickly. history

We hadOral one case, Peter Warhol. His wife was one of our Victory Aide district persons. She was a Communist, a [unclear] Communist. And Peter Warhol came over here from Czechoslovakia when he was two months old, under the Taft-Hartley law. He was head of the upholsterers union, did all this stuff. He went to war, and he used to write me cards--castles, about castles. I don't think he had any idea what... He was not interested in political philosophy. His wife was, I'm sure of that. So anyway, when he came back here, under the Taft-Hartley law they were going to send him home. He'd left as a three-months-old baby. He was a very sweet person.

I was very disturbed over this, because it was written up in the papers, and I felt somebody should put a word in for him, because we couldn't have done the job without him. I didn't know

22 anybody's political philosophy. It wasn't my business.

So I said something to my husband, that I thought somebody should speak. Again my husband said, "Why don't you do it?"

So I ran into Douglas Hall, who was a lawyer for those people which you might call the left wingers, and I said, "Doug, I'm so upset about Peter Warhol, and I'd like to testify."

He said, "You know the Republican Party's only been trying to get rid of you for a long time anyway, and they'd take this opportunity, so I'm going to subpoena you."

So when I walked in there, to the Hennepin County Group Screening Committee. The paper came out and said, "Society woman, labor leader"--who was George Marvin--he's such a jewel-- "and industrialist"--which was Charlie Horn--"rush to defense of communist," I died, just nearly died. Again, my husband propped me up. Heffelfinger

The meeting was that morning, the Hennepin County Republican meeting was that morning, and I was going to be head of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, which is the thing I was interested in. So I went to the meeting, and there was Charlie Horn withBradley his gray suit and a cane, and his mustache like this, and a red carnation, and as I walked in, he said, "Greetings, comrade." Society I said, "Greetings to you, sir." Then we both laughed. That still was fearless communism, you see. They all smiled when I walked in and then all of a sudden it went silent. You could feel the chill. It got later and later. Charlie Horn was Elizabethfirst, and he'd been on this FEDC thing with [Warhol], and he said he found him very fair, good to work with, and that he'd be fair employment. with Historical

Then they ran the investigation. They not only investigated, but they were also going to decide if he was judging. You see? They investigated, then they were going to come out with the decision, which seemed to me to be absolutely a miscarriage of justice. interview So he came up to me, he said, "Mrs.Minnesota Heffelfinger, what are you doing in this thing?"

I said, "I don't like what you're doing. I don't think it's just." history So then they went back, and they called me next, and they were very careful. The questions they asked meOral were quite funny, because I was going to go all out for him. I said I didn't know anything about it. "But," I said, "we couldn't have run that office without him." I told them that he'd done what he was supposed to, organized twenty-seven workers. I had known about his wife. I said I heard she was [unclear]. After all, [unclear].

Then George Martin got up, the musicians union. He said, "Well, if he's a communist, then I'm a communist, too, because we both think alike."

And he came back, and he said, "How'd I do?"

23 And I said, "You stunk. You were awful." He said he had go to the telephone. I said, "Listen, will you put a call in for me, because I'm going to be late to this meeting."

He said, "Heffelfinger, they've been trying to get rid of you, those conservatives, for a long time. They'll take this opportunity because you couldn't be there. You walk in there as if you owned the world."

So I remember Don [White] was [unclear]. He was very much an arch-reactionary. He represented some districts in Minneapolis, and I didn't trust him very much. Anyway, I walked in, and there was utter silence. Nobody had the nerve.

So I said, "Well, I'm glad you didn't start, because I [unclear]." They never mentioned it. Nobody had the nerve to. So I told George Martin after that, that thanks to him I was still a member of the party. [Laughter] Heffelfinger But anyway, then when I had these appointments under Eisenhower, for [unclear], they did my checking. Of course they came across the Peter Warhol bit, and went to all the neighbors to ask if I had communist intents. Of course, the neighbors really died, it struck them so funny. Bradley So, I went to the Unitarian Church. This was years later. This man came up to me--I didn't recognize him--and said, "You know, I owe you as much as I oweSociety my own mother, because I'm Peter Warhol, and I'll never forget your standing up for me as long as I live." Isn't that a nice?

JF: It is, indeed. Elizabeth

EH: I said, "You sure caused me a lot withof trouble, Historical kid."

He said, "I'm sorry."

I said, "It's all right." interview Also another person was Sid Fossum.Minnesota Did you ever hear of him? He was in WPA. She was also a Victory Aide. It was something for them to do, you know. Nothing political philosophy. I tried to get her at the house, and I couldn't reach her. She was a district person. So I went over there, and she finallyhistory peeked behind the curtains and saw it was me, and she said they were after Sid. He was a WPA. He'd done a picture of us [unclear]; he did a cartoon of the directors, perfectlyOral charming --he just died lately.

But anyway, she said, "I have a baby, and I can't get out to get milk."

I said, "What else?" So I went to the grocery store.

She said, "They're trying to get in the house." She was very hysterical.

That night I went to [unclear], and I was sitting next to somebody from Washington that I didn't know who they were, but I started telling this story, this harassment. I said, "This is going too

24 far. This is terrible. That woman is terrified. She wasn't nursing the baby and said, "I have to get milk."

He said, "I'm sent here from Washington for just this, and I'm interesting in your evaluation."

I said, "They don't know what it's all about." Really, these were artists, and she was doing her work. So they dropped it. But those are the things that [unclear]. So many things.

JF: When you joined the Victory Aide movement, you gave up your involvement with the symphony at that time, then?

EH: Sure. I was only with the symphony two or three months. It wasn't my sort. But this Victory Aide bit, you were dealing with real people with substance.

JF: You spent four years with them. Heffelfinger

EH: I did as long--through D-Day. I think so. Whatever it was. I know right after D-Day--I mean, right after Pearl Harbor. Bradley JF: You were with it for the duration. Society EH: Yes, absolutely.

JF: Were you relieved when it was over? OfElizabeth course you were relieved probably when the war was over, but did you miss when the Victory Aide movement disbanded after that, or were you relieved? with Historical

EH: We just disbanded. Oh, I had so many lovely...there is a volume--Nothing Except War. You saw that, didn't you?

JF: Yes, ma'am. interview Minnesota EH: The papers were just absolutely perfection.

JF: When it washistory all over, did you miss your involvement in it when it was disbanded?

EH: Certainly.Oral It was a great experience, because you're dealing with the real substance of life.

JF: Did you become involved in something else right away, as soon as it was over? Did you become involved in another movement?

EH: I think it's when I...yes, I got into the hospital. But that's...

JF: Another story.

EH: Yes.

25

I've just remembered a couple of incidences that are very warming to the heart, at least it was to mine. The head woman who was on our original thirteen asked me...no, I was called by Rubin Latz--whose son is in the legislature now--would I talk to some business agents on a certain day. And I accepted. And Myrtle Harris, who was the head women, she was on our original committee of thirteen, an old hand, she would pick me up. So just before something came up, and I called him, and I said, "Rubin, I can't possibly make it."

He said, "We won't have anybody but you." So anyway, I went, and Myrtle picked me up, because, as I say, I didn't know what a business agent was from a hole in the hat, and there were about thirty, thirty-five men, and Myrtle and I were the only women. Anyway, so I think it was at the Red Feather or something like that, the lunch was one of the monthly meetings. So anyway, they introduced me, and I told about the war effort, what we were doing and trying to do, and the support we had from labor. I told the story about Sid Brennan [unclear] Heffelfinger"I'll pick up this damn stuff myself." "Ah, sit down!" They laughed at that.

"Oh, sit down." But they laughed. Bradley Well, anyway, the head of the [Lathers] Union said, "Our guest is very personable, but she comes from a family who have rooked the farmers for years, and I wantSociety to know, with all this cooperation,"--see, my husband was head of the War Production Board of five states at the same time, but that's another story I have to tell--"she comes from a family that's rooked the farmers for years. "I'd like to go back to the free enterpriseElizabeth system, continue with the free enterprise system."

Rubin Latz was sitting next to me, and withhe got veryHistorical agitated. He said, "You don't have to answer. You don't have to answer."

I said, "Hell, I'll answer that. Why shouldn't I?" So I said, "What is the free enterprise system? I think I can do it with an illustration. My husband's grandfather came from Maine. He had lost his father, a sea captain, atinterview sea, and he came as a young man, with his widowed mother, and I think there were three or four children,Minnesota to Iowa. He sold papers. She took in boarders. He had the inspiration to put up the first country grain elevator. And I said, "I'm proud that that blood flows through my children's veins." That's [unclear]. history So he shot back another question. He said, "Don't you think they should cooperate?" Oral I said, "Absolutely, but I'll tell you, I wouldn't want you representing me, if I were [unclear] owner or employee, because you'd antagonize anybody." So I sat down. And there was laughter.

Then, the man next to me on the other side said, "You know, I wouldn't answer any more questions, because he's awfully smart against you and I, in a bind."

So he asked other question. I said, "You know, I was always taught never to argue with a man that you could see is smarter than you." I sat down.

26 So then the man from the Brewers Union got up, and he said, "I'm [unclear] to speaker, she came through with flying colors," or something. [He said] they would like to have their monthly brewers party at the Schlitz Brewing Company, would like to have me and my staff--there were five or six of us--as their guests at the next party, and so I accepted. So from that time on, we got a regular invitation for our staff to come to their parties, and we always went.

One time, Sinclair Lewis was in town, and I took him, and they were delighted to see him. Of course he had a marvelous wit, and he said, "I smell an odor, a little bit of "capitalism" is in here."

I said, "Red,"--they called him Red--"this is just like a Yale prom. Isn't this wonderful?" [Laughter]

Anyway, soon after that, I don't know who it was, because I knew them all, all of the top ones very well, and he came to me. Oh, I'll tell you who it was. It was Bob Kramer,Heffelfinger who was the editor of the labor paper. All the time that I saw him--a very morose-looking, big man--and I saw him writing, and as he came up to the table after my to-do with the union people. He told me who he was, and I said, "What's the name of that bastard who was picking on me?" And he laughed and thought it was so funny, and from that time on, BradleyBob and I became very, very close friends. There wasn't a year, sometimes twice a year, that he didn't take me to Charlie's for lunch. He would always drink catawba juice. I'd have a sherry or something.Society So one day, he took the sherry, and the next time he took me for lunch, I said, "No sherry?"

He said, "No sherry. You know, I fell off the Elizabethwagon after that lunch. It was six months." I didn't know he was an alcoholic, you see. with Historical But then he came to me, and wanted to see me in town. Very important. Mr. Heffelfinger's-- Peavey's--uncle, Jim Bell, was president of General Mills, and he was also a regent at the university, and there was going to be a strike at the university with the regents. I forget the reason. He said if I'd come for a meeting, I think to CIO, or AFL, and he said, "We would like to talk to Mr. Bell, because interviewwe know he's a very fine man, and he's honest, but we don't know how to get to him. We'd like to negotiate,Minnesota and we'd like to have you go and tell him we'd like to meet with him tonight at eight o'clock."

So I went downhistory to Uncle Jim Bell's office, and he was in a conference. I told his secretary, I said, "This is an emergency. I represent the AFL-CIO." Oral Uncle Jim came in then and he said, "Niece, have you lost your mind? What is this all about?"

I said, "I have been asked to be a go-between."

"I don't trust them. It's a trap. It's a trap. Don't trust them."

I said, "This is honest."

"No. Just tell them I can't do it."

27

That was late in the afternoon. I'd no sooner got home, I didn't know what to tell these labor people [unclear], and his wife, Aunt Louise Bell, called. And she said, "Your Uncle Jim called, and said to call you and simply say at that minute he was meeting with the labor union." And they settled the strike.

JF: Fantastic.

EH: Isn't it?

JF: Yes. This must have made you feel very good.

EH: Yes, but never take things like that personal. I never do. What was the other one that you wanted to talk about? Heffelfinger JF: We have the two labor things. Camp Savage.

EH: Oh, Camp Savage. We did a lot of work at Camp Savage, where they had the Japanese--the Niseis. The United States ambassador to Japan was in town.Bradley I forget his name but he was dearly beloved. So he invited the one who was in charge of the rehabilitation of rooms, Mrs. Arnao. So they invited me. Sent a personal invitation that he wanted to beSociety in the car with me, so he took the car and these Niseis went wild. Then they took us through all the security [unclear], and that was very thrilling, because we hadn't been cleared, but they took us. That was a wonderful experience. Elizabeth

There were several of them. But anyway,with we wereHistorical told by the Red Cross that the headquarters at Washington had said that they were to do the rooms after this and we were just sick about it, because it was our people who had picked up the stuff to do it with, and we had already done some twenty or something and paid for them. We were just told move over, you see. I remember that the different groups, they all got together, they said they're very sorry, that it belonged to Red Cross [for security reasons].interview Minnesota The people here--the army, the navy, the air force--they all got together and they said that they wanted us to continue. This was another thing between the directors, you see. It made trouble between me andhistory some of my best friends, because they were pretty pleased with themselves.

Mr. Heffelfinger'sOral mother had died, and his father had given the house to the Red Cross, it was a beautiful house, but even that didn't save our skin. We sort of were able to laugh it off. It didn't worry us, because it was such fun. We were all gay.

But they disbanded. And then I think that that was the year, that was about '45, I think. Then I ran for the legislature, and it was Roy Dunn who asked me to run, because he said that the legislator who was in drank too much and chased women, and they wanted somebody else. Out of the clear, because of my work with labor, I had labor support. I was running in the conservative districts, so you know what that did to me. I had official Railway Brotherhood, but they took me on, and I had official CIO, and unofficial AF of L. Then also I had had the first

28 public meeting of birth control, back in 1932, which I had forgotten to mention earlier. But we were living in a very old house, belonged to my husband's uncle, Mr. Bell, and he wanted somebody in the house, so we moved in.

There was a ballroom on the top, and my sister-in-law, who died, had often talked about birth control for families who couldn't afford it. So I had the first public meeting. Dr. David Bryn- Jones talked about statistics of population. He was forty years before his time.

Anyway, I was running against a Catholic. When they got that, they talked about me in all the churches. I won the primary. Then I had labor support. But they thought I was [unclear] to sell out anything. It's the best thing that ever happened to me, because I found out that you can't...if they give you support, you owe them something, and I was not in a position--I couldn't take without giving. You know what I mean?

JF: Surely. Heffelfinger

EH: Where did I stand? I'd always been for Unions, supportive of labor. But I stood. As my father said, "You have no philosophy," so I got philosophy very quickly and it was good for me. Bradley JF: Did you enjoy the campaign? Society EH: Not particularly. It was all right, but I couldn't ask for anything myself. I could campaign for somebody else. Elizabeth JF: Had you ever thought about going into politics, Mrs. Heffelfinger, or was Mr. Dunn's offer to you-- with Historical

EH: No, it just came up. It also came up about my running for Congress, which I could if I couldn't get representative [unclear]. And I talked to [unclear] and she said, "No." She said, "You'll never make it." She said, "I'd do anything for you." But she said, "You would not get support from [unclear]. Never."interview And also I didn't want to be [unclear]. But that taught me a lesson. Minnesota

JF: Were you surprised when Mr. Dunn asked you to run for the legislature, or had you known it was coming? history

EH: Yes,Oral I really was. Then I got into the hospital--and they sort of overlapped when I became president of the Northwestern [Hospital]. It had been run by a women's insurance advisor. A wonderful woman, but she ran it like a private club. The board came to me, and they said that she said she didn't think she'd run again, so they took her off and came over, and I said, "I don't know anything about a hospital, I've been on the board."

They said, "We'll help you, we'll support you, but we want a change."

So I went in, again, like a starry-eyed person, and that was a great experience, too. Because, number one, there was a man, the comptroller, who had had some trouble with the law, and he

29 was not bonded. He was not bondable, which I heard about. And I'd also been on the Grand Jury twice, as chairman, and I knew the district attorney very well, and I learned a lot. I certainly had a lot to learn, but I did learn through experience. He was very wise, he was very knowledgeable. So I took this situation to him. I said, "What do I do about this man?"

In the first place, when I got in, the director was away, and the head nurse was acting as acting director. Her name was Miss Giving, and she thought that she was true to her name. For the first, I came in in June, then I had hay fever and I didn't do very much, because I couldn't. She wouldn't tell me a thing. We had a lawsuit, one of our friends' children had had a wrong injection and she lost her life and there was a law suit. She never told me that. She would say to me, "So many patients, so many that die." That's all I knew. She was working and it was obviously all tied up with the comptroller, you see. And her secretary was the comptroller's wife, and I never knew a thing.

So I went down to the Presbyterian Hospital one morning, and I had [unclear].Heffelfinger He said, "What does your chief of staff say?"

I said, "I haven't been to him." Bradley He said, "You haven't been to him?" He said, "You should see him, find out what gives, and see him alone." Society

So I got back, and I said I wanted to see the chief of staff. Miss Giving said, "Well, I'll have him here in my office." I said, "No, I'd like to see Elizabethhim alone." [Unclear portion]

So what I heard from the chief of staff waswith that Historicalnobody was allowed to have an eight o'clock appointment with surgery unless they took out their income taxes with the comptroller, and it was pretty bad. And that the fire department has already given us notice that it was not safe. They were making ice in the basement with a man with dirty boots on--that was thirty years ago. They paid no attention to their men's advisory club. They just didn't [unclear]. interview So I went down to the district attorney,Minnesota he read exactly what this man had done, and he said, "If he's been rehabilitated, would you keep him?"

I said, "Yes. Thenhistory fight for the insurance." So he said, "Why don't you take him down to [unclear] and have a couple of drinks." So I asked him about it. "There wasn't one word of truth in it he Oralsaid. He blamed it all on his son-in-law. So I came back to the district attorney, because he had the FBI files, you see. He said, "First place, don't tell your board. You can't fire him, you've got to get somebody else, but you're going to have trouble. And you can't tell your board, because this could be a libel suit against yourself. Do you know what I mean?

JF: Surely.

EH: It was kept so quiet that a few years ago, I told a man who came in as chief of staff. He'd never heard this story. So that's how quiet it was kept.

30 But anyway, I just had to tell the board I could not divulge why we had to get a new administrator, and they went along--all of them. And of course the former head basically said it would take six years to replace this wonderful man. But we got somebody in six weeks' time, going through hospitals and associations.

He came and the board wouldn't let me have the financial statement. He took it and never saw the financial statement. They never would let me show it to him, but he took it on good faith. He later went out to [unclear]. Anyway, he finally said he'd come, and the morning that he was arriving, I got there at a quarter of nine--he was there at 8:30--and I said, "How is it?"

And he said, "I've had about twenty resignations unless they give the comptroller a contract for five years." Imagine a new man coming in.

I said, "What did you say?" Heffelfinger He said, "Nothing. I thought I'd ask you."

I said it right off the bat, I said, "Accept their resignations [unclear]." Bradley So then I went down. The pathology resigned, the records resigned, the secretary--his wife-- resigned. Imagine that. I was so dumb and so naive and so fullSociety of something. [Laughter] I just did what I thought was right.

JF: But it was the right thing. Elizabeth

EH: So I went down to Don Davis, whowith then wasHistorical head of General Mills, the president, and he was put in there primarily to get rid of dead timber. [Unclear]. It seems I always get mixed up with General Mills. I told him. He said, "You didn't call your executive committee."

I said, "No." He drew back [unclear] and he said, "Well, they won't resign." interview I said, "I know they won't." Minnesota

He said, "They will in time and you'll get rid of them." He said, "You know, we've heard that this was really historyour fault. We've heard rumors but we never chased them down." But he wasn't bonded, he was unbonded. Oral Then we had a strike. That's when Hubert Humphrey was mayor. And this board was really very reactionary. They were doing a split shift. These workmen--women cleaning up--would come in in the morning for four hours on a bus, and they'd go home on the bus, and come back in the afternoon. Imagine that split shift.

We had one woman there from CIO, I'd met her through my contact you see, and I said, "You know, I have to agree with a strike." That's all they needed. So we were the first hospital struck. I went up to her, and I said, "Belle, who did that?"

31 She said, "We knew you'd go along and help us, you said so."

So anyway, we met in Humphrey's offices there, and in the meantime, Nye had given me how much we could raise the [unclear], you know, how we could give more money, and all the administrators of the other hospitals were there, and we were struck. They said it's a privilege to work for a hospital, just [unclear]. That's what they thought. The public wouldn't stand it. Such talk that you never heard.

So finally, at four o'clock in the morning, I said, "Gentleman, we have worked out a schedule. I believe it's superb." And I read it. [They were] infuriated. And I remember Hubert Humphrey was there at four o'clock in the morning, and I walked out. I became very good friends with Hubert Humphrey, personally, after that. In fact, I knew him first, before I was married.

Anyway, then they had a meeting of the administrators a week later, and they sent word that if I represented the hospital, all of them were going down to [unclear]. ThatHeffelfinger was sort of nip and tuck.

JF: I can imagine. How did your stock go? Were you popular with the other hospital administrators? [Laughter] Bradley

EH: They wouldn't come near me. I couldn't have cared less.Society But we ran into all sorts of things, and I think we had something like 600 tins of sardines, you know. She was getting commissions- -the secretary. Elizabeth JF: It was probably fortunate that you didn't know more than you did, and you just went ahead and cleaned house the best way you could.with Historical

EH: Yes. And I finally had to tell this woman who was really raising Cain...oh, they caught her [unclear]. They wanted to throw me out. She only had one supporter on that. I never did go to court. It never was necessary. interview JF: How long were you head ofMinnesota the Northwestern--

EH: Two long years. history JF: Long years. [Laughter] Oral EH: Two years. I was taking eight aspirin a day, so much.

JF: That followed very close upon the heels of all your other involvements, too.

EH: Yes. That was an exciting thing, because you were dealing with personnel and equipment. Not the things you're dealing with now; it's tremendous now. But I'm still on the board, the service board.

JF: That's interesting. If it's all right with you, I think we'll stop right here, and then we'll

32 continue next Wednesday.

EH: Yes, that's fine.

JF: This is the second interview in the Heffelfinger oral history series.

EH: Before, you were asking about before I went to college.

JF: Right.

EF: Remember I said that they wanted to get rid of me?

JF: Yes. [Laughter] You can go ahead, anytime you care to.

EF: Before going to Smith College, I had been at Hockaday School for HeffelfingerGirls, which is at present a very well known, in fact the best known, private preparatory school in the Southwest. It started because the schools in Dallas were so poor. It was started by a small group of men, and the first year consisted of about five students. The second year, there were twelve. I was a member of that second-year class. My senior year, I was elected presidentBradley of the student council, by the pupils naturally, and president of the senior class. Society Being a boarder--my family lived in Houston at that time--we had certain very strict privileges. For instance, we were allowed to go to the movies on Saturday afternoon with a chaperone. On this particular Saturday afternoon, one of the girlsElizabeth left the group, and presumably saw her boyfriend and disappeared. with Historical When I got back to the school, Miss [Ela] Hockaday and Miss Morgan, her assistant--two of the most utter old maids I have ever known in my life, Miss Hockaday was a tough, tough gal if there ever lived one, cold, steely eyes, and Miss Morgan was more human, but went along with anything Miss Hockaday said--anyway, I was called before them to tell about the girl. I realized that she had left the group,interview and I did know that she had a boyfriend, and actually presumed that's where she went. They wanted meMinnesota to tell what I knew, and I told them that she just left the group. I was then told that I had to find out more about it and report to them.

I refused to do historythis. As I said, I'd been elected by the students themselves and not appointed by the school, and I was not there to snoop. And I refused to do it. This became a very heated argument,Oral and they said I would have to resign and I would be dismissed from the school permanently if I did not accept my responsibilities. I was absolutely infuriated.

They, in the meantime, had called my father that they were sending me home. I called my father and told him, and he said he would be there the next day. This was before planes, so he had to go over and take the night train.

Years later, in fact, just before he died, he had told me that he would back Miss Hockaday and Miss Morgan. He did not agree with them, but for the morale of the school, he would back them, but if they dismissed me, or forced my resignation just two months before I was to go to Smith

33 College, that he would ruin their school throughout Texas. He was in a position to do it, because he was head of the all the utilities in that whole Southwestern area, from which the school drew their boarding students. All of a sudden, as I look back, they said that I was there on probation, but they did not dismiss me. So his threat--and they knew he meant it, and he did mean it--but he was loyal to his statement, and he never told me until I had had three or four children.

I think if this sort of thing existed today, there would be less friction between the students and the faculty.

JF: It's interesting. That's a fascinating incident. That's great.

EF: During the war, when I was working with Victory Aides, it was officially a member of the OCD, the Office of Civilian Defense. Mrs. [Eleanor] Roosevelt was in charge of this operation in Washington, and when I wanted to bring this young Negress, or Black, into Minnesota, because of the dearth of workers and the non-acceptance of Blacks, I wasHeffelfinger very much interested in seeing this woman--who had been suggested to me by my very good friend Cecil Newman, the spokesman of the Negro newspaper. I think I must have had some of the Southern prejudice evident. I think there was evidence there of some of the Southern prejudice, of which I was not aware, but I did want the right person to come and speak. WhenBradley I saw her, I was overwhelmed by her. She was so charming, so brilliant, so lovely, that I did go on and-- Society JF: Was this Crystal Bird Fausett?

EF: Yes. Elizabeth

JF: She was a remarkable person. with Historical

EF: Yes.

JF: I saw in your papers, your itinerary for her when she was here. interview EF: I know, it nearly killed her.Minnesota

During the war, my favorite group was Northeast Minneapolis because of the numerous different ethnic groups whohistory lived there. Being very much interested in foreign affairs, it gave me a thrill to go over there monthly as I did, and promote our program. Oral We had a request to entertain the Polish WACs [Women's Army Corps], who were traveling around the United States. I don't know whose auspices it was, but they were traveling in order to present the picture of a free Poland to the people. We were asked to entertain them, and that was one of the highlights.

These seven or eight or nine lovely young women arrived, and I housed them in homes, in special homes, and asked the hostess, the first thing, to take care of their clothes that needed cleaning, send them to the cleaners, to see that their things were washed, and to mend anything that needed to be mended. They had been on a very busy schedule, and there was nothing that had appealed

34 to them so much as that suggestion. Because they were living in suitcases, far more important to them than forwarding their idea of a free Poland, was to feel clean and mended again.

We had one party for them, and they met all kinds of people, including the few men who were left here, and it brought about a very close relationship between the Victory Aides and particularly the Polish people in Northeast Minneapolis, because those people were working people and could not really take these extra Polish people in and do the things for them that I thought was essential to their own sense of well being.

Another thing about Northeast is that there's a church--there was at least at that time--a church in every block. It was great fun visiting these churches, particularly the Orthodox church, and the Russian church--hearing the lovely music. Also, I was delighted to become an honorary member of Poloni, those wonderful Poles whom I met. I did tell about Sokowlawski and being a woman lawyer? Heffelfinger JF: You mentioned Mrs. Sokowlawski, yes.

EF: Another item on our agenda for the Victory Aides was to celebrate "I Am An American Day." This was under Mrs. Charles Arnao. We didn't knowBradley what we were getting into or how many people would come, but it was publicized by word through the Victory Aides, and told where to go, and we literally had thousands in that parade, all Societyin their native costumes. I remember very well the Chinese costume. The Ukrainians had their own choir, they sang, and it was a very exciting, stimulating day. Elizabeth The staff of the Victory Aides had acquired some OCD uniforms, which we wore. A near catastrophe happened to me as the staffwith led the parade,Historical was that I lost my pants in the middle of the parade. All of a sudden I was unable to walk, and I found out that something had happened to my panties, and they were around my feet. There was some tittering in the crowd, and I looked down and found out I was encased in my underpants. My ankles were encased in my underpants. I picked them up and then waved them to the crowd, and they all...it was very funny. Everybody along the lineinterview kept going. Nobody knew what they were laughing at, but they were all laughing. [Laughter] I guessMinnesota it must have taken more than my losing my panties to stir my feeling of emotion only of being part of an American Day parade. Isn't that funny?

JF: That's beautiful.history

EF: ThoseOral are the two things I thought about. Now we come to after the war.

JF: There are a couple of things that happened during the war years I'd like to talk about, if you wouldn't mind.

EF: What's that?

JF: Well, in 1943, you served, I believe it was around '43, your first term. You were the first woman ever appointed a grand jury foreman. That later happened to you again, a second time. What was that experience like?

35

EF: In 1943, I was sitting with my husband's very famous Uncle Pudge, the football player, and a call came from Judge Vince Day, asking me to be chairman of the grand jury. Uncle Pudge, or Uncle Walter, as we called him, was a bit chauvinistic regarding women. He loved me dearly, but he said, "That is no place for a woman, and they want to embarrass you and put you on the spot."

My husband called me aside, and said, "Don't pay any attention to that old codger. You'll do a wonderful job. You accept," which I did.

Mike Dillon was chairman of the group, and I found among the jury my old friend Myrtle Harris of the AF of L, and my special friend, a woman on the CIO, plus somebody else who was a Victory Aide. So I felt that with good judgment, I had a good chance to come out with some laurels instead of disappointments and chagrin for Uncle Pudge. Heffelfinger Mike Dillon was an Irishman who came over here from Ireland without anything, and had worked his way up. He was very histrionic when he was trying a case. He was very histrionic when he tried the case, because after indicting somebody, and then it was turned over to another court and tried, and I was fascinated by the way he pranced aroundBradley and played up his voice. It's too bad that he didn't last long enough to do some of the famous cases that appeared later. Society All sorts of crackpots would come to us and urge that we investigate, and he would always say, "Well, here is the law. It's up to you if you want to try them, if you want to have them appear before the jury, but this is the law." So many Elizabethtimes he gave me a new understanding of the legal process and the rights of man within. with Historical There was one case that was quite different. A man, who looked like he had been thoroughly henpecked at home, had gone to a bar on his way home to have his one beer, which he had every day. At this particular day, a man insulted him and then came at him with a bottle, and was going to hit him over the head for no reason, except he was probably very drunk. The man in question pushed him away,interview knocked him down, and the man fell down and hit his head and died right then, so he was brought toMinnesota trial.

As Mike Dillon was describing the case to the jury, he put on one of his powerful acts, and I was so intrigued thathistory I never thought of showing any emotion. He was crying, and everybody else in this jury was crying but me, and I said to him later, "You certainly made everybody cry." Oral "Yes," he said, "everybody but you, you cold old bitch." [Laughter] I told him I was too fascinated with his antics to cry.

Later I was reappointed to the jury, but not as chairman. It was a very exciting affair. Later, Judge Day said that he wanted to see me, and I went to his office, and he said, "You may wonder why I appointed you. I had a special reason, because of your family. When your father, one of the great civic leaders of this state, was called before the grand jury related to a banking case, along with the other bankers who were directors (Northwestern Bank in Minneapolis), I was very chagrined, because it was Floyd Olson who did it, and I loved Floyd Olson with all my heart. He

36 could do no wrong, and I told him how I felt. He knew how I felt, but I told him that I didn't approve of what he had done in this case, that he was doing this for publicity. So in appointing you, I thought it was my own special way of letting the family know how much I appreciated what they've done for this community."

JF: How interesting. That was your father-in-law?

EF: My father-in-law.

JF: Right. That's fascinating.

EF: Incidentally, this trial went on up in Moorhead for several months, and a private car would take the defendants up--I think there were about fifteen of them--and bring them back for court the next day or whenever it was due to convene again. When it was over, the defense rested its case and didn't do anything, and they were all exonerated. [Laughter] Heffelfinger

JF: Was this the second time you were appointed, Mrs. Heffelfinger?

EF: No, it was the first time. Bradley

JF: Then you were appointed again in '52. Society

EF: Yes, that's right. But I was just appointed then. This other was in '43. Elizabeth JF: Right. I believe it was '43. Did you enjoy your experience on the grand jury? with Historical EF: Oh, it was tremendous.

To get back, I didn't finish about the man. After he was acquitted, the man in the bar, of killing a man, I went to his wife, and I said, "This has been a terrible blow for you and your husband. We have a cabin up in Wisconsin.interview My husband and I would love to have you have it for a week and relax and get away. It's very simple.Minnesota No running water or electricity, but it might be helpful to you."

Whereupon, thehistory man liked the idea very much, but she turned to him and she said, "What do you mean? You have to get back to your job tomorrow." [Laughter] Oral JF: You were right about him being henpecked. [Laughter]

EF: So I was right in my feelings. The poor little thing did probably get away from her.

