33. HARRY S. TRUMAN 1945-1953
During his few weeks as Vice President, Harry S Truman scarcely
saw President Roosevelt, and received no briefing on the
development of the atomic bomb or the unfolding difficulties
with Soviet Russia. Suddenly these and a host of other wartime
problems became Truman's to solve when, on April 12, 1945, he
became President. He told reporters, "I felt like the moon, the
stars, and all the planets had fallen on me."
Truman was born in Lamar, Missouri, in 1884. He grew up in
Independence, and for 12 years prospered as a Missouri farmer.
He went to France during World War I as a captain in the
Field Artillery. Returning, he married Elizabeth Virginia
Wallace, and opened a haberdashery in Kansas City.
Active in the Democratic Party, Truman was elected a judge of
the Jackson County Court (an administrative position) in 1922.
He became a Senator in 1934. During World War II he headed the
Senate war investigating committee, checking into waste and
corruption and saving perhaps as much as 15 billion dollars.
As President, Truman made some of the most crucial decisions
in history. Soon after V-E Day, the war against Japan had
reached its final stage. An urgent plea to Japan to surrender
was rejected. Truman, after consultations with his advisers,
ordered atomic bombs dropped on cities devoted to war work. Two
were Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japanese surrender quickly
followed.
In June 1945 Truman witnessed the signing of the charter of
the United Nations, hopefully established to preserve peace.
Thus far, he had followed his predecessor's policies, but he
soon developed his own. He presented to Congress a 21-point
program, proposing the expansion of Social Security, a
full-employment program, a permanent Fair Employment Practices
Act, and public housing and slum clearance. The program, Truman
wrote, "symbolizes for me my assumption of the office of
President in my own right." It became known as the Fair Deal.
Dangers and crises marked the foreign scene as Truman
campaigned successfully in 1948. In foreign affairs he was
already providing his most effective leadership.
In 1947 as the Soviet Union pressured Turkey and, through
guerrillas, threatened to take over Greece, he asked Congress to
aid the two countries, enunciating the program that bears his
name--the Truman Doctrine. The Marshall Plan, named for his
Secretary of State, stimulated spectacular economic recovery in
war-torn western Europe.
When the Russians blockaded the western sectors of Berlin in
1948, Truman created a massive airlift to supply Berliners until
the Russians backed down. Meanwhile, he was negotiating a
military alliance to protect Western nations, the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization, established in 1949.
In June 1950, when the Communist government of North Korea
attacked South Korea, Truman conferred promptly with his
military advisers. There was, he wrote, "complete, almost
unspoken acceptance on the part of everyone that whatever had to
be done to meet this aggression had to be done. There was no
suggestion from anyone that either the United Nations or the
United States could back away from it."
A long, discouraging struggle ensued as U.N. forces held a
line above the old boundary of South Korea. Truman kept the war
a limited one, rather than risk a major conflict with China and
perhaps Russia.
Deciding not to run again, he retired to Independence; at age
88, he died December 26, 1972, after a stubborn fight for life.
NOTES:
Harry Truman Library and Museum
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/
