Truman was raised inIndependence, Missouri, and duringWorld War I fought in France as a captain in the Field Artillery. Returning home, he opened ahaberdashery inKansas City, Missouri, and was elected as a judge ofJackson County in 1922. Truman was elected to theU.S. Senate for Missouri in 1934. Between 1940 and 1944, he gained national prominence as the chairman of theTruman Committee, which aimed to reduce waste and inefficiency in wartime contracts.
Truman presided over the onset of theCold War in 1947. He oversaw theBerlin Airlift and the Marshall Plan in 1948. With America's involvement in theKorean War (1950–1953),South Korea repelled the invasion byNorth Korea. Domestically, the postwar economic challenges such as strikes and inflation created a mixed reaction over the effectiveness of his administration. In 1948, he proposed that Congress should pass comprehensive civil rights legislation. Congress refused, so Truman issued Executive Order 9980 andExecutive Order 9981, which prohibited discrimination in agencies ofthe federal government and desegregated theUnited States Armed Forces.
Investigations revealedcorruption in parts of the Truman administration, and this became a major campaign issue in the1952 presidential election, although they did not implicate Truman himself. He was eligible for reelection in 1952 but he chose not to run due to poor polling. Subsequently, Truman went into a retirement marked by the founding ofhis presidential library and the publication of his memoirs. It was long-believed that Truman’s retirement years were financially difficult, resulting in Congress establishing a pension for former presidents. However, evidence eventually emerged that he amassed considerable wealth, some of it during his presidency. When Truman left office, his administration was heavily criticized. Despite this controversy, scholarsrank Truman in the first quartile of U.S. presidents. In addition, critical reassessments of his presidency have improved his reputation among historians and the general population.[1]
Early life, family, and education
Truman at age 13 in 1897
Truman was born inLamar, Missouri, on May 8, 1884, the oldest child of John Anderson Truman andMartha Ellen Young Truman. He was named for his maternal uncle, Harrison "Harry" Young. His middle initial, "S", is not an abbreviation of one particular name. Rather, it honors both his grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young, a somewhat common practice in theAmerican South at the time.[b][3] A brother, John Vivian, was born soon after Harry, followed by sister Mary Jane.[4] While Truman's ancestry was primarilyEnglish, he also had someScots-Irish,German, andFrench ancestry.[5][6]
John Truman was a farmer and livestock dealer. The family lived in Lamar until Harry was ten months old, when they moved to a farm nearHarrisonville, Missouri. They next moved toBelton and in 1887 to his grandparents' 600-acre (240 ha) farm inGrandview.[7] When Truman was six, his parents moved toIndependence, Missouri, so he could attend thePresbyterian Church Sunday School. He did not attend a conventional school until he was eight years old.[8] While living in Independence, he served as aShabbos goy for Jewish neighbors, doing tasks for them onShabbat that their religion prevented them from doing on that day.[9][10][11]
Truman was interested in music, reading, history, and math,[12] all encouraged by his mother, with whom he was very close. As president, he solicited political as well as personal advice from her.[13] Truman learned to play thepiano at age seven and took lessons from Mrs. E.C. White, a well-respected teacher inKansas City.[14] He got up at five o'clock every morning to practice the piano, which he studied more than twice a week until he was fifteen, becoming quite a skilled player.[15] Truman worked as a page at the1900 Democratic National Convention inKansas City;[16] his father had many friends active in the Democratic Party who helped young Harry to gain his first political position.[17]
After graduating fromIndependence High School in 1901,[18] Truman took classes at Spalding's Commercial College, a Kansas City business school. He studied bookkeeping, shorthand, and typing but stopped after a year.[19]
Segregation was practiced and largely accepted where Truman grew up. While he later came to support civil rights, early letters of the young Truman reflected his upbringing and prejudices againstAfrican andAsian Americans.[20]
Truman was employed briefly in the mailroom ofThe Kansas City Star[21] before making use of his business college experience to obtain a job as a timekeeper for construction crews on theAtchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, which required him to sleep in workmen's camps along the rail lines.[22] Truman and his brother Vivian later worked as clerks at theNational Bank of Commerce in Kansas City.[23]
In 1906, Truman returned to the Grandview farm, where he lived until entering the army in 1917.[24] During this period, he courtedBess Wallace.[25] He proposed in 1911, but she turned him down.[26] Believing Wallace turned him down because he did not have much money, Truman later said he intended to propose again, but he wanted to have a better income than that earned by a farmer.[27] In fact, Wallace later told Truman she did not intend to marry, but if she did, it would be to him.[26] Still determined to improve his finances, during his years on the farm and immediately after World War I, Truman became active in several business ventures. These included a lead and zinc mine nearCommerce, Oklahoma, a company that bought land and leased the oil drilling rights to prospectors, and speculation in Kansas City real estate.[28] Truman occasionally derived some income from these enterprises, but none proved successful in the long term.[29]
Truman is the only president sinceWilliam McKinley (elected in 1896) who did not earn a college degree.[30] In addition to having briefly attended business college, from 1923 to 1925 he took night courses toward anLL.B. at the Kansas City Law School (now theUniversity of Missouri–Kansas City School of Law) but dropped out after losing reelection as county judge.[31] He was informed by attorneys in the Kansas City area that his education and experience were probably sufficient to receive a license to practice law but did not pursue it because he won election as presiding judge.[32]