JF: It was generous of you to have offered that.

One thing that I wondered was, with all that you were doing at that time, it must have taken a great deal out of you to do the grand jury work at the same time you were running so many other things.

37

EF: But I had tremendous vitality.

JF: You must have.

EF: I also had, you see, with all the children--of course, the family always came first, the children always came first--but we had a wonderful Norwegian woman who was with us thirty years. She came to do some laundry--this was before the days of washing machines--and she came for four days to do this stack of laundry belonging to the children and the rest of the family, and she stayed thirty years. She really came to get away from her mother, who was driving her crazy, and she stayed thirty years. She still comes and goes here, as a friend.

JF: That's wonderful.

You were appointed again, then, to the grand jury, in 1952. Heffelfinger

EF: Was I?

JF: I believe at that time you were the second woman ever appointedBradley to a grand jury, and you had also been the first. Society EF: Yes, that's right. There were two times.

JF: Right. 1952 was the second time. Elizabeth

EF: When was the first time? with Historical

JF: 1943.

EF: Yes, that's right. interview JF: So it was almost ten years laterMinnesota that you were appointed again. At that time, there had been no other woman who'd ever served in between your two terms.

EF: Yes. history

JF: SoOral you were both the first and the second.

EF: That grand jury was a wonderful experience. The first reaction of the men was rather cold, but that disappeared very quickly when they found that I knew my place. [Chuckles] I was not a militaristic feminist at all.

JF: In your second term, one of the things they mentioned that your jury was considering was the structure of General Hospital and some of the problems that had been going on at Minneapolis General Hospital.

38 EF: I don't remember that.

JF: I was interested in that, too, because you had recounted some of your work with Northwestern.

EF: Yes. I don't remember that at all. It went on, I think, three months, wasn't it?

JF: It actually went on longer than that, I think, because you were appointed early one year, and you had to serve until September. You served about seven months, I think.

EF: Did I? It was only once a week, though.

JF: But, still, that was a lot to take out of your schedule.

EF: I was able to do that, because, as I say, the whole staff had utter autonomy,Heffelfinger the staff did. In conjunction with the media, the whole staff, individuals had a job to do, and they did it. Occasionally they would come and ask some guidance of the whole group. But they did a remarkable job. Bradley JF: In running the Victory Aides, did you have weekly staff meetings with your chief people? Society EF: We used to meet usually weekly, but they weren't set, because so many people were busy doing other things. We'd grab the time. We used to go over to Charlie's across the street, relax, and then have our meeting there. But it wasn'tElizabeth a formal meeting. We got along beautifully. We were all working for a cause. It was a patriotic thing. I've never seen such patriotism as everybody in that whole organization--Iwith mean withHistorical everybody-- that they felt. It was an inspiring, wonderful thing.

JF: I was amazed, in reading your papers, the number of things you were involved in.

EF: I know it. The war bonds.interview Minnesota JF: I want to ask you about that. You were prevailed upon to take back your resignation. You resigned, I believe, after the sixth war bond drive. history EF: No, that was when I was dismissed. Oral JF: Oh, I see.

EF: That's when [unclear] were trying to throw me out.

JF: The papers all have little things that said you resigned, and then a lot of people asked you to return, and to please not leave.

EF: I don't remember that, if they said it.

39 JF: That was after the sixth war bond drive?

EF: I guess so. That's been so long, I don't remember that. I haven't looked over those.

JF: It was very interesting, the number of things you ran.

EF: Oh, they were a dime a dozen. There's a picture of the WACs in there.

JF: Yes, there is. You made a comment last time about every time you had a big project, you would go to every precinct, was it?

EF: No, I would go to every ward.

JF: Every ward. Heffelfinger EF: You see, there was a ward. There were thirteen wards at that time. I'd go to the ward, and there were hundreds of people there at each meeting--several hundred people. There were no notices, because we didn't have the money to send out notices. Bradley I will say that we were so autonomous that we really shook up the executive director of United Fund, because we didn't have time, so many times we were workingSociety so hard, the telephone was ringing, people coming in, and resignations of somebody who was sick or couldn't do the job down on the lowest, on the block level. Those telephones, when I finally got away for a couple of days, and for two weeks after, the telephoneElizabeth would ring in my mind at night. To this day, I hate a telephone, because it always meant a resignation. That's when Mildred Coleman became our paid secretary, and she could take it.with To me,Historical it was just like the whole organization was collapsing.

JF: You had, at the height, I believe, a little over 7,000 people working.

EF: Seven thousand, yes.interview Minnesota JF: You had saved a couple of letters that some of the women had sent in, resigning for one reason or another. One woman who said she had the flu and couldn't get out, and hadn't been able to hear Mrs.history Roosevelt when she came.

EF: Oh,Oral yes. Mrs. Roosevelt came, and that was a high point, because we had about 10,000 women in the Armory. But we worked at it, because we wanted to give her a royal welcome. I'm a great admirer of Mrs. Roosevelt's, I always have been. I had luncheon with her and a special friend--I forget the name, Adelaide, she comes from St. Paul. Anyway, Mrs. Coleman and I and Mrs. Roosevelt and her secretary had luncheon with her. It was a rare opportunity to hear her ask questions of her old friend about, "Where did that come from? What family was that?" She was interested in details.

Later, I think we had some army officers there. Didn't we have some army that came in at that time, some people?

40

JF: Yes, right. Their pictures were in the paper, too.

EF: And I was interested when she met...who were they?

JF: I can't remember.

EF: I was interested when she met them, because you could feel the warmth that she had for each one of them. She was a great woman.

JF: Mrs. Theodore Blegen was the chairman of the St. Paul--

EF: I never saw her.

JF: There's just one letter from her. Apparently she was your counterpartHeffelfinger in St. Paul.

EF: You see, you were so busy, I didn't even know what went on over there.

JF: Obviously not as much as went on in Minneapolis, right?Bradley

EF: No, I just didn't know. Society

JF: I think your committee seems to have done a great deal more than St. Paul. Elizabeth EF: Oh, yes. Particularly when Mrs. Roosevelt was here. We organized this. We didn't leave it to chance. It might have been a bad day,with but I wantedHistorical to have an opportunity to show everyone what all of our Victory Aides were giving. It was a wonderful occasion.

JF: One of the things you have, too, you were talking about the "I Am An American" parade that you staged. You actually have a list of every unit that was in the parade. It goes on for about eight pages--the units. It'sinterview amazing, just tremendous. Minnesota Did you find, as the war went on, and the first year became the second year, and the second year became the third year, that it was more difficult to keep enthusiasm up? history EF: Not at all. Oral JF: That's interesting.

EF: It was really a most inspiring occasion, the whole job was. They would do anything, these women. It just shows what the Americans will do if they feel that it's for their country, their adopted country. It was a great opportunity.

JF: It's really overwhelming, when you start sketching out...

EF: You wouldn't believe it, would you?

41

JF: No, except that the ....

EF: You know, this was just one book. When I took out all the duplicates, you see. I took out a lot of duplicates.

JF: It's just amazing. Were there any more comments that you wanted to make about the war years, and the things you did, right now, at least? Certainly, if you think of things later, you can always come back and make them.

EF: I don't think so. You brought up some things, but you'd already caught those, I think.

JF: There's so much that I was starting to take notes, and they were going on for pages. So I took only the largest-- Heffelfinger EF: We were so busy. It was wonderful to be so busy. You see, we had gas rationing, and my husband was busy on the War Production Board. He had five states, and he was having his own special troubles, because he fired a man who had a civil service status, but my husband said he was not qualified and was just dead timber, so he asked for hisBradley resignation. This man went immediately to the famous Butler, Butler and Rumble, whoever they are, in St. Paul, to start a suit against my husband for the man and humiliate him. He'd Societybeen humiliated, and a lot of other stuff.

So one morning, about six o'clock in the morning,Elizabeth old Pierce Butler called my husband, and I heard my husband, and in it I could hear Butler saying, "This organization has for years had a lot of scandals." That was the reason my husbandwith wasHistorical put in, and good people like Carl Jones and David Winton, people like that--men of integrity. It had gone downhill. They was quite a bit of scrummy background. Anyway, Pierce Butler said, "I know all about this organization. I hate to bring your good family name into this sort of a thing."

And I heard my husband,interview who usually contains himself, but he let out the darnedest oaths I've ever known, and told Pierce ButlerMinnesota just where to go, that if his family reputation for integrity couldn't hold, then he'd take it. Otherwise, he'd accept it, but that wouldn't be so.

So, that very afternoon,history the man in question stole the papers that belonged to the government out of his office, and put them in the wrong car, and the car was picked up by the police, and they found thatOral these were classified information. So the case fell by its own weight.

Later on, young Pierce Butler, who is my special friend, the son of the man who was doing the prosecuting, I told him about it, and his father had never told him. He absolutely collapsed dying, he thought it was such a joke on his father. [Laughter]

JF: A series of coincidences.

EF: Isn't that funny?

42 JF: Beautiful. One of my next questions here was to ask you about your husband's work with the War Production Board, if there's anything you wanted to say about that.

EF: My husband became selected in Washington to head by Donald Nelson, who was head of the whole War Production Board, and he was being considered, along with Walter Ringer. My friend Bob Cramer of the Labor Review, called me one morning and he said, "Mrs. Heff, do you want your husband at the head of the War Production Board?"

And I said, "I had nothing to do about it. Why don't you ask him."

So it was very early in the morning, because I know that he got out of bed to answer the phone, and I heard my husband say, "I'm not promising anything. You'll have to accept my record with Peavey Company, what our record is with labor."

And Bob Cramer said, "Yes, you've got an excellent record with labor." Heffelfinger Then he got back on the phone, and he said, "How do you feel about it?"

I said, "Oh, Bob, it's not my business. I'm busy." Bradley So he was appointed to that, because he said, "We like you. Labor likes you." And they had no strikes. There was a special labor man, whose name I forget, butSociety he was delightful, as a member of their top echelon, and he was in that four years.

So we'd leave at eight o'clock in the morning, Elizabethget back eight or nine at night, because we had only gasoline for one car. with Historical JF: I thought that was interesting, because both of you were really involved in the war effort very deeply. Did you find any overlap with your husband's job?

EF: No. It was completely different. Of course, our salvage efforts did overlap with them. They wanted this done, andinterview so we did it, gathered from all the separate houses. Salvage, you see. People put things in that we usedMinnesota for the war effort, that they didn't need or could part with.

JF: I was interested in the picture of one of your Victory Aides holding up a broom and telling some woman thathistory if she piled her papers up to the top, there would be a hundred pounds.

EF: Yes,Oral we used to collect papers. I'd forgotten that.

JF: It was an interesting picture. A hundred pounds was to the top of the broom.

EF: Oh, really? But we did. I forget who was in charge of that. I told about the Stalingrad. I'd forgotten about the...the paper drives were very important. Sometimes some of these jobs came about every three weeks.

JF: I was going to say, because you had war bond drives, paper, salvage, Christmas presents.

43 EF: Foster homes.

JF: Foster homes.

EF: Recruiting nurses who were retired.

JF: So you never really had a chance to rest between drives. You had one coming right after the other.

EF: Yes, but everybody was so good. All you ever had to do was to give them the message, and they usually went to the firehouses. That was the central place they were picked up. The only thing was that, naturally, some of them were having children or ill or something, having sickness, and they couldn't do it, but these were individuals, and they were immediately replaced, because their captain would call in for them, you see, and it was up to them to replace them. Heffelfinger JF: I bet you can't even imagine how many speeches you must have given during that period.

EF: Oh, gad, it was tremendous, really. Bradley JF: Good experience, I suppose. Society EF: Yes. I remember when I introduced Mrs. Roosevelt, that I called her "the First Woman of the World," and all my Republican friends were furious with me, just enraged with me. But she was. Elizabeth

JF: A remarkable woman. The beginningwith of yourHistorical political involvement sort of overlapped the war years, didn't it?

EF: No.

JF: A little bit? interview Minnesota EF: Well, I tell you. When was the war over, in '48?

JF: In '45, '46,history around in there.

EF: No,Oral they didn't. They didn't a bit, because I became very much interested in Harold Stassen, who was our governor, and he had been appointed to the United Nations. He's very much interested in international affairs, which I was. He did an excellent job here as governor--a young person, very attractive.

I remember not knowing whether I was a Democrat or a Republican, and figuring that out, where I stood, and decided that I would put my effort behind him to enable him to have the political organization behind him, because there was friction within the organization--the old conservatives who thought he was too young and they couldn't control him, and people like myself who admired him.

44

One of the people who had no time for him at all was my own brother-in-law. You see, in this family, Heffelfingers, it's one for all and all for one, and the wives find themselves as sort of a conduit, little Heffelfingers flow through them; we're supposed to go along. [Laughter] So you don't fight within the family. But this was not, as I saw it, a personal thing, but this was something I believed in.

So I decided...let me go back a bit. I went to the governor, Stassen, and I asked him if I could do some work-up on the Iron Range, because of my interest in ethnic groups, obviously. And he suggested that I go up there and just land there, without any kind of contacts at all. In other words, he didn't want to back me in case I might be a failure, which is typical of his thinking, I found out later.

So I went to Margaret Banning of Duluth, the author, asked her what to do. She said, "Those people up there are smart. You just can't walk in with a veil over your head.Heffelfinger The one person to go to is this man and his wife--he later became judge, and I can't remember his name to save my life--and ask them to give you contacts. He's the best informed person. He's in Hibbing.

I went to him, and was received with open arms, and was takenBradley to various fraternal meetings and women's organizations to find out what was on their mind. [I said] I was here to find out what they wanted, and, of course, it was the old taxes, base of taxes,Society and the lack of autonomy, a lot of things.

I went back and told the governor, and he wasn'tElizabeth at all pleased, because he said, "This isn't going to please your friends here at the State House--special interests." with Historical I said, "You asked me to tell you the truth. This is the truth." Of course nothing was done about it.

But I did get $1,000 from a man from General Mills. There was an election coming up, you see, and I did get $1,000, whichinterview looked to me like a whale of a lot of money at that time, from the man at General Mills, the publicMinnesota relations man, to put some of the election publicity into different languages. That was my idea. These people up there had said that that would help, because they did want Republicans in--the people that I met--and that would be an asset. So I got that, and reported that tohistory the governor. But that was about all I was able to accomplish, except to become very aware of their problems. Oral Wonderful people. So many Yugoslavs who came over here as underpaid labor, just brought over here I think for the mines, and the railroads it seems to me. And the Polish, I got to know some of them very, very well. Bill Berlin, who was a Yugoslav, his brother is now one of the key people of Minnesota Mining, an extremely able man, I got to know them very well. I really was able to get my fingers into it, to get to understand, but there wasn't anything else except to report my unhappy experience to the governor. He didn't like my report at all. He didn't want to know the truth, I guess.

JF: Would that have been in the late 1930s--like about '39, '40?

45

EF: Yes. It was in the thirties. After that, my next experience was that Tom Dewey was going to be here for a big rally, and it was taken over by a man by the name of Tom McGill, of the printers--long-deceased--and Mrs. Ruth Hanna McCormick Simms was the head woman for the Dewey campaign in '40. She was a remarkable person, brilliant speaker, had been in the legislature in Illinois, was the daughter of the famous Mark Hanna, and knew her politics. She came out here, spent a few days with us, and one story she told my husband, that she was asked by a man in the audience, "What do you think of the Ku Klux Klan?" And her remark was, "I never trust a man under a sheet." She had that sort of a sense of humor.

Then the time of the rally came, and they got worried, she and McGill did, that they weren't going to be able to fill it, so she said, "Well, this is easy. We'll move the seats about six inches apart, and separate them to look like more people. We don't need all of that." So this was done, and they were able to bring in a sizable crowd. She knew exactly what to do. Heffelfinger McGill said, "We'll get a band." He said, "We're right down in the red light section. We'll get a band, and any of those women will come out with the band to see what's going on, and they'll come anyway." Bradley She said, "No, I don't want to take a chance on that. They may be busy." [Laughter] Society JF: That would be a little much.

EF: But later I told her that I was an Independent.Elizabeth I liked to vote for the man. She'd already asked me down to Albuquerque, where she lived with her husband, Albert Simms, and she said, "I asked you to Albuquerque, but I rescindwith the invitation,Historical because I'm not going to have any Independent. When you become a party member, and a working party member, I want you to come down and visit me." She was really a stickler for the party--first, last and always. This was before the Independents came into being. I think they were lurking behind the corner, but nobody saw them. Anyway, I finally did go down and see her. Well, I'll skip that. interview Then came the great day of the WillkieMinnesota-Dewey convention, and I went as an observer. I had a floor ticket, where I could wander around, but I didn't have a seat, and I wasn't a delegate. It was quite an eye-opener, because the crowds went wild over Willkie. It was a beautifully organized effort and a spontaneoushistory effort, and I saw Dewey's chances dwindle by bit. I was sort of sick not to be on the winning side, but I stuck it out, and suffered my heart, because I had never met anythingOral like the Willkie enthusiasm. I realized that's where I should have been, not with Dewey, but I was committed in my own way, so I took no part in that at all. Little did I know that in later years, he and I would become common godparents of three boys. It's funny.

After that, when he was defeated by Roosevelt, he decided to run again. The man who was managing his campaign was an old boarding school pal of my husband's. His name was Russell Davenport. His wife was Marcia Davenport, who wrote the story of Bazrik [phonetic] of Czechoslovakia. He was very much in love with her. You know he was murdered, was thrown out the window. They said it was suicide, but she has written a book about that, and she was the daughter of [Alma Gluck]. Russell Davenport was the head of Fortune magazine.

46

So we were invited there in about '43. I think Willkie died about '43. But about a year before he died, we were invited to the Davenports' for a very small dinner in New York. Before I went, I can't remember whether it was Harold Stassen or whether it was Harry Luce, the head of Time magazine, who was a very close friend of my husband's--he was in his wedding party and we've always been very close to the Luces. I don't know which one told me. But I said I was going to see Willkie that night, and he [Stassen] had decided to run in Wisconsin. He [Stassen] had promised, according to the people, he had promised to stay out of Wisconsin, and he changed his mind--as he has ever since then, about not running then running. He has running-itis, as you know.

Anyway, at this dinner party, I was seated next to Willkie, Wendell Willkie. He was on Marcia Davenport's right, and I was sitting next to him, and I turned to him, and I said, "Mr. Willkie, if you don't win in Wisconsin, would you give your votes to Harold Stassen?" Heffelfinger He became absolutely infuriated. He turned his chair half around to me, glared at me, and pushed his plate back and knocked over a glass of red wine all over a beautiful cloth, and he said, "If--it was either Harry Luce or Stassen, I think it was Harry Luce--told you to ask me that, tell him it's none of his G D business." And then he turned his backBradley on me. So I went through the rest of the dinner with his back on me. Society After dinner was over, and the women gathered in a room, and the men gathered in their own room--I always want to be with the men, but I seem to always pushed with the women, because I like to hear what the men have to say. Anyway,Elizabeth I thought to myself, "You are really a goon. You're always letting yourself be used. Why did you ask him that? Here you are an honored guest to meet him. This was set up throughwith your Historical husband. You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

As he walked in the room, and I called him, I said, "Mr. Willkie, you know you're much younger than I thought you were going to be. Your pictures don't do you justice, and far more attractive," whereupon all animosity interviewdropped off, and he came and sat beside me, and devoted himself to me alone for practically the rest of theMinnesota evening, which I thought was very funny.

He did say during that, that Mr. Roosevelt wanted to be elected so he could keep the war going, which neither myhistory husband nor I liked at all. We didn't like that remark. It didn't sit well at all.

Later, whenOral our daughter married his son, in the fifties, I was told by Mrs. Willkie that in front of her, Stassen had said, "I will not run if Willkie's going to run in '44." And of course, they hated him, and I told them that he was the man that I had always worked for, and I didn't want any conversation more about it, because it's where I stood. I might say I was not very popular with her after that in years to come. Still, [unclear], as my father told me. I'd be no good in politics, because I seemed to always say what I think.

JF: That's interesting.

EF: I went to the '44 convention. Stassen ran.

47

JF: You were elected a delegate-at-large.

EF: I was elected a delegate, and Stassen was over in the Pacific at that time, but I remember this very emotional phone call to his wife that was read to me. The whole state was for him, with the exception of those who just didn't like him, never had liked him, never trusted him. But the convention was his, and I remember he took a call, called his wife from the Pacific, and so his name was withheld, as I remember, from that. This editor guy decided not to put his name in, because he was over in the Pacific.

JF: The 1944 convention, then, was the first one that put you formally in politics?

EF: Yes. I must put this in. In 1940, Stassen gave the keynote address, and this was in collaboration with the Dewey people and the Taft people. I knew those people, the head people. I knew David Inkles [phonetic], who was Taft's cousin, a very close friendHeffelfinger of my husband's-- I'd get this from him--and of the Dewey people I knew. And also so many of Mr. Heffelfinger's Yale classmates, Skull and Bones classmates, were interested, so I knew it from them, that they absolutely loathed Stassen when he went back on his word that he wouldn't take any part, after being accepted as keynote speaker, in the actual mechanics ofBradley picking the president, you see, of the delegation. Whereupon he said that he was doing it because he believed that he forgot his promise to get right in there for Willkie, you see. But he sacrificed,Society for the rest of his life, any respect of the key people in the Dewey and in the Taft camp, for the rest of his life.

After it was over, we went someplace, I don't Elizabethremember where --a house party with all the Taft people, they were infuriated, and writhing with fury. Then as far as the Dewey people--I knew them through Mrs. Simms, you see--andwith they wereHistorical writhing, and they would never forget that. So he started off with people like that, way back in '40. Stassen was in the Navy at that time, when he made the telephone call.

In '48--I ran for the legislature.interview When was it exactly? Minnesota JF: I can't remember exactly when it was. It was in the late forties, though, wasn't it?

EF: Someplace.history I think it was in the early forties. Have you got something in my book?

JF: Yes,Oral I do.

EF: You can get the date, then.

JF: Right

EF: Roy Dunn, who was the head of the conservative party in the legislature, came to me and asked if I would run for the legislature. It was in '44, I think.

JF: Now that I think about it, it was 1944, wasn't it?

48

EF: '44--just before the war was over. It was really coming to a close.

He said that they didn't like the man that was in. He drank too much and he had too many women running after him, and they would like to have me. Because of my work in the war effort, I had immediate backing of labor. This is a very conservative district. I had the unofficial backing.

EF: I had had the first public meeting of birth control. So the first primaries, I came out way ahead, until my reputation caught up with me--my backing by labor, by starting birth control. You might say I was torn to shreds, because they defamed me in the all the Catholic churches, and, of course, my conservative friends thought I had sold out to labor. Labor said they wouldn't back me if there was anybody else in there, but they at least knew where I stood, and I could be trusted. They weren't asking a thing, which, of course, they probably would have. I was too naive to realize that. Or expected some. But they said they realized whereHeffelfinger I stood.

Anyway, I was really torn to shreds, and it was led by no other than Roy Dunn, who was also national committeeman at that time. I think...I know it certainly was the best thing that ever happened to me, but at the time I felt like I'd been kicked in Bradleythe stomach, and this made me realize these candidates who work so hard, that the aftereffect is, of defeat, is one that you just collapse inside over it, because you wanted it so badly, you workedSociety so hard. It's a horrible disappointment, but you have to go through it. But as I say, in my case, it's the best thing that ever happened to me. But I was angry at people who had let me down, but they had the perfect right, because, after all, they didn't know I wasElizabeth so wild-eyed as to have had a belief in birth control. with Historical Then '48 came, and I ran into another situation. I decided that I would join the Republican Party officially. There was one man in the village, here, who had a distributorship of oil or gas or something, he was a very close friend of mine, Don Dickey, whom I adored. He got into politics because he said he was tired of people coming to him, "Where can I get a job?" and he'd have to "Send them up to some drunk,"interview he said, "up the way who didn't know what he was doing, a Democrat." [Unclear] And he thoughtMinnesota he'd get into the fray where he'd have a little bit to say if there if there's any jobs open for decent people. To help them.

JF: Sure. history

EF: SoOral I went to Don, and asked him what to do about the caucuses that were coming up in the spring of '48, or maybe it was '47, I forget which year it was, because the election was '48, and caucuses were...it was either '47 or '48. Anyway, I asked Don what to do, and he said that only nineteen had ever come to those caucuses. Sometimes they were in closed cars. I might say the Republican workshop fixed that now when it openly urges people to come--quite a difference, and much of it's up to the individual person who wants to participate. You couldn't find where the caucus was held most of the time. He told me how they were held--sometimes in a car, and just called together.

So anyway, I said I'd like to go. I said, "What do I do?"

49

He said, "The first thing you do is shut your trap, because if you do it, then everybody will be wondering what these caucuses are, then they'll all get in there, then we can't manage any of them." [Laughter] So I kept going to him every few weeks, and he'd say, "Let me alone. I'll tell you."

So finally I went up there one day, and the caucuses, they were in the spring, must have been '48 in the spring--the elections are '80, so the elections are this year. The caucuses, I guess, were this year, but this is '78. Anyway, so I went up to him one day, and he said, "Are you going to stick?"

And I said, "Stick, what do you mean?"

"With Stassen?"

I said, "Well, this is what I'm in here for, is to have the party organizationHeffelfinger in his hands so he can do a better job."

He said, "I might as well tell you that your Uncle Pudge is promoting your brother-in-law--my husband's brother, Totten--who wants to be national committeeman."Bradley So he said, "I told him that I was sorry, but I was backing you, and it knocked Pudge off of his feet, practically." A tremendous man, too. It took rather a blow to knock him off hisSociety feet.

But anyway, he said, "What does she know about politics?" Elizabeth And Don said, I said, "Nothing, but she asked me to help her, so I'm helping her." So he came up here. Meantime, Don had told me howwith this was Historical done. You had your own slate, you see, and to be--not to talk--which I didn't.

So Uncle Pudge came up here, and he said, "Honey, I hear you've gone into politics. Why didn't you come to me and ask my advice?" interview My husband spoke up, and said,Minnesota "Maybe she didn't want your advice. Maybe she doesn't agree with you on things."

He winked at me,history and he said, "What are you going to do about the caucuses?"

I said, "IOral thought I might serve some sandwiches and some beer and ask them to the house."

He said, "How many are you going to have?"

"Oh," I said, "about twenty."

But he was fair enough to say, "If I were you, I'd have a little bit more than that." You see, he was head of the WPA, and I didn't know that he was planning to bring in the WPA in trucks to this caucus. I didn't know that at the time. He said, "If I were you, I don't want you to get slapped down completely. If I were you, I'd have more than that." So that gave me the inkling

50 that I'd better get busy.

What I did, I picked the old-timers--Orono then was one big district--and I picked the old-timers like Stubbs and like Turnham and like Mrs. Butterfield, to be on the ballot with me, whose names were known, and I kept it to this certain number of how many, you see.

So the night of the balloting, I went up there. Instead of nineteen or thirty people, there must have been 300 people--trucks with WPA workers who had come in, and they were all standing around, but about two days before the balloting, John Roof [phonetic], who was one of the old- timers around here from Long Lake, called me, and he said, "You know, it's going around the county, if they want their roads oiled, to vote the blue ballot."

And I said, "Good, we'll put ours on a blue ballot, too." Poor Johnny nearly died.

He said, "But we haven't told them that." Heffelfinger

I said, "Exactly. They won't know who to vote for, because they're voting for the name, and Pudge's is not on the ballot. He doesn't live in this district, so he's not on the ballot, but my name is. I'm the only Heffelfinger on the ballot, and they want theBradley name Heffelfinger, because there's roads to be oiled. Put it on a blue ballot." Society And he said, "You've made the decision."

I said, "Yes." Elizabeth

So that night, they all arrived, and for somewith reason Historical or other, it must be the Irish in me, because I knew practically nothing anyway, but I did know that there was a fifty-foot line where you could talk to the people who were in your campaign. Anyway, I marked off the fifty line, and they were all standing there, and I said, "Can I help you?"

There were a lot of Scandinavians,interview and they said, "Ja." One wanted something done, and another one wanted something else done.Minnesota

I said, "What's the name? Was it Heffelfinger?" history "Ja, Heffelfinger." Oral I said, "I think it's on one of those ballots." They didn't know who I was at all, so I got all but twenty ballots out of 350.

But what I did was, then I went up and stood behind the tellers, and some of them worked for Uncle Pudge, because they'd known him for so long, and I kept saying, "But that's mine," and I had to do that about twenty times. They were getting in his pile by mistake. I had to say, "That's mine." But, as I say, the Irish sort of know what to do at the right time. [Laughter] My Irish must have known that.

51 So at the end, I had gotten all but twenty votes. In the meantime, the papers had played this up on the front page, and Totten, my brother-in-law, was very much upset, and so was everybody in the family, because it played out that there was trouble in the family over candidates, between Totten and myself, that made the front page of the papers.

As I say, when you're a Heffelfinger, you stay in line or you get out, and I was doing something that was just not done. But I said, it's not a personal thing at all; it's my moral commitment, what I believe.

I remember a maiden aunt of my husband's refused to go, though she did go, she came to vote but she wouldn't speak to me at all, and I was devoted to her. Of course, that was all over very quickly.

But anyway, the papers did play this up. Of course, Totten was laughed at, kidded at the Minneapolis Club about what's happened to the family. This was a veryHeffelfinger sacrilege situation.

So anyway, that night, about two o'clock at night, the telephone rang, and I went out to answer it. I was laughing. My husband, Peavey, said, "Who was that?" Bradley I said, "It was Tot." Society He said, "Tot? Are you speaking?"

I said, "Yes, there's nothing personal in this." Elizabeth

He said, "What did he say?" with Historical

"He said I'd won in the country, but he had saved democracy, and they had won in the city." [Laughter] "Saving democracy" ever since has always made me laugh.

JF: I can see why. interview Minnesota EF: Then we had our first meeting, and I was put on the nominating committee by my friend Dickey, and I said to Don, "Now what do I do?" history He said, "You are so dumb. Why, you nominate yourself to every job, of course. What do you think youOral do?"

So I nominated myself to the next one, which was a county convention, and to the district convention, and to the state convention. I did it. It amused me at the time, but I thought, well, they're depending on me, I'd better do it.

Then I got to be known because through the blue ballot, the stories about it. It was funny. A newcomer, you see, against an old war horse, the head of WPA. And such a holy family, you know.

52 But anyway, when I left where the caucuses were held that night, Uncle Pudge came in, and he found out that he had only gotten twenty ballots from his group, and he came up and kissed me, and he said, "Okay, amateur." So it was all in very good spirit, except it did create quite a sensation that you would do anything like that.

But anyway, then I went to the '48 convention, you see, and was very much for Stassen. I can remember Mrs. John Dower [phonetic] and I walking through the streets, and the Stassen signs, the whole thing was over. It was going to be Dewey. It was not like the Willkie, but it was going to be Dewey. It was very obvious.

There I became first aware of the fact that Stassen was not telling us the truth at all, because he said, "Now the second ballot--don't worry about the first ballot, but the second ballot, I will pick up fifty votes, delegates, handily for the next ballot."

Then, Elmer Ryan, his boyfriend, or close friend from St. Paul, who wasHeffelfinger a bit on the...what shall I call, mercurial side of life, would go around...this was in Philadelphia...would go around and start rumors, was having a beautiful time doing that, which I'd never heard done before. Because it's very easy to start rumors, you know. Bradley But anyway, we were called in, and he said he would get more all the time, and he always had perfect composure, Stassen did. As he told us, I believed him.Society

Going home, we were motoring, a very funny thing happened, because we had had dinner the night before with some friends, and Carlos RomuloElizabeth [phonetic] was there, who was United Nations representative for the Philippines, and a very outstanding person, and he was very anxious to go to the '48 convention to seewith what happened.Historical Of course, he couldn't get in except somebody could get up and give him their seat.

I was a delegate then, and I had appointed my daughter, and Sam Pryor, who was a great Willkie supporter, had appointed his daughter, to be ushers. I got the two of them to go down to our delegation and ask if somebodyinterview would get up for about fifteen or twenty minutes and give Carlos Romulo a chance to sit down inMinnesota the front. The marshals came up to me, and they threw me off the floor and they threw them off the floor, because we were trying to pack the convention. They thought we were going to plan another Willkie thing. I said, "But that's Carlos Romulo." history They said, "Who the hell's that? What's he doing here anyway?" And I don't think they even knew whatOral the United Nations was, so I had to apologize to him. As he was being led out [unclear] he was very charming. Later I saw him in the Philippines, and I told him the whole story. He thought it was very funny. [Laughter]

JF: Fascinating.

