IMPORTANT PRESENTATION/ASSOCIATION COPY, ONE OF ONLY 60 COPIES, PRESIDENT TRUMAN’S 1951 ADDRESS MADE AT THE RATIFICATION OF THE JAPANESE PEACE TREATY, WARMLY INSCRIBED IN THE MONTH OF PUBLICATION TO HIS SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE, STUART SYMINGTON

(TRUMAN, Harry). Address of the President at the Opening of the Conference on the Japanese Peace Treaty, September 4, 1951. Washington: White House, Christmas 1951. Slim octavo, original half crushed russet morocco, uncut; pp. 12, [6]. Housed in a custom chemise and clamshell box. $12,500.

Special limited first edition, number 33 of only 60 copies with the text from Truman’s speech at the Japanese Peace Conference, printed for President Truman at Christmas 1951, an exceptional presentation/association copy warmly inscribed the month of publication to Truman’s Secretary of the Air Force, “To Hon. Stuart Symington, with best wishes for a Merry Christmas, Harry Truman, Dec. 25, 1951.”

With his ratification of the Japanese Peace Treaty in San Francisco on September 4, 1951, President Harry Truman brought to a conclusion, in his own words, “a bitter and costly war.” That historic event is commemorated here in a special limited edition of only 60 copies, containing the complete “Address of the President at the Opening of the Conference on the Japanese Peace Treaty.” Within Truman speaks of the “long and patient negotiations… fair to both victor and vanquished,” which produced the treaty, and his hopes for moving the world toward “a firm and lasting peace.” This is number 33 of only 60 copies printed on fine laid paper for the President at Christmas 1951. Truman’s warm inscription is to his fellow Missourian Stuart Symington, who Truman appointed in 1947 as “first secretary of the air force,” then in 1950 as chair of the National Security Resources Board. In 1951, “again at Truman’s request, he moved to the chairmanship of the scandal-plagued Reconstruction Finance Corporation,” before serving several distinguished terms in the Senate (ANB). With a laid-in note with a printed Truman signature and a printed note reading, “I am pleased to comply with your request for an inscribed photograph” (photograph not included).

Text generally fresh with only light soiling to preliminary and terminal leaves, light staining to original boards. A near-fine presentation copy with an especially memorable association.