While serving as president in 1947, Truman applied for a law license.[33] A friend who was an attorney began working out the arrangements, and informed Truman that his application had to be notarized. By the time Truman received this information he had changed his mind, so he never followed up. After the discovery of Truman's application in 1996 theMissouri Supreme Court issued him a posthumous honorary law license.[34]
Military service
National Guard
Due to the lack of funds for college, Truman considered attending theUnited States Military Academy atWest Point, New York, which had no tuition, but he was refused an appointment because of poor eyesight.[31] He enlisted in theMissouri National Guard in 1905 and served until 1911 in the Kansas City-basedBattery B, 2nd Missouri Field Artillery Regiment, in which he attained the rank ofcorporal.[35] At his induction, his eyesight without glasses was unacceptable20/50 in the right eye and 20/400 in the left (past the standard for legal blindness).[36] The second time he took the test, he passed by secretly memorizing the eye chart.[37] He was described as 5 feet 10 inches tall,gray eyed, dark haired and of light complexion.[38]
World War I
Truman in September 1917
When the United States enteredWorld War I onApril 6, 1917, Truman rejoined Battery B, successfully recruiting new soldiers for the expanding unit, for which he was elected as theirfirst lieutenant.[39] Before deployment to France, Truman was sent for training toCamp Doniphan,Fort Sill, nearLawton, Oklahoma, when his regiment was federalized as the129th Field Artillery.[40] The regimental commander during its training wasRobert M. Danford, who later served as the Army's Chief of Field Artillery.[41] Truman recalled that he learned more practical, useful information from Danford in six weeks than from six months of formal Army instruction, and when Truman served as an artillery instructor, he consciously patterned his approach on Danford's.[41]
Truman also ran the campcanteen withEdward Jacobson, a clothing store clerk he knew from Kansas City. Unlike most canteens funded by unit members, which usually lost money, the canteen operated by Truman and Jacobson turned a profit, returning each soldier's initial $2 investment and $10,000 in dividends in six months.[35] At Fort Sill, Truman met Lieutenant James M. Pendergast, nephew ofTom Pendergast, a Kansas City political boss, a connection that had a profound influence on Truman's later life.[42][43]
In mid-1918, about one million soldiers of theAmerican Expeditionary Forces (AEF) were in France.[44] Truman was promoted tocaptain effective April 23,[45] and in July became commander of the newly arrived Battery D, 129th Field Artillery,35th Division.[46][47] Battery D was known for its discipline problems, and Truman was initially unpopular because of his efforts to restore order.[35] Despite attempts by the men to intimidate him into quitting, Truman succeeded by making his corporals and sergeants accountable for discipline. He promised to back them up if they performed capably and reduce them to private if they did not.[48] In an event memorialized in battery lore as "The Battle of Who Run", his soldiers began to flee during a sudden night attack by the Germans in theVosges Mountains; Truman succeeded at ordering his men to stay and fight, using profanity from his railroad days. The men were so surprised to hear Truman use such language that they immediately obeyed.[35]
Truman's unit joined in a massive prearranged assault barrage on September 26, 1918, at the opening of theMeuse–Argonne offensive.[49] They advanced with difficulty overpitted terrain to follow the infantry, and set up an observation post west ofCheppy.[49] On September 27, Truman saw through his binoculars an enemy artillery battery deploying across a river in a position which would allow them to fire upon the neighboring28th Division.[49] Truman's orders limited him to targets facing the 35th Division, but he ignored this and patiently waited until the Germans had walked their horses well away from their guns, ensuring they could not relocate out of range of Truman's battery.[49] He then ordered his men to open fire, and their attack destroyed the enemy battery.[49] His actions were credited with saving the lives of 28th Division soldiers who otherwise would have come under fire from the Germans.[50][51] Truman was given a dressing down by his regimental commander, Colonel Karl D. Klemm, who threatened to convene a court-martial, but Klemm never followed through, and Truman was not punished.[49]
In other action during the Meuse–Argonne offensive, Truman's battery provided support forGeorge S. Patton's tank brigade,[52] and fired some of the last shots of the war on November 11, 1918. Battery D did not lose any men while under Truman's command in France. To show their appreciation for his leadership, his men presented him with a largeloving cup upon their return to the United States after the war.[35]
The war was a transformative experience in which Truman manifested his leadership qualities. He had entered the service in 1917 as a family farmer who had worked in clerical jobs that did not require the ability to motivate and direct others, but during the war, he gained leadership experience and a record of success that greatly enhanced and supported his post-war political career in Missouri.[35]
Truman was brought up in the Presbyterian andBaptist churches,[53] but avoidedrevivals and sometimes ridiculed revivalist preachers.[54] He rarely spoke about religion, which to him, primarily meant ethical behavior along traditional Protestant lines.[55] Truman once wrote in a letter to his future wife, Bess: "You know that I know nothing about Lent and such things..."[56] Most of the soldiers he commanded in the war were Catholics, and one of his close friends was the 129th Field Artillery's chaplain,Monsignor L. Curtis Tiernan.[57] The two remained friends until Tiernan's death in 1960.[58] Developing leadership and interpersonal skills that later made him a successful politician helped Truman get along with his Catholic soldiers, as he did with soldiers of other Christian denominations and the unit's Jewish members.[59][60]
Officers' Reserve Corps
Officers of the 129th Field Artillery, at regimental headquarters at Chateau le Chanay near Courcemont, France, March 1919. Captain Harry S. Truman is pictured in the second row, third from the right.