EF: The convention, beforehand, the people of Minnesota did turn out for him [Stassen], and we really believed and really wanted the man, you see. But then, on the way home, there was traffic going through Pennsylvania, and we'd raise the Stassen sign, and he'd take his fist, he said, "You missed a damn good man. You missed a damn good man with Stassen." We were proud to go

53 home with Stassen signs, in defeat. It was that sort of a backing he had.

But then, all the time in the back of my mind, I thought he didn't tell us the truth. He could have treated us better--to know it wasn't a set thing, where we believed in it. That's when my questions about him came to the front--this nagging thing that we deserved better than we got, which was true, ever since that time.

JF: You served, too, Mrs. Heffelfinger, on the Platform Committee.

EF: Yes, I forget which one. The big platform committee I served on, that's the story of how I got on it, was in '52.

JF: Okay. This was before then. You were on another one, too.

EF: In '48, I had several jobs. I think I was head of arrangements on one.Heffelfinger Was it '48?

JF: Yes.

EF: I finished the blue ballot, and then I skipped to '48, didn'tBradley I?

JF: Right. Society

EF: Then I'll have go back, leading up to '48,Elizabeth when I was put in officially as master committeeman. I started to fight [unclear]. That's quite a story. with Historical JF: Okay, good. You were on a platform committee before '48, too, weren't you?

EF: No. I wasn't in '44. I became in '48. I was in twelve years. I got out in '60.

JF: Okay. And it was afterinterview then, too, was it '48 when you were appointed to the Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs, too? Minnesota

EF: That was the '52 convention. history JF: '52. Oral EF: But anyway, I said that I had nominated myself to all the committees, you see, which ended up in the fact that I was...[Pause] After nominating myself--see, this should come before the actual convention of '48.

JF: Right. You have some filling in, probably, between 1944 and '48.

EF: There wasn't too much. But I took over in '44--in '48, rather. It was about '47, you see, we had the blue ballot, so this follows more or less.

54 After the occasion with blue ballots, and putting myself on all the committees to be nominated, I went to the state convention. [Pauses] And eventually to a district convention where the question of the selection of a national committee...no, scratch that. [Pauses]

Mrs. Chris Carlson had been national committeewoman for some twelve or sixteen years, I forget which, and her husband wanted to be appointed judge. My friend Don Dickey found out that he was to be appointed, which meant that Mrs. Carlson would have to be put aside. So I prepared myself for that position, which I eagerly wanted. I felt that I could do a good job. It had nothing to did with prestige at all. And I did do a good job.

At that time, the delegates to the convention...there is some question in my mind, but I think at that time that the delegates to the 1948 picked the national committeewoman. Or it might have been later, I think it was the executive committee picked the national committeewoman. And now I think the whole convention votes on the choice for national committeeman or woman, which is consistent with every other state in the union. Heffelfinger

This was a time my husband became very much interested, because I had been told that if I could get backing of my district in Lindstrom, that the rest would be easy. The people I could depend upon, the help of certain people, but getting to my own district,Bradley would be hard because of the number of people who wanted to run--women who wanted to run. Society This convention took place before the 1948 [unclear] convention, you see. It led up to that. It was probably in 1947, and I came in in '48. Anyway, I could call somebody and get the year, but I don't think it's important. Elizabeth

JF: No, we can document that. with Historical

EF: As I said before, preparatory to 1948, when Stassen made--when so many people support him so eagerly--the delegates to the convention were nominated by their district and then elected at the state convention. I was told that getting out of my district would be the hardest. interview I might say that Mrs. Richard GaleMinnesota had been head of Neighbors for Stassen. She had just lost her son, and all of my personal friends thought that she should have it, but they were not in the political circus at all, my personal friends. On the other hand, I knew the state very well, and I was interested historyin seeing them and asked for support, which I was able to do, because Don Dickey told me that Mr. Carlson was going to be appointed judge the next day, so I was immediately in my car thatOral day, and I went all through the state, and asked the county chairman for support. I said I wanted it, because I thought I could do a good job.

This obviously was not done, had never been done. It's a matter of prestige, that the Almighty is supposed to tap you, like they do for Skull and Bones, etc., but I didn't believe in that. I didn't think it was democratic.

Anyway, I got no help from Mr. Stassen, who wanted a social secretary, and Mrs. Griggs came in. Mrs. Griggs was a big donor to his campaigns, and her secretary--I forget her name now--was a clubwoman, a typical clubwoman, unmarried, and was a real snob. I didn't think she belonged

55 in this sort of business at all. You have to be a human being to be in this kind of political work. So Mr. Stassen wanted her. Also, Mrs. Warren Moore from Duluth wanted it, and she said Roy Dunn was behind her, but Roy Dunn said he was already behind me. There were about five of us in it and I remember just before the voting, at the main election, Mrs. Moore said to me, "You have to be tough, Brad. You're not tough enough for this job. You have to be tough." And I said, "I can be tough if I have to, kid."

But anyway, it was finally decided, because my personal friends thought that Mrs. Gale should be the one, and my political friends, as I went around the state, and I had known them, offered. I had phone calls, because the name was in the paper, obviously, and said "Brad, I'm for you." So I did go around the state to talk to people, and I went around to people of the press, the rural press.

Don Dickey finally told me that he and Al Ludley [phonetic], now deceased, and others close to Stassen were going to have a meeting that night, and Stassen was going to tell them whom he wanted to be national committeeman, and I said, "It's all over, Don." Heffelfinger

He said, "It isn't over at all. We'll fight him."

So, of course, Stassen wanted his social secretary, Mrs. Griggs,Bradley which to me was a foreign object and a terrible snob. It was finally decided that if I didn't get the votes on a certain ballot, that I would give them Mrs. Gale. Mr. Livnik [phonetic] was on thereSociety--Mr. Gale's cousin. I agreed to her, and my mother, who was then in her seventies, was sitting there, and she said to me, "You'd better get out right away, because you've shown no sense at all. How could you agree to anything like that? Because I won't vote for you, and it'sElizabeth all over the first ballot, because the ones you want are the people. They're liable to vote for somebody else." And it all seemed so simple. She said, "You'd better get out of politics whilewith the politicsHistorical are good, if that's all the sense you have," says my mother. [Laughter]

So anyway, I quickly said, "Well, I don't think I like that idea at all."

Anyway, we had the districtinterview convention, and I got through that. That was a tough one, because I had Donald Wright, who was a Minnesotalegislator in my district, and a chauvinist, and a devil, as far I went. We had to beat him, but we did.

Then came thehistory next convention. Then came the state convention, as I said, with about five people, and we won at the state very easily, because I was told that if I could get out of the district,Oral not to worry about the state.

I found it a very exciting job, because I love people, and I had a wonderful secretary, which I needed, because going around the state, I wanted a file of people who'd had some trouble, a child had gotten a special honor, or a husband. I wanted a file on these people so they'd [unclear]. And I also wanted to know who to leave out, or to turn right, or west or east, to leave out all that junk, because I don't know west or east or north or south; it's right or left. So it would save me a lot of time.

So I would travel. I traveled the state once a year, the whole state. Without the help of Agnes

56 Swenson, I would have died, because I have a hard time connecting names and faces. Names have never been important to me. They're very important to people, but issues are important to me, what people stand for. I could remember what they stood for, but if I'd seen somebody the week before and I'd been a guest in her house, and she came on with a hat, I would just be at wits' ends unless I knew the city, then I could quickly identify.

Way back, when Mrs. Ruth--I don't know, she's probably Simms this year--and she was so charming to everybody, and I said, "Mrs. Simms, I can't get over how you remember people."

She said, "My dear, that's the worst curse I've ever had, because I never remember anybody. If you should walk in and out that door, I wouldn't recognize you." And I finally decided that people, what they stood for was more important, and issues, than trying to remember somebody's name to please them. So I just forgot it.

So I immediately took over what she told me. I never even tried. ImmediatelyHeffelfinger when I'd think I knew somebody, I'd call them always by the wrong name. It's very upsetting to them, and horrible to me to do, to make mistakes like that. So anyway, I had to give it up. I know their faces, but when it comes to identifying them with names, I just was at such a loss. Bradley But anyway, I was nominated by my state. I went to the first convention in Omaha in 1948. I shall never forget that in my life. My husband was with me, andSociety I'd only been nominated, not elected. Stassen had called me, and said, "We've got to get Hugh Scott out as national chairman. He represents the Dewey people. The Dewey people are losers, and we want him out." Elizabeth I, like a little kitten, followed along with his direction, but I was told by him not to call him direct, but to call a man, Hallinan [phonetic],with fromHistorical West Virginia and report to him. I didn't like it, and I should have taken issue at the time, because I think he was the most obnoxious, horrible man I've ever known in my life--a big, fat, redneck [unclear] probably, scrubby-looking, a chauvinist, an insensitive person who represented coal interests or something, a man who represented his own interests. interview Anyway, when I told him that, ofMinnesota course, he did that. Stassen did that. I know he went for Stassen, to curry his approval, because he was a big wheel.

The National Committeehistory at that time was made up of very old people who'd been there close to sixteen years, arch-Republicans who thought it was a private club. I was by far the youngest person there.Oral

Anyway, I got to Omaha, and there was a controversy going on about getting rid of Hugh Scott. Incidentally, later on, Hugh and I were in many United Nations conferences together, and he turned out to be one of my very, very close friends, and I apologized so many times to him.

He said, "Brad, I knew you were being used." But he finally said, "If you ever bring that up again, I don't want you to ever speak to me. That's the way I feel about it. I like you so much, I just want you to forget about it." So that ended it. But he and his wife Marian were very close friends of mine.

57

Anyway, the idea was to throw Hugh Scott out. All kinds of things started to happen. Strange notes were put under people's doors. Then it started to snow. We were snowed in for five days. There was one reporter, I can't remember his name to save my life--I may be able to--but he was somebody like Roscoe Drummond of the Christian Science Monitor. But anyway, I was somewhat in the middle of this fight. Here I'd only been nominated, not elected, and it amused the reporters to death. They thought it was the funniest thing they'd ever heard of. So this one man I started to talk to, about a half hour we talked, at the end I said, "I like you so much, what's your name?" And he came out with this very famous name, which I had no idea who it was. They were just people to me, you know.

When the time that my election came up, all the reporters, the national reporters, there must have been fifty there, they all got up to see if I was going to be elected, then they'd clap. [Laughter] Because they'd never seen anything like this happen at a national committee before. Heffelfinger Anyway, what they finally did was, they called me in the room, the powers-that-be, these arch- arch-arch-conservatives, and said they would like Roy Dunn as national committeeman. I might say that this really threw me off my pin, because, personally, I had nothing against Roy Dunn, he was head of the legislature, he was good. He certainly wouldn'tBradley have been acceptable to Stassen. And I got hold of Stassen, going through Hallinan to call him, it was very important, and Stassen said, "Well, that's very interesting. Very interesting. You'll haveSociety to go along."

And I said, "There's nothing else I could do." And not only that, but give him support. Support him. Which I did. Elizabeth

Roy was very nervous about it. But I said,with "You Historical can do a good job." He was not of my philosophy, but I played it square.

They called it the Battle ofinterview Omaha, and it had headlines all over the United States, because such a battle had never occurred on thisMinnesota very sedate National Committee before, or it was always underground.

We finally got historyout after five days, and that's when Mr. Heffelfinger got so intrigued with politics. He thought it was the funniest thing he ever went to in his life, and it was. Oral In the end, Hugh Scott won by about two votes, and, as I said, you can read what I thought about it, because I realized that he was my kind of a Republican--a progressive Republican. I had an awful lot to learn, believe me, but I guess you have to learn it by experience. It's not there; you can't learn it in books.

Then came the convention in '48, and Stassen was soundly defeated by Dewey. Sometime between '48 and '52, probably the earlier part of probably '51, Harold Stassen called a meeting at the Minneapolis Club of people who he had asked to represent him as delegate at the '52 convention. I don't think that he wanted me, but I had the position at that time of national

58 committeewoman, and he had to have me.

At that meeting, and my husband remembers this very well, because he had an engagement that Saturday afternoon, and had a tennis game. It was a luncheon meeting, and he missed his tennis waiting for me. But at that meeting, Harold Stassen said, "If--I want you to be my delegate," to all of us, he had all thirty, I think there were twenty-eight delegates, not the alternates, because the alternates were all [Dwight D.] Eisenhower people, you see. But he said, "If, in good conscience, at the end, you cannot vote for me, I will release you." I remember that written in stone on my heart. Later he denied it, but it was the truth. I came out and told Mr. Heffelfinger about it.

In '51, after Eisenhower had been induced to have an opening of his campaign in Abilene, I went to Abilene to meet him. It was in Life magazine who was there. That was the end of my rapport with Stassen. I didn't hide it; I just did it. About '51. See, the convention was in '52. Heffelfinger JF: It was about 1951-'52, that you publicly broke with Roy Dunn, too, wasn't it?

EF: Oh, no. Oh, yes. Wait a minute. No. I became national committeewoman in '48. It was about that time, yes. Bradley

JF: That you broke with him, too. Society

EF: That's right. Elizabeth JF: Right. As well as with Stassen. with Historical EF: Yes, that's right. '51. I went to Abilene. The selection of committeepeople came up. That's right. And I was re-elected. Roy Dunn did bring in somebody to fight me, but I think they only got fifteen votes out of fifty, or something like that. But Roy Dunn was defeated.

That convention was anotherinterview very stirring occasion, because Dunn was for Taft...or was it Dewey? It was Taft, and I was Minnesotafor Eisenhower. I liked everything about Eisenhower.

According to Teddy White's new book, where he listed the accomplishments of Eisenhower, it came to far morehistory than made dramatic news in the paper. He was what people wanted at that time--a father image. And people had respect for him. Also the story of his decision to land on the shoresOral of Normandy was a momentous one. It had to be made then, because a storm was in the offing, which they couldn't wait until afterwards or their plans would have been known. He didn't hesitate. Anyway, I admired him tremendously.

That decision, however, at the Minnesota convention, whereby George Edsel of Staples, was elected. Not Staples. I thought I'd never forget that. I think it was Staples but it will be in the papers. [He] came up. I got very nervous at these meetings, and the more pessimistic I was, the more I worked, naturally.

I kept saying to George Edsel...I kept saying to myself that the rural press that were there en

59 masse, fighting for Roy Dunn, didn't have a vote. And then I would talk to Don Dickey, who-- we were together completely on this situation of George Edsel--he would say, "We have the votes. We have them counted. Why is it they might change their mind?" He said, "No, we know these people," so he kept...but I was extremely nervous, because I've never been very competitive in my life except in politics, and I was in there to win, and there was never any loophole that I didn't want to cover.

I always looked forward to the worst that could happen, and then if you could figure out the worst could happen, you'll find usually that it hadn't gone that far--it's medium. That was my philosophy. Always figure out the worst that could happen, because you never knew what Stassen was going to pull on the delegates, you see, because he didn't always tell the truth, so he kept you on your toes.

Anyway, it was a tremendous meeting, and the rural press was there, very supportive of Dunn. He was defeated easily, and George Edsel came in. He was a progressiveHeffelfinger thinker, as I was. I don't remember whom Stassen was backing at that time, but, frankly, I didn't care. [Pause]

...the convention was going to be held. I was prepared becauseBradley of my appearance at Abilene, and my public support of Eisenhower, regardless of the fact that I was not, as national committeewoman, supposed to take a position. I've never believedSociety in that, because I don't think you're elected to be a sheep, I think you're elected to be a constructive leader. I felt that was constructive leadership, in my own thinking. Elizabeth So I was ready for him [Stassen] at the 1952 convention, what he might pull on me, and the first thing I realized is that he might leave mewith out of Historicalcaucuses completely, because he's a tough man. You really have to be on your toes to, again, to figure out the worst that could happen, and that was at the time where election laws allowed companies to pick up expenses.

So my husband was more than helpful, because I was head of arrangements and head of the rooms for the different delegates,interview etc. I had my secretary there, and he had his secretary. So we had two big double rooms and aMinnesota tremendous living room, big enough to hold caucuses in. I knew that the state party would like to save money and not to have to support a caucus, so we served hot rolls and orange juice and coffee every morning, so we always got the delegates in every morning, and Ihistory was not left out. [Laughter]

JF: VeryOral good move.

EF: Well, it was the only move to make, and I was quite right, too, because I would have been left out. When he gets in there, he'll do anything to you. He's going to win or die.

The National Committee had been meeting beforehand, before the convention, and the situation of the Fair Deal came up. That was the deal related to Texas, Louisiana, and Georgia for delegates between Taft and Eisenhower. Dewey wasn't in on that.

JF: No.

60

EF: Between Taft and Eisenhower. I attended those meetings. They were fascinating, because they had brilliant lawyers presenting both sides. I was raised in Texas, so I was very much interested in Texas. The Fair Deal side was led by a man by the name of Dudley Sharp, who, under Eisenhower, was assistant secretary of the navy. He was a great friend of my brother's, a family friend. His father and Howard Hughes' father had started the Hughes Tool Company together. I found him in the Texas delegation, and he was the one who had been raising the money for Eisenhower and getting the delegates in Texas. I knew him to be a very fine young man.

While we were hearing both sides discussed through the lawyers, Warren Burger came to me. He and George MacKinnon have always been Stassen's right-hand men, and really they're henchmen, had always been. Warren Burger came up to me, and he said, "Brad, how are you going to vote on this Fair Deal?" Heffelfinger And I said, "I'm for the Fair Deal."

He said to me, "Are you a lawyer?" Bradley I said, "You know damn well I'm not a lawyer." Society He said, "I advise you, this is a legal matter, and I advise you to abstain."

I said, "This is not a legal matter; this is a moralElizabeth matter."

"Well," he said, "I advise you to abstain.with Historical

I said, "Are you telling me that only lawyers are able to vote on cases like this? What a mess we'd be in if only lawyers could do things like that, pass on things like that." Which irritated me.

So I went back, and for theinterview first time, Stassen had called a meeting of the delegates and the alternates. At that meeting, I told,Minnesota in front of Burger, how he had tried to advise me to abstain, and I didn't like it. I said I was a Texan. I said, "I know Texas. All Texans are the same, but some are better than others, and I'm better. I'm voting when it comes to money and..." I forget my words. Buthistory they were all the same, but that I knew them, and I was voting for the ones that stood for the things that I stood for. It was honest. I didn't say the word honest, but I said that. Oral Then from Carleton College, the president of Carleton College, Larry Gould, spoke up, who was an alternate, and he said, "Harold, you are an albatross around the neck of Minnesota. Why don't you give up when the giving is going?" Which did not amuse Stassen very much.

The meeting was dismissed without voting one way or another, because I'd already voted for the Fair Deal. Anyway, the balloting was to take place the next day, after this meeting. And I became very alarmed.

JF: What position, officially, did you hold, under which you went to Germany?

61

EF: I'll go into that. Did I tell you about Peter Warhol, the communist?

JF: No.

EF: Didn't I?

JF: I don't think we got into that yet.

EF: Oh, gad. That was in 1947, when I befriended that communist. Did you see that in my things?

JF: Yes, I did.

EF: And Syd Fossum, who just died, the artist. Heffelfinger

JF: Yes, that was too bad.

EF: Yes. That was '47. Bradley

JF: Why don't we start with that, then. Society

EF: I told about when I started in on the war work, didn't I? Elizabeth JF: Yes. with Historical EF: How I got that position. I called him and he gave me the job.

JF: Yes.

EF: I criticized him becauseinterview theMinnesota women weren't included, and we were all set up to go, anyway.

I'm not quite sure when the incident of Peter Warhol arose. I think it was in '47. It's in the newspaper record. Peter Warhol had been head of the upholsterers union. Are you sure I didn't go over this? history

JF: Yes.Oral

EF: I did go over this.

JF: No, I don't think you gave the whole story. You mentioned him, but I think we stopped right about that point.

EF: Peter Warhol was the head of the upholsterers union. And one of the assignments that the Office of Civilian Defense, of which I had charge of the women's division of Hennepin County. Peter Warhol was of infinite value to us in the decoration of the USO centers because the

62 furniture, which we collected from block to block, and then took to an assembling place, was used. Peter Warhol's upholsterers union reupholstered the furniture that needed to be reupholstered, and fixed things for us so that they were usable. I think, as I remember, we had about twenty-seven altogether--USO centers--that were initiated by us as a result of requests by the Army, the Navy and the Air Force.

We would turn to a group, particularly the Jewish groups were marvelously generous, or if somebody's son had died in the war, a private individual. But we were able to get money through organizations and individuals for the actual material that Warhol used. They would do it free, and then we would have a dedication room in the name of the benefactor. The member of the armed services who would be using the room was also there. It was very successful, really a wonderful job, but some of this was [done by] Mrs. Charles Arnao, in our division.

At the end of the war, I was approached by a member of the A F of L, who told me that my "boyfriend, Peter Warhol," as he put it, was going to be investigated by theHeffelfinger Justice Department. It seems that he was brought over here from Czechoslovakia at the age of three, and under the Taft-Hartley Law, no known communist could be head of a union. I had, personally, no interest in Peter Warhol's political philosophy. All I know was that he did a magnificent job for us in the war effort. This was, of course, after the Russians had becomeBradley our allies. I did know his wife was one of our block workers, was a good worker. I did know that she belonged to the Communist Party. But Peter Warhol, to me, was a very lovelySociety young man who didn't appear to be interested in any politics at all. Matter of fact, when he was in Germany, he used to send me pictures of German castles, and say, "It was fun to live here, just for one night." So I always felt that he really had no philosophy at all. Elizabeth

But that was beside the point. They broughtwith himHistorical here, and, of course, the [news]papers got after him, that he was a communist and should go back. In other words, he got no fair deal in the papers at all, and I worried about it, and told my husband that I felt that somebody should put a good word in for him, because I thought that I knew him quite well from a nonpolitical point of view. My husband cheerily said, "Why don't you do it, if that's the way you feel?" interview So I ran into Douglas Hall on theMinnesota street in Minneapolis, and I said that I felt very badly about Peter Warhol, and I thought that somebody should speak up, and I would like to. I would offer myself as a witness. And Hall laughed. He represented the left wing, and he was a very good lawyer, so I'm historytold. Anyway, he laughed, and he said, "You know, that's all you need, because Republicans have been trying to get rid of you for a long time. You're too controversial and too outspoken."Oral And he said, "I think I'd better subpoena you. There's no use of meeting your death by supporting something, your political death."

So I was subpoenaed, along with Charles Horn, who was head of the Federal Carteridge and along with George Murk, who was head of the musicians union.

The day that the investigators were to be here, I discovered that they were not only investigating, but they were also making the final decision on his position, which seemed to me to be utterly unfair. So I was double enforced that somebody should come to his [defense]...at least tell the story about him and his war effort.

63

That was the morning that I was going to chair the Foreign Relations Committee in the Hennepin County Republican Committee. When I woke up, I saw the headlines, and in banner headlines, it said, "Society Woman, Industrialist, and Labor Man Rush to Defend Communist Here Under Investigation." Well, I nearly died, and I was terribly upset, because it was so unfair.

I knew I was going to this meeting, and I was supposed to be in court and at the meeting more or less at the same time. Anyway, I was in quite a frenzy. My husband said, "You're doing what you believe in, so why don't you take it in your stride?"

I went down to the courthouse, and the first person I saw was dear Charlie Horn, now deceased, and he was dressed up as he usually is, with a waxed mustache, a gray suit on, a red carnation, and a cane. As I walked in, he raised his right hand, and said, "Greetings, Comrade."

And I raised mine, and said, "Greetings to you, sir," whereupon we startedHeffelfinger to laugh.

This was in the courthouse, this meeting, and the room was obviously filled with communists, because they smiled when we came in. When we started to laugh, they looked. You could hear them buzz around, and they were quite upset. They didn't knowBradley why we were there. I wondered, too, at that time, frankly. Society Anyway, you could feel a chill go over the room. So I sat down with Mr. Horn, and a man from the Justice Department--I think it was the Justice Department, the Immigration Department, that was it--came to me and he said, "Mrs. Heffelfinger,Elizabeth what are you doing in this thing?"

I said, "What do you mean am I doing inwith this thing?"Historical I said, "I know this Peter Warhol. I don't know why you're here. How can you possibly investigate and make a final judgment? It doesn't make sense to me. So that's why I'm here."

Anyway, they called me first, and by that time I was really annoyed with them. They called me first, and I really think I mightinterview have said anything, because I was really disgusted with the whole thing, as it didn't seem to be just.Minnesota When they called on me, they were very protective in their questions. It was funny, because they gave me no chance to say anything that would get me in trouble--not that there was any trouble to get into, but it might be judged trouble. history Then Horn got up, and he'd been with Warhol on the FEPC, and said he was easy to deal with, he had no trouble,Oral he was very fair.

They asked me if I knew about his politics. I said I wasn't interested in his politics. I was interested in getting a job done, and he did it beautifully. I could not have carried on this part of the war work without Peter Warhol. He was absolutely essential to what we did.

Then George Murk, of the musicians union, got up. He said, "If he's a communist, then I'm a communist," and he went on and on and on, and he came back, and he said to me, "How did I do?"

64 I said, "You stunk." [Laughter] I said, "You really got your neck out."

He said, "I have to go to the phone."

I said, "Would you mind calling for me, because I'm going to be late over at this meeting of the Republican Committee."

And he said, "No." He said, "They're just waiting to pinch you. Don't you know that?" He said, "You're too progressive for them and you're too independent." And he said, "You just go in there and be late, and don't apologize. Walk in there with your head high, like this was just an everyday occurrence."

I always kidded him, because I did what he said, and later when I kidded him about it, I said, "Thanks to you, I'm still a member of the Republican Committee," because they didn't have the nerve to say anything. It was deep silence that greeted me, and I said, "Well,Heffelfinger boys, I'm sorry I'm late, but let's go on from here."

I remember there was one man, Donald Wright, who was a representative from...I think it was around Bradstreet, down in there, and he'd been digging for meBradley for a long time, because I beat him out the year before, on being elected to the county committee, the first time I'd run for a party office, and I had to beat him, and so he had it in for me, ISociety knew, in a big way. But even he didn't speak up. So I remained on the committee.

But later, when I was appointed by the presidentElizabeth in '53, by Eisenhower, to represent the United States, along with Irving Solomon, member of the Ford Foundation from California, I was thoroughly checked by the security, andwith people Historicalaround my place of habitat would go into the houses and ask if they knew anything about my communist meetings. Of course, they all told me they went into hysterics about it. So I really was checked out. As a matter of fact, I was checked out so long that I became very much upset, because I wanted to have the record clear. But in a case like this, you're just dropped. You don't know why. And that upset me terribly. interview I finally went to two people, an Minnesotaex-FBI men, Ed Cody at General Mills, and Mike Dillon, the county attorney, and said, "It's not being sent to represent the United States at this conference as a delegate, but I want my record cleared. I'll give up the other. I want my record cleared." So within a few weeks,history I was told by both people everything was all right, and to relax. So I was appointed by the president. That was the first of about fifteen appointments by Eisenhower on UNESCO.Oral

Also, another person who worked for me was Syd Fossum, lately deceased. He was a WPA artist, and his wife was one of my Victory Aides--the block workers. I tried to get her by phone. We tried, the office tried, and couldn't reach her, and finally I was going over to Northeast Minneapolis, and stopped by. I saw somebody peeking out of the curtain, and she let me in. She said that the security people were watching her house, and she was terrified. She had a new baby, she'd run out of milk, and she didn't dare use the phone. She was just a wreck. So I went and did shopping for her.

65 That night, I was invited to [unclear], a dinner party, and I sat next to a man who I knew came from Washington, but I had no idea who he was. I got into conversation about my experience with this woman who had a baby, was scared, and didn't know what she'd done. They were both artists. And I said, "This is beyond the pale, as far as I'm concerned." It seemed that he was sent here, himself, to look into this situation, and I gave him such a roasting on the whole idea, such a roasting, that they never came. That was the end of it. They never did anything else.

Syd Fossum was an artist, did WPA work. His wife stayed at home. I have no idea whether there was any justification, I wouldn't certainly say. It was just one of those [Senator Joseph] McCarthy deals that went on. But it was upsetting to those two people.

I forgot to say, in connection with Peter Warhol, that years later I went to the Unitarian Church, and he came up to me, and he said, "You don't remember me, but I owe you more than I owe my own mother." And I couldn't figure it out. He said, "I'm Peter Warhol, and I've never forgotten how you came to my rescue." Heffelfinger

I said to him, "Well, you sure caused me a hell of a lot of trouble, but I guess it was worth it." [Laughter] I've never seen him since. Bradley JF: That was a nice tribute. Society EF: There was another one that we worked with, who was in the CIA. His name was Laverne Noon. He came from Mound. He was a communist. Don't forget we were working with Russia at that time. We were doing a job for the survivorsElizabeth of Stalingrad, in which...didn't I bring this in?

JF: No. with Historical

EF: We were working for the survivors of Stalingrad by picking up clothes from all over Minnesota, every city, and as we saw, they got many carloads. And I think they all probably put tags on them, but anyway, we never heard one word from them. And they were good things that people gave from their hearts,interview because it was a horrible disaster for anybody, regardless of political background. Minnesota

One day, in the office, three crateloads of literature from Russia arrived, and to show you how far removed I washistory from the political angle of it, I called the CIO and said, "Some of your Russian trash is here. Come over and get it. I want it out of the office." About a year later, I realized that I shouldOral have turned it over to the FBI, but I was doing war work, and I was not thinking of that angle at all. I think that's one of the reasons that it was such a success--we were doing it because we believed in it.

But the material, they were over there in five minutes, and several of them took that stuff out. It was probably just propaganda, which we get plenty anyway, so it didn't make much difference.

But Laverne Noon was the top man, he was a state representative, and I worked very closely with him. There was another woman that was, I thought, very bad news, and she was very much in love with him, and used to write his speeches. I remember telling him he was too smart to let

66 somebody write his speeches. [He should] write his own speeches, because he'd go far.

After the war was over...Laverne Noon...I remember one time that I was supposed to speak on May Day to the Young Communist League. I was in Chicago with my husband, and I read him part of my speech. I remembered it ran that we were born of revolution, too, and we came out all right. My husband nearly died over that. But I said, "It's true, we were born of a revolution, and it's which angle the people take after a revolution. We took the right angle [unclear]." Anyway, I went to this meeting, and I do remember many people who were there. I was interested in that. I had enough sense to remember some of the faces I saw, the names, because we were working very closely with labor, you see. We had to. It was all-embracing, our action.

After the war was over, I had visited my daughter, who lived in Prague. She was married to a United Press man, they lived in Prague when the war was over, in '49 this was. She was married in '48, this was '49. But after the war was over, I was over in Hopkins, and I was told that there was a Czech who had a very nice restaurant. He didn't own it, but he workedHeffelfinger there, and he did some cooking, and came from Prague. So I went in to see him, because I had just come from there, and I was interested in the country. He was married to a Hungarian who had been working in the embassy, our embassy in Czechoslovakia. Anyway, I met him. He was delightful. I had planned a dinner party for Harry Bullis and his new wife--heBradley was then president of General Mills--and they were doing a lot of war work, you see. I had this man do the cooking, and he was taken over immediately by Mrs. Bullis. Society

There was an account in the paper, by Virginia Safford I think, which I didn't like at all. "He had been a great friend of my daughter's," the articleElizabeth said, "and that I had brought him over to this country." But it was way out of line, and I immediately called the CIA, because I have learned that the seat of communism was right inwith Hopkins, Historical you see. So I called the CIA, and I, in telling them, I said, "I was there at the time of the third international."

They said, "What do you know about that?"

I said, "I was there, and I interviewknew the lady mayor of Prague, and heard quite a lot about it." Minnesota So two men immediately came out there, and they nearly collapsed when I told them about what I knew about Hopkins, and what had gone on. They asked me come to down to the office. I think this was the FBI.history I called the CIA. Then I think the FBI came out.

They tookOral me down, and they showed me Laverne Noon's file, and it was a file that must have been a foot and a half long. He had been the organizer of five states. So he was a very important person. He's now deceased.

