Margaret Truman Daniel
She died today in a week when Caroline Kennedy endorsed Barack Obama and Chelsea Clinton was on the campaign trail for her mother. First Families have changed since Margaret Truman’s time, but she was a kind and caring woman whose books about the place, including murder mysteries, will be a lasting part of Washington lore.
She was an only child in the White House, a Daddy’s girl if there ever was one. Harry Truman doted on her and, when the Washington Post gave her singing concert a bad review, Truman fired off the most intemperate letter a President ever sent to a newspaper.
“I have never met you,” Truman wrote to the critic, “but if I do you’ll need a new nose and plenty of beefsteak and perhaps a supporter below.”
Margaret Truman gave up singing, married a New York Times reporter, had four sons and starting writing books and magazine articles, some of them for me.
I first met her in 1953…