After his election to the U.S. Senate, Truman was transferred to the General Assignments Group, a holding unit for less active officers, although he had not been consulted in advance.[66] Truman protested his reassignment, which led to his resumption of regimental command.[66] He remained an active reservist until the early 1940s.[67] Truman volunteered for active military service duringWorld War II, but was not accepted, partly because of age, and partly because PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt desired that senators and congressmen who belonged to the military reserves support the war effort by remaining in Congress, or by ending their active duty service and resuming their congressional seats.[68] He was an inactive reservist from the early 1940s until retiring as a colonel in the then redesignatedU.S. Army Reserve on January 20, 1953.[69]
Military awards and decorations
World War I victory lapel pin like the one Truman habitually wore
Harry and Bess Truman on their wedding day,June 28, 1919
After his wartime service, Truman returned to Independence, where he married Bess Wallace on June 28, 1919.[72] The couple had one child,Mary Margaret Truman.[73]
Shortly before the wedding, Truman and Jacobson opened ahaberdashery together at 104 West 12th Street in downtownKansas City.[74] After brief initial success, the store went bankrupt during therecession of 1921.[13] Truman did not pay off the last of the debts from that venture until 1935, when he did so with the aid of bankerWilliam T. Kemper, who worked behind the scenes to enable Truman's brother Vivian to buy Truman's $5,600promissory note during the asset sale of a bank that had failed in theGreat Depression.[75][76] The note had risen and fallen in value as it was bought and sold, interest accumulated and Truman made payments, so by the time the last bank to hold it failed, it was worth nearly $9,000.[77] Thanks to Kemper's efforts, Vivian Truman was able to buy it for $1,000.[76] Jacobson and Truman remained close friends even after their store failed, and Jacobson's advice to Truman onZionism later played a role in the U.S. Government's decision to recognize Israel.[78]
With the help of the Kansas CityDemocraticmachine led byTom Pendergast, Truman was elected in 1922 as County Court judge ofJackson County's eastern district—Jackson County's three-judge court included judges from the western district (Kansas City), the eastern district (the county outside Kansas City), and a presiding judge elected countywide. This was an administrative rather than a judicial court, similar tocounty commissions in many other jurisdictions. Truman succeeded James E. Gilday and served from January 1, 1923 to January 1, 1925.[79] He lost his 1924 reelection campaign to Henry Rummel in a Republican wave led by PresidentCalvin Coolidge'slandslide election to a full term.[80] Two years selling automobile club memberships convinced him that a public service career was safer for a family man approaching middle age, and he planned a run forpresiding judge in 1926.[81]
Truman won the job in 1926 with the support of the Pendergast machine, and succeeded Elihu W. Hayes.[82] Truman was re-elected in 1930; he served from January 1, 1927 to January 1, 1935 and was succeeded by Eugene I. Purcell.[80] As presiding judge, Truman helped coordinate theTen Year Plan, which transformed Jackson County and the Kansas City skyline with new public works projects, including an extensive series of roads and construction of a newWight and Wight-designedCounty Court building. Also in 1926, he became president of theNational Old Trails Road Association, and during his term he oversaw dedication of 12Madonna of the Trail monuments to honor pioneer women.[81][83]
In 1933, Truman was named Missouri's director for the Federal Re-Employment program (part of theCivil Works Administration) at the request of Postmaster GeneralJames Farley. This was payback to Pendergast for delivering the Kansas City vote toFranklin D. Roosevelt in the1932 presidential election. The appointment confirmed Pendergast's control over federalpatronage jobs in Missouri and marked the zenith of his power. It also created a relationship between Truman and Roosevelt's aideHarry Hopkins and assured Truman's avid support for the New Deal.[84]
After serving as a county judge, Truman wanted to run forgovernor of Missouri orCongress,[85][86] but Pendergast rejected these ideas. Truman then thought he might serve out his career in some well-paying county sinecure;[86] circumstances changed when Pendergast reluctantly backed him as the machine's choice in the 1934 Democraticprimary election for theU.S. Senate from Missouri, after Pendergast's first four choices had declined to run.[87] In the primary, Truman defeated CongressmenJohn J. Cochran andJacob L. Milligan with the solid support ofJackson County, which was crucial to his candidacy. Also critical were the contacts he had made statewide in his capacity as a county official, member of theFreemasons,[c] military reservist,[d] and member of the American Legion.[e][91] In the general election, Truman defeated incumbent RepublicanRoscoe C. Patterson by nearly 20 percentage points in a continuing wave of pro-New Deal Democrats elected during theGreat Depression.[87][92][93]