Going back--at the end of the war, he asked me to meet him at the Nicollet Hotel for luncheon, and he said, "This is goodbye."

And I said, "Why is that?"

And he said, "Because our philosophy is not the same." And he said, "I'll never see you again.

67 So I just want to tell you what you've meant to me, your help, and you as a person."

But I said, "I'll see you in the legislature."

"No," he said, "I won't know you, so don't ever speak to me, because this is the end of everything."

I did go over to the legislature one day, and I saw him, and brazenly walked up and said, "Hi, Verne." And he looked right through me as though he'd never seen me. It was true.

But he was a [unclear], but I never did anything. He had a right to do it, because we were, again, allies at that time.

One of the things I was able to do was to get him interested in the Range. I think it was up on the Range. I went up there and spoke one time on birth control. Heffelfinger

JF: How brave of you. [Laughter]

EF: Yes. They were having a meeting, this was still duringBradley the war. I had been very active in having the first public meeting, I think. But that was the end. They were just human beings, as far as I was concerned. Society

In 1948, our daughter, who had been with the USO in Germany as a dancer--two or three of them did--fell in love with a very nice Norwegian, whoElizabeth was head of the United Press in covering Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland. He covered the [unclear] trial. She was married in Frankfurt, and being a newspaper man,with we were Historical in touch with his closest friend, who represented the Herald Tribune in New York. I forget his name. The wedding was at their house, and the press, the media, whose headquarters was in Frankfurt, gave the reception.

It was a grim period, because in '48, Frankfurt was...the station was still bombed. You didn't dare leave your suitcase for a second,interview because people were stealing. People were bringing bags of potatoes in to sell for twenty cents,Minnesota from the farm. It was a pathetic, terrible time in Germany, but I'm glad I was there at the time.

Some of the peoplehistory I met were two women reporters. They were Jewish, and they had been in Lidic--Lidic is in Czechoslovakia, isn't it? Oral JF: Maybe it is. I'm not familiar with it.

EF: In Lidic. Maybe it was Poland. Absolutely all Jews in Lidic had been put to death. There were a few left, and there was a march from there down to the Mediterranean to catch a boat, a British boat, and then take them to Israel. That was a death march. These two people had survived the holocaust, and had been on that march. They were turned away. It was a tragic thing, because they were turned away, and not allowed to go. I don't remember the details, but I remember I was emotionally very upset, and became very interested in Israel, about which I had known very little.

68

Israel obtained her independence in '48, and when it became independent, people tried to get there right away. But I became very much interested in the background. That led to my going there in 1951.

I was also very much interested in the refugee program, not only the Jewish people, the others. So in 1949, my husband and I went over to see our daughter, and I stayed on in Paris.

EF: In Paris, in 1949, I also had occasion to meet the lady mayor of Prague, whose name was Pelantova. The first name skips me. [Ruzena] It will come to me soon. I had been asked by one of the people who knew her, who gave me her name, to take her some hair dye. She had white hair, and this made it blue. When I got to Prague, I went in to see her, and I was very much impressed with her. She had been responsible for all of the human side of hospitals--for the poor, care for handicapped children, all of the things that were human, she had been responsible for. At the hospital, she was the motivator. Heffelfinger

I remember going into this beautiful big room in the courthouse, very feminine, with chintz, very inviting, and asking her if the Czechs were communists first or nationalists first. She brushed off the question very quickly. That night she appeared at our daughter'sBradley house, and told my son-in- law, Dick Clark, that she was absolutely chilled when I asked that question, because they were after her--the communists were. She was a socialist. They wereSociety after her, and, of course, the room was wired.

Then she went on to say that she'd just come fromElizabeth a women's socialist meeting, and they were well aware of what was happening, and very concerned. You see, the takeover was the next year, in, I think it was 1950, when the communistwith actually Historical took over Prague--Czechoslovakia. She said, it was called the Third International, had just had a meeting, and that their plans were pretty bloody, and that she'd met with these women, you see, to find out what they could do.

And her ideas showed that they were aware, but they weren't very practical, I thought at that time. I thought it showed deepinterview concern, but I don't think they realized what they were really in for. Minnesota She also said that she felt that she was going to be forced to leave her house. She told Dick Clark that night that she was going to be forced to leave her house, and to retire from her job, and that she wanted to gethistory out very much, out of Czechoslovakia. She felt she had to.

So whenOral I got to Paris, I had somebody look me up. It was a Norwegian group. They did a lot of work in getting refugees out of there. On the telephone to Dick, I started talking, and all of a sudden he just absolutely slammed down on me. He told me later that he was terrified, because he said, "It's our life I'm interested in, frankly. In Jinx's and my life. When you started talking," he said, "I just went cold." You can see how very naive I was about this thing. I should have been kept at home, in chains.

Anyway, it was arranged through this group that she was...and she was, she was thrown out of her job very quickly, and was kept under house arrest with another woman. This Norwegian group did get in touch with her, I found out later, and it had her go through the same routine

69 every day, and then finally they were going to pick her up. And the night before they picked her up, she broke her leg. So that was ghastly, you see, so nothing came of that.

But she did get away later, about a year later, and then came over to this country, and she settled in New Jersey at a house that one of our children had for several months that summer, and she was in the house next door for about a week.

One night, I took her over to call on these people next door, and she complained of a very bad headache and told me she had to go home. When she got home, she went into utter hysterics, because she said, "I know that woman next door." A visitor. There was a visitor next door from Czechoslovakia. That's why we got them together, you see. She said, "She is in the wrong group. I've got to leave here tonight. I will be killed. And you don't know where I'm going to be." She said, "I know this woman," and she said, "and she knows me, because I was very prominent." Heffelfinger Well, we got her into town that night, or early the next morning whenever it was, and it was later that Senator Thye, here, at my request, gave her permanent citizenship. She was a great woman. But after she broke her leg, it was...she was being used as a voice to Czechoslovakia, free Czechoslovakia. Later, then, she died, of a broken heart. ButBradley it was quite an experience.

JF: Yes, indeed. Society

EF: It was in '49, then, when I went over to see my daughter that, thanks to Walter Judd who helped set the program up for me, I was in touchElizabeth with the Internation al Relief Organization (IRO). First of all, I went to Frankfurt, and I stayed with the newspeople, people whom I had visited when... with Historical

JF: At the time your daughter was married?

EF: When my daughter was married. I immediately got in touch, in Frankfurt, with the IRO, International Relief Organization,interview and then I was invited to have dinner with the man who was then in charge of the airlift, GeneralMinnesota Hayes, who was a great friend of the Carroll Humphreys here. I remember telling him that night that I wanted to go into Berlin on the airlift, and he said, "Oh, you could, but" he said, "we don't take anybody...you'll have to wear pants." history I said, "I brought some." You know, some... Oral EF: Slacks?

EF: Slacks. "You'll have to wear slacks."

I said, "I brought some."

So he said, "Well, I guess I can't turn you down or use that as an excuse."

So I went in, and I went in on the plane with General Clay. He didn't know I was on the plane at

70 all, because he had just finished bringing about a settlement between England, France, and Germany on the first constitution of Bonn. He was delighted, and he was flying back to Berlin. He was in charge, you see, of Berlin. So I flew in on an army plane, and later I met him personally. Even later than that, I became a very close friend of his, because he was one of the great supporters of General Eisenhower, and he was a delightful, wonderful man.

I remember flying out on an airlift, and they put me on to give some directions, and the laughter that went out from the other pilots. You see, they were coming in every five minutes those planes would land. Coal, mostly. And they were coming in, landing, and five minutes later a plane would go out. It went right through the day and night.

I told General Clay later, I said, "I didn't hear the plane last night."

He said, "Well, if the plane--it would be as if your heart had stopped, if you don't hear those planes in relation to Berlin." The precision of that airlift I shall never forget--Heffelfingercoming in, getting clean, taking on a new load, getting rid of the load, and taking off. All day and all night long. Every five minutes. It was a marvelous experience, really.

JF: It must have been. Bradley

EF: I told General Clay I was interested in seeing the refugees,Society and he said, "I'm not worried about the refugees, because there's so many church groups. The thing I'm worried about, the people I worry about, are the expellees." The people that were expelled, for instance, from Poland--just forced to leave like the Sudatan whoElizabeth were forced to leave--and the Russians took over. So he told me what to do when I got back to Frankfurt, set the wheels, going to several camps. with Historical

I remember going to one camp, and some army man said, "I have a wonderful couple here, the Fedders. She has been a nurse, and he was head of the largest mental hospital, the only mental hospital, in Riga, Latvia. He was not in good health, because he was forced to dig ditches. He was a very aesthetic sort ofinterview a man, and forced to do work that he wasn't able to do." But he said, "She can do anything. She's a nurse,Minnesota too, or a doctor."

So I was able to get them into Northwestern Hospital. But it took a long time, because they had a young son whohistory was about three or four at that time, as I remember, and they forgot to put his name down, so it took another six months. Oral But they came over here, and he was in charge of anesthetics--not in charge, but an assistant in anesthetics--and she did employee service and health. And later they moved to North Dakota, and the boy was elected head of the state [Boys State], went to Washington, met the president, and he's now in--I think he's in South Africa, where he has a top job in the copper business. They are just really marvelous people, so that was nice.

But one very funny thing happened. I was asked by telegram if I would like to return home on an IRO ship with the refugees. So I said yes. They were located in Geneva. This was in Frankfurt, the invitation came. And by the way, Frankfurt then was something, because the one hotel and

71 the streets were filled all night long with women shrieking and yelling, prostitutes yelling, and they were just making hay with our men over there. It was just ghastly. We had to get to bed before two o'clock, because you couldn't sleep after two at night, it was so noisy. [Laughter]

In Frankfurt, I was given a slip of paper to present to the top man in Hamburg, where I was to sail on a certain date. I don't know whether it was Liberty ships. Everything was set, but when I got to Hamburg, I was met by the man whom I was supposed to contact--not only met by him, but taken to his house to stay, and he gave me a dinner party that night.

The next day I saw this truck of refugees leave. They'd all been screened. They had jobs. Their health was checked. So I got on the boat, and we were no sooner at sea than they began to call my name to come to the main office, and where were my papers? I didn't remember the papers at all, so long before that. I'd already seen the man. I had no idea where the papers were. I remember they were awful to me, just rude and nasty, and they said, "Here's another poor relative getting a free trip to the United States. Where's your passport?" I showedHeffelfinger them my passport. They said, "Until you find your paper, you're not going to..." [unclear]. But they called me back then. And at the table, I was supposed to eat with the army, and then the refugees themselves were among the IRO, and then the marines were running the ship or something. It was all very mixed up. They were all very arrogant. So I was supposed toBradley eat with army, and they all turned their back on me and asked if I knew certain people here. And then they'd laugh just like they didn't think I could know anybody back here. I guess I lookedSociety pretty run down. Anyway, they couldn't have been worse. But the refugees were wonderful.

The second day, the morale fell, so I asked if IElizabeth could have a job in the kitchen. They said, "The ice cream?" with Historical "No," I said, "give me the toughest job." So they put me in the soup kitchen, with steam coming out. And I remember that about the third or fourth day out--it was a ten-day trip, it was a long trip, about eight or nine or ten days, right before Christmas--I remember being in the soup kitchen, and one of the refugees coming up, and I put, in his bowl, a half of a skinned pig, and he was very polite, and he said,interview "No, thank you." So then he put it back again, and I put it back again, and he looked up and sawMinnesota me, and died laughing. The first thing I knew, about ten of them were training their cameras on me serving the soup, you see.

But I used to talkhistory to them about the United States, and say that New York didn't belong to the United States, which they felt was very funny. Oral Anyway, then I was called in again. They said, "The insurance has never heard of you, they don't know anything about you. You'll have to go to Norfolk and you cannot get out at New York." Well, I wasn't going to be treated like that after all, so when I was getting my odds and ends of paper together, I came across this thing, and actually, that is when he said, "You caused us all this trouble, you can go to Norfolk."

So I got some of my refugee friends, as we came into America, I pointed out the police, I said, "There's our Gestapo," and laughed. That was funny.

72 Anyway, I told two or three of them that I was in trouble, and could one of them take my suitcase off. I'd pick it up, you see, and [unclear]. Oh, they thought that was hilarious. I said, "Don't tell anybody, because I want to get home for Christmas." I was just barely making Christmas.

I remember when I finally walked up the stairs, there was a great burst of laughter that went on. I knew what it was, because I'd gotten away, you see. [Laughter] They're probably still looking for me.

JF: You may have a file somewhere.

EF: Anyway, I came back, and Youngdahl, Luther Youngdahl, was very much interested in it, and he passed a bill, at least he was behind the bill and pushed it, which allowed fair legislation for new doctors coming in--about the time they had to be here, English, and things in the background. Because we were in need, the country was, of more doctors. Heffelfinger You know, the AMA [American Medical Association] is pretty [stern] when it comes to letting them in, and they should be. We have to screen them. I don't mean that.

But anyway, Youngdahl was delighted, and we were really ableBradley to bring in our share of the refugees. Society JF: When you were in Germany, then, Mrs. Heffelfinger, were you there on your own, or were your there-- Elizabeth EF: Yes, I was there on my own. I was interested, and I got in touch with the people. with Historical JF: You did an amazing number of things like that.

EF: I know. In '48, I think that was the year I ran for the legislature, and I was soundly defeated. Did I bring this up? interview JF: Yes. Minnesota

EF: I brought this up. In 1951, that's in that book, that I took that trip. history JF: That was to India and to Israel and to the Arab countries? Oral EF: Yes.

JF: Do you want to comment on that?

EF: No, it's all in the book.

JF: Yes, I know, but I'd like to hear what you have to say about it, too, things you saw.

EF: The book of '51 that I wrote, my trip in '51, I had met Nan Pandit.

73

JF: Did you go to Israel first?

EF: Yes.

JF: What Arab countries did you go to? There's more about what you did in India than there is about in Israel, or anything like that. Did you meet Golda Meir at that time?

EF: Oh, sure. That's in there. That's in the book.

JF: Yes.

EF: There's quite a bit about Israel in there. In '51, Nan Pandit, who was Nehru's sister, whom I had met on occasions, and I met her through Crystal Bird Fausett. Heffelfinger JF: Was this an official trip?

EF: No. Bradley JF: Once again, you just did it. Society EF: I had met Crystal Bird Fausett, who was Mrs. Roosevelt's assistant in the OCD. I had met her. Elizabeth JF: Yes. with Historical EF: [She] wanted me to meet Nan Pandit, to whom she was very devoted, so I met her. And I think that Nan was looking around for Republican help to India, because it was very obvious that Eisenhower was being talked about. Anyway, she had Democratic support you see, but I think that was what motivated her. She said if I could get to India, I would be guest of the government. And my husband said thatinterview I could go if I could get something through the State Department that in case of my death or if somethingMinnesota happened to me, at least they'd know where to send the body. [Laughter]

It was in '51. Onehistory of my daughter's father-in-law was a great friend of Alan Dulles and John Dulles--who was then, I think, assistant secretary of state. And he was the one who wrote ahead and toldOral people about me, you see. So there was some protection, for what it was worth. But anyway, it made my husband...he said I couldn't go without it. So that's the only contact I had, because I was completely under them.

JF: Did you decide to go to Israel after that?

EF: No, no. I had already, you see, become very much interested in Israel in '49. So I wanted to go to Israel. I'd met these people that had been on that death trip that I told you about this morning.

74 That's why I went, and I don't know how this ever happened, but out of the clear somebody from the press attaché at the embassy in Washington, an Israeli, got in touch with me. I have no idea how this happened. It's very interesting. He said, "I understand you want to go to Israel, and we would like to have you under the press there, but," he said, "you won't understand Israel until you've seen the Arab camps." Isn't that strange? "Because," he said, "too many people just go to one country. You have to see both countries."

So I went through Jordan. That's all in there, where I'd gotten into trouble. I'd taken pictures of no man's land.

First of all, I went to Spain, you see, and met Franco's sister. I guess I must have been pretty pushy. I don't know how I...but I was interested in these things. Oh, I know how I got that contact. I got that through the lobbyist for Pan Am, who I knew very well. He set that up for me. She was in charge of [unclear]. Pilar [phonetic], her name was, the sister of Franco. Heffelfinger Anyway, then I went to Lebanon, and I must have been met just out of the clear by a tour. Anyway, I asked for a guide from some tourist group. I don't remember this too well. But I was met by somebody. It wasn't set up, it was just one of those flukes. And I said I was going to Israel, but I didn't want to have to go back to Nicosia in Cyprus.Bradley I wanted to get right through on the gate that you can go through, the Mendelbaum [phonetic] Gate, I think it was. Society He said, "It will be arranged. But why are you interested?"

I always told the truth, so I don't know what I Elizabethsaid, but, anyway, it's all in that book there.

Then I was met again when I got to Amman,with in HistoricalJordan. I think we landed there. He was the head of the tourist agency of the Arabs. It was really fantastic. But right there, it's very mixed up. The book is very plain, and you've read the book, haven't you?

JF: Yes. I have quite a lot of notes here about this. interview EF: Then I went to Israel, overMinnesota the gate, waved goodbye to [Musa] Huseini, who said, "I'll see you in jail a little later." Six weeks later he was shot, because he'd killed a king. He was implicated. He was playing both angles--the Grand Mufti and all that stuff. history JF: Did you meet King Abdullah when you were there? Oral EF: No, but he was killed.

JF: Shortly after, right?

EF: Yes, by Huseini. My, he was an attractive man. Oh, gad, he was. [Laughter] "See you in jail."

Then I went to Israel, a certain hotel I went to. And I was taken around by the man, a young man and his wife, who had been first secretary to Meir when she'd been ambassador to Russia. He

75 said, "I want you to meet her." She's a marvelous woman.

So he set up an appointment for about ten minutes, and I was there for over an hour, and she apologized she couldn't have me for luncheon because somebody was waiting for her. But I was there over an hour. She asked me about the Arab camps, and I remember saying to her, "The thing that worries me is all this hatred, of writing in the sand, `We hate the Jews. We will kill the Jews. We will get our country back,'" I said, "Twenty-five years from now, these are going to be the killers." That's what's happened. Twenty-five years, do you realize that?

JF: These were just the children that were writing that.

EF: Yes, the children. They were brought up with hatred, that this is our country. I said, "I'm afraid for you. In twenty-five years, these will be fighters."

She was terribly interested, because I was a disinterested person. But I alsoHeffelfinger told her why I'd gotten interested, [unclear], and I also remember telling her I thought the Arabs were most attractive, so, I mean, there was nothing to hide. I told her about my little experience with them. She nearly died. So that was it. She was a magnificent person. She was a terrific woman. Bradley JF: She must have had a fantastically strong personality to do all that she did. Society EF: Oh, yes. But they said that in the synagogue, when she was first there, that she sat with the men to show that she represented the men and the women. Elizabeth This young man took me around, and his wife, they were a very attractive young couple. But, you know, it's a very funny thing. I'd gowith into a restaurantHistorical by myself, I would eat alone--I was there three or four days--but you could almost feel them drawing away, afraid they would touch the skirt of a Gentile. Really. Really. I could feel it.

JF: Did you go directly from Israel to India, then? interview EF: Yes, I went straight to Pakistan.Minnesota Then I went to India. But that's all.

JF: That was only the first of several trips you made to India, though. history EF: Yes, that was the first. I've been there about five times. Oral JF: You met Madame Pandit when you were there?

EF: Yes. I stayed in Nehru's house, you see.

I told you about Lady Mountbatten. Oh, that was quite an affair, because they were obviously using her to keep Nehru in check. But there was a real love affair. Really funny. I got in on that. I was two weeks late, and I remember there was one of the men who take the mail around from different places, the United States, and he told me.

76 I said, "I don't know. I'm supposed to be met by somebody representing Nehru. I'm supposed to stay there. I won't be disappointed if he's there, and I won't be surprised if he isn't. That's all I know."

Then the first thing I did, I got this feeling of claustrophobia, because later his secretary turned out to be no good, you see, and he was terrible. The woman at the front desk reminded me of Anna Pauker, remember the Rumanian, the head killer, the woman killer? P-a-u-k-e-r, I think its spelled.

I felt, because he told me, and I was left there about 2:30, he said he'd pick me up at 7:30 for dinner, what was I to do for four hours? I didn't have any books. So I said I wanted to go down to the press. Well, of course, Nehru immediately thought that I was going to use this, but I didn't.

Later on, Nan told me they appreciated the fact that I never revealed anything to the press. I said I never thought of it. You see, I did it [went to the press] because my son-Heffelfingerin-law, wherever I went, including Israel, he had notified the UP press.

JF: That you were coming. Bradley EF: So that was very helpful. Society JF: Indeed.

EF: Really was. Elizabeth

JF: Did you go around much in India duringwith yourHistorical trip in '51?

EF: Oh, yes.

JF: You were in New Delhi, I know. interview EF: Oh, no, I was all over the place.Minnesota I went to the regular places, but I stayed always with the governors, you see. Calcutta, I stayed with the governor. I stayed with top people, [unclear] men, I remember. Not Krishna, another person. history JF: What was your impression of India at that time? Oral EF: Oh, I adored it. I adored it. They were so marvelous to me, really. She turned me over to her friends, and it was a marvelous experience.

JF: Did you get to see many of the conditions of the peasants?

EF: Yes. In Calcutta, when I was there, I nearly died. I never can seem to escape Calcutta. Oh, I've been all over India. I like India. Indira [Gandhi] was there when I was there.

JF: What were your impressions of her at that time?

77

EF: Obviously, a terrific crush on her father. Her husband was not staying there at the place.

JF: Did you ever meet him?

EF: No, I never did. Never saw him. She had two children, as I remember, and she was just there. I had no impression of her.

JF: You didn't?

EF: No.

JF: She wasn't the sort of person that you looked at and thought some day she's going to be a leader? Heffelfinger EF: No.

JF: I've heard she was a very poor speaker, and still is. Bradley EF: I don't remember. She's a tough egg. Society JF: A lot of staying power.

EF: Yes, and Sanjay. Elizabeth JF: Her son. I was reading some of the clippings in your book, and one of the comments you made was that Nehru's Congress Party appearedwith Historical to be in a good deal of trouble, from criticism that he was not a strong enough leader, that he was too idealistic, too far removed. Did you get that impression?

EF: That's in my book. I did. Also, a lot of women, but they were all so old. It was an old government. I rememberinterview one time when I went to India, and going back to Parliament, there was a Lakshmi Menom who was an Minnesotaoutstanding woman, and she was head of the foreign policy department, and she was terrific, but I talked to her about the age of the people, and they were old, and they looked old, and they acted old. The one beside Lakshmi Menom, the outstanding person, was a memberhistory of the Communist Party, came from Calcutta. And she had everything-- marvelous speaker, young, attractive. It made you sort of sick to see some of these dodos around. They justOral kept in. You see [unclear] is, right now, they're all old.

JF: Right.

EF: It's just a matter of time until--

JF: Everything turns around again. Of course, even Mrs. Gandhi now isn't young anymore.

EF: I know.

78 JF: When you were in these various countries, let's say in India, how did you feel accepted as a woman representing the United States? Did you get any idea?

EF: No, but I wasn't representing anything. I was just interested. I was very much interested. I'd been president at the hospital, Northwestern Hospital, and I was very much interested in nurses' training, very much interested in the hospitals, and horrified by the lack of controlling infection. But I always visited hospitals in all countries. That was my interest. And, of course, birth control. Really.

JF: In India, at that time? Would have been nice if they had seen the light.

EF: There were a lot of clinics, but, of course, one thing they had were beads, and I remember walking through old Delhi with this friend of mine, who was a theosophist, and also she was a member of Parliament, appointed by the president, and putting my hand out, and I put them on the beads, and they were on this cow, all around the cow, and she said, "Oh,Heffelfinger no, they turned that around. That's for fertility now, the beads are."

Then later, that was explained to me by a man by the name of [unclear] Singh, who wrote the famous book, The Last Train from Pakistan, he was a Sikh, andBradley had been asked by Nehru to be head of public relations, but he didn't like the family, so he turned it down. He was a character. But he told my husband, "They have these beads for women toSociety count when they go to bed, but they forgot that the poor dears had no light in their houses, so they put them on the cow instead, to be fertile." [Laughter] Elizabeth JF: So much for that idea. Oh, dear. That's great. with Historical After your Indian trip, in 1953 you were an official delegate to a UNESCO conference.

EF: Yes. We were sent there. You see, in San Diego--

JF: How did you get involvedinterview with UNESCO, though, before you got sent as a delegate? Did anything happen in 1952 where Minnesotayou were called in...?

EF: No. It was a political appointment, and it was done by two or three people close to Eisenhower, becausehistory they didn't know. You see, it had a very bad name as being communist, particularly in San Diego. What they had done, they'd taken a forum, and presented the material that wentOral into this general forum as a policy of UNESCO, and just taken it out of context. It was just a conference. Crazy.

So Congress was not going to give any more money, because the uproar in Southern California was something, and they were not going to give any more money, and the conference in '53, in August, I think it was, in the summertime, they wanted to get their own man in. They wanted to get Luther Evans, who was head of the Library of Congress, a very brilliant man, in, and also they wanted someone to evaluate this whole thing.

Of course, I didn't know one single thing about it, but Irving Saloman had been with the

79 Education Department of the Ford Foundation, and he knew a lot about it. So they wanted us to--it was time of McCarthy--investigate, a nasty word. So they sent the two of us as delegates of the president--I have a picture of that first one, I think--with the idea of evaluation and finding out whether the president should officially support it or not. We had no directions from State.

It was the most frustrating situation I ever got into, because I knew nothing about UNESCO, not a thing. But I had a very fortunate thing happen to me. My doctor here in Hennepin County, his wife was a cousin of Gunnar Myrdal, a very famous man.

JF: The economist.

EF: Yes. And his family came from Willmar. When they found out I was going, they wanted me to take pictures. Dr. Figel [phonetic] gave me pictures of family in Willmar to take to Gunnar and Alpha Myrdal. It developed that he was head of the economy of UNESCO, of that division, and she was head of social science. So I took these pictures, andHeffelfinger then I told her exactly that I wanted to be very clear where I stood on this McCarthyism, and this was not a witch hunt, but it was very important for the continued support of the president to have two disinterested people evaluate it. Bradley It was awful, because I couldn't understand, because we had no directions, except to put Luther Evans in there. There was one woman there, who later marriedSociety Ellsworth Bunker--Carol Laise. She was a terrific person--and is--a very close friend of mine. I said, "I don't know. Do they want to continue this? Does State want to continue it or not?" There were no directions at all. They just threw us in. They knew we knew nothing,Elizabeth you see.

Anyway, Irving had a lot of money, thankwith goodness, Historical because he entertained like mad, and the first thing he did was to have all of the staff, UNESCO American staff, for a cocktail party. I've never seen so much riffraff in all of my life! It was awful.

Then we found out that sixteen percent of the staff belonged to the French Communist Party. Of course, San Diego was oninterview the right track, but they were way off. It was far worse than I ever thought it would be, you see. Minnesota

JF: The French Communist Party? history EF: Yes, the French Communist Party. One of the things we had to do, we did have one directionOral--was to bring personnel policy in accord with the United Nations policy, you see. That was a terrific job, because everybody was against it.

So I went to Alpha, and I told her exactly what the thing was, and she was terribly helpful. They had me for lunch every day. He was a devil, really. He was something. But she couldn't have been more wonderful. They got the word out that this was what we were here for--where we stood on McCarthy, you see, and the whole thing.

Dillon was ambassador to France, Douglas Dillon, and he was very helpful, because the whole thing would have been...it is important. It's important as a side issue, very important, on our

80 relations, cultural relations, with these countries, and it was important, but we couldn't have it go the way it was, you see.

It finally ended up that we won, and they were brought before the Hague, and we had to pay a big fine by dismissing them. Really, we had to pay through the nose on that, but we were able to get rid of them.

JF: But you got rid of them?

EF: We got rid of them.

Also, another thing was that there was sort of a pork barrel, and everybody wanted a piece, and we wanted three major projects--one in teaching of science, one to help the dry lands, and I forget what the third one was, but it was teaching of science, and one in the area where it was so very dry, the desert, the development to-- Heffelfinger

JF: Irrigation.

EF: Irrigation. We won all these things. We didn't win thatBradley first time. We just got Luther Evans in. Then I remember that at the end--I had my daughter with me, who was sixteen--there was a party at the Champs d'Elysées for the delegates, so I rememberSociety walking up to Gunnar Myrdal, and he was talking to the Israeli delegate, and I just believe he was saying, “Yes," that Eisenhower was a "Boy Scout," and the delegate from Israel joined in. Well, I'd had just enough champagne to not be in any mood to take that,Elizabeth and I drew myself up, and I said, "When the delegate from Israel and the United Nations calls the President of the United States a `Boy Scout,' I'll have to be forced to report this to mywith government," Historical and I turned around and walked off.

I went over to a group of Arabs that were sitting there, and I walked up to my daughter. I said, "Was that awful?"

She said, "No! Good for you,interview Mom, good for you, Mom." [Laughter] Minnesota Anyway, there was a group of Arabs, about five or six. One I knew very well, my [phonetic], who was the vice chancellor of the University of Alexandria in Egypt, and I told him this story, and he screamedhistory with laughter. He said, "That's the funniest thing I ever heard of."

At aboutOral that time, Myrdal came up, and he said, "Do you tell everything you know?"

And I said, "Yes, and I make up everything I don't know. [Laughter]

I got word to Mary Lord--who was on human relations, very important to the United Nations-- never to have that delegate from Israel to her house for a long time. So we punished him well, in our own way. [Laughter]

JF: You probably punished him enough by going over and talking to the Arab delegation.

81 EF: Oh, yes. It was funny. They just died. They thought it was funny. The Arabs have a sense of humor. I didn't find the Jewish had much sense of humor.

JF: That's funny. My sister said that. She works in Washington with a number of the Arab delegations, and she said the same thing.

EF: Then after that, this UNESCO, I went to three conferences. I went in '53, I went in '54.

JF: To Uruguay.

EF: And I went in '56 to India. Then I also, at the same time that I was in Paris, there was an ECOSOC [Economic and Social Council of the United Nations] meeting, about which I knew nothing. So I was a public observer, so I got thrown into that. You had to swim to survive, you see. I was an observer, and I met a lot of people later that I'd met in other conferences. Heffelfinger Perkins, who was president of the University of Delaware, was unable to go to the executive committee, the international, so I was sent to those in between, as acting member. Carol Laise was always there. She would keep telling me, "Keep your eye on that budget, keep your eye on that budget." I remember that. But it was quite a challenge.Bradley

JF: Yes, I imagine. Society

EF: Because I knew nothing. I knew a little bit more after I left, but not much, I don't think. Elizabeth JF: The UNESCO conference in Uruguay, the year after that, was that interesting? with Historical EF: Yes, I was there, and I went there as a member of the executive committee first, because we were entertained by one of the meetings in Brazil, and it was very funny, because we arrived in Rio, and the night before, the head man, the governor--or whoever it is in Brazil--is it a president? interview JF: It is a president. Minnesota

EF: It is a president. Had been thrown out, you see, and this was our host. [Laughter] So we sat at the hotel.history There were about fifteen of us. They were all men except me. Fifteen plus some staff. So we sat in the hotel, we never saw the man. [Laughter] We sat there for three days, never laidOral eyes on him. He was the one writing the cultural history of the world. You know, there are a lot of countries that lived on UNESCO, the projects they did. Oh, I tell you, it was a bonanza. I ran into it in Chile. Whole families were on these things. This United Nations really supported a lot of people.

JF: Did you give reports on that?

EF: Yes, I always did. But I don't know--

JF: Verbal reports, as well as written reports?

82

EF: I gave written reports. But you never know who sees them, because it goes to the State Department, somebody doesn't agree with you. Also, don't forget, I was Republican, they were Democrat, so I never knew what happened. That's Foggy Bottom, really.

For instance, one funny thing happened. In Uruguay, when we were voting on whether to go to India or not, and the word came down that we were to pick this other country--I forget what it was, might have been the United States, I don't remember--not to go to India. Well, I was absolutely set on India myself. I thought it would be marvelous, and it was marvelous in India. Because UNESCO is more important there than religion, because it's education.

