A Quiet Message to President Obama from President Truman

Legerdemain came through the radar like a U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit stealth bomber. Published in an off-month, it passed through the reviewers and the librarians who didn’t catch a glimpse of it. Fresh from the deepest part of the archives in Washington D.C., Legerdemain brought the dual understanding of the Soviet- Russian mind-set and Muslim perspective to an American culture coming to grips with the former and completely unaware of the latter.

Like a message from President Truman to President Obama on how to get things done in a complex world, Legerdemain opens sixty years ago when Harry S. Truman saw what was happening in French Morocco and set the events of Legerdemain in motion. The Russians, Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union, were positioning for a Communist take-over of the French Protectorate that contained air bases vital to U.S. national security and conversely, were a threat to Russia. Harry Truman, not given to negotiating such threats to American national security, ordered the U.S. Air Force to perform legerdemain and, with a figurative sleight-of-hand, take Morocco from the French colonial system and bring it into the American sphere of influence. The author played a vital role in the covert plan.

Legerdemain, based in large part on recently declassified files,is a modern- day classic of high adventure, skillfully written by James Heaphey, a man whose mastery of the written word places him in the upper tier of men and women of letters. The Harry S. Truman Library Institute of National and International Affairs is considering Legerdemain for the prestigious Harry S. Truman Award for its Best Book Award for 2009-2009.

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Contact: Don Bracken, djb@historypublishingco.com, 845-398-8161