Truman assumed office with a reputation as "the Senator from Pendergast". He referred patronage decisions to Pendergast but maintained that he voted with his own conscience. He later defended the patronage decisions by saying that "by offering a little to the machine, [he] saved a lot".[93][94] In his first term, Truman spoke out against corporate greed and the dangers ofWall Street speculators and other moneyed special interests attaining too much influence in national affairs.[95] Though he served on the high-profileAppropriations andInterstate Commerce Committees, he was largely ignored by President Roosevelt and had trouble getting calls returned from the White House.[93][96]
During theU.S. Senate election in 1940, U.S. AttorneyMaurice Milligan (former opponent Jacob Milligan's brother) and former governorLloyd Stark both challenged Truman in the Democratic primary. Truman was politically weakened by Pendergast's imprisonment for income tax evasion the previous year; the senator had remained loyal, having claimed that Republican judges (not the Roosevelt administration) were responsible for the boss's downfall.[97]St. Louis party leaderRobert E. Hannegan's support of Truman proved crucial; he later brokered the deal that put Truman on the national ticket. In the end, Stark and Milligan split the anti-Pendergast vote in the Senate Democratic primary and Truman won by a total of 8,000 votes. In the November election, Truman defeated RepublicanManvel H. Davis by 51–49 percent.[98] As senator, Truman opposed both Nazi Germany and Communist Russia. Two days afterHitler invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Truman said:
If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible although I don't want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances.[99]
This quote without its last part later became a staple inSoviet and laterRussian propaganda as "evidence" of an American conspiracy to destroy the country.[100][101]
In late 1940, Truman traveled to various military bases. The waste and profiteering he saw led him to use his chairmanship of theCommittee on Military Affairs Subcommittee on War Mobilization to start investigations into abuses while the nation prepared for war. A new special committee was set up under Truman to conduct a formal investigation; the White House supported this plan rather than weather a more hostile probe by the House of Representatives. The main mission of the committee was to expose and fight waste and corruption in the gigantic government wartime contracts.
Truman's initiative convinced Senate leaders of the necessity for the committee, which reflected his demands for honest and efficient administration and his distrust of big business and Wall Street. Truman managed the committee "with extraordinary skill" and usually achieved consensus, generating heavy media publicity that gave him a national reputation.[102][103] Activities of the Truman Committee ranged from criticizing the "dollar-a-year men" hired by the government, many of whom proved ineffective, to investigating a shoddily built New Jersey housing project for war workers.[104][105] In March 1944, Truman attempted to probe the expensiveManhattan Project but was persuaded by Secretary of WarHenry L. Stimson to discontinue with the investigation.[106]: 634
The committee reportedly saved as much as $15 billion (equivalent to $260 billion in 2024),[107][108][109][110] and its activities put Truman on the cover ofTime magazine.[111] According to the Senate's historical minutes, in leading the committee, "Truman erased his earlier public image as an errand-runner for Kansas City politicos", and "no senator ever gained greater political benefits from chairing a special investigating committee than did Missouri's Harry S. Truman."[112]
Roosevelt's advisors knew that Roosevelt might not live out a fourth term and that his vice president would very likely become the next president.Henry Wallace had served as Roosevelt's vice president for four years and was popular on the left, but he was viewed as too far to the left and too friendly to labor for some of Roosevelt's advisers. The President and several of his confidantes wanted to replace Wallace with someone more acceptable to Democratic Party leaders. Outgoing Democratic National Committee chairmanFrank C. Walker, incoming chairman Hannegan, party treasurerEdwin W. Pauley, Bronx party bossEd Flynn, Chicago MayorEdward Joseph Kelly, and lobbyist George E. Allen all wanted to keep Wallace off the ticket.[113] Roosevelt told party leaders that he would accept either Truman or Supreme Court JusticeWilliam O. Douglas.[114]
State and city party leaders strongly preferred Truman, and Roosevelt agreed.[115] Truman had repeatedly said that he was not in the race and that he did not want the vice presidency, and he remained reluctant.[115] One reason was that his wife and sister Mary Jane were both on his Senate staff payroll, and he feared negative publicity.[115] Truman did not campaign for the vice-presidential spot, though he welcomed the attention as evidence that he had become more than the "Senator from Pendergast".[116] Truman's nomination was dubbed the "SecondMissouri Compromise" and was well received. The Roosevelt–Truman ticket achieved a 432–99 electoral-vote victory in the election, defeating the Republican ticket of GovernorThomas E. Dewey of New York and running mate GovernorJohn Bricker of Ohio. Truman wassworn in as vice president on January 20, 1945.[117] After the inauguration, Truman called his mother, who instructed him, "Now you behave yourself."[118]