Athel Spilhaus was on that. I think that he was put on the executive committee, but then he was taken off. He got in some trouble, I don't know what. But anyway, I said to Athel, because I did have access to Dulles in a very indirect way, I said "I'm going to sent him an eyes-only telegram." Heffelfinger So I sent him an eyes-only telegram, a cable. It could be changed if they insisted And the cable came back, and was delivered to me when I was sitting in a staff meeting, and the staff starting fighting with each other. One man pointed to another and said, "That was your idea." "No, it wasn't, it was your idea." Bradley

But you see, before I had joined this outfit, I always thought thatSociety Dulles wrote out all the directions, and I find out that they're way down at the bottom, then they work up. So the bottom level is very important in the planning. So we went to India. Elizabeth JF: In '56? with Historical EF: In '56. Then, on the executive committee, I met in Uruguay--I told you about that--and we were also in Venice for six weeks one time. This was deciding on these pork barrel things. Other times, I would get there early, you see, before the conference. It was very exciting, and I learned an awful lot. interview JF: I can imagine. Minnesota

EF: I couldn't not learn. The field was open to learners. history JF: It fitted in with your interests, anyway. Oral EF: Yes. But it was frustrating, because in Venice, I was walking along, and [I heard] Luther Evans and one of the top people in the state who was always at meetings--I don't know what position, but he was on the staff, and he was very close to Luther Evans--and cables would come to him, you see. They should have come to me, because I was acting member, but I was bypassed. I was walking along, and I overheard Luther Evans say that this cable--which he was the head of the whole thing--and "they take it right to Luther Evans about how to play his politics." And I heard this thing. I just shot my mouth off about, "Where was I? They should come to me." I raised just really holy H about this.

83 Luther turned to me one time, he said, "I can't figure out whether you're awfully smart or awfully dumb."

I said, "You'd better figure that out yourself. I don't know."

JF: What a thing for him to say.

EF: You see, because I stopped that thing. But it was frustrating.

JF: Oh, I can imagine.

EF: Many things happened that I just didn't understand what was going on, until I found out that everything this man took to Evans.

Then we had a protocol man, this was in India, and we were supposed toHeffelfinger do our entertaining, and we did it at some--no, this was in Uruguay. We stayed at a run-down club. He had three parties, and I remember the last party was on the night that the British had their big party, which they turned out two bands and all. It was really the works. On that night, I asked this protocol man why. He said, "We picked the date first and we kept it." Bradley

So I said, "Who's coming?" He'd invited the Nationalist ChineseSociety and the Russians, and the English weren't coming because they had their own party. So I said, "You're not going to see me. I'm not going to get in that potpourri." Elizabeth So I went to the English party instead. But I reported him. Imagine doing this thing--the same hor d'oeuvres were warmed up each time.with It was Historical just awful. Yet the wives went along with it. They could have done a beautiful job for the same price. But he went back. I think later he committed suicide. But he was mentally off.

JF: Sounds like it. interview EF: But there was a lot of fun, Minnesotabecause Athel Spilhaus was--is--a real good person, very amusing. We had a lot of friends together, particularly at the executive meetings.

JF: Did you havehistory a chance to meet with the other delegates, too, informally?

EF: Oh,Oral yes. A lot. One very funny thing happened. I had a rare assortment I asked for dinner, I think it was in Uruguay. It was in Uruguay. The only other woman on the executive committee was the Princess Fuma [phonetic] of Laos. She was the wife of Fuma, who was thrown out, you see. She was half Chinese and half French. We were entertained the night we got there, at this man's house, and they had a great to-do about who came first in protocol, the secretary of the Republican Party or Princess Fuma of Laos. Oh, they had a great time with that. We became very good friends, and she was fun.

Then she decided she wanted to be on the executive committee. We were supporting somebody else, you see. Anyway, I decided she shouldn't, because I just knew it wasn't right. This is before

84 it came up, we had orders. I felt you couldn't trust her. Sure enough, on one resolution, she went along with this on all the planning, and when it came time to present it to the big conference, again she got up and took the other side publicly, you see.

Anyway, there was one man on the State Department who really fell for her, and I had this party. I had a man from Brazil whose family has lived on this sort of thing for a long time, Santa Cruz, whose daughter was said to be viewed in an amorous way by Prince Phillip. He would have loved Miss Santa Cruz. He was that sort of a man. One was Lougier, a Frenchman, a great friend of Eva Curie, and he was a left-winger. Santa Cruz was just himself, whatever [unclear].

Then I had the princess, and I had this State Department man. Well, anyway, I don't know how it was, but I remember he left, then she left, and I noticed it. The next morning, he appeared at the meeting with purple, purple circles, and she looked just as blithe as could be. Lougier turned to me. He said, "Oh, look what love does." Heffelfinger EF: Then they found out, the State Department, found out that Fuma's brother, you see, was a communist. This man was very upset, because he was really pushing for this woman to be on the executive committee, he really was. I never mentioned anything at all about it. It's just one of those things that love took over his judgment. And he was good,Bradley but he was highly embarrassed. He told me he had no idea about the background. [Laughter] So there are a lot of wheels within wheels. Society

JF: Yes. Do you remember anything particularly about the UNESCO conference in India? Elizabeth EF: Oh, yes. They just turned the city out. with Historical JF: I believe in your papers it talks about the initial reception at the Red Fort.

EF: Yes, the whole thing was lighted. They went absolutely crazy. The secretary of education was a very good friend of mine. He was an untouchable. He was a twin. They were both untouchables and then knighinterviewted by the British, and he was secretary of education. Later, he was general of the health...WHO. HeMinnesota was secretary of that, secretary general. He was a marvelous man. His brother was the chief economist. They were both untouchables. A lovely, lovely person. But he couldn't come to one conference, and he would always go along with the United States. It was ahistory personal friendship, it really was. I can't think of his name. [Dr. Mudaliar (Sir Arcutt)] Oral JF: I wish I'd written it down, but I saw it in the...

EF: Yes. He came out here at the house, and he was really a saint. The chancellor is always the governor, but he was vice chancellor at University of Madras, and when I was there one Christmas, he took me in and he showed me what the United States had done in the way of books, and he said, "This is what your country has done." He was very pro-United States.

Then when he left to go, he turned me over to a man by the name of Janankar [Dr. N. S.], whom I heard from just lately. He's over at the University of London. He was a real Soviet. Janankar--

85 this was in Venice that he first appeared. He [Mudaliar] said that he turned him over and asked Janankar to support my decision, because it made sense to them to concentrate on certain things instead of pork barrel stuff. Junankar--I couldn't get to him. I couldn't reach at all.

Then I was told the delegate from Syria was also the head of University of Beirut. He was a Syrian, but he lived in Lebanon, and he was very helpful. He said, "If you change your position this way, I can vote for it." It was very helpful. This was in Venice.

I also knew the one from Liberia very well, and he was in Venice, and he was the one who told me far more than the CIA did. The CIA knew nothing. He was the one that told me Junankar was a Soviet communist.

Anyway, in Venice, of course, the British would always eat together and stay at the Royal [unclear]. The British would always eat together, and I would always eat with Junankar, the one from Liberia, and Syria. The four of us would eat together, and all exceptHeffelfinger the Syrian, who was redheaded and fair, but we would eat together, much to the disgust of the British. But we'd eat all of our meals...I mean, not breakfast generally, but we'd eat lunch together; and we got to know each other very well. Bradley One time, I saw Junankar just as drunk as he could be in the square. You know, Indians are terrible drinkers. That's the way I really finally reached him, becauseSociety the next day, his [unclear] were blacker than his skin. He was a south Indian. He was stumbling through the square, and I started to kid him. I said, "You know, your circles make you look fair." Anyway, we got to be very good friends. It was a very funny thing. Elizabeth

One of the things he wanted to set up waswith a simultaneous Historical conference between the United States, and I stood out against that state, because I knew he would put us in an embarrassing position, so I really worked against him on a lot of things, you see.

He came over here as a VIP, and they asked him where he wanted to go. He had five days. He said he'd like to come up interviewhere and visit me. So he arrived, you see. He had a big bag that was all twine around it, and I had a womanMinnesota who had been here, she's older, about thirty years, a Norwegian. And he was going to let her carry his bag.

I said, "Junankar,history she's too old. You'll have to carry that." You see, he considered her an untouchable. And I said, "She can't carry that bag." Oral Anyway, we took him up to our place at Gordon, Wisconsin, and there was no electricity or anything, and he couldn't get over that we didn't have electricity. We had outdoor plumbing, and he said, "What do I do if I have to go at night?"

I said, "You have to run, because there are bear out there. But," I said, "Junankar, they'll never see you, because you're so black." And he laughed. He thought that was funny.

But anyway, he got back, and he was here, and we went and talked. I told him one time that I was going to take him out with the woman who did human rights for the mayor. I said, "You

86 know, she isn't very attractive, Junankar. She's sort of fat and dumpy. She's got pimples, too. That's not an attractive job for an attractive woman." She was beautiful, and when he met her, he fell [unclear], and he said, "You're always kidding me."

I said, "You need some sense of humor."

So anyway, when I went to India later, I told this story about him, and his children laughed so hard one fell off the chair at what went on. He said, "You're ruining my discipline."

Well, anyway, we became very good friends up there. My husband was with some fishing friends, so they came back from fishing, feeling no pain, and proceeded to give him a lecture all night on the free enterprise system. Well, he just sat there and got moodier and nastier by the minute. It was very embarrassing, really. It was awful, just terrible.

Anyway, when we left, I said, "At least you know what a "backhouse" isHeffelfinger now."

But he didn't make it. He got back to Washington, and was debriefed, I call it, by Carol Laise, and she said that he was really quite nasty. She said he said he saw things that he didn't want to see, and it upset him, see. Bradley

Society So anyway, he moved to London. That was years ago. I had a card from him just the other day. His daughter was married, so he sent me a formal invitation. So I wrote him, "Dear Capitalist..." You see. He was acting head of education underElizabeth Mudalier --that was his name was. But he was over here. And, of course, the Liberian was over here, but they wanted to come here. So they came. We're godparents of the Liberian'swith son. Historical

JF: Oh, really?

EF: Yes. He died, brain tumor. He came from two tribes. His father was king of one tribe, his mother was queen of another--Sierrainterview Leone and the other. They divided them, you see. So we did our part like that. Minnesota

I remember thehistory one from Monaco, and I suddenly remembered there was a delegate from Monaco. A cousin of Mr. Evans had married a Monacan whose father was mayor and had been best manOral in Prince Ranier's wedding.

Anyway, I remembered him, so I wired him, said, "Can you keep your delegate away from that meeting?" So I got that vote. You just repeat, because this was on the pork barrel.

JF: A little horse trading.

EF: Yes, horse trading. But it all worked out. It was fun, because I liked it.

JF: Did you travel around India before or after that 1956 convention?

87

EF: I did one Christmas in India. I stayed over and I visited. I went down to (unclear), which is the [unclear], and that was very interesting. Is this on?

JF: Yes, it is.

EF: I went down to Kerala. I went to Mysore, then I went to Kerala State, which is the first state that went communist. It had a Catholic church in almost every mile or so, the whole thing. Big fat priests, people starving to death. Not starving, that's not right, because there was enough to eat, but I got down to Trivandrum, way down to the tip of India, and guess who I ran into there? The delegate from Switzerland, having his communist meeting with all the people. That's what I was told by the council, that this was the seat of communism. Later, it went communist, you see. He looked very surprised. He was head of the Library of Congress in Switzerland. But I was startled to see him. Heffelfinger JF: Yes, I think he probably was, too.

EF: Yes, he was. He was utterly startled. But he was all done up in Indian clothes, in sandals, and they had a lot of very straight people. I was told by our Bradleyconsulate--you always looked up the consulate or whoever it was--that they were having a meeting. I'm not saying he was or wasn't, but I'm saying he was there. Society

JF: He was there. Elizabeth EF: And very, very important. But it went communist. Then under the constitution, India was able to take it over and make it into thewith federal thing,Historical you see. But it is still communist. Always has been. Because it was the first state.

JF: 1956 was also the same year that you had your run-in with Drew Pearson, I believe.

EF: Oh, yes. Well, that'sinterview all in the paper. Minnesota JF: That was interesting.

EF: Wasn't thathistory lovely?

JF: Yes.Oral

EF: I tell you. They've repeated that. We were coming out of the Coles' house one night about ten o'clock at night, and I said, "By popular demand, we're doing it again," and my husband loved it, because Drew Pearson, he'd been head of finance, and his papers were stolen at the Mayflower Hotel by somebody Drew Pearson got in there. It was all in the paper, what state had given him-- what they'd given him. Furious.

So later, after this run-in, he wrote a column that appeared in the St. Paul paper, in which he said that he'd met a very personable lady to whom he had not been introduced, and it was too bad that

88 I had a husband, and he was told never to fight with me, so he put his tail between his legs and left. The only thing he was sorry about was that I had a husband who put rodent pellets into his flour. [Laughter] That was funny.

Of course, the press were just waiting, you know, because they notified us he was coming, and we got over there. It was really funny.

JF: He had said, too, that President Eisenhower had had a heart attack.

EF: When he didn't at all. What he did was, we couldn't get him on the plane, he was having so much fun. The press got lost. There was traffic or something, and the press got lost, and they said it was Ike that got lost. He didn't get lost at all. I was right there with him. It was ridiculous!

JF: It makes you wonder if you can trust what's in the newspapers. Heffelfinger

EF: I know it. Oh, boy. I think our papers are so awful.

JF: 1956 was a good year for you, then. Bradley

EF: Yes, it certainly was. Society

JF: It's been about two hours now. Would you like to go on? Elizabeth EF: I think not. with Historical JF: Okay, good. This is a good stopping point right here.

EH: I couldn't remember which country it was. I knew it was south of India. The letter from Thailand had been destroyed. I don't know about that, because I have some other letters, and they were just jotted. They're interviewnot letters. They're just thoughts, you know what I mean. I finished Ceylon, yes. Minnesota

JF: Your letters are fabulous, because you tell us so much in your letters. history EH: But this one, this was very important, because I went from Ceylon. Then from Ceylon, we went to OralSingapore and then Penang, and then my daughter-in-law left me. That's what she said. She went to Ankara.

In 1959, when I was taking a pleasure trip with my daughter, Mrs. Peavey Heffelfinger, Jr., we parted in Singapore, and I flew to Jakarta and stayed with the ambassador, Howard Jones, whom I had written that I would be his houseguest. On the way flying to Jakarta, another person on the plane was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Johnson. I had met him in Thailand, where he had been ambassador. Thailand was the home of the ugly American, and I heard a lot about him.

89 When Pibul Singran, the head of the government, was told that there had been a takeover by the opposition, instead of doing something, he went to his law books and said, "But this isn't legal."

In the meantime, the new government was thoroughly ensconced. Pibul Singran--[pronounced] Songren or something like that--was a great friend of our ambassador, who was known as the ugly ambassador. When I got to Thailand, I was met by the ambassador's wife and also two very good Thai friends of mine. One was Amy Meesook, who at that time was head of educational television. She is related to royalty, but as well as I know her, I couldn't tell you how, because she wouldn't discuss it; but she did take me to royal cremations, royal weddings, and when the queen came, she would always hobble on her knees in front of the queen and kiss the ground and bow in front of her. She was a particularly intelligent woman, and has been here in our house a couple of times. I met her years before 1959.

While in Thailand, I was a guest of the secretary of education, Pin Malakul--a lovely person who was married to the lady-in-waiting to the queen. Incidentally, my friend HeffelfingerAmy Meesook had no time for her whatsoever, and said she was an awful snob and had no brains, but endured her, and, of course, we saw her at these special occasions that I was taken to.

I had a very thorough briefing in '56, and a briefing was againBradley set up for me in the foreign aid field, to which my daughter was invited, and also the head of the USIS--United States Information Service--who was a particular friend of mine. WhenSociety they came to the point on telecommunications, I said, "Are you bringing that up again? You brought it up to me two years ago. You said the same thing. Has nothing been done in two years?" The USIS man and Posy, my daughter-in-law, both had to put their handsElizabeth up so they couldn't see they were laughing, because it struck them so funny. It really floored the man who was doing the briefing. There were about ten men at the table, and I saidwith ano therHistorical thing, that, "I'm very delighted to be briefed again, but it's the same thing you briefed me on two years ago, but I'm astounded that you all have so little to do that you're briefing just one person. If you did this to everybody who comes over to Thailand, you'd never get anything done, and maybe that's the answer to the situation over here." [Laughter] interview I then suggested if they really wantedMinnesota to do something, why didn't they get some good feed and make their chickens fatter. All you got when you bought them at the store were just skin and bones. I might say I was not at all popular. history In 1960, when my husband and I went back, my husband, who is very much interested in all kinds ofOral agriculture--that's his business--was briefed, and I was advised not to come to the briefing. [Laughter] That was in 1960.

Anyway, in 1959, going back to 1959, as I say, I was met by the ambassador and Amy Meesook and a friend. Amy had just gotten out of the hospital and made an attempt to tell me that there was something very special. I've never seen anybody so rude as the ambassador's wife was to Mrs. Meesook. She obviously had no idea what her status was in the government--head of national television.

I was whisked off to the ambassador's house for lunch, and they were so stuffy, and obviously

90 something was on their mind that I was a bad actor. So I thought I would really stir them up, and I said, "Tell me, how do you feel about the recognition of Red China?"

Well, there was a mild explosion over that, and when I left, the USIS man came and picked me up. The wife and the ambassador went out to the car and he said, "I want this woman"--meaning me--"followed. She's a very dangerous person. She doesn't believe in our philosophy of life at all, and I want her followed." He then presented me with my list of appointments, and on that list, it left out my Thai friends completely, and I had quite a few, including the secretary of education. He had planned to have me see schools. Also I wanted to see orphanages and nurses' training and, of course, schools and hospitals. Those were my particular things that I always wanted to see.

I found, when the USIS man gave me my schedule, that I was not down for anything like that, but I was lunching with this person and lunching with that person at the embassy, and most of the time, I was with the wife of the ambassador. I turned to him and I said, "I'mHeffelfinger sorry, but I'm not going anyplace with that bitchy woman. You better just tell her, because I'm here on my own, and I don't intend to see her again." The man didn't say anything. He said, "It shall be taken care of, Madam." But he noised it around that this is what I'd said, and, as a result, the whole USIS outfit turned out to give me a whoopee time over there--on theirBradley own at night--so I got around her. But he was known as the "ugly American." Society After leaving my daughter in Penang--as I say, Johnson was on the plane--I complained to him. I went into detail about what I had said, and the whole situation, the foreign aid taken from a public citizen's point of view. He was in agreement.Elizabeth We landed together in Jakarta, where we were taken by Howard Jones, the ambassador, to his house. I remember that Johnson was feeling very badly, and he went to bed right away.with Mrs. Historical Jones was up in the country. We were going to join her the next day in the country. This Howard Jones was really a wonderful person. Anyway, toward evening, when we were going to have a drink, and still no Johnson, I said, "I wonder if he's alive, Howard," and he said, "You know, I was thinking that, too. Will you come with me while we open the door together?" Well, he had slept about six hours straight. He was absolutely dead and wasn'tinterview feeling well. Minnesota But Ambassador Jones told me a very interesting story. This is in the days of Sukarno, and there was an anti-American demonstration. He said that he was called from the office that there was a crowd on theirhistory way. There were some already at the embassy, the home, and there were more coming, and that they were sending somebody out right away from the embassy. I don't know who, butOral just in case of trouble. Mr. Jones told me that this did take place. They broke the gate down, and that he and Mrs. Jones, hand in hand, walked out. The embassy was in beautiful grounds, and they walked out to meet them, and he held up his hand, at last, and he said, "Welcome." He said, "You know, I asked for this job. I love your country. I was here as foreign aid minister for many years several years ago, and I asked for this job. I wanted to come back because I like your people, and I want to see you anytime. Don't hesitate when you have trouble, to let me know. But please let me know beforehand, and then I want you as my guests, as many as could be."

And they all clapped for him, and they talked back and forth and asked questions, which I

91 thought was very interesting. It was very dramatic to me to think of the man and wife going out to meet this crowd, and the crowds over there. You know, they can get very unruly, and they're very emotional. I don't know why they were coming. He didn't tell me that.

And then he said to the crowd, "I came out, and my wife wants to come with me because she feels the same way as I do." And of course that won their hearts right there, that he received them that way. He later was transferred to Honolulu, in charge of the university, I think. But I thought it was an interesting story.

JF: Very much so.

EH: That was '59, wasn't it? Howard Jones. For some reason, I was on my way to the Philippines in order to meet my daughter-in-law in Hong Kong, and I didn't have a visa, which he didn't know about. When I got to the Philippines, they wouldn't let me in the country. That took about twenty-four hours, and then we dropped an engine flying to Hong HeffelfingerKong, so I had quite a time until I caught up with her.

Did I talk about Burma? On this same trip? Bradley JF: I think you talked about your other trip to Burma in '56. Society EH: Manley Fleishman--did I talk about him?

JF: No. Elizabeth

EH: When we got to Burma, which waswith before Historical going to Jakarta --backtracking--we had a letter of introduction sent to the top, to the man who owned a newspaper, by Manley Fleishman, who was deputy head of OSS during the war--a Burmese. This man, this journalist, took us out, had us for luncheon and then took us out to meet the head of defense, who was Ne Win and Kitty, his wife. Later he was the one who took over the government from U Nu, and then became head of the government, where heinterview is at the present. I think I've told about the scientist, didn't I? Minnesota JF: Yes.

EH: Of the CIA.history That was '59. I did want to say this, that you may wonder what this had in connection with politics with Minnesota, but I religiously wrote letters to the entire state central committeeOral and to the congressmen about my feelings about our foreign policy, because I'd been thoroughly briefed, not only in the foreign aid, but in my own special case, that I liked the hospitals, the schools, etc., where I'd visited, but particularly I was interested in the reaction of people vis-à-vis the United States.

For instance, in '51, when I was in India as a guest of the Indian government, I was staying, at one point, with the head of health. Her name was Rajkumari Amrit Kaur. Rajkumari means princess. She was a royal princess, and dearly beloved in India. I met her here several times. There's some letters in the file for her. I met her here in this country later several times, and she was responsible for the hospitals and the human side. She was a member of Parliament. One of

92 the things that I discussed with her...well, I went to stay with her three days, and I stayed a week, because I had a terrific fever, up to 105, and I remember she brought a doctor in at twelve o'clock one night when she was very much worried about me. I had no pills with me, except something I was given which was no longer on the market, but for this high temperature that you get up there, and I had a bottle along with me, and she said, "My dear, I haven't seen any of these for years. We don't get them over here, and they're so necessary."

When I left, I gave them to her, and she said, "But you're giving me hundreds and hundreds of dollars." Well, I said, "Look what you've done for me. And give them to somebody very important to your government who is ill." And she said, "I do want you to take two or three," which I'm glad she did, because, later, leaving India and went to Thailand, I was taken very sick there, and I really needed those pills.

But at dinner one night with her sister, I got on the subject of birth control. How necessary it was, and the little I had contributed in this country, and how necessary itHeffelfinger was to India. There was silence between them, and they looked at each other very knowingly, and I didn't know, but I found out that they were ardent Catholics. But her answer was, "Well, I think that everything has been changed, because we no longer allow marriages until they're seventeen, and I think that they'll have enough sense not to produce children." I couldn'tBradley help but laugh and kidded her about it. Society But that was the time that they were having a terrific famine in India, and she had people for luncheon with me, and she said that, "In the United States, the congressmen are saying that they can't send us wheat because we would give it Elizabethto the cattle roaming on the street to eat. They don't know anything about India." with Historical I immediately wrote a long letter, which I sent to all the congressmen, all the Republican congressmen, and I sent to the whole state, how necessary it was, and how they were reacting towards the remarks made by some--maybe one stupid person down in Washington. Anyway, as a result, I think it helped, because it was a long letter, and very much to the point, and they did send some wheat. So maybeinterview I had a little bit to do with it. Minnesota The reaction of people back in Minnesota whenever I saw them, how much they enjoyed my letters, they were able to understand better the foreign relations. And then, of course, I went around the statehistory once a year, and I spoke before nonpolitical groups--like the Rotarians, like the PTAs. I went in one town, I think it was Fergus Falls, and they dated me up for five speeches in one day,Oral but they were anxious to hear these things. I stayed off of politics because it wouldn't have been fair. But, of course, it did make them more aware of the Eisenhower foreign policy, because that was the thing that I was interested in.

So many people spoke about the letters--how much they enjoyed them. And they also ran in the paper--a column called "The Star Lady"--which I don't think was very good, but at least I was in touch with them.

Going back to '51, when I was there as guest of the government--this was a private trip--my schedule was set up by Prime Minister Nehru's sister, Nan Pandit, for me, and I visited different

93 people. For instance, I visited the governor in Calcutta, who was a very, very old man, and he lived right in the middle of the city, in this tremendous viceroy's palace. One of the people who took me out, an Indian, said, "You know, I always get a thrill in walking and seeing this palace from the street, because under the British, no Indian could walk on this side of the street. This was reserved." And he was so proud of it.

All around on the streets--and the palace was tremendous--really. I was scared after I left dinner, which was always the same thing, because the governor was unmarried, a very religious man, a Hindu, and so we had nothing but vegetarian food, and it was badly cooked. So I used to slip away at noon and go someplace for lunch where I could get something in my stomach that I liked.

But all around the palace were the sacred cows, mooching around, picking up the dung on the street and eating what they could. Calcutta is a horrible place. I just shudder every time I have to go through. Another place that I visited was the governor in Bombay, whoHeffelfinger was Rajkumari Amrit Kaur's brother. His name was Sing, and I was met when I got there by somebody from the USIS, and I was also met by somebody from the paper. The paper asked what was my attitude toward foreign aid and the government of India. And I said that I felt very definitely that we should cooperate fully with the government that we were giving wheatBradley to, to find out what their ideas were. For instance, they were saturating Burma with rice, and Burma didn't want rice. [I said] that they had to take more consideration because we were makingSociety more enemies in certain lines by being so dictatorial than we were friends.

That was in the paper, and that night, there wasElizabeth a dinner party for me--at least the next day there was a luncheon party for me. There were about forty people, all Indians, and they all complimented me on what I said, becausewith it expressed Historical what they felt. Well, I said, "My government didn't like it." I said, "I was to be entertained tomorrow night by the American councilman who canceled it, because I had not asked them what to say to the press. [Laughter] And they said, "Well, will you get in trouble?" And I said, "No, I'm a free agent. I can say what I want. That's the way I felt, and I said it." They said, "And what about your government?" "Well," I said, "they just haveinterview to take it or leave it, as far as I'm concerned." So you can imagine that I was really a very popular personMinnesota to some of them.

JF: Was it 1959, too, when you arrived in India, you made the statement that you could understand whyhistory India was not aligned, why they were neutral, because you could understand that. That also wasn't popular at the time you said it. Oral EH: No, I know. Well, it's nice. I think you have to have...I don't believe in Bella Abzug, the way she did it, but I think that you could express a point of view if you feel that way.

JF: Those were interesting experiences.

EH: I was talking about Kashmir. I visited V. K. Krisha Menon in Delhi, and again they would give a party. This was in '51. Great friends of Nan Pandit's, and he represents foreign policy in the Parliament. I think he was a foreign minister. He was the foreign minister. He was upgraded. But I told him, one of the things, I said, "You know that I don't think your prime

94 minister, Nehru, gives himself enough credit, because people always pick on the things they don't like, and he doesn't let them know the things that he's done." And he said, "Very interesting," Mennen said. "I shall tell him."

So the next day I went to Parliament, and Nehru was speaking. He said, "There are those who claim that I do not give myself enough credit. But after all, I'm not looking for credit. Good deeds speak for themselves, and I'd rather have it the way it is." [Laughter] And I told Mennen about it, and he laughed. He said, "That was your little tap on the hand to shut up."

I went to Kashmir, and that was fascinating. You see, I had not been briefed. I went to Kashmir, there had been an old palace there, and they'd been turning it into a hotel, and it was in the process of being built or added onto or rehabilitated. So I stayed at a hotel downtown called Nedou Hotel. When I walked into this bitter cold, flying over those Himalayas, and we had to go through a very, very narrow place to get into Kashmir--Srinagar--which was really quite terrifying, but one cannot fly through there [unclear]. So I was taken up Heffelfingerto the hotel, and I was turned over to a man who was obviously Chinese. He turned out to be the man who was there to watch me. The situation--I was staying as a guest of Sheik Abdulla [phonetic], who was the head--he was a Muslim, and he was the head of the government. Bradley

The man who owned the hotel had been formerly an assistant toSociety a maharajah. I think the country was Indor in India. A very delightful person, and a great sportsman. He was married--it was a planned marriage--to another Muslim, who was most unattractive. The second day I was there, she said that her husband was so delighted to haveElizabeth me because she said he loves American women, and she said, "You know, this was a planned marriage. He doesn't love me, and I don't know what I can do." She was very unhappy.with OfHistorical course, there wasn't anything I could do.

But I remember then meeting his mother, who was a Muslim, in her apartment in the Nidou Hotel. When I walked in, she punched my stomach and she said, "You should wear a corset." She then showed me her corset, which must have been fifty years old. And in Urdu, she was telling me--this was the motherinterview-in-law of the man who owned the hotel--she told me that her son- in-law was no good, and that sheMinnesota didn't trust him, and she didn't trust Sheik Abdulla. She didn't trust anybody. And then she went to the window, and opened up the window and yelled, "Thief, thief, thief," in Urdu, and I asked her daughter-in-law what she was saying, and she said, "She always says peoplehistory are after her." I said, " She's a little bit nuts, isn't she?" and her daughter-in- law said, "No, not entirely, because there's a lot going on here." Oral You see, Sheik Abdulla, which I found out later--I wasn't briefed before, and I wasn't briefed for anything. I walked in cold, and instead of spending three days, I was there five days. I couldn't get out. The fog came in. I was really terrified, because my door wouldn't lock at night, and I was right on the ground floor.

The idea that Sheik Abdulla, being a Muslim, did not like the idea that Nehru had taken over Kashmir as part of India, and the Muslims felt that it belonged to them because it was overwhelming with Muslims, and Sheik Abdullah was a Muslim. It was only within the last couple of years that he finally got what he wanted--a long time since '51, you see.

95

Anyway, I went hunting with him one time, and all of his bearers went with him, and he killed a tremendous truckful of ducks, which he took back to Srinagar, and the people there would gather around him and wait for him. What he would do--obviously, the blind with him would stand behind him, and he would turn about a quarter of the way around and a bearer would hand him a gun that was already loaded. And one wasn't fast enough and he took the gun and hit the bearer over the head with it because he wasn't fast enough. But he just shot this quantity of ducks going back, and they had them, you see.

I found out one thing, that this Chinese kept hanging around. I'd walk out to the bridge and begin talking to people, and he'd come up and say, "Oh, can I help you?" He never let me alone, this Chinese. I don't know what he wanted to know, but then there he was. And the bearer that I had at Nidou's Hotel spoke no English, so he said. He was there. He had brought down the comforters and all the linen sheets and the blankets, from the palace, and had put them in my room filled with daffodils. And I had everything there and the bearer wasHeffelfinger there--very stately, very handsome, and in his uniform of the royal--not the royal, but of the Muslim royal colors that you find on the doorman at the big hotels in Delhi.

One night, there was an anti-American demonstration led byBradley Sheik Abdullah's son, and it was a communist group. I forget how I got that information, but I saw them. They were out riding, and I asked who they were. And Sheik Abdullah--I never saw SheikSociety Abdullah, because he was in the capitol most of the time, but I just saw his relatives, you see. But I know that his son was head of this group, and they were going to play with the congress in order to free themselves from India. Elizabeth I was very upset one night. I felt very uncomfortable, so I went over to the hotel, the main office, and I said, "Is there an American here?"with And theyHistorical said, "Yes, one of the security people from the United Nations is American," and they showed me which cottage he was in, which was about a half a block from mine, facing each other. And as I opened the door, he opened the door with a pistol in his hand. That nearly threw me. I said, "I wanted to talk to you."

He said, "You know, it's theinterview United Nations. I can't talk to you, but I can listen." And he said, "First of all, I'm going to give youMinnesota some brandy. You look very nervous."

