Merle Dale Miller[1] (May 17, 1919 – June 10, 1986) was an American writer, novelist, and author who is perhaps best remembered for his best-selling biography of Harry S. Truman, and as a pioneer in the gay rights movement.
His other novels are Island 49 (1945); The Sure Thing (1949); Reunion (1954); A Day in Late September (1956); A Secret Understanding (1956); A Gay and Melancholy Sound (1961); and What Happened (1972).
[4] His works of non-fiction include We Dropped the A-Bomb (1946), a book he wrote in collaboration with Abe Spitzer, a radioman who was on the bomber The Great Artiste, one of the three B-29s that participated in the atom bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; The Judges and The Judged (1952); Only You Dick Daring (1964), Miller's scathing account of trying to make a show with CBS for the 1963-1964 television season; and On Being Different: What It Means To Be a Homosexual (1971).
[5] Miller wrote many television plays and was the author of the screenplays, "The Rains of Ranchiphur" (1955), which starred Richard Burton and Lana Turner, and "Kings Go Forth," (1958), featuring Frank Sinatra and Natalie Wood.
[6] His postwar career as a television script writer and novelist was interrupted by the advent of Senator Joseph McCarthy and Miller's inclusion on the Hollywood blacklist.
[8] In 1962, Miller was hired by producer Robert Alan Aurthur as part of a team to interview and write the script for a proposed series on ex-President Harry Truman.
Miller felt that perhaps the time was not right, that many people were not aware of the greatness of the man, and that it was possible that the country was not ready to look back at the Truman years.
It stayed in print, either in hard or soft cover for many years and, as late as 2004, was published as a "Classic Bestseller" by Black Dog and Leventhal.
Plain Speaking was adapted for television in 1976 by the Public Broadcasting Service, for which Ed Flanders received an Emmy Award for his portrayal of Truman.
[16][17] In Plain Speaking, Miller quoted Truman as referring to General Douglas MacArthur as a "dumb-son-of-a-bitch" and quoted Truman as asserting that Dwight Eisenhower, his successor in the Oval Office, tried to divorce his wife Mamie in order to marry Kay Summersby, his English chauffeur and secretary during World War II.
In Miller's recounting, Truman claimed that General George C. Marshall wrote Eisenhower a letter threatening to ruin his career if he divorced his wife.
A similar issue occurred with comments that Miller claimed Truman said about his former attorney general and later Supreme Court appointee, Justice Tom C.
According to Ferrell, Truman did not mail the letter to Miller, but instead chose to hire a law firm and threatened to sue, which forced Miller to withdraw the proposed article for the Saturday Evening Post, and, in Ferrell's view, led him to wait until after Truman's death to publish Plain Speaking to avoid the possibility of any legal action.