Truman's brief vice-presidency was relatively uneventful. Truman mostly presided over the Senate and attended parties and receptions. He kept the same offices from his Senate years, mostly only using the Vice President's official office in the Capitol to greet visitors. Truman was the first vice president to have a Secret Service agent assigned to him. Truman envisioned the office as a liaison between the Senate and the president.[119] On April 10, 1945,[120] Truman cast his onlytie-breaking vote as president of the Senate, against aRobert A. Taft amendment that would have blocked the postwar delivery ofLend-Lease Act items contracted for during the war.[121][122] Roosevelt rarely contacted him, even to inform him of major decisions; the president and vice president met alone together only twice during their time in office.[123]
In one of his first acts as vice president, Truman created some controversy when he attended the disgraced Pendergast's funeral. He brushed aside the criticism, saying simply, "He was always my friend and I have always been his."[13] He had rarely discussed world affairs or domestic politics with Roosevelt; he was uninformed about major initiatives relating to the war and the top-secretManhattan Project, which was about to test the world's first atomic bomb.[124] In an event that generated negative publicity for Truman, he was photographed with actressLauren Bacall sitting atop the piano at theNational Press Club as he played for soldiers.[125]
Vice President Truman was sworn in aspresident in theCabinet Room at the White House a few hours after Roosevelt's death.
Truman had been vice president for 82 days when President Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945.[124] Truman, presiding over the Senate, as usual, had just adjourned the session for the day and was preparing to have a drink inHouse SpeakerSam Rayburn'soffice when he received an urgent message to go immediately to the White House, whereEleanor Roosevelt told him that her husband had died after a massivecerebral hemorrhage. Truman asked her if there was anything he could do for her; she replied, "Is there anything we can do foryou? For you are the one in trouble now!"[126][127][128] He wassworn in as president at 7:09 p.m. in the West Wing of the White House, by Chief JusticeHarlan F. Stone.[129]
At the White House, Truman replaced Roosevelt holdovers with old confidants. The White House was badly understaffed with no more than a dozen aides; they could barely keep up with the heavy workflow of a greatly expanded executive department. Truman acted as his ownchief of staff on a daily basis, as well as his own liaison with Congress—a body he already knew very well. He was not well prepared to deal with the press, and never achieved the jovial familiarity of FDR. Filled with latent anger about all the setbacks in his career, he bitterly mistrusted journalists. He saw them as enemies lying in wait for his next careless miscue. Truman was a very hard worker, often to the point of exhaustion, which left him testy, easily annoyed, and on the verge of appearing unpresidential or petty. In terms of major issues, he discussed them in depth with top advisors. He mastered the details of the federal budget as well as anyone. Truman was a poor speaker reading a text. However, his visible anger made him an effectivestump speaker, denouncing his enemies as his supporters hollered back at him "Give Em Hell, Harry!"[130]
Truman surrounded himself with friends and appointed several to high positions that seemed beyond their competence, including his two secretaries of the treasury,Fred Vinson andJohn Snyder. His closest friend in the White House was his military aideHarry H. Vaughan, who knew little of military or foreign affairs and was criticized for trading access to the White House for expensive gifts.[131][132] Truman loved to spend as much time as possible playing poker, telling stories and sipping bourbon.Alonzo Hamby notes that:
... to many in the general public, gambling and bourbon swilling, however low-key, were not quite presidential. Neither was the intemperant "give 'em hell" campaign style nor the occasional profane phrase uttered in public. Poker exemplified a larger problem: the tension between his attempts at an image of leadership necessarily a cut above the ordinary and an informality that at times appeared to verge on crudeness.[133][134]
On his first full day, Truman told reporters: "Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now. I don't know if you fellas ever had a load of hay fall on you, but when they told me what happened yesterday, I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me."[135]
Truman asked all the members of Roosevelt's cabinet to remain in place, but he soon replaced almost all of them, especially with friends from his Senate days.[136]
Truman benefited from a honeymoon period from the success in defeating Nazi Germany in Europe and the nation celebratedV-E Day on May 8, 1945, his 61st birthday.[137]
Although Truman was told briefly on the afternoon of April 12 that the United States had a new, highly destructive weapon, it was not until April 25 thatSecretary of WarHenry Stimson told him the details:[138]
We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark.