I said, "I am. I feel uncomfortable, and my door won't lock at night, and what is this all about?" history So he told me as much as he could, and he said, "I'm going to take you tonight for dinner. There's Orala certain woman who goes there almost every night. She is the sister of Rajkumari Amrit Kaur." He said, "She's up to no good. She puts on shows, male shows, for mostly the Russians who are here and the Chinese." But he said, "If I can get her drunk enough, she'll tell you everything." So anyway, he said, "I'll pick you up about a certain time," and we went over, and we sat down. He said, "Pay no attention to her. If she thinks we want information, she won't say anything."

So finally, out of curiosity, she came over in about an hour and joined us, and he was really filling her glass up--I could see that--and she was drinking.

96 Then we went back to his apartment, and I said, "I think I'll go home now," because I knew she was going to spend the night. So he walked with me back, and the bearer, in beautiful English said, "I hope you had an informative evening, Madam." [Laughter]

JF: [Laughter] How appropriate.

EH: This nearly threw me, because I couldn't lock my door, you see, at night, and I said, "Yes, delightful evening." But I was there for two more days, because I was fogged in, and I nearly died, I was so scared. I really was.

But anyway, it must have been ten years after that, that I saw Nan Pandit in Washington, and I told her about this, and she said, "Why didn't you tell me?"

And I said, "Because it was none of my business. These are the things that happened to me." Heffelfinger And she said, "You know, we always appreciate the fact that you didn't write a story for a magazine."

I said, "After all, I was your guest. Why would I?" Bradley

There was one funny incident. When I got to Delhi, there wasSociety a courier from the Philippines sitting next to me on the plane. He said, "Where are you going?" And I said--I think I said this before--"I should be met by someone representing the prime minister. I won't be surprised if I am, and I won't be disappointed if I'm not. I can'tElizabeth believe it still."

So I was met, and I read the Bombay paperwith and Historicalfound out where Lady--oh, what is her name-- Mountbatten, Lady Mountbatten, who, it seemed, had some title in Burma. Edwina. They called her Edwina of Burma, Edwina Mountbatten, and she visited Nehru. I saw them together, and I knew perfectly well it was a love affair. It was very obvious. Anyway, she was quite stunning, beautifully groomed, and when she--this was in my letters--when she walked in with a tremendous diamond ring,interview this holy man, so-called, grabbed her hand and said, "My dear, I've never seen this ring before." AndMinnesota she said, "Oh, it's just one that I wear occasionally." But you could see he would just drool over her really, strip her with his eyes, so to speak. But I felt really like a fifth wheel around the place, but he kept me busy. His office set up where I went. I saw all the places I historywanted to see.

JF: VeryOral good. That was 1951, wasn't it?

EH: That was in '51.

JF: Well, in 1959, one of the other places that you went was in Malaya. You were in Penang? Were you in Penang?

EH: That was in Penang, yes. Nothing happened. We were told they had fish that would eat you, and then we were told by other people they wouldn't. But that was just a place that we...not very attractive. But there again, I met USIS men.

97

Oh, there was one other thing about Jakarta when I was there with Jones. I was asked by USIS to speak to a women's group, and the question came up, why did United States feel the way it did toward Red China? And I said, "Well, as a citizen, I don't agree with my government, but I can say so." I said, "We are morally committed to Taiwan. As a citizen, I would like to see us recognize it, or have them part of this universal body." And they all nodded.

I later asked the ambassador about it. "Did I say the right thing?" And he said, "Always tell the truth, how you feel," and he liked that in Americans. I said, "Well, then I passed my Wassermann test, didn't I?" And he said, "Very definitely." Because it was a large group, and they were very anxious. They would link me up with women's groups wherever I went.

JF: Do you have anything else about 1959--your trip, that you wanted to add, Mrs. Heffelfinger?

EH: Let me see. There was a very interesting woman in the PhilippinesHeffelfinger called Senator Pescon. She was a senator, lady senator, and was a great friend of Eisenhower. I had met her in the UNESCO in the executive committee, and we became very good friends. When she found out I was making this trip, she said to come by in the Philippines. It was a long trip from Seattle to the Philippines. We were traveling economy, so I was really bushedBradley when we got to Manila, where she met me. I remember that she handed me my agenda, and I was dated up that whole day, and it was spitefully hot and damp. My daughter-in-law went to bedSociety for the day, and I had one thing after another for almost three days. I was taken to parliament, I was taken to hospitals, I was taken to women's groups, I was taken all over the place. Elizabeth A funny thing happened with Madam Pecson. Later, at a meeting of the international executive committee, of which I was acting member,with the UnitedHistorical States was garnishing a very important post on this question of the pork barrel that they were dealing with on major projects. The Francophiles were against it for some reason or another. The English with us. But we needed every vote to get it. So it came up at a meeting--it was in Venice--and Pecson was sitting next to me, and when they asked us to vote, she put her pencil up, just waving her pencil, which meant nothing. She didn't put herinterview arm up at all, but just waving her pencil. She obviously wanted to vote with the winners' side, so sheMinnesota was [unclear]. I turned to her, and I said, "Are you with us or against us?" She said, "I'm with you," whereupon I held her elbow up, and Loget, the delegate from France, yelled at me, "Heffelfinger cheats! Heffelfinger cheats!" [Laughter] history So they took another vote, and she put her hand up, and then I voted. I was so excited the first vote, thatOral I forgot to vote myself, so the next vote, we had one more. [Laughter]

JF: Don't you wish you had a tape of him yelling that?

EH: This Loget was really quite a character. He was living with a woman he was very much in love with, even when her husband was living. And he was the husband's best friend. But the husband and the wife and his friend were patron saints of the castle, and in his will, he said that if she ever married, that the pictures would go to the state, that she would lose all the pictures. She had a marvelous collection, and lived in a three-story house in Paris. She had Picassos, she had Begets [phonetic], Miros, but mostly Picassos. The whole house was filled with them.

98

I got there for luncheon, and the first thing they wanted me to do was to come down and see some other pictures. So I went down in the first floor with them, but I came up very quickly, because he made a plunge at me, and I came running up the stairs as his friend, his hostess, said, "Oh, Madam, I forgot to warn you, I'm sorry." [Laughter] Whereupon Loget said, "She was no fun at all." [Laughter] Isn't that funny?

JF: Oh dear.

EH: Let's see. What else? I went to Saigon on that trip, and Frederick Reinhardt [phonetic], whose mother was head of Mills College, was the ambassador. He was dearly loved over there, and I stayed at the hotel with [unclear].

But a very interesting thing happened there, because two of the delegates to India--two women, one was a lawyer--they were both in their young twenties. One was a daughterHeffelfinger of the ambassador to the United States, and the other one was a barrister. Her name was Pauline. Pauline had asked what plane I'd be on. This was in '56. She met me at the plane with her husband, who was a dentist. The first thing they did was to take me up to their apartment, and they turned on the water and the toilet and all over the apartment, and told me aboutBradley Diem, what a nepotist he was and how inefficient it was, and just said they wanted me to get the true story, because our government seemed to be in a vacuum so completely, and thatSociety he was not married and was really run by his sister. Terrific nepotism.

Well, this Pauline was delightful. A brilliant, Elizabethbrilliant mind. They weigh about ninety pounds, you know. Little tiny figures, beautiful riding bicycles. Anyway, later, I have two friends who traveled with a young man, and he claimswith that heHistorical had put Diem on the--that he made him president, I think they call him president--that he was responsible for his position. I always thought this man had been the CIA, but I wasn't quite sure, but I know he was very knowledgeable. So, of course, that rather intrigued me--the relationship between this man and Diem. interview Anyway, [my friends] were overMinnesota there, and one of the women brought me back a tortoise comb from Pauline, and this is when Diem was still in. I said, "What's her husband doing now?" And she said [Pauline said] to tell me, "When you give her the comb, tell her my husband is Minister of Hell, and shehistory will understand." Because they hated him so, you see. So it made me wonder what in the dickens was going on. This was a message with the present. "And she will understand,"Oral those were her exact words. Because they had no time for her at all, and I think he belonged to a clique. But there must have been some tie-up, and I never knew what happened to them, where they are or anything. But I do know that he moved from just being a lowly dentist to a head of the government's health and welfare.

JF: Was that 1956, Mrs. Heffelfinger, that you were in Saigon?

EH: No, I was there in 1956, but this was 1957, before Diem was killed. But they certainly hated him, and this wasn't just a--

99 JF: Did you meet Madame Nhu, who later became so notorious? EH: No. Nhu was the one they said she really controlled. No, I never got there. I was only there a couple of days, and then Pauline made a point to take me up there. This was a very serious business they were taking, and I knew that, with all the water. And they went in one, and then they went in [unclear]. I didn't go in with the three of them, you see. I don't know what--but it was serious. I never knew the outcome of that. The Asian mind is fascinating--how tricky they are.

I told you about the woman from Laos.

JF: Yes.

EH: But they were charming. They were really lovely. Incidentally, I'm not a churchgoer at all, but I became one. And the first time that I attended this Protestant church that I joined, was the day that our troops went into Cambodia, and thinking of those lovely people,Heffelfinger and going in there, and, of course, it was the beginning of the end. But going to church for almost every week for about six weeks, I never got in there that I didn't think about that. I was absolutely thrown by that--really thrown. They went in because they said that there were stockpiles they had [unclear]. They ruined the government. Lovely, lovely people. Unforgettable.Bradley

JF: So many changes in Cambodia-- Society

EH: I know. Now Sihanouk, you see. I don't know why we never got Sihanouk. We wanted it all our way. We were so clumsy, it seems to me.Elizabeth

JF: Sounds as though they've ruined thewith country Historical completely, though.

EH: Yes, absolutely. Terrible.

JF: That was in 1969? interview EH: This was '56. Minnesota

JF: Oh, this is '69 already? history EH: No, this was in-- Oral JF: You meant '69 when they sent the troops into the--

EH: No, no. No, this was '59. No, I was in Cambodia.

JF: Oh, I see.

EH: I went to Ankara. When I saw the gals, it was in '56 after the conference in India, you see.

JF: Right. Do you have anything more of your 1959 trip that you wanted to say?

100

EH: Not of the '59 trip. But I told you about Thailand and the foreign aid.

JF: In 1958, just to go back one year, at the time of the Minnesota Centennial celebration, I was reading an interesting article about your tangle with Eugenie Anderson over--

EH: Oh, wasn't that odd? But you know, she did do that, and she was playing politics, so I spoke up. But, of course, I was just panned, because women liked her. It was a silly thing to say. And my husband said, "Well, you know you made a mistake," he said, "and the public has a short memory, so it isn't important."

Later on, I apologized to Eugenie Anderson, because I do admire her, and I did apologize. She said, "I don't remember it at all. I had no idea. I don't remember it."

I said, "This makes you a very big woman to take it this way." I thoughtHeffelfinger she was a bit stuffy, I really did. Really, you know, you can't...that's just another job that she had, and she did a good job as ambassador, she did. But that doesn't have to make her walk like the Queen of England, with music to go and all that junk. [Laughter] Bradley JF: Well, 1960--we're late into 1960, then--was a very busy year for you. Society EH: Yes.

JF: Because it's the year where there was a RepublicanElizabeth convention.

EH: Oh, yes. with Historical

JF: You resigned as Republican national committeewoman in that year.

EH: Yes, I did. That was very funny. You see, I'd never liked [Richard M.] Nixon. I just never trusted him somehow, butinterview I was a good party member, and I might say I did vote against Nixon. I voted for Johnson [unclear] butMinnesota I never told anybody. [Laughter] I was a traitor in their midst, I guess.

But anyway, somethinghistory very funny happened. I had a wonderful secretary for many years, and she nearly killed me because she was so efficient. I remember her dating me up. One time, I was asked aboutOral rural Minnesota, and she said, "This is the third time you've been invited and you've always had an excuse." This was [unclear] I was getting very tired, and so I said, "All right, I'll take those three counties."

I tell you, I was counting the minutes till I got home, and then I knew I was through. I was tired. Because you have to stay on top, and I wasn't aggressive. Anyway, the secretary of the convention is, by tradition, the same woman who is secretary of the national committee. So I sent my secretary, Agnes Swanson to Chicago to do all the paperwork that I'm not good at at all, and the delegates--the secretarial work--I'm not good at that kind of detail. So anyway, I talked to her over the phone. I asked her to send me a book of former conventions so I'd know what it's all

101 about, in detail. And she said, "I don't think you're going to be secretary," and then she started to cry, and she said, "I told you not to smoke so much. They say you have a cigarette voice." I still have it.

Anyway, it was up to the chairman, who was Leonard [W.] Hall and was Nixon's choice for national chair, to pick the secretary. And I said, "Well, that's not true." And she said, "Well, I'm just telling you." This is what my secretary said. So I got down there and Bertha Atkins, who was in charge of the ladies division, had a meeting at the Blackstone, and there were about eight of us there, and they had given Bertha--she was deputy head with Fleming, with Arthur Fleming, for whom she felt less than nothing. He used to send her in the meetings and never brief her. He never taught her what to say. Anyway, they had given her exactly five minutes to tell what Eisenhower's program in the field of health, education and welfare was, and I said, "That's ridiculous, because they've always had twenty minutes." We all agreed for her to take as long as she wanted to, to hell with it, and they said, "Well, as secretary, you'll cutHeffelfinger her off." And I said, "Heavens no." So anyway, I said, "Why are you so afraid? I don't think I'm going to be secretary." And they all said, "Of course," and one said, "Well, I could watch it from this end."

Well, I went down in an elevator, at the Blackstone, and I thoughtBradley there's only one thing a person can help you on this deal, and that's yourself. That's always been my philosophy. It's yourself. You are the one fighting. I'd already come out publicly for Rockefeller,Society and my picture was on Life magazine [unclear]. That just happened. I was one of [unclear]. So they knew, Nixon knew, that I was a Rockefeller person. I was enemy number one on his list, and he had obviously told Leonard Hall not me of all people, regardlessElizabeth of the fact that Mr. Humphrey, as finance chairman, had given me some of the first opportunities to send him around way back when Eisenhower came, and we used them allwith the time, Historical that little deal like that. Anyway, I thought there's only one person.

So I was walking down the street from the Blackstone to the Congress Hotel where our Minnesota delegation was, and I ran into Leonard Hall's administrative assistant--I forget his name--and I said, "Who isinterview going to be secretary of the convention?" And he said, "I don't think the chairman has made up his mindMinnesota yet." I said, "The chairman? He doesn't do it. The committee does it." "No," he said, "the chairman does it." I said, "When are you going to see Len?" He said, "I'm on my way." I said, "Would you tell him that I want him to call me in exactly fifteen historyminutes? Otherwise, I am going to call a press conference, and I am going to call my husband, and I'm not about to be ditched, with all the work that I've done. It's not the honor of it, butOral it's the pride that my family would have in me." I said, "It's not the prestige to myself it's for my family, because they're looking forward to this. And I have worked, and my husband has worked. You tell him I will call a press conference this afternoon."

And within ten minutes, the phone rang, and Leonard Hall said, "Sweetie, what are you so excited about? Of course you're going to be secretary." [Laughter] So...

JF: Outmaneuvered.

EH: Yes. So anyway, the night came, and my husband was very...I had charge of a lot of things,

102 and I wanted to be able to keep my sense of humor, too--if I get tired I might lose it. So I had my secretary, and he had his secretary then, and that was the time that [Harold] Stassen was also using us, you see. He was still in the picture, but it was in '48 that [unclear]. But he was still around, you know, as he always is, and he still had a few--a handful of loyal people. He was trying to, in '60...well, let me say this, that I have a son-in-law who decided he wanted to be vice president; and he had one delegate, I think. No, I don't think he had anybody. But he was operating from the Union League Club. I was for Mitchell for vice president, Mitchell was head of labor, secretary of labor. But I was told by Mitchell's brother, who came to me and said to drop it, because Cabot Lodge had already accepted, and was going to be.

So I got it very straight from Mitchell. I tried to tell my son-in-law that, but he would pay no attention to it, and Mr. Heffelfinger was spending his time trying to keep him off the television and mess things up more, so he was busy. Also, Mr. Heffelfinger got the grand idea that he and the national committeeman from here, George Etzell--he told George Etzell that he and Governor Edson from New Jersey... George Etzell wasn't in this at all, he simply toldHeffelfinger me, "We're going to vote [Walter] Judd that night for vice president," and I just laughed it off.

But when the meeting was over, Mr. Heffelfinger told me to go up and have a lot of drinks and some sandwiches in the room, because he was having a meetingBradley upstairs. Well, I sat there for a half hour, and he didn't come and he didn't come. So I finally went to bed, and I went to my own private room, because I know him when he gets in a place likeSociety that. He liked to stir up things. You see, he didn't have anything official to do, so he might just do anything, which he did.

So I went to my own private room, and at fiveElizabeth o'clock in the morning, he came into my private room, and it seems he'd gone in to the two secretaries and said, "Where's Mrs. Heffelfinger's room?" And she said, "She's sleeping. with She doesn't Historical want to be disturbed." "Well, I want to tell her that Judd's ship is launched for vice president." And they started to laugh, and he said, "I want the key to her room." And he said, "If you don't give me the key, I'm going to pull her bed covers off." So they gave him the key, and he came in and said, "[Unclear]," and I said, "Oh, go to hell, and let me go back to sleep." So he said, "You're not in this too?" and I said, "No," because I never supportedinterview Judd, you see, on his China policy at all. I think he's a wonderful man, and he has his right, but not for Minnesotavice president.

So anyway, that was going on all day, and it seemed in the morning, about ten o'clock in the morning, therehistory was a meeting, and this was only decided at five o'clock--about four o'clock in the morning. And he and Dorothy Congdon, from Duluth, and my husband, got together, and they told theOral Judd people that they would finance him, neither of them knowing what they were to get in. And that's when George Etzell, the national committeeman, told me, he said, "I've got a blow for you." I said, "Well, this can run into all sorts of money." He said, "I know, but you can't talk to them. Peavey's just bound. He's going to put Judd in." And he said, "It was so funny, you should have been here, because out of the woodwork came dancing girls and [unclear]." They were all set up to get a fall guy, like Dorothy Congdon and my husband, to finance it. He was all set up just like this. Imagine at four o'clock in the morning and at ten o'clock at the breakfast meeting.

But anyway, so they were prancing around all day, and of course, I had to--Judd from Minnesota-

103 -I had to explain to the Judd people that this was not against Judd, but that I couldn't possibly support "just a Minnesotan," because I was committed to Cabot Lodge, as a person. Just one vote, but I couldn't use any influence. I didn't want any part of it, particularly with my husband in the front running. I had to more or less let him down.

But anyway, at the end, Etzell--George Etzell--called me and said, "You've got to see this." So he took me in a big sitting room there in the Congress, and there was sitting my husband, and Dorothy Congdon, Dottie Congdon, and they had just received the bill for all the activities, and it was $50,000, and they were stunned. [Laughter] Of course, the set up charge was so ridiculous. They never asked, there was nothing in writing, and of course, they tried to weasel out of the thing, that they didn't know all this and that and the other thing, and of course, they were putting it on the other side--putting all the pressure on them that they told them to go to hell, and it was really terribly funny. They got out, and I think they settled for $500 instead of many thousands.

But George kept saying, "Don't be taken. You were taken. This ought toHeffelfinger tell you, stay out of something you don't know anything about." And they were feeling quite chagrined. They didn't understand my laughter at all, it was so funny. Anyway, they got out with around $500 on that deal. [Laughter] Bradley Then the convention came about, and everything was changed. This was Jo Good [phonetic] that did this to me. She wanted to embarrass me, but I was feelingSociety so good, I was so rested, that nothing could have upset me--you know, just one of those times I was utterly relaxed. So the first thing she did was she put...oh, what's his name? My mother's congressman from Indiana. Charlie. I'll remember later. Mr. HeffelfingerElizabeth would remember if I asked him. They put him in, and usually a congressman or whoever is head of the convention, will call say, "Minnesota," and I'll say, "Minnesota, so-many votes." Andwith then Historicalthey'll answer, see. But this time they left the whole thing to me. She was doing that to embarrass me, but I could handle that. That was not a problem. Then the first thing she did was, "Where are your tellers?" I said, "It's not my job to get the tellers." "Yes," she said to us, whereupon I went, and I said, "Mr. Chairman, may we have an adjournment until the executive secretary finds the tellers--five-minutes until she gets the tellers?" That's all I said.interview Minnesota And so, we got the adjournment--five minutes--and almost immediately they were coming back behind me, they were coming in. And I remember one had no teeth, and he looked like a reptile crawling on hishistory belly, looking up at me and laughing, with his two shiny teeth. It made me laugh. But they did things like that, you see, all the time, which didn't annoy me at all, I thought, becauseOral I was in control of myself.

And at the end, I gave her a gold washed bracelet, and I said, "I want to thank you for all the help you gave me, and I couldn't have lived without you, and I couldn't have had [unclear]." [Laughter] To this day, I don't think she ever thought I caught on to what she was trying to trip me up on.

But that was Arthur Summerfield [phonetic]. I told you about him. I went to see him in his office. Well, then, you see, in '60, then Stassen was still in there trying to divide the votes, you see, Stassen was. And we had a convention embarrassment. The night before the balloting, it

104 was at the time--if I repeated this, because I've repeated some of this to my grandson, Wendell Wilkie, lately. [unclear].

JF: I don't remember this, no.

EH: George Etzell and I and the man who was later the mayor, Kenny Peterson, was one of us-- but he was talked into it by Warren Burger, that Stassen was going to win, you see, so he left us. There were five of us. We were getting more upset by Stassen all the time, because he was playing both Taft and Ike.

JF: That was at the 1956--

EH: No, did I say '56? No, no, this is 1960, and he was still playing. He still thought--now wait a minute, this is Nixon. No, Stassen was in there with Nixon, and he still wanted to come in there. That was the time that I told you we had a big room and Stassen wouldHeffelfinger leave me out.

JF: That was '56, wasn't it?

EH: This was '60. Bradley

JF: Was it? Society

EH: Yes, at the Congress. Elizabeth JF: Well, I remember you told about that, and later he got locked in there. Your mother got locked in there. with Historical

EH: Yes, that was 1960, and then we went up. I told you we went up to see Herb Brownell. Remember?

JF: Oh, yes, yes I do rememberinterview that. Minnesota EH: Well, this was it, and then I locked my mother [unclear], and then I asked for my release, and then I was chosen to go and find out from the General whom he wanted to be head of the national committee,history and he said "I made a commitment." It was Arthur Summerfield.

You know,Oral when you're in politics you gather enemies. You gather friends but you also gather enemies, and to think that I tried to ditch him for Sinclair [unclear], and he made me wait for that long out of the office, in his office. You can understand why. It's a cut-throat game. It really is. It's getting worse.

JF: Not for the faint of heart.

EH: No. No, I'm glad I had it, but I was getting awfully hard.

JF: Now it was in April 1960 that you announced your retirement, that you would retire after the

105 convention in July.

EH: Yes, and then they had my...you mean when I came back again?

JF: You announced your retirement in April.

EH: Yes.

JF: After the convention was over in July, you said you would retire.

EH: Yes, that's right, yes. In '60.

JF: Did you feel kind of relieved when you finally had gone ahead and you actually announced it publicly? Heffelfinger EH: Yes, yes, I was. I've never regretted it. I'd been in, and I thought that they should put a younger woman in. It's a funny thing that I was associated with the progressives, but my close friends were among the conservatives. They didn't agree with what I stood for, like foreign aid-- just as on China, they probably wouldn't agree with me on thatBradley count. But they said that they liked me. They knew I was sincere, and at least they knew where I was at. But this third district, I hung on to, and those are the most progressive. But they wereSociety always after my job. It was really very funny. I don't know what the trouble was. I didn't kowtow to them, you see. So I mystified them when I was one way, and yet I had all these friends of mine. First was Stafford King, who was the auditor here for years. He Elizabethwas one of the closest friends I had, and we were devoted friends. We didn't agree on a thing politically, but I had those kind of friends. with Historical Then in '56, when Stassen wanted them to have [Christian] Herter run against Nixon, you see-- and I still think that Sherman Adams was behind that. Because he kept saying to me, "Well, Stassen's not so bad. Why do you always pick on him?" But I said "I don't trust him." I knew that he had the go-ahead sign from somebody, and I think it was Sherman Adams, because Sherman Adams had no timeinterview at all for Nixon. They never forget, you know, these characters. [Laughter] Minnesota

JF: That's interesting that so many people who served with General Eisenhower didn't like Nixon, even thoughhistory he was the vice president.

EH: I knowOral they didn't, but they didn't trust his Checkers speech. You know? And Smith-- [unclear] Smith. They just didn't trust him, and Sherman Adams was a man who was true to himself.

JF: Were you surprised when Nixon picked Henry Cabot Lodge as his vice president?

EH: I don't think I had any reaction. But, you see, Cabot Lodge was really a terrible candidate. Because, my own feeling, first, he was taking charge of the ballots, and I used to go up to him and I'd say, "I'm Elizabeth Heffelfinger, so-and-so," and finally he said, "Stop telling me your name. I know who you are." Well, I said, "You never act like it. You never look up, so I don't

106 know whether you even hear me or not." And he looked at me, he said, "I guess you're right." We became very good friends after that.

He was a delightful person personally, but there was something that went awfully wrong. Because, we had a Jewish group for a meeting here. It was a champagne reception party for him, and he never cared at all, and he always wanted to have his nap, a time for rest. Well, I think that if you're campaigning like that...but they got mad at him for that. It's the Nixon people who blamed him a lot, and he was--I just think, down deep, I have no reason to say this but my own feeling, but down deep I don't think he had any respect for us. And I think he thought he was going to lose if he didn't do anything to help. He just got fed up, which is typical of him. He was pretty independent, you see. But he certainly didn't help the ticket.

JF: Why do you think Nixon picked him at that particular time?

EH: Well, he was a good candidate, and I think that working closely withHeffelfinger Nixon, he learned things about him he didn't like. I really do think so.

JF: What did you think about that campaign in 1960, in which Nixon tried to capitalize on Eisenhower's popularity, but got beaten by Kennedy in the end?Bradley What did you think about it, as a Republican, as a member of the national committee? Society EH: Oh, I think it was horribly--what else has he got to talk about himself? What a wonderful vice president he was. Elizabeth JF: What was your opinion of those famous television debates that everyone has talked about so much ever since? with Historical

EH: You mean Nixon's?

JF: Nixon and Kennedy. interview EH: Oh, they were terrible. TheyMinnesota were awful. They were just terrible. He looked badly. He said he agreed with Kennedy. Oh, he was...I don't know. After he was nominated, I think he hurt his back or he hurt something, and he had to take a rest, and I was delighted, because I thought that he was tiredhistory of [unclear], and I thought that he might have time--I remember writing a letter--a time to relax and sort of consider issues. I think it was a God-given issue, I told him. It was somethingOral on that order. It wasn't serious, but he didn't use it. He used people. He was a terrible man.

JF: What did you think of Kennedy--John Kennedy, that is?

EH: Well, I think [unclear] person. I don't know how.

JF: Substance or just glamour?

EH: Well, I'm a great supporter of Teddy White, this book he's just written here, The Making of

107 History, and, of course, he goes way off the deep end about Jack Kennedy. He did make a mistake. He did a good job on that missile, but he did make a mistake. He was naive in his talk with Khrushchev; that scared him. He did make a mistake about the Bay of Pigs, but he had bad advice. He wasn't seasoned. And, of course, some of his escapades were pretty bad. But the man did have something that was very appealing all over the world.

You can't help but...well, face the truth. That's the trouble with politicians. They rationalize, and they think because they think this way, everybody else is that way. I think you have to be awfully sensitive to...it's always been my thinking that your first reaction to something, when you're not rationalizing, is usually the right one, because you're honest with yourself, and if you're honest with yourself, and not playing politics, it's not rationalizing, the first reaction is usually right.

JF: That's interesting.

EH: Really. And I get so mad, knowing that, when I try to rationalize, andHeffelfinger I'm always wrong.

JF: Very astute comment.

EH: Yes, I really do. Bradley

JF: Was it around 1960, or was it in the 1950s when Wayne FieldSociety here in...it was Minneapolis, I believe...

EH: Oh, he was along the edges. I think in theElizabeth sixties.

JF: He claimed that the Republican partywith in MinnesotaHistorical was split down the middle between--I forget what he called it--between newcomers like himself and people who had been around for a long time.

EH: I don't think so. I don't think he knew very much about anything. He was for Wayne Field making money. That's myinterview feeling. Minnesota JF: Was it 1960 when an invitation was issued to Goldwater to come to Minnesota to address the state convention or was it-- history EH: I don't even remember. You know, Goldwater is one of the most charming people I've ever met, butOral I simply could not support him. I don't think he had the intellectual capacity. My husband is a very close friend of his, and I remember meeting him, and he was very ebullient, meeting my husband, clapping him on the back, and he saw me, and he changed. You could just see [unclear], because I did call him on several things when he was running. But people just adored him, and he was a charming person. But I think when Rockefeller was booed, I left the convention, it made me sick to my stomach. If Goldwater had gotten up, though, and said, "Stop that, give the man a chance to speak," [unclear], it would have made a bigger man. But he allowed that to happen. He's a small man, but a charming person. Right now, you see, what he's doing on the China policy, and I don't think he knows anything about the history of China at all. That's very important, back to the part where we came out with the Open Door, and when France

108 came in and then took over the ports, the customs. They just came in and sliced up the Republic. There's so much to know about China. The more you read, the less you know. Really.

JF: Yes. After the convention was over in 1960, and your resignation then was official, what did you do?

EH: Well, my daughter and I went to Cuba, and I was a little bit worried about myself, because I'd been so busy, and we went down to Cuba. She knew the two grandsons of the first president of Cuba. I have the name in there. Shall I get it?

JF: What was this--a president of Cuba?

EH: We got there when Castro just got in. He had just come in, you see, and these two grandsons of the first president had some titles in the cabinet of Castro, so we had a lot of contacts there. We had them, they were wearing Castro gear. We had a Heffelfingercouple of women who were the old [unclear], and Matthews of the New York Times was there. And Peavey Company had contacts with two men, very interesting, nice men, and they were very helpful.

We told my husband that we were going to take a trip, was thatBradley all right? And he said "Yes," so I said, "We're going to Cuba," and he said, "I know why you're going to Cuba. You're going [unclear] a revolution." Anyway, he said, "I'm going to call theseSociety people who can get you reservations at the National Hotel." Well, we got down there and found out that another hotel had negotiated cheaper. And so when he tried to reach us, and finally called them to find out where we were, he was having a fit. I don't knowElizabeth what he thought we were getting into. So he finally found us on the third night and he said, "I've been looking for you everyplace," and Lucia said, "Well, everything is just fine, and withthings areHistorical going fine." Whereupon he was in such a state, and [unclear] our cash.

Lucia said, "Daddy, these phones are rigged. I don't think you ought to talk this way, because his phones are being tapped, I'm sure. You'll want to be careful." interview Anyway, we went down. TheseMinnesota two twins, they had the Castro.... And they were all completely sold on that, and they wanted us to meet their mother, who was one of the most charming people. So we went down on Bera Bera Beach, and she called for us. One night--the first night we got there--she talkedhistory about the atrocities of Batista, and they were awful. She was one of the warmest, charming people I've ever met, and then she said that her sons...she didn't speak against them, butOral you could see that she wasn't quite enthusiastic about the meeting with Castro. That's the feeling you got. But she went to pieces about Batista [unclear].

So the next day was fine, and then she came in, and she said, "Elizabeth, I should tell you that one of the boys had called. They're bringing Castro down for the weekend." We were there two nights, and it was the second night--third night--anyway, down for the weekend. I said to Lucia, "I can't stay." That, of course, killed her. After all, this was before the convention. I said to her, “to the Republican party, I do have a responsibility. I can't have my pictures taken walking on the beach with Castro. I can't do that sort of thing." Oh, she couldn't see it at all. To this day, she's wild.

109

So I explained to--what was her name, the mother--I explained to her--I have that letter--I explained to her that I didn't say I couldn't meet Castro, but I said I thought that we'd been around long enough and I wanted to go to Yucatan. That was the first place. I'd picked Yucatan because I thought that my husband was having such a fit so I picked Merida, and I could hear him calling the library and the tourist industry saying, "Where in the hell is Merida, Yucatan," you know? [Laughter] Which he did. I thought I'd give him a little time of it. So I did that.

