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Mary Margaret Truman Daniel (February 17, 1924 – January 29, 2008) was an American classical soprano, actress, journalist, radio and television personality, writer, and New York socialite. She was the only child of President Harry S. Truman and First Lady Bess Truman. While her father was president during the years 1945 to 1953, Margaret regularly accompanied him on campaign trips, such as the 1948 countrywide whistle-stop campaign lasting several weeks. She also appeared at important White House and political events during those years and was a favorite with the media.
After graduating from George Washington University in 1946, Truman embarked on a career as a coloratura soprano, beginning with a concert appearance with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 1947. She appeared in the US in concerts with orchestras and in recitals through 1956. She made recordings for RCA Victor and made television appearances on programs such as What's My Line? and The Bell Telephone Hour.
In 1957, one year after her marriage, Truman abandoned her singing career to pursue a career as a journalist and radio personality when she became the cohost of the program Weekday with Mike Wallace. She also wrote articles as an independent journalist for a variety of publications in the 1960s and 1970s. Truman later became the successful author of a series of murder mysteries as well as a number of works on first ladies and their families, including well-received biographies of her father.
Truman was married to journalist Clifton Daniel, managing editor of The New York Times. The couple had four sons and lived in a Park Avenue apartment.
In 1942, Truman matriculated at George Washington University, where she was a member of Pi Beta Phi, and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and international relations in 1946. In June 1944, she christened the battleship at Brooklyn Navy Yard, and spoke again in 1986 at the ship's recommissioning. She studied singing with Estelle Liebling, the voice teacher of Beverly Sills, in New York City.
On April 12, 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died and his vice president Harry Truman assumed the presidency when Margaret was 21.
At the beginning of her career, critical reviews of Truman's singing were positive, polite or diplomatic in tone, with some later reviewers speculating that negative opinions were withheld from deference to her father as a current president. This practice was broken in 1950 when Washington Post music critic Paul Hume wrote that Truman was "extremely attractive on the stage... but cannot sing very well. She is flat a good deal of the time. And still cannot sing with anything approaching professional finish." The review angered President Truman (who was dealing that same day with the sudden death of his childhood friend and White House press secretary Charlie Ross Truman, by David McCullough, 1992, Simon and Schuster), who wrote to Hume, "Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you'll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below!" Years later Margaret Truman recalled, "I thought it was funny. Sold tickets." (Staff writer, Truman's only child dies at 83, NBC News, January 29, 2008, retrieved January 29, 2008.) Hume wanted to publish the letter, but Washington Post publisher Philip Graham vetoed the idea. However, Hume showed the letter to a number of his colleagues, including Milton Berliner, music critic of the rival Washington Times Herald, which published a story. The Washington Post was then forced to acknowledge the letter, which drew international headlines, becoming a minor scandal for the Truman administration. Subsequent reviewers felt freer to be honest in their reviews of her performances, with mixed criticism for her singing thereafter.
Truman also performed on the NBC Radio program The Big Show where she met writer Goodman Ace, who offered her advice and pointers. Ace became a lifelong friend, advising Truman even after The Big Show. Truman became part of the team of NBC Radio's Weekday show that premiered in 1955, shortly after its Monitor program made its debut. Paired with Mike Wallace, she presented news and interviews aimed at a female listening audience.
She appeared several times as a panelist (and twice as a mystery guest) on the game show What's My Line? and guest-starred multiple times on NBC's The Martha Raye Show.
In 1957, Truman sang and played piano on The Gisele MacKenzie Show.
Professional ghostwriter Donald Bain (1935–2017) acknowledged in the March 14, 2014, issue of Publishers Weekly that he had written "27 novels in the Margaret Truman Capital Crimes series (mostly bylined by Truman, my close collaboratormy name is on only the most recent entries, released after her death)."
In 2000, another ghostwriter, William Harrington, had claimed in a self-written obituary before his apparent suicide that Margaret Truman and others were his clients.
As of 2021, six further novels in the series had been published under Truman's name as "with Donald Bain" or "with John Land."
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