— Harry Truman, writing about the atomic bomb in his diary[139] on July 25, 1945[140]
Truman journeyed to Berlin for thePotsdam Conference withJoseph Stalin and British Prime MinisterWinston Churchill. He was there when he learned theTrinity test—the first atomic bomb—on July 16 had been successful. He hinted to Stalin that he was about to use a new kind of weapon against the Japanese. Though this was the first time the Soviets had been officially given information about the atomic bomb, Stalin was already aware of the bomb project—having learned about it throughatomic espionage long before Truman did.[141][142][143]
In August, the Japanese government refused surrender demands as specifically outlined in thePotsdam Declaration. With theinvasion of Japan imminent, Truman approved the schedule for dropping the two available bombs. Truman maintained the position that attacking Japan with atomic bombs saved many lives on both sides; a military estimate for the invasion of Japan submitted to Truman by Herbert Hoover indicated that an invasion could take at least a year and result in 500,000 to 1,000,000 Allied casualties.[144] A study done for the staff of Secretary of WarHenry L. Stimson by William Shockley estimated that invading Japan would cost 1.7–4 million American casualties, including 400,000–800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese fatalities if Japanese civilians participated in the defense of Japan.[145] The U.S. Army Service Forces estimated in their document "Redeployment of the United States Army after the Defeat of Germany" that between June 1945 and December 1946 the Army would be required to furnish replacements for 43,000 dead and evacuated wounded every month during this period.[146] From analysis of the replacement schedule and projected strengths in overseas theaters, it suggested that Army losses alone in those categories, excluding the Navy and Marine Corps, would be approximately 863,000 through the first part of 1947, of whom 267,000 would be killed or missing.[147]
Truman announces Japan's surrender, August 14, 1945.
Supporters[f] of Truman's decision argue that, given the tenacious Japanese defense of the outlying islands, the bombings saved hundreds of thousands of lives of Allied prisoners, Japanese civilians, and combatants on both sides that would have been lost in an invasion of Japan. Some modern criticism has argued that the use of nuclear weapons was unnecessary, given that conventional attacks or a demonstrative bombing of an uninhabited area might have forced Japan's surrender, and therefore assert that the attack constituted a crime of war.[151][152][153] In 1948 Truman defended his decision to use atomic bombs:
As President of the United States, I had the fateful responsibility of deciding whether or not to use this weapon for the first time. It was the hardest decision I ever had to make. But the President cannot duck hard problems—he cannot pass the buck. I made the decision after discussions with the ablest men in our Government, and after long and prayerful consideration. I decided that the bomb should be used to end the war quickly and save countless lives—Japanese as well as American.[154]
Truman continued to strongly defend himself in his memoirs in 1955–1956, stating many lives could have been lost had the United States invaded mainland Japan without the atomic bombs. In 1963, he stood by his decision, telling a journalist "it was done to save 125,000 youngsters on the U.S. side and 125,000 on the Japanese side from getting killed and that is what it did. It probably also saved a half million youngsters on both sides from being maimed for life."[155]
The end of World War II was followed by an uneasy transition from war to a peacetime economy. The costs of the war effort had been enormous, and Truman was intent on diminishing military services as quickly as possible to curtail the government's military expenditures. The effect of demobilization on the economy was unknown, proposals were met with skepticism and resistance, and fears existed that the nation would slide back into depression. In Roosevelt's final years, Congress began to reassert legislative power and Truman faced a congressional body where Republicans and conservative southern Democrats formed a powerful "conservative coalition" voting bloc. The New Deal had greatly strengthened labor unions and they formed a major base of support for Truman's Democratic Party. The Republicans, working with big business, made it their highest priority to weaken those unions.[156] The unions had been promoted by the government during the war and tried to make their gains permanent through large-scale strikes in major industries. Meanwhile, price controls were slowly ending, and inflation was soaring.[157] Truman's response to the widespread dissatisfaction was generally seen as ineffective.[157]
Truman withGreek American sponge divers in Florida, 1947
When a national rail strike threatened in May 1946, Truman seized the railroads in an attempt to contain the issue, but two key railway unions struck anyway. The entire national railroad system was shut down, immobilizing 24,000 freight trains and 175,000 passenger trains a day.[158] For two days, public anger mounted. His staff prepared a speech that Truman read to Congress calling for a new law, whereby railroad strikers would be drafted into the army. As he concluded his address, he was handed a note that the strike had been settled on presidential terms; nevertheless, a few hours later, the House voted to draft the strikers. The bill died in the Senate.[159][160]