So anyway, she said "Yes," and when I said we were leaving she said, "I think you should. I think you're doing right," is what she told me. So we left, you see, but [unclear], because he took cameras with him anyplace. I couldn't do that, but my Lucia was having a fit. She also--she's very much in the whole picture of crime--and so she had top letters from the Dutch in Cuba. The Isle of [Pines] is where they keep their prisoners. She was warned by...what's her name...not to go there. You never knew whether you'd get out or not--you know, just being funny. You want me to get that? I have it right in here. Heffelfinger

JF: Okay, that would be interesting if you have it.

EH: Castro accusing the United States of sinking the boat inBradley the harbor. Do you remember that?

JF: Yes. Society

EH: Oh, as a matter of fact, we got there. Oh, I remember that, we got there the day that the boat was sunk, and that's why Mr. HeffelfingerElizabeth was so upset. Menocal Juan and his brother Enrico, sub-cabinet members. One had charge of revising tax laws, and the other one headed it. Their grandfather, or great-grandfather,with was the Historicalfirst president of Cuba, was with the treasurers arm, and their father was with the treasurer and resigned when Castro came. That's Menocal.

JF: Why did you go to Cuba?

EH: Just to see what wasinterview going on. [Laughter] He was right, my husband. I want to go back. Minnesota JF: It must have been an interesting time there, with all the upheaval and everything.

EH: Yes, oh, historywe did, but we really got all sides of it. But the Menocals, they stayed less than a year, and then they had to leave. She still sees them, but we want to go back. I still don't know the mother'sOral name, but she always, when she sees them, she always asks about the mother, and said she'd come back again and visit her, so we could give her an excuse to go over, see.

JF: She still lives in Cuba?

EH: Yes. We have this in mind again, but he doesn't know about it.

JF: Did you go to Mexico then, to the Yucatan, after you were through with that?

110 EH: Then we went to Yucatan, and he just...I mean, I picked that place because I knew that she would wonder where we were, and she did.

JF: After the convention was over in 1960, what did you do?

EH: Well, I'll tell you, I just brought in Cuba because I said that I was wondering, I was worried about myself, and what I was going to do. And she said, "Did you ever think it'd be nice to relax and catch up on yourself? You've had so much doing, and not take on just any picayunish job, but wait till something comes along that you're really interested in." And I took her advice for some unknown reason.

JF: Whose advice was this now?

EH: This was my daughter. Since that time, I've been on the Crime Delinquency Committee, and I've been on the Foundation Committee. Heffelfinger

JF: Do you think that there is more prying into politicians' lives now than there should be?

EH: More of what? Bradley

JF: The level of public interest in politicians, in their private Societylives and what they do and how much money they make and everything--do you think there's too much of that?

EH: Well, you have the papers. As long as youElizabeth have irresponsible reporting, and they center on disaster and the worst things, or the more the public is going to react the way they do to politicians. I think the amount of irresponsiblewith Historicalreporting is ghastly.

JF: I think particularly of when Mr. Rockefeller was running for vice president, and they investigated everything about him. It seemed excessive to me.

EH: I know. They almostinterview made a spectacle of the spectacle. Minnesota JF: It was horrifying, and you think of all the many good people who might want to go into politics who see that and figure, "Why should I go through that?" history EH: I know it. I know it. They play up the bad. They're looking for things, looking for scandals.Oral No, I think we're living in a sick world, a very sick world, and I don't think the news media is helping. I think you could count [James] Reston as excellent, as fair. Of course, Teddy White is. He has his great admirations and people he doesn't like, but he's very fair. He's a great man.

JF: Do you like James Kilpatrick?

EH: I'm not impressed one way or the other, and of course, I think that Evans and Novak are excellent, but our paper has dropped them.

111 JF: What do you think of William Buckley?

EH: I like him personally. I think he's a show-off. I was delighted when he pushed the Panama Treaty. I had to take my hat off, but, of course, he fits right in with this China situation, which I don't like. But I was on the boat with him. I went with one of our daughters and her family of five children and her husband. We went to the Baltic two years ago, and Buckley was on the ship. So he was supposed to deliver lectures in the afternoon, and he probably got his room free. But he was very arrogant. One man said, "Well, I like to hear you, Mr. Buckley, but, frankly, I didn't understand one thing you said." He was just putting on an act, because I think he knew that these people were not were not up to his intellectual standards, you know, and I thought it was rather cruel.

One thing I asked him about China, and I said, "What do you think that Taiwan will do?"

And he said, "I think they'll ask for Congress to help." Heffelfinger

I said, "I don't."

He said, "You wait and see." Well, maybe he was kidding me,Bradley I don't know. I can't believe it. Why would they ask Congress at all? But he was really putting on quite an act there. But I like him. I like to hear him. I liked him personally. I liked to annoySociety him. But he's an intellectual snob. Attractive looking!

JF: What do you think of John Kenneth Galbraith?Elizabeth

EH: Well, I think he's a bit of a pain inwith the neck, Historical too. I think that's another intellectual snob. He ran an appraisal when he was ambassador to India--I got this from my great friend who's married to Ellsworth Bunker--that he would go over, right over the State Department in Washington, and call direct to Kennedy for things to do. And Kennedy really got fed up on it, so I understand, and advised him to go through the channels. He didn't have time to take all these direct calls if every ambassador did that. Butinterview I'm not terribly fond of him. Is he slated for some job? Minnesota JF: I can't remember whether he is or not.

EH: I guess I'mhistory mistaken. Oh, I'm thinking of Schlesinger.

JF: WellOral--

EH: I guess that is all.

JF: Do you have anything that you want to...

EH: I'll probably think of things, but I can't right off the bat. Now I've got this one thing figured out, where Howard Jones was, this was in Jakarta, because I went to Jakarta again in '56, you see, as a guest of the government. I was very lucky to be the guest of the government in so many places.

112

JF: Certainly you met an enormous number of people through those channels.

EH: Yes. In education, you don't find politics at all. But you really find wonderful people--I mean, down to earth and interesting. It's a different type, seeing the schools.

EF: 1952. Why don't you read over and see if it makes sense. You know, we never did back Agnew. This state alone did not [unclear]. We're the only state.

JF: I didn't realize that.

EF: This is a wonderful state. They like people who say what they think, regardless of whether they agree with you or not. But they seem to vote their loyalties. You know what I mean?

JF: Yes, I do know what you mean. I think that's a very perceptive comment.Heffelfinger The most recent election certainly proves this.

EF: Yes. But, you see, you cannot pass on your popularity. Humphrey couldn't pass on his popularity, and poor Muriel [Humphrey] was used terribly. BradleyShe allowed herself. This was in view of all that mess up North [unclear]. It's good. I'm very glad it changed. Society JF: Yes.

EF: This is big business. We need qualified Elizabethpeople, in both the labor camp and in the newspapers, qualified reporters. Not a lot of cash. We need qualified people to run the government. with Historical

Do you want me to go back to UNESCO?

JF: In 1953 and '54, you were a delegate-at-large to the economic and social . . .? interview EF: No, I was advisor, EconomicMinnesota and Social Council, ECOSOC. Just an observer. I didn't know what that was all about. I never did catch up with it, but I did make a lot of friends.

JF: We've coverehistoryd the UNESCO conferences in France in '53 and in Uruguay in '54, and last time, we ended up with '56, in India. Oral EF: Yes.

JF: After the India conference was over, you traveled around India, didn't you, after that?

EF: Yes, after that. What I did was that I traveled. I remember spending Christmas in Madras, because the secretary I mentioned...not the secretary, but he was the head of education. He was vice chancellor at University of Madras, Mudalier.

JF: In one of your letters, you recounted what an odd Christmas Eve you thought it was when

113 you were there.

EF: Oh, gosh, yes. Eating with my fingers. Yes.

JF: Yes. You said that you held out and insisted for one dish that you use a spoon. [Laughter]

EF: Yes.

JF: It was yogurt or something.

EF: There was something that happened. There was an executive committee in Paris, that must have been in '55, the international executive, where I was acting in that capacity. I remember that we were told, in 1956, that we could have...did I tell you about Chou En-Lai?

JF: No. Heffelfinger

EF: We were told when we got to India, because they were having the thousandth anniversary of Buddhism. The Panchen Lama and the Dali Lama were there. Did I tell you that? Bradley JF: No, you didn't. It's in your letters. Society EF: And the head of the Polish government was there. Anyway, many things happened. I had been previously, my husband and I, at one of these meetings to Yugoslavia. No, scratch that. Elizabeth At one of these meetings, it was the fifteenth [unclear] meeting in Paris, that I had my daughter, sixteen, with me. There were a lot of parties,with asHistorical there always are--five or six sometimes. We went to the Polish Embassy, and the first thing I knew, there were a lot of flashlights, and there was the delegate representing Poland drinking champagne to my daughter, a glass of it. I forget his name. I worked hard on him to defect. He was a delightful person.

Anyway, the next day, heinterview said, "You know, your daughter is so lovely. She's not like most American girls. She's very shy Minnesotaand very lovely. Could I take her for luncheon?"

I said, "No." I didn't tell you? history JF: Oh, no. Oral EF: I said, "No."

He said, "Because I'm a communist?"

I said, "No, because you're a wolf, and a bad wolf."

He said, "Could I send her a doll?"

I said, "Yes."

114

Anyway, from that time on, at all these parties, he really made a play for her, and, of course, she was pleased to death. He was very funny. I talked to him very seriously about defecting. I told him he could come to my house, take refuge.

And there was another man I remember. I was reading Teddy White's book the other day, and he talked about a man by the name of Nocek, N-o-c-e-k, as being one of the top people in Czechoslovakia. I remember when I was introduced to him, Mr. Nocek, and I said to him, "Does your name suit you?" and he was furious with me, and hardly spoke to me again. Nocek. You see, he was no Czech. He was a communist.

There was another man, whose name was Pleics, P-l--e-i-c-s I think, who came from Yugoslavia, and I saw him at several meetings in Paris. His wife was a well-known communist. He was very tall. He looked like Pinocchio, and couldn't have been nicer to me. At parties, he would make a special effort to talk to me. Heffelfinger

When we went to India, I found out--in fact, I saw him--and I said, "Oh, you're in India."

"Yes," he said, "we've been here about several months." ThenBradley his wife said she wanted to talk to me, but we were so busy over there, that you don't get time. Society Finally I told him, "Fine with me." He said not to push Czechoslovakia so hard, let it take its own time. That there was a lot of feeling for the United States in Czechoslovakia, but not do what we did to Hungary, I think it was, when weElizabeth pushed too hard. They'd have to take their time.

Well, I repeated this to the CIA man, [unclear],with Historicaland he came back. He said, "This man, Pleics, does not represent the Yugoslav government hierarchy at all. He's been demoted, and he's head of UNICEF, and he doesn't amount to anything. So what he told you was just a lot of hash. Forget it."

We were told, strict orders,interview that we could not go to any parties given for the Chinese, which was absurd, because here were the ChineseMinnesota over there. The Nationalists were not recognized at that time, you see, or ever recognized by UNESCO. They'd been thrown out.

JF: The Taiwanese,history you mean?

EF: Yes.Oral The Nationalists. Anyway, Pleics came and said that the Yugoslav Embassy was having a party, and he wanted me to come. I got there late, in a taxi, and he was waiting for me. I said, "I have to go to the bathroom."

I didn't tell you this?

JF: No.

EF: "I have to go to the bathroom."

115 He said, "I'll take you up to the bathrooms," and he took me up there. And I'll tell you, having four daughters, I know when beds haven't been made for several weeks. And this was the ambassador's room. I told him that, and he laughed and thought it was so funny.

We went down, and the first person I saw when I entered the room was Chou En-lai. Our representative, chargé d'affaires, came up to me and said, "You have to leave, because Chou En- lai...this party is for him."

I said, "I didn't know that."

He said, "I'll give you a ride."

I said, "No, I have a car," which I didn't have. I had no intentions of leaving.

Chou En-lai was surrounded by--see, I knew a lot of Indians, because of Heffelfingermy being there and visiting those people in '51. I knew a lot of Indians, and he was surrounded by journalists, and he was surrounded by some top Indians. I know political sex appeal when I see it, believe me, but this man was just like a magnet. He was very quiet. Bradley So I called Pleics, and I said, "You know, I'd like to [unclear] go out." I tried to explain to him that I wanted to meet him, but I couldn't officially. And he gotSociety very excited.

The first thing, "I'll meet you [unclear]." He said, "[Unclear]." Elizabeth "No," I said, "I just want to accidentally, as he passes." with Historical Then [unclear] said, "You'll be sent home."

I said, "Nobody can send me home. I'll stay on my own."

About that time, the televisiointerviewn cameras became very much interested, and I thought, "Oh, damn, what am I going to do now?" Minnesota

Here was Chou En-lai standing by eight people, and I caught his eye. I had a feeling that he would like to meethistory me, too. Maybe I was wrong, but you could feel it. He was very much interested in what was going on, very aware. As he passed, he just passed like this, and Pleics said, "NowOral I understand."

And I said, "You are a real dumbbell. That's why I just wanted [unclear]."

"Oh," he said, "I'm sorry."

So it turned out that he was taking the ambassador's place. He wasn't devoted at all. He was top man. He was the host. He was the host!

And I went to the CIA, and I called them. I said, "This man--"

116

"Oh," they said, "you were there." So that was turned in on me, you see, and I was never appointed to anything else in UNESCO. I got a black name, because I defied them. But it was worth it, really.

JF: Was this in '56?

EF: This was in '56.

JF: In India?

EF: Yes. Then after India, I not only traveled in India, but I went to Ceylon.

JF: That's later, though. Heffelfinger EF: Yes, I went there in '59.

JF: In '56, though, after the conference was over in New Delhi, you traveled around India then, too. Bradley

EF: Yes, I went around there. That's when I went down to CapeSociety Trivandrum...on the tip end, in Kerala state, and I ran into the librarian, remember?

JF: Yes. Elizabeth

EF: And I told about our parties, didn'twith I? Everybody Historical was supposed to give a party. This protocol man had put our party on the night the English were having. He said we got our name down first, so he wouldn't budge it. Of course, everybody went to the English party, which had two orchestras, champagne, and it was a great affair of the season.

You know who we were entertaining?interview We were entertaining the Russians that night, and the Nationalist Chinese, and the English.Minnesota Well, the English couldn't come. So I never appeared at our party at all. I think I got a very bad reputation at that meeting, because I was very [unclear].

When I got back,history there was a reporter who called about China, and I said that I was for recognition in United Nations of China. That's in the book. Oral JF: Yes. It's interesting right now, though, because they finally--

EF: That was when I got back after '59. I went on this trip with my daughter, and we went around seeing people I'd known from UNESCO. So we would always write that I was coming, and it was just "open sesame." Marvelous. That's when we were in Burma, and we met the head of the government.

JF: Yes, that's in '59. Do you want to talk about your '59 trip now or later?

117 EF: Let's go '56, '59. But I wanted to tell about...the Chinese thing came in '60.

In '59, my son asked if I would go on a trip with his wife. And I said either Africa or Asia. She wanted to go to Asia. I said yes. But, you see, we were there in '56, so I knew so many people. We really had a marvelous time.

JF: You started out and you went to Hong Kong?

EF: Yes. We did that. We went to Ankara. She was marvelous to travel with. And Ceylon. But in India, one of the people who had been...he's a writer--Kushwa Sing [phonetic], a Sikh, had been in UNESCO work, and the first time we were there, Carol Laise had a party. She was the one who married Ellsworth Bunker. Kushwa fell for my daughter-in-law, and thought she was divine. He wanted to take her to Agra, and said he would take his daughter along. But she'd have to wear his wife's clothes--his wife's clothes are about five times too big for my daughter-in- law--so she had a trail of safety pins. Heffelfinger

"Because," he said, "I'm not going to have all the natives follow you around because you're American. You'll have to paint your face, and put her clothes on, or I won't take you otherwise." Bradley She got down there and got deathly ill from some food. We thought she was dying. He said even the beggars called. They said, "She painted her face." CanSociety you believe that? He was a character. His father was an untouchable and had been responsible for the building of Delhi, and had been knighted by the British, you see. Elizabeth Later, when Mr. Heffelfinger and I were there, we met his mother, who still speaks Urdu, and, of course, she'd drink nothing except just withjuices. He'dHistorical always put a little bit of gin in her juice, and she kept saying, "This is the best orange juice I've ever had." But he was brilliant. A brilliant man.

Anyway, we went to Burma, and we had a marvelous letter of introduction from Mandy [unclear], who was in theinterview OSS during war. He was a Flanagan, an Irishman. But he was second in OSS. He was stationed in Burma,Minnesota so he gave us the name of the top editor, or the only editor I think, and he took us over and took us out, my daughter-in-law and me, to meet the editor of [unclear], Ne Win and Kitty Ne Win, who was a howl. A most delightful and clever man, and very direct andhistory very funny. We saw them quite a bit.

When theyOral came here, within the year, as scientists to go to the university of [unclear], and we had them out here at the house. I said we were going around the world, my husband and I. He said to come by for a month. Well, we never expected to hear from them again, but we did.

I'll tell you what was very interesting. He had his own plane out here--one of our planes, United States plane--and a man from the Air Force was the one of the top people, and that man was very much interested and so defensive, [unclear].

It was all done. I didn't know whether we were going or not, but it all came through, and we were met at the plane by somebody in the household. And he'd just had a dinner for the [unclear]

118 of Pakistan, a large man's dinner, luncheon party. Because we got there about six o'clock, and the people were just leaving. We were there in his house. Later, he took over the government from U Nu. The next time we visited him, we stayed at the hotel, because he was then the head of the government.

But this Ne Win was delightful, and so was his wife. They took us up to Mandalay, and then up to the border of Mischanou [phonetic], above the Tibetan border. We went through the guerrilla country. My husband and I had one [car] with a driver, a man with a gun. [Unclear]. We went to some place--we would go around by car and then by plane, a special plane. There were two planes. One had us, and the other one had a cook, a doctor, a nurse, what have you. Up to Mischanou, I'll show you the place there.

We flew by plane up to Mischanou, was where so much of the fighting did, and Stilwell was up there, operating there. It was a very important place during the war. Heffelfinger My husband was given a silver sword, and they had a big bonfire, and all the people would put their swords out, [unclear]. Ne Win came out and took him out. He said, "Get out. You have to get out. You're going to kill one of my men with that sword." [Laughter] But they gave me that beautiful coat, that beautiful top and a skirt. Those are whatBradley people up there wear. It was a real festival for them. Society JF: Have you ever worn it?

EF: I love to wear it to the symphony. PeopleElizabeth come in and just shudder. They think it's going to ruin the music. [Laughter] We joke about it. with Historical Anyway, they played a lot of tennis, my husband and Ne Win. In '59, I was there with my daughter. This was in '60. We said we were going around the world. They told us to stop. That's when the government was very much interested in this. That was in '60, because it was when Kennedy came in. interview JF: And you'd been there just theMinnesota year before, though, too?

EF: Yes, just my daughter-in-law. That's when we made the contact. He was in Minneapolis. We said we werehistory going around the world, they said to stop off. We stayed with them in their house. Oral We had breakfast with [unclear], and what breakfasts! Everything! Because they knew we liked eggs, they would fix bacon, they must have fixed [unclear]. And heavy soups for breakfast. He had very, very bad sinus. That's why he came here in '60. He was very much upset with our government, and he went into this very thoroughly, because we were dictating that they should grow more rice, and there was already a surplus of rice, you see. They didn't like it.

Because we didn't know where we were going to be--I mean, we really had to go on faith, because they don't pay much attention to details, you see. So I had our mail sent to the embassy. Mr. Heffelfinger could have cared less about international politics. I was very much interested in

119 what was happening. So I went down to pick up the mail. The ambassador was a man by the name of Snow. And in the first place, he didn't like it that Mr. Heffelfinger didn't pick up the mail but I did. He told me I was visiting a rascal. He really just loathed him. There was really a hatred between the ambassador and Ne Win. It was unbelievable. Ne Win hated his guts. She made fun of the ambassador's wife, because she could see something through her waist all the time. But anyway, they just hated each other, and said so.

I was very much upset. I didn't let on at all [about] my feeling. I just let him talk for a change-- that he was upsetting his plans and fighting. But he [Snow] said to me as I went out, he said, "I'm tough, and he's going to regret this. I'm tough."

And I felt like saying, "Well, I'm tough, too, and you're going to regret it, too." I said that to myself. Well, then I didn't know what to do with this information, because Kennedy had just come in as president, you see. That was in January of '60, and I didn't know what to do, but for the good of my country, they couldn't have that man in there. It just didn'tHeffelfinger make sense. There was nothing personal about this, but they just had to change the ambassador. They were getting no place and Burma was important. The economy was getting to be terrible.

Ne Win really adored my husband. He wasn't the kind that wentBradley over there and talked about the free enterprise system. Ne Win would ask him something about the different stores, the economy. Society

That is when I got very much interested in China, realized how important it was to have a friend in China. Elizabeth

So anyway, the ambassador...I said, "Yes,with we sawHistorical pictures of China." He never asked anything. The ambassador knew all the answers. He didn't ask one thing about it. He just didn't like it. So I didn't know what to do.

We went from there to Pakistan, and I remember seeing the USIS man. I remember talking to Rowntree, the ambassadorinterview in Pakistan. He said, "Don't put it in writing. Wait until you get home. Who will you go to?" Minnesota

I said I'd go to Hubert Humphrey. history He said, "Wait until you get home." Oral So then we went over from there to Nairobi, and I saw the USIS man. I said, "What shall I do with this information? It's very important."

He said, "Don't put it in writing." Both of them did.

So I wrote my secretary and asked her to call the administrative assistant to Humphrey, who I've always been very fond of personally, and tell him there was a situation here that was of sufficient importance, if there was any chance that [unclear], that I would come home.

120 I had a cable from him saying, "Stay as long as you want. Get in touch with me when you return." He's that sort of person.

I came back to Washington, and I remember sitting in Humphrey's office as we waited. It was John De Laittre from here, and Senator Thye. They had been sitting there waiting for Humphrey, and I walked in, and a man came in and said, "Mr. Humphrey will see you now." Senator Humphrey took me right passed them.

Well, I might say that Senator Thye's wife spread the information that I was looking for a job. I might say that John De Laittre was really quite shocked, wondered what I was up to.

Well, I told Humphrey this, and he said, "Will you be seeing Carl Rowan for breakfast tomorrow morning?"

I said, "Yes." Heffelfinger

He said, "I want you to tell the whole story. He's in charge, I think." I don't know what his official position was. "But I want you to tell him the whole story." Which I did, the whole thing. Bradley Three weeks later, here in the paper it said Snow was being sent to Paraguay. Three weeks later, to the date, it was in the Wall Street Journal someplace, "SnowSociety Being Sent to Paraguay." So I cut that out and sent it to Kitty Ne Win, and said, "This is my house present." [Laughter] Which I thought was sort of cute. Elizabeth Then, later, Ne Win came to this country, to go to the clinic at the university, and we wondered if he could stop by here. We didn't go throughwith linesHistorical of protocol. It was when Johnson was president, and it was obvious that out of the clear we had an invitation to come to the White House in honor of Ne Win. Of course, that was Humphrey who worked that. I knew it, because, you see, we were the only Republicans there.

I remember we were standinginterview in the receiving line in front of Averell Harriman, and they'd just had a setback in New York. [Unclear].Minnesota But we were the only ones, and it was a reception. We stood in line, and when Peavey came to Ne Win, he put his arms around him, hugged him two or three times, and started to talk and Kitty saw me and said, "You're thinner," and all this stuff. The president washistory very much taken back by this. Johnson has these droopy eyes and he looked down on me [unclear]. Oral Anyway, then he went through the line, and then Johnson took Ne Win in his small room, and he had people like McNamara and all the big shots, and my husband said, "I didn't come down here just to shake hands with him in line. He said he'd rather see me than all these people together. We're going to go and talk to him."

I said, "We're not invited."

He said, "To hell with that." And he's not that way, you know.

121 He went in, and he was talking to the president, and when he saw him, he embraced him again, and then I was standing beside him, and Kitty was there, too.

I said, "Oh, Kitty. I have some news. Snow is dead." I'd just heard it from somebody in the reception room. I don't know who--some State Department person. "Snow is dead," and she gave this cackle. That was the ambassador, you see.

JF: Yes.

EF: The president looked up at me, and he said, "Oh?" Meaning,"What did you say that made her laugh?" And I was caught. And I remember saying, "I didn't know you were so tall." [Laughter]

Kitty didn't know what I was going to say, and if looks could have killed me, she would have killed me on the spot, because I think I started off by saying, "I was saying..."Heffelfinger and she looked at me enough that she'd kill me if I said anything about her criticizing one of our State Department people. I guess that must have been it.

But he looked at me enough to say, "What did you say to makeBradley her laugh?"

And I said, "I was telling Kitty..." then I looked at her, and sheSociety looked at me, and I said, "And I didn't know you were so attractive," or something like that.

And he said, "Oh?" [Laughter] Elizabeth

So we went in and talked to him. And withhe said, "DidHistorical you get the invitation to come for dinner tomorrow at Blair House?"

We said, "No."

He said, "We want you tointerview come." Minnesota Peavey said, "I don't know whether I can come or not." And a big argument went on about whether he could come or not. It was just like him. He wasn't going to get caught with something. Hehistory said, "I'll let you know tomorrow."

The nextOral night, they had a party for the president at Blair House, and the next night the president knew our name. He called us Heffelfinger. He must have wondered who in the hell we were, but Ne Win...because, you see, with the exception of the man... Who did the TV dam? What was that famous man's name? The Tennessee Dam. The big dam. TVA, isn't it?

JF: Tennessee Valley Authority, right.

EF: With the exception of him, in the book that we saw, there was no American had ever visited Blair before. At Blair House there was a bomb scare, too. I don't know what that was for.

122 But anyway, somebody, when we were at Blair House, somebody came up. I think it was Ne Win, and he said, "Kitty's upstairs. Go upstairs. I'll meet you there. Get your husband."

So we went up there, and Kitty was just in the middle of taking off her corset, and she was having a hard time, with two people trying to pull it down. I said, "It'd be much easier if you'd take some of that fat off."

She said, "I've got to." But, anyway, it was girlie talk.

So then we stayed. Mr. Heffelfinger decided that we'd stay. He doesn't like to be caught. [Laughter]

So we went there, and there was a bomb scare. It didn't amount to anything. That was in '60.

JF: Did you meet U Nu, too, at that time, or not? Heffelfinger

EF: Yes, I met U Nu, but it was just in a public...this was before he was thrown out. I said, "I saw you on television." She said, "Did you like it?" [Laughter] So cute. Bradley JF: Is Ne Win still living? Society EF: No. The CIA was very much...oh, I had a letter from Hubert Humphrey. He said, "Some man of importance is going to call on you, and would you mind cooperating with him? To extend of your ability." I guess that's not in myElizabeth file. And a CIA man came. So they were in touch with me. They wanted to know who I'd met. There was nothing to tell except what I'd told Rowan, you see. But they used to call me.with Historical

One time they called me and they said that he was in Vienna for psychiatric care. I said, "Listen, he is there for his sinus. He goes there, quite often, once a year, for his terrible sinus. I have told him that it's the extreme cold air-conditioning in his house. He's allergic to it. He's not there for psychiatric." interview Minnesota Then Kitty, which was very obvious to me, they asked about a certain man. Oh, they asked about...his name was...I knew that so well. He was ambassador to...I think now he's ambassador to the United Nations.history He was ambassador to Washington. But anyway, he was in charge of military intelligence, and the ambassador and I talked to him, and he said, "Who was on this trip with youOral that you took?"

And I said this man was. I knew him so well.

And he said, “Oh, he's just his flunky." He was in charge of military intelligence. And when we got up to the Mischanou, every person, because they would shake hands with each person, and here was this man--I'd known him so well, I was very fond of him, he was a very cool, definitely--he was taking a picture of each man as he looked at Ne Win, shaking hands. He was jumping around taking each picture, and he was doing a job and was really concentrating. In other words, getting the reaction, because he was always afraid of being...he used to play tennis

123 with a revolver, put it down, then go back and [unclear] the revolver.

But this man---and I noticed that. It was very obvious he didn't want all these pictures. He was getting the first reaction.

Anyway, he said, "Oh, he's just his flunky." I mean, they had no idea about it. So the CIA, really, if they're all like the ones I met...

JF: Not very good.

EF: No. But anyway, we have Christmas cards. We had one this year.

JF: Did he die, Mrs. Heffelfinger?

EF: Kitty died. Oh, yes, I know what I was leading up to. The CIA askeHeffelfingerd if there was any gossip about them. They got their stuff, because I got the same thing they did, from these church people, and Kitty was in love with this military intelligence man, and I didn't get it until I was in... He was sent as ambassador to Germany. He was devoted to Kitty, but I didn't think anything of it. But all of a sudden, his [Ne Win's] top man, hisBradley aide, this man, head of the military intelligence, was taken from Burma and sent to Germany. Society I was with two granddaughters, we were on our way to Russia. We stopped in Germany. [Unclear] came out with his nephew and sat with us out at the airport. We saw the close relationship. I said I had been...this was after Elizabeth1960. Another time we were there, also, I think, in '62, and that's when he had taken over from U Nu, you see. [Unclear]. Then we were kept in the hotel. That was obvious. with Historical

Anyway, when I took the grandchildren [unclear], six or seven years ago, I told him I was going to be there, and he came out, and he was absolutely different. Just flat. [unclear].

And I said, "She's very lonely."interview Minnesota He said, "Tell me about it." Even the grandchildren said, "Why was he so interested in Kitty?" They got it. history Then they had a party afterwards, but there was a lot of talk about her, and she was demoted. He died, butOral he was thrown out of his job.

JF: And Ne Win died, then, too?

EF: No, Kitty died. But believe me, this was it, because he was around all the time--at meals and pictures. And he got a lot of that. Then he divorced her, as I remember.

JF: Did she die in Burma?

EF: She died in Burma. She was a nurse. She took care of her father, who was quite a bit older

124 than she was. Her father was a surgeon, and Ne Win fought with the Japanese, you see. Anything to get away from the British. He fought with the Japanese, and he was wounded, and Kitty looked after him, and then told her father that he was getting a divorce and was going to marry her. Her father was a very prominent surgeon.

They had three daughters and a son. Beautiful children. He was mad about her. So when she ran off with [unclear], that's what happened.

The next time we went there--that was in '60--and I think we were back again in '63 or something. I forget. But we stayed at the hotel the Russians had bought, had built for them. But they have returned [unclear], you see. There was a man there who knew--who has written several books [unclear]. And the economy was just nothing, and the stores, the people's stores--you couldn't buy anything, the whole thing.

But we stayed at this hotel. We saw them. They were living in the old viceroy'sHeffelfinger place--a big castle, big palace, a tremendous thing. But we saw them almost every time we went. We had somebody give it to us, which was interesting. He was down at our hotel, stocked with liquor, a tremendous suite. Oh, the biggest suite you've ever seen. I could have had the whole family there, but he was right next door. Every time we'd go out, he'dBradley come to the door, "Can I help you?" Society There was one Lutheran--I think it was a Lutheran Church, Baptist, I don't know what it was--but we had been contacted [unclear], and so we wanted to see these people, get the story, but we couldn't get away from this man. So we went Elizabethto the house, and I said to Peavey, "I really feel [unclear]. Do you mind if he takes me down to the hotel?" with Historical And Peavey said, "I'll go with you."

I said, "No, it's not necessary. It won't be very long." So I got away from [unclear] and got the story from the other side [unclear]. I figured there's some connection here. Somebody called him. I forget now; it's hazy.interview But he had a connection here with somebody [unclear] who was a Burmese. But we got all the otherMinnesota side from these church people, which I questioned as against my own eyes.

JF: In 1959, youhistory visited quite a number of countries, too.

EF: That'sOral with my daughter-in-law.

JF: You were in Ceylon, too. You were there right after Ambassador Gluck.

EF: Oh, that was very funny. I was there, Madame [unclear] and I, and he couldn't pronounce my name. There was somebody at USIS. Of course I was speaking [unclear], and she was an American, but Yugoslav. She was marvelous. I have a lot of letters, but I haven't...

Anyway, she wanted me to meet Madame [unclear], just before her husband was assassinated. When I met her, I said, "I can pronounce your name. Can you pronounce mine?" She couldn't,

125 and she just died laughing.

