On 5 December 1950 Margaret Truman, the twenty-five-year-old daughter of President Harry S Truman, gave a concert of vocal music at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. Appropriate to a budding vocalist of still-immature talent who was also the President's daughter, Margaret's performance was duly noted in the Washington papers. In an especially scathing review Paul Hume in the Washington Post passed harsh judgment on Margaret's singing and her prospects for a career, saying, in part,

. . . Miss Truman cannot sing very well. She is flat a good deal of the time — more last night than at any time we have heard her in past years . . . Miss Truman has not improved in the years we have heard her . . . she still cannot sing with anything approaching professional finish.

When the president read the review the next morning, he impetuously, and unknown to his staff, sent...