Approval rating falls; Republicans win Congress in 1946
The president's approval rating dropped from 82 percent in the polls in January 1946 to 52 percent by June.[161] This dissatisfaction led to large Democratic losses in the1946 midterm elections, and Republicans took control of Congress for the first time since 1930. When Truman dropped to 32 percent in the polls, Democratic Arkansas SenatorWilliam Fulbright suggested that Truman resign; the president said he did not care what Senator "Halfbright" said.[162][163]
Truman cooperated closely with the Republican leaders on foreign policy but fought them bitterly on domestic issues. The power of the labor unions was significantly curtailed by theTaft–Hartley Act which was enactedover Truman's veto. Truman twice vetoed bills to lower income tax rates in 1947. Although the initial vetoes were sustained, Congress overrode his veto of a tax cut bill in 1948. In one notable instance of bipartisanship, Congress passed thePresidential Succession Act of 1947, which replaced the secretary of state with the Speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate as successor to the president after the vice president.[164]
Proposes "Fair Deal" liberalism
As he readied for the 1948 election, Truman made clear his identity as a Democrat in theNew Deal tradition, advocating fornational health insurance,[165] and repeal of the Taft–Hartley Act. He broke with the New Deal by initiating an aggressive civil rights program which he termed a moral priority. His economic and social vision constituted a broad legislative agenda that came to be called the "Fair Deal."[166] Truman's proposals were not well received by Congress, even with renewed Democratic majorities in Congress after 1948. The Solid South rejected civil rights as those states still enforced segregation. Only one of the major Fair Deal bills, theHousing Act of 1949, was ever enacted.[167][168] Many of the New Deal programs that persisted during Truman's presidency have since received minor improvements and extensions.[169]
Marshall Plan, Cold War, and China
Truman's press secretary was his old friendCharles Griffith Ross. He had great integrity but, says Alonzo L. Hamby, as a senior White House aide he was, "A better newsman than news handler, he never established a policy of coordinating news releases throughout the executive branch, frequently bumbled details, never developed ... a strategy for marketing the president's image and failed to establish a strong press office."[170]
As aWilsonian internationalist, Truman supported Roosevelt's policy in favor of the creation of the United Nations and includedEleanor Roosevelt on the delegation to the firstUN General Assembly.[171] With the Soviet Union expanding its sphere of influence through Eastern Europe, Truman and his foreign policy advisors took a hard line against the USSR. In this, he matched U.S. public opinion which quickly came to believe the Soviets were intent upon world domination.[172]
Although he had little personal expertise on foreign matters, Truman listened closely to his top advisors, especiallyGeorge Marshall andDean Acheson. The Republicans controlled Congress in 1947–1948, so he worked with their leaders, especially SenatorArthur H. Vandenburg, chairman of the powerful Foreign Relations Committee.[173] He won bipartisan support for both theTruman Doctrine, which formalized a policy of Soviet containment, and theMarshall Plan, which aimed to help rebuild postwar Europe.[174][175]
Truman did not know what to do about China, where theNationalists andCommunists were fighting a large-scalecivil war. The Nationalists had been major wartime allies and had large-scale popular support in the United States, along with a powerful lobby.General George Marshall spent most of 1946 in China trying to negotiate a compromise but failed. He convinced Truman the Nationalists would never win on their own and a very large-scale U.S. intervention to stop the Communists would significantly weaken U.S. opposition to the Soviets in Europe. By 1949, the Communists underMao Zedong had won the civil war, the United States had a new enemy in Asia, and Truman came under fire from conservatives for"losing" China.[180]
On June 24, 1948, the Soviet Union blocked access to the threeWestern-held sectors of Berlin. The Allies had not negotiated a deal to guarantee supply of the sectors deep within the Soviet-occupied zone. The commander of the U.S. occupation zone in Germany, GeneralLucius D. Clay, proposed sending a large armored column across the Soviet zone toWest Berlin with instructions to defend itself if it were stopped or attacked. Truman believed this would entail an unacceptable risk of war. He approvedErnest Bevin's plan to supply the blockaded city by air.
On June 25, the Allies initiated theBerlin Airlift, a campaign to deliver food, coal and other supplies using military aircraft on a massive scale. Nothing like it had ever been attempted before, and no single nation had the capability, either logistically or materially, to accomplish it. The airlift worked; ground access was again granted on May 11, 1949. Nevertheless, the airlift continued for several months after that. The Berlin Airlift was one of Truman's great foreign policy successes; it significantly aided his election campaign in 1948.[181]
Recognition of Israel
Truman in the Oval Office, receiving aHanukkahMenorah from the prime minister of Israel,David Ben-Gurion (center). To the right isAbba Eban, ambassador of Israel to the United States.