JF: She couldn't.

EF: No, she couldn't do it. She said, "You know, the funniest things happen. All these Christmas presents came from him."

JF: Gluck.

EF: Gluck. And she said everything had been broken into. I think you must have [unclear]. She was so suspicious, you know.

So she was going out to see her rural development, and would I like to come with her, so I went. It was really something. We came back, and we stopped at a friend's house for tea. She said, "I'm trying to have my husband named ambassador to the United States."Heffelfinger Boy, I got that. She was awful. Really. You could just feel it. Anyway, she said, "I want you to come in and meet my husband." He wasn't in, but she said "He'll be back. We'll wait for him, but this is the Finance." Bradley And I said, "Oh." Society She said, "I get my money from him."

I said, "Then you have to be nice to him." Elizabeth

She said, "Me nice to him? Did you seewith my organization? Historical He has to be nice to me," she said. Really.

Then I got in touch with somebody at the State Department, and I said, "This woman has never been to the United States. She's a powerhouse. You've got to bring her over, because whoever takes her over there, she'sinterview going to belong to them. She needs this." They said that they could not take, under the law, the wifeMinnesota of a prime minister. That was the answer I got to that.

And what did she do? She went right over to the communist side. and then I told them about this woman, shehistory was [unclear], and he was assassinated. I told Carol Laise and they got that settled quickly. But this is what happened. Oral JF: What did you think of Mrs. [unclear] when you met her?

EF: I knew she was power-hungry, and she was effective, and she was a fighter. She was something to deal with, and to deal with right now, before it became evident. I just had a fit on that. How can they be so stupid? I don't know. Maybe bring her over as a private citizen. But as soon as she got...but she was suspicious of people, just like suspicious of those gifts, you see..

JF: Yes, there had been a lot of problem with Mr. Gluck, I believe--all the bad publicity before he came.

126

EF: He couldn't pronounce her name, and then she said that something else happened. He did the wrong thing in some public place, and I said, "Allah does not"--they were Tamils. I don't know what I said, but I said the Lord didn't--I don't know, I made something up, a horoscope is not like the Lord, you know something like that. But I met a lot of the Ceylonese. But I was speaking to USIS groups. Oh, you could tell she was on the make.

JF: And she later became prime minister herself, I believe.

EF: Right, yes. Then she got right in with the Communist Party. Sri. They call it Sri now.

JF: Sri Lanka.

EF: I met some very attractive people, but I can't remember the situation. Heffelfinger JF: It's twenty minutes after twelve now. I'd like to finish up your 1959 trip next time.

EH: Yes, I referred, in past conferences, to the fact that I represented the White House through Sherman Adams to investigate--I hate the word "investigate,"Bradley but it was--what was happening to President Eisenhower's bill for refugees, and the fact that I was sent over there as a one woman-- I'll say one person-- [Tape recorder turned off] Society

Governor Youngdahl had a man interested here--in fact, in charge--of this refugee program, by the name of John Poore [phonetic], and he wasElizabeth the one who set up more or less the agenda for me. This was, I believe, about 1962 or something like that. Anyway, out of the clear, John Poore called me on the telephone the otherwith day. Historical I hadn't heard from him since that time. He is now retired from the government and is living someplace in Southern Minnesota. He was on his way to Russia to do some just personal traveling and was going to get in touch with me.

I asked him, I said, "John, do you think what we did was right, bringing so many refugees over?" interview Minnesota And he said, "No."

And I said, "I agreehistory with you." What's happening, from a humane point of view, it was good and should have been done, but so many of the refugees, the ethnic people, have taken advantage of being overOral here, and of course, and bringing now as they are, all the refugees, so many refugees from Indonesia, places like that. They just don't seem to assimilate with our people. I hate to see it, and of course, they multiply like rabbits, you know.

Also, in view of what's happening around, when you think that 38,000 students came over here at our largesse, and went to the universities, and it's those people, according to Carl Rowan, the black writer for the...used to be with the Minneapolis papers, who's a very good friend of mine, wrote an article the other day, with which I agree, that they had such a dose of democracy, that anybody could say anything, which is correct--freedom of speech--but they don't. They're the ones that have made all the trouble in Iran, who started all that, because it's gone to their head.

127 They are not able to use it in its context, which I thought was--

JF: Yes.

EH: Really, and I happen to agree. There was a letter to the paper from somebody, who thought Carl Rowan was not correct, but I happen to think that he was correct. It's too much for them to take in.

JF: To learn how to use it.

EH: And how to use it. Just like what's happening with the farmers, going down to Washington and taking their plows and digging up all of the part of Washington around the Capitol, which will cost the taxpayer $2 million. That's no way to certainly gain the respect or the understanding of the public man. It's a terrible thing. It's gone too far. It's frightening, it's gone so far. So I was interested in what John Poore had to say. Heffelfinger Another thing, when I told you that I had sent back letters when I was in India--particularly in '51, I had sent back letters to all of the Republican Party individuals and to the congressmen-- stating my point of view. I was interested when I was reading [about] my friend Hubert Humphrey, the book The Life of Hubert Humphrey: Undefeated.Bradley It contained the fact that he had introduced what later became Public Law 480, and that was in sending the grain to India. He was the one who introduced that bill. I'm not saying I had anythingSociety to do with it, but I was interested to know it was the same time, right after I had sent those letters out--my feeling about it and what they were saying about it, my understanding. Elizabeth He also introduced the Food for Peace, and the Social Security, which turned into Medicare. While I did not believe in some of his philosophy,with Historical I felt that he could identify himself with people more perfectly than anybody I'd ever known in my life. He got their point of view. I accused him one time of speaking out of all sides of his mouth at one. Did I tell you this story?

JF: I don't believe so. interview EH: Just about that time, I hadMinnesota a letter from Sherman Adams, congratulating me on what I said. I framed this letter; it's downstairs. By the State Department we'd been asked to entertain some journalists from Africa. They were all very much intrigued by the letter from the White House, congratulating historyme on going after Hubert Humphrey. So Cecil Newman, who was the black editor of our paper, and a very close friend of mine, called me upstairs, and he called me into the group, andOral he said, "They want to know what you said, that you got congratulated by the White House." I said that I accused Humphrey of speaking out of all sides of his mouth at once. He put his arm around me and said, "So do you, honey." [Laughter] I thought that was lovely. Isn't that cute?

JF: Yes, it is.

EH: That's all I had to add.

JF: That's great. That's a good story. I like that.

128

EH: Did I tell you about the time that he had the ambassador moved--in 1960?

JF: In Burma?

EH: Yes.

JF: Yes, you did.

EH: Yes, but I admired him because women do have a hard time in politics. It's a very frustrating experience. I felt if there was a smoke-filled room, I wanted to be part of it, that if I wasn't going to be part of it, I wasn't going to play with them, because, after all, men don't have what I call the advantage over all the brains. The women's point of view is very important. I don't mean the [Bella] Abzug point of view. I think she's a very vulgar woman and is doing a great disservice to women the way she goes at it, because if you wanted Heffelfingerto introduce legislation, it requires the men's vote, too, and she's lost the men's vote, I suspect. I think that very few of them like that type of woman. They like forthright women, women who come out, but they don't like the vulgarity that she's used, and the pushiness. So I think she's set back, as you can tell just lately, that several states have rescinded the ERA. And on theBradley other hand, there are a great many...all men are certainly not chauvinists. I don't mean that, because...take my husband. There are many, many millions like him, who believe that there is a definiteSociety place for women, and there shouldn't be discrimination. But just to put a woman in a job because she's a woman is, to me, discriminating, too. Elizabeth JF: This is a good point to ask you. What do you think about the so-called women's lib movement? I mean, you are a woman whowith was Historicalinvolved and active long before this ever came about. What do you think of it?

EH: You see, I never thought of being liberated, because I was born liberated. It's an independence you're born with, and I belonged to NOW [National Organization for Women], which I think I will probablyinterview resign from, because it's been used the wrong way. I feel very sad, because women should stick togetherMinnesota for the betterment of women as a powerful force, but you turn it then into politics, as Bella has done--she's power-hungry--and we have a woman in this state right here that's a Democratic national committeewoman who is power-hungry. It's power, and I don't believehistory in that, and that's what I'm afraid this has turned into. Women are going to be the losers if it's not done in a more judicious way. Oral JF: Do you think that the women's movement, as a movement, has done any good? Do you think it's helped women who maybe didn't grow up with the philosophy that you did?

EH: Yes, I think it has, because, while I was lucky--I was very lucky, because my father...I remember one time when I was in my very early teens, I did anything at all that a friend of mine told me to do, and it was always the worst things. For instance, when we were living in Dallas, Texas, we went through the sewers of Dallas, all the rats were running around, and he was infuriated with me. I can remember him saying to me, "I don't want you to be a follower. I want you to be a leader, and this was not right. If you had been a leader, you wouldn't have gone out

129 and done this, but you were a follower." So I was brought up with that. But it wasn't pounded into me.

But there are millions of women who are taken advantage of by chauvinist husbands. It's my guess and your guess, but they are treated as chattels. You take the battered women, you take the women who are forced to have children against their wishes without protection--of course, without protection--and regardless of it, after all, they're responsible for the home, for raising children, and I think it's badly needed to help those women.

The women right now in Iran are back in the purdah again. It's an unbelievable--2,500 years they've been set back. So there is a place for the status of women, I believe in that, but I don't like it made political--to use it as a stepping stone to get the men's vote behind them. So I'm mixed up on the thing. I'm very unhappy about the thing.

If I were younger, I would get into NOW and really raise some "holy cane"Heffelfinger on that thing, but I'm afraid that I would be one-sided in a democratic way. For instance, they used the United Nations. Mrs. Roosevelt, who was here one time during the war, she told me herself that she had used the United Nations as her stepping stone to people. She told me that. Those weren't her exact words, but that's the way she used it, and it is used in this stateBradley as a political wheel for the Democrats. I saw it, and it enraged me. Society I don't think if you go into something that's nonpolitical, it just has to be kept that way. But it doesn't happen that way. I've seen it happen time and time again. It happened in the International Institute, for instance, where a groupElizabeth of the Institute was to receive guests set up by the State Department, and the woman who had charge of the VIPs took all the records to her own home. She's a well-known woman, too.with But sheHistorical took the records to her own home, and only gave Democrats the invitation, extended the invitation to entertain these VIPs. And yet I'd been all over the world and I knew so many people, and I finally was asked to entertain somebody from, I think it was Baluchistan. I don't think that was it. It was just north of South Africa. The woman was asked...I took her shopping. Her husband was one of the big wheels in that country. And she was asked by theinterview woman in charge if I discussed politics with her, about Republican politics, and the woman said, "No."Minnesota That was the furthest from my mind to do this. I mean, I was doing it as an American. I finally got off the board because I would not work with that woman. history But that is what is happening, and the Republicans are paying not much attention to it. They use that as theirOral wheel, for advancement of their own political party, you see.

JF: Yes, I do. That is a good lead-in to some other things I want to ask you about. What are your reflections on the state of the Republican Party today? It's been out of power now for a number of years, directly. Why, do you think? Do you think it's going to come back? Do you see any seeds being sown that are going to lead to some sort of regeneration?

EH: Well, right now, yes, because the country has gone very, very conservative, as you know, and the Republican Party is conservative--from very, very conservative to very, very moderate. But it has a reputation of being highly conservative, but there are a lot of people who are

130 progressive. I am very progressive. I'm conservative when it comes to monetary affairs, but when it comes to human affairs, I'm very liberal. Of course, I know that right now that's a big battle, because they're going to need to cut down on some things. But there's so much lard, wasted lard, as we've seen, in the area of human affairs, and so much graft that people have been turned off by it, and I think you can cut an awful lot and save an awful lot. It just has to be better administered, and I think Republicans administer things better, because they haven't got their hands out to give to party workers. In the Republicans you don't find that.

As a matter of fact, when I was committeewoman we had a hard time getting people to take jobs, because the Republicans were in private enterprise, and they didn't want government jobs. But we had actually a hard time to give out [unclear]. So that's the difference. I think that they are surfacing now, and it's a good thing, because I believe in a two-party system, it has to be.

JF: Who do you think, as you look around today--and you've said before that you always took a good time to make up your mind on who you really liked and who you thoughtHeffelfinger was a comer --do you see people that you think have leadership capabilities, or that you think will be able to lead the new Republican Party?

EH: In the Republican Party? Bradley

JF: Yes, on a national scale--people like Governor Thompson,Society maybe, of Illinois? What do you think of him?

EH: Of course, I was always a great RockefellerElizabeth fan. I think he had the same appeal to people that Jack Kennedy had. He was always friendly, he was capable, he was imaginative. He had a good draw--to draw on people with topwith brains whoHistorical respected him. But that's a thing of the past.

I wouldn't want anybody like Reagan or Crane. I don't want to go to one extreme or the other. I want a middle-of-the-road person. I like Baker. I haven't made up my mind. I like what I hear of George Bush, but I was called the other day to give some money to somebody who wanted to run, and I said it was too interviewearly. I hadn't made up my mind. Minnesota JF: What do you think of Thompson, from what you know of him?

EH: I really don'thistory know very much about him. I have just heard very good things about him, but I have an absolute mind. I know who I don't want, and I know who I will not vote for, but that's a negativeOral thing.

JF: What do you think of Charles Percy?

EH: I've always liked Charles Percy very much. He's a very capable person. Whether he could catch on or not...you have to be practical about it. You might like him, but if you know he hasn't got that appeal, it's a foregone conclusion that you're backing a dead horse, so why get all excited about that? I'm not saying he is, but so far he hasn't sort of taken over, you know.

I think that's like a mother and a child, that you're always tough on your own children, and so I'm

131 very tough on the Republicans. I want perfection. I want quality, you know?

JF: That's a good point. What do you think about the Minnesota state Republican Party? What do you think about the name change?

EH: I think that was good.

JF: You think that was good.

EH: I think, psychologically. At the time, I thought it was a hoax. I really did, I'm sort of ashamed of it. I can feel better about the name Independent Republican than I could just Republican, because we've had so many good Republicans, and I like the conservatives personally, but I don't like their philosophy.

JF: One of the people that I work with at the [Minnesota] Historical SocietyHeffelfinger is very active in Republican Party politics, and he wanted me to ask you a particular question. The DFL--of course it's only in Minnesota, the DFL itself--and it was very unique. Do you think that the Republican Party in Minnesota, within the national Republican Party, is a unique kind of entity, too? Do you think there are things that make the RepublicanBradley Party in Minnesota different from like, say, the Republican Party in Illinois or-- Society EH: Yes, I think this is a very liberal...I think it's a very independent state, and I think it's because maybe some of them are Scandinavian, who are very independent. It's my feeling about them. They're the salt of the earth. They're downElizabeth to earth, takes them a long time to make up their mind. This is my own feeling. Whether they like you, and once they like you, you can do no wrong. Do you feel that way? with Historical

JF: A little bit, I guess. I haven't reflected on it much.

EH: They don't make up their minds quickly, and I think that once they like you, it seems to be a very stable relationship, andinterview I think that it's an independence. Minnesota JF: Do you think the Minnesota Republican Party is viewed by the national Republican Party as a liberal element? history EH: I don't know about the national party, but I always think it is. It's an independent group. I don't knowOral really how...I really don't. I can't judge how. I can't answer that question.

JF: I think you've given a good answer already. I wondered if you thought during your years, for instance, as national committeewoman, if the people at the national level of the Republican Party viewed the Minnesota party as being sort of a liberal voice within the Republican Party.

EH: I think so, yes.

JF: More liberal than the Republican Party in California, for instance, or something?

132 EH: Oh, yes. Of course, who knows what California is.

JF: True, especially these days. Oh, boy.

EH: No, I think that we're going through such a change.

JF: What's your assessment of this last election in the state? Now we have a Republican governor, two Republican senators, another Republican representative, so that we have four of our six representatives now are Republicans.

EH: Well, I hope we can keep it for a while, because I don't think that any party, Republican or Democrat, should stay in power too long, because they get too encased in some of the bad mechanics that go almost with either party, You take the situation on the Range, the economic condition. It's a terrible thing, given party workers, and I think that any of what happened during the Benson years, that was bad. I think that for any party it is like the fallHeffelfinger of Rome--it could break when its integrity is no longer there, and that people sense it. It can break from within.

JF: What is your assessment just at this point, realizing that you might change your mind in the future like anybody else, what is your assessment of Quie? Bradley

EH: [Albert] Quie is a very fine man. He's not a glamour puss,Society certainly, but he's a very fine, outstanding man, and you know that anything he does, he will do the best job he possibly can, and make as wise a decision as he can based on evidence that's been presented to him. He's his own man. Elizabeth

I'm on the Committee for Crime and Delinquency,with Historical and we get some money from the Governor's Commission on Crime, and the new head of corrections was there--Jack Young. We were very surprised, because we talked to Quie, and wanted to be able to help him if he needed help, because he had always advised the head of corrections and carried out some of the legislation that was warranted. Quie was interested, but he wasn't as excited about what we were doing as we were, so we were dumbfoundedinterview and delighted when he, in his budget, came forth with a sizable amount of money for the VictimsMinnesota Center--those victims mostly women, battered women, women who had been raped, and not just women, but men and women. And there are two very fine victims centers, one in St. Paul and one in Minneapolis, which our committee runs [unclear], and I think we had historysome 2,500 or 2,600 one year, people who came in who had been victimized.

So we gotOral the money, so it shows that he has a heart, which is the main thing. I think he'll be very careful. He stands very high in the Lutheran Church. He's not exciting, but, after all, we've had enough exciting people and pretty boys to come down to earth to somebody who has just good common sense.

JF: What do you think of our new Republican senators--Boschwitz, for instance?

EH: I like them both. I think they're honest. I think they want to do a job. I was very glad they got in. And it's a change. I was surprised. I was afraid they wouldn't get elected.

133 JF: Do you think that this last election is a token of turnaround now, that maybe there will be a--

EH: I don't know how long they'll last, because if they don't come up to what the people want they'll be turned out.

JF: In recent years, they said that people around the country say they're conservative. They feel much more conservative, but they still want a higher level of social programs--the government to pay for this, the government to pay for that. They may think they're more conservative and they want lower taxes, but they also want government services. Do you think, as you see it, that the Republican Party is going to change a little bit to adapt itself to this group?

EH: Well, I hope so, because, for instance, there's so many things that I'm interested in--first is this Victims Center. Another thing that we're embarking on is trying to get to this family unit, where there's discomfort in the family due to the fact that maybe the man has been incarcerated and coming home, and the fact that he has to go through a change, and theHeffelfinger wife expects him maybe to be the same way, and he isn't the same way, he's better. But there's an awful lot that has to be done with the family units, because the family unit seems to have been dispersed. That's the trouble. Bradley That's the trouble in Africa. They have no place to go. After tight family units, all of a sudden they are on their own. And the family unit is a very important Societything. A lot of work has to be done through the schools and other places to understand this whole situation.

So I would be heartbroken to see that particularElizabeth program given up, so everybody has their own program that is very dear to their heart, and they feel is necessary. So if things are cut too much-- but you can still cut an awful lot of fat. with There's Historicalso much graft in...it's just come out now, this small business, for instance, and the way contracts are given to defense. It's just a handout. People are getting used to being almost spoon fed. I think that philosophy has to change in some way.

I think we've got a real probinterviewlem with [unclear]. Because you find this scratching in all areas of society, regardless of economic Minnesotabackground or anything else. There's no [unclear]. It wasn't too long ago that there was no computer that would find out in how many states a man is getting work relief. They can't figure that out. I had occasion to try to check that, because I knew of three states he historywas getting it in. I knew this personally. But they had no way of [unclear]. Maybe they have now, but there's so much of that. How you could beat the gun. That's the thing that worriesOral people.

JF: Do you have any predictions on who the Republicans can run in 1980 who will have a chance to beat [Jimmy] Carter?

EH: I feel very sorry for Carter himself. I really do. When this situation came up with this Bella woman, of all times, to go after him, it reminded me of a pack of hyenas going after his neck at this time when he was having domestic trouble, problems. He was having problems with Iran; he was having problems on energy; he was having troubles in his own home with his brother Billy--up to no good, certainly. And to hoist on themselves one more problem, I thought

134 was absolutely disgusting and inhuman. So I felt sorry. I think he's doing the best he can, and I think the man is honest. I think he's trying.

It depends upon who the Republicans put up, but I might possibly vote for Carter again. I don't think he understands economics. I think he's been naive, but I think he's learned the hard way. Of course, we don't consider the presidency a place to learn; we want somebody experienced. I would rather have him than I would [Edward M.] Kennedy.

JF: What did you think of Gerald Ford?

EH: I liked Gerald Ford. He was honest. He did, again, the best he could, but I don't think that there's any possibility of his being elected, because he hasn't got that oomph for people--they're looking for an image. Maybe it's a father image or glamour. I don't know what they're looking for, but they do want somebody that excites them, don't you think? Heffelfinger JF: Yes.

EH: Really, they do. It seems awful. Bradley JF: It does. Society EH: Really, it seems awful.

JF: That people would be elected on that basis.Elizabeth

EH: I know it. It seems terrible. with Historical

JF: Do you think that began with--it probably didn't, but Jack Kennedy seems to be the first person I can remember who was a glamour image.

EH: I think Eisenhower interviewhad that. He'd been in this position of landing the troops on the beach of Normandy, and made that decisionMinnesota for himself--when to go, where to go--and people thought of him as sort of a father image. And I think they need something now.

JF: With all ofhistory your interest in and understanding of foreign affairs, how do you think the Carter administration has done? How do you think the Carter administration has done with foreign affairs?Oral

EH: Of course, I was so ardently for recognition of China, that I was absolutely beside myself with joy. You know, I came out--I told you that was '60--and I talked to several people who had been violently against it and had been when--I call it the missionary group, like Judd--and they were great supporters. Years ago I tried to talk to them about it, and they were shocked to think I didn't think that way. I ran into this man, and I said, "What do you think of China?" He said, "I'm so excited that now I'll vote for Carter." And this man was way [unclear]. They were shocked, I remember, when I talked to them this way.

135 I would say it's realistic. We have to be realistic. I think people also are determined that they're not going to sell Taiwan down the river. My husband and I were there a couple of years ago, and the company he's with had an office over there. The Chinese aren't charming people. On our honeymoon, we were over in Japan and most of the tellers, all of the tellers in the banks were Chinese. We don't understand their minds. They don't understand us.

So I think that was a very wise move. Of course, they give Nixon the credit. I don't give Nixon much credit for anything, frankly. In fact, I didn't even vote for him, but my Republican friends didn't know it. [Laughter]

JF: What do you think of Carter's handling in the Middle East--Israel, Egypt, or Iran?

EH: I thought he did a perfectly tremendous job at Camp David. It was true, it was real, he's not a phony, and God deliver us from a phony. There was nothing phony about him, and you can feel it. Of course, we're not responsible. The Israeli cabinet didn't supportHeffelfinger Begin. He was very emotional about it at the time, and he was hurt, because that could have worked out, but they wouldn't support him. It's the old idea that 4,000 years ago, they were given Israel and they're still sticking to that Zionist idea, just like what's happening in Iran now and the Muslims. Look at what's happening in our own country--all these gurus runningBradley around, you know. So it's sort of gone...it's things like that. You look back over history, and history does repeat itself. They go along. They're looking for identification, people are, and an out,Society and so they fall for some of this mystic stuff.

JF: In the last twenty years, for instance, the ElizabethUnited States has changed quite a bit. Do you think it's been for the good or for the bad? What do you think? What are some of the problems or good points that you see--both, maybe?with Historical

EH: Well, I think, of course, the advance in science is tremendous. I think it's grown. I don't think we've gone back. I think right now we're having very difficult times because of world conditions and waste. We're a very wasteful country, and I think that's part of it, and we're very smug--we're too smug--andinterview we think we're too important, and we're getting slapped down. Also, we've probably been very arrogant,Minnesota unknowingly, I think, but I think that's our reputation.

JF: Do you feel concern over the defensive stature of the United States? Do you think we are too weak militarily?history

EH: I thinkOral we have to be strong. I think that we have to be strong. You can't talk to Russia without the strength behind you. That's the feeling of Eisenhower and the feeling of people in the defense, and I have to believe in that, but the thing I don't believe in is the waste that goes on. They give you a price for something, and they go way over, and you have to pay it. There's a lot of waste.

JF: What do you think about the all-volunteer army?

EH: Well, I've never been for that at all, because I think that people who can't get jobs simply settle. How do you feel about that?

136

JF: Well, I'm not in favor of it, a citizen army.

EH: Yes, I just don't believe in that. It's too...I don't know.

JF: Well, it's a difficult thing to know what to do. There is so much sentiment about that.

EH: But so many people that can't make a living any place else go into the army. I don't want people like that defending me. They'll probably run. [Laughter] I think it's very hard for a volunteer army, for the top men running it, to be able to discipline and think.

JF: I wanted to ask you to comment on three people particularly now, too, who we haven't mentioned very much--just whatever comments you care to make. Number one is Ancher Nelson. Heffelfinger EH: Ancher is a very sweet person.

JF: You were a supporter of his, then? Bradley EH: I was a friend of his, yes. Society JF: What about Luther Youngdahl?

EH: He was a very fine person. Elizabeth

JF: You would say you were a-- with Historical

EH: Yes, I was his supporter.

JF: What about Joe Ball? interviewMinnesota EH: Joe Ball I have a great deal of respect for. A very unhappy situation about Joe Ball, because I think it was in '48 when I was running for the legislature, I was very much wrapped up in the foreign policy planning. Joe Ball, I was told, had not given it the support that I thought he should have. Andhistory I remember Harold Stassen said to me, "It was all right, it was a step in the right direction." Later I discovered that Joe Ball had fought for it, and I was completely wrong. I came outOral in the paper and said something very unpleasant about him, and that ended our friendship, but it was done simply because I took Harold Stassen's word, which I never would have taken now on anything--any subject--and should have gone straight to Joe Ball and asked him. It was just one of those mix-ups, which hurt our friendship, but I have a great deal of respect for him. He should have been a great senator.

JF: Do you think that Mr. Stassen is going to run again or--

EH: Oh, he'll run till he dies.

137 JF: Why?

EH: Oh, because he's got great delusions of grandeur.

JF: Which no number of defeats can offset?

EH: Yes, I really wish that he'd take that toupee off, because his face is too old for that toupee, or maybe he should change the color of it, maybe take a few of the hairs out of it or something. It's ridiculous. [Laughter]

You know, there are a lot of things that really are upsetting. I think that, to me, it's the lack of tolerance that you find evident in people today. You take on the subject of gays. I think the cruelest thing in the world is this attitude of Anita Bryant. I think it's absolutely savage, because people have a right to choose their own way of lifestyle, and some men are attracted to women, some women are unattracted to men, and it's only right that they pick theHeffelfinger people that they like. I don't like the militant gays--I think they're very revolting--anymore than I like the militant women or the militant blacks, or anything like that. But I think that they have their own lifestyle, and I think they should have. Bradley Here--and I'm devoted to him. I think he's one of the finest people I've ever met in my life. [Unclear], but they have wonderful, wonderful qualities. I thinkSociety it's very sickening, putting up to vote. To me, it's just inhuman, savage, it's immoral. It goes along with...it's as bad as telling a person you can't use birth control, or as long as they can't have an abortion, not knowing what the situation is at home. It might be absolutely abhorrentElizabeth to them. It's getting into people's business, and that's one of the things about today that is very upsetting to me--this lack of tolerance, lack of understanding, and lack of letting peoplewith alone. Historical Live and let live is my philosophy.

JF: That's an interesting point. Do you think that part of this lack of tolerance comes from the fact that there's so much single-issue politics?

EH: Yes, yes. interview Minnesota JF: Do you think there's more single-issue politics now than there was twenty years ago?

EH: Oh, I've neverhistory seen so many single issues, and they'll vote for somebody...I really had a hard time voting this time, because some of the things that I happen to believe in, the RepublicansOral have not supported. I finally had to sit down and figure out, now what is important? Is the right for an abortion important, or is a sound economic policy for our country so it can grow? I came to the conclusion that, in fact, this was the thing that was important, and that's why I voted the way I did. If I had voted on a single issue, and I think that's the way a lot of people end up voting, I think you have to find out what is important, really.

JF: What do you feel about the confrontation that seems to be getting bigger all the time between the pro-life forces and the--

EH: I think it's dreadful. I think it's dreadful. I happen to think the Catholic Church has grown

138 to be a fascist. What right have they to tell anybody else what to do? Think of the children born into...a woman has a right, particularly if she is forced into intercourse, as so many of them, and there must be millions of...it really makes me terribly upset. A terrible thing.

JF: Particularly since it's become a political football.

EH: Yes, really. And it's going to be more so all the time, but I think the women are hurting themselves, which I'm sorry about, because I think they do need help. But I'm not going to vote for a man who comes up and waves a flag for women just because his...I want security for this country, and I want advancement. I want economic development, so we can still retain our first place in the world, which I have a feeling is gradually slipping.

JF: Why do you think there is more single issue? Why do you think people seem to be less tolerant and less broad-minded than they used to be? Do you have any thoughts on that? It's a difficult question, I know. Heffelfinger

EH: Well, some people just have shut minds, closed minds, [unclear].

JF: There seem to be so many. [Laughter] Bradley

EH: Really. I think the churches could be more helpful in thisSociety thing, except they're divided. I was very unhappy. I had felt that this pope might at least soften the issue, but he hasn't. The one who died very definitely would have, and I was just delighted because I saw the light coming. Where at least there would be a little giving. ButElizabeth it makes the women pay more attention to [unclear]. They go right along, particularly in Italy. They just laugh at him. with Historical JF: The Italians ate meat on Friday long before they were supposed to. [Laughter]

EH: I know it. I know. So it makes...what's the word?

JF: Sort of a mockery ofinterview the things, you mean? Minnesota EH: Yes. It's a mockery of it. So they don't follow it, but yet they expect everybody else to--the moral Catholic. It, to me, is terrifying. This country did not become big because of prejudices and intolerance.history Because they shared and they were tolerant. It's one thing to me is very upsetting. I've talked to so many Catholics, most of them don't believe in it; they pay no attention to it. YouOral know, I started...I was the one who had the first open meeting on birth control.

JF: Right.

EH: And so I've always been interested, and there's some women who simply can't face having another child, or any children, which I feel sorry for women like that, because I think having a child is the most wonderful thing in the world. I always wanted six. I didn't know how difficult they could be sometimes, but I still wanted it. It's a wonderful thing, but there are certain people who don't, and I think that you should abide by that. It's their decision. The whole thing is very upsetting.

139

JF: I have one more question, and it's on a slightly different subject.

EH: Yes.

JF: The Republican Workshop--now, that was one of the first of its kind, maybe the first of its kind, in the nation.

EH: Yes, it was a wonderful outfit.

JF: And you were very much involved in that.

EH: No, I really wasn't. I was on the outside, but I supported them.

JF: It became a model. Did the other states do the same thing? Heffelfinger

EH: Yes, yes. Oh, they did it, they did it, until it got a little bit...they always get too political. You don't hear of it now. Bradley JF: No. Society EH: I don't know what's happened to it. But it was just one of those wonderful groups that sort of fell by the wayside due to lack of leadership. It had wonderful leadership, I think. You don't hear of it now. It's not a force anymore. Elizabeth

JF: Why do you think it came about atwith the time Historical that it did?

EH: It was needed for education. The people doing it did a wonderful job [unclear].

JF: They seem to be being rejuvenated after a long time of kind of-- interviewMinnesota EH: Yes. My niece and namesake is slated to be the president of the New York group. I'm very proud of her.

JF: Great. Thehistory Republican Workshop began, I believe, in the late 1940s, didn't it? It was the late forties, I think. Oral EH: Yes, and it was an educational group.

JF: An issue-oriented study group?

EH: And how to get into it and understanding of the precinct conferences and what to do. It was educational, and it was a wonderful group. As I say, I've lost track of it now.

JF: Well, those are the last of my scheduled questions. Do you have anything that you would like to add?

140

EH: No, it's just been a joy talking to you.

JF: Well, it's been fun for me, too. I've enjoyed it tremendously. Thank you so much, Mrs. Heffelfinger.

Heffelfinger

Bradley Society

Elizabeth

with Historical

interviewMinnesota

history

Oral

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