Construction project begins around Truman's post-presidency office

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. -- Construction has started on a $1.6 million project designed to bring the public closer to the office Harry S. Truman worked in after leaving the White House.

Since 1974, visitors to the Truman Presidential Museum and Library in the former president's hometown on Independence have been offered a glimpse of the 25-by-21-foot office by peering through a window in a museum courtyard.

But museum officials broke ground Friday on the Truman Working Office project. When finished in late 2009, the 33rd president's working office will be enclosed in a new gallery featuring interactive software.

Clifton Truman Daniel, the former president's grandson, was on hand for the ceremony, along with Bruce Cole, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The endowment's Save America's Treasures program has given the museum a $125,000 grant to help preserve some of the artifacts in the office.

But the project is also designed to give visitors a greater understanding of what Truman did in the office between 1957, when the library was dedicated, to the mid-1960s, when his health began to decline -- a period longer than his presidency.

Truman used the office to meet with Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, as well as entertainment icons such as Jack Benny and Ginger Rogers. He also answered mail, greeted school children and wrote articles.

"That is the story we want to tell," said Clay Bauske, the museum's curator. "The working office is the one place in the library where you can still kind of feel Harry Truman's presence. Everything there is just like it was when he left."

The office includes 1,200 books, including an 1894 edition of "Great Men and Famous Women," a set of biographies that Truman's parents gave him when he was 10.

Other books have notes to Truman from the writers and even Truman's own inscriptions, not always positive. For example, he wrote, "It was a real botched job," in the margin of a book describing White House renovations in 1902.

Truman later oversaw extensive renovations of the presidential mansion.

Artifacts in the office have suffered from sunlight streaming into its sole window, bleaching photos and his desk blotter white. Mold has also begun to grow on some books from inconsistent humidity levels.

Clifton Truman Daniel said the collection of books in his grandfather's office are important because they show a side of Truman's personality, especially his early love of history and biography. Daniel also has a personal connection to the office.

"If anyone looks closely at Grandpa's desk," he said, "they will notice a framed photo of a grandchild -- me."