George M. Elsey ’39

George, an adviser to President Harry Truman and former Red Cross president, died Dec. 30, 2015, in Tustin, Calif., with his daughter, Anne, by his side.

As a young Navy officer, George was assigned to the intelligence center, also known as the “Map Room,” in the White House, where he was privy to top-secret discussions and decisions. After President Roosevelt’s death April 12, 1945, George helped introduce Truman to the Map Room and was with the president in Potsdam when Truman approved using the atomic bomb against Japan. George wrote speeches for Truman’s whistle-stop campaign in 1948 and worked in the White House until 1951.

George landed at Omaha Beach on D-Day as a military historian. After the war, he helped his old professor from Harvard (where George had begun what he thought would be an academic career) with the definitive history of the U.S. Navy in World War II. This professor was Samuel Eliot Morison. (All this information and more can be read in George’s 2005 memoir, An Unplanned Life.)

In 1971, George received our class award, which recognized his volunteer work with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National Geographic Society, Brookings Institution, and the White House Historical Association.

We give a final salute to George and to his two children and two grandchildren, with special gratitude for his loyalty and generosity to Princeton.