More On The Handguns Of President Harry Truman
The Rest Of The Story …
Truman brought a Colt 1917 like this one home from WWI.
A while back, I made reference to the little-known fact Harry Truman was something of a gun guy. I mentioned the Colt .45 ACP revolvers he brought home from World War I, a 1917 revolver and a 1911 pistol that rest in the Truman Library museum. There is also a Smith & Wesson Chief Special reportedly presented to him and which there’s reason to believe he may have carried when he left the White House.
We here at GUNS appreciate our readers, and one I particularly cherish right now is Ed Cornett. This distinguished gentleman is not just a fellow member of the Smith & Wesson Collectors Association (SWCA) but indeed a founding member: #15. After reading the column, Ed was kind enough to share his research at the Truman Library. It turns out I had merely touched the surface.
In the archives of the museum there was another 1917 .45 ACP revolver, this one a Smith & Wesson. Among other S&Ws were a top-break .44 Double Action and a spur-trigger single-action top-break in .38 S&W — and a couple of other six-guns that might cause any collector to salivate.
The Truman .357 is well documented. It would have been
a 5-screw pre-Model 27 like this one.
HST’s Magnum
In 1947, the then-president of S&W, Carl Hellstrom, let the White House know his company wanted to give Truman a revolver … or two. It was decided one would be the company’s flagship handgun, the super-deluxe .357 Magnum, later known as the Model 27. The one put together for Truman had the longest available barrel, 8 3/8″ and checkered walnut Magna stocks. The front sight had a red insert and the serial number was S71893.
At the suggestion of Truman’s military aide, Army Major General Harry S. Vaughan, the revolver was engraved on the right sideplate in capital letters with COLONEL HARRY S. TRUMAN. Why COLONEL and not PRESIDENT? Truman was proud of his combat service in WWI and his subsequent time in the Reserves. Hellstrom had an identical long-barrel .357 set aside for General Vaughan in gratitude for his assistance. Its serial number is S71852.
Cornett reports, “Mr. Hellstrom sought the services of Congressman Cecil R. King (D-California) to arrange the informal presentation of the revolver to President Truman. Congressman King was a close friend of President Truman from their years together in Congress. He was also a member of the Board of Directors of the National Rifle Association as well as a gun collector and shooter.” The presentation was made the following year.
Except for grips and adapter, Truman’s .357 would have looked like this.
The Truman Magnum was shipped with Magna stocks similar to this.
The Gun Protecting The President
Mr. Cornett learned in the same timeframe (1948) a most interesting 4″ barrel Military & Police .38 Special was presented to President Truman. On July 23, 1947, Hellstrom wrote to Vaughn on S&W letterhead, “When we commenced production of our Victory Model revolver at the beginning of the recent war, we retained the first gun off the line, foreseeing its eventual value as an historic collector’s item,” and added his wish it be presented to Truman. The .38 in question had the smooth walnut grips of the Victory Model, but not its flat gray finish — this one had the commercial polished blue.
The serial number was V1, and therein lies a tale in which Cornett solved a mystery. He examined the gun and took it apart with the approval of Mark Beveridge before the latter’s retirement from the Truman Museum. It turns out that V1 did not have the right parts or proofmarks for an early Victory Model, and was more consistent with production toward the end of the conflict or postwar. Roy Jinks, the acknowledged top authority on these guns and the official S&W Historian, agreed.
Were there two V1s? Did Hellstrom fudge the history of V1 a little in his letter to the White House? Or did someone lower in the S&W hierarchy say “Good Lord, the boss wants to give a gun to the President and we can’t find it? We’ll have to make another!”
What we do know, thanks to Cornett and Beveridge, is S&W .38 Special number V1 had been kept loaded by President Truman in or on a bedside table until his death in December 26, 1972 at the age of 88. Ed Cornett told me, “After Truman’s death, the Victory Model was removed from the bedside table and whoever did it was not gun-knowledgeable as to how to unload the revolver, so there are some scratch marks on the extractor from a pair of pliers they tried to use until more knowledgeable people intervened!”
It is good to be reminded there was a time when Democrat Presidents understood the importance of self-defense with handguns, practiced it themselves, and didn’t try to compromise their constituency’s ability to do the same. A time when a Democrat Representative from California would serve on the NRA Board and facilitate the transfer of handguns to the White House. I am extremely grateful to Ed Cornett for sharing this information with us and our readers.