Truman had long taken an interest in the history of the Middle East and was sympathetic to Jews who sought to re-establish their ancient homeland inMandatory Palestine. As a senator, he announced support forZionism; in 1943 he called for a homeland for those Jews who survived the Nazi regime. However, State Department officials were reluctant to offend the Arabs, who were opposed to the establishment of a Jewish state in the large region long populated and dominated culturally by Arabs. Secretary of DefenseJames Forrestal warned Truman of the importance of Saudi Arabian oil in another war; Truman replied he would decide his policy on the basis of justice, not oil.[182] U.S. diplomats with experience in the region were opposed, but Truman told them he had few Arabs among his constituents.[183]
Palestine was secondary to the goal of protecting the "Northern Tier" of Greece, Turkey, and Iran from communism, as promised by the Truman Doctrine.[184] Weary of both the convoluted politics of the Middle East and pressure by Jewish leaders, Truman was undecided on his policy and skeptical about how the Jewish "underdogs" would handle power.[185][186] He later cited as decisive in his recognition of the Jewish state the advice of his former business partner, Eddie Jacobson, a non-religious Jew whom Truman absolutely trusted.[183]
Truman decided to recognize Israel over the objections of Secretary of StateGeorge Marshall, who feared it would hurt relations with the populous Arab states. Marshall believed the paramount threat to the United States was the Soviet Union and feared Arab oil would be lost to the United States in the event of war; he warned Truman the United States was "playing with fire with nothing to put it out".[187] Truman recognized theState of Israel on May 14, 1948, eleven minutes afterit declared itself a nation.[188][189] Of his decision to recognize the Israeli state, Truman said in an interview years later: "Hitler had been murdering Jews right and left. I saw it, and I dream about it even to this day. The Jews needed some place where they could go. It is my attitude that the American government couldn't stand idly by while the victims [of] Hitler's madness are not allowed to build new lives."[190]
Calls for civil rights
Under his predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, theFair Employment Practices Committee was created to address racial discrimination in employment,[191] and in 1946, Truman created thePresident's Committee on Civil Rights. On June 29, 1947, Truman became the first president to address theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The speech took place at theLincoln Memorial during the NAACP convention and was carried nationally on radio. In that speech, Truman laid out the need to end discrimination, which would be advanced by the first comprehensive, presidentially proposed civil rights legislation. Truman on "civil rights and human freedom", declared:[192]
It is my deep conviction that we have reached a turning point in the long history of our country's efforts to guarantee freedom and equality to all our citizens … it is more important today than ever before to ensure that all Americans enjoy these rights. … When I say all Americans, I mean all Americans … Our immediate task is to remove the last remnants of the barriers which stand between millions of our citizens and their birthright. There is no justifiable reason for discrimination because of ancestry, or religion, or race, or color. We must not tolerate such limitations on the freedom of any of our people and on their enjoyment of basic rights which every citizen in a truly democratic society must possess. Every man should have the right to a decent home, the right to an education, the right to adequate medical care, the right to a worthwhile job, the right to an equal share in making the public decisions through the ballot, and the right to a fair trial in a fair court. We must ensure that these rights – on equal terms – are enjoyed by every citizen. To these principles I pledge my full and continued support. Many of our people still suffer the indignity of insult, the harrowing fear of intimidation, and, I regret to say, the threat of physical injury and mob violence. Prejudice and intolerance in which these evils are rooted still exist. The conscience of our nation, and the legal machinery which enforces it, have not yet secured to each citizen fullfreedom from fear.
In February 1948, Truman delivered a formal message to Congress requesting adoption of his 10-point program to secure civil rights, including anti-lynching, voter rights, and elimination of segregation.[193] "No political act since theCompromise of 1877," argued biographerTaylor Branch, "so profoundly influenced race relations; in a sense it was a repeal of 1877."[194]
President Truman (left) with GovernorDewey (right) at dedication ofIdlewild Airport in New York City on July 31, 1948. This was their first meeting since being nominated as presidential candidates by their parties.
The1948 presidential election is remembered for Truman's stunning come-from-behind victory.[195] In the spring of 1948, Truman's public approval rating stood at 36 percent,[196] and the president was nearly universally regarded as incapable of winning the general election. At the1948 Democratic National Convention, Truman attempted to unify the party with a vague civil rights plank in the party platform. His intention was to assuage the internal conflicts between the northern and southern wings of his party. Events overtook his efforts. A sharp address given by MayorHubert Humphrey ofMinneapolis—as well as the local political interests of a number of urban bosses—convinced the convention to adopt a stronger civil rights plank, which Truman approved wholeheartedly.[197] Truman delivered an aggressive acceptance speech attacking the 80th Congress, which Truman called the "Do Nothing Congress",[157] and promising to win the election and "make these Republicans like it".[198]
Republicans approve of the American farmer, but they are willing to help him go broke. They stand four-square for the American home—but not for housing. They are strong for labor—but they are stronger for restricting labor's rights. They favor minimum wage—the smaller the minimum wage the better. They endorse educational opportunity for all—but they won't spend money for teachers or for schools. They think modern medical care and hospitals are fine—for people who can afford them ... They think American standard of living is a fine thing—so long as it doesn't spread to all the people. And they admire the Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it.
— Harry S. Truman, October 13, 1948, St. Paul, Minnesota, Radio Broadcast[199][200][201]
Within two weeks of the 1948 convention Truman issuedExecutive Order 9981, ending racial discrimination in the Armed Services, and Executive Order 9980 to end discrimination in federal agencies.[202][203] Truman took a considerable political risk in backing civil rights, and many seasoned Democrats were concerned the loss ofDixiecrat support might seriously weaken the party. South Carolina GovernorStrom Thurmond, a segregationist, declared his candidacy for the presidency on a Dixiecrat ticket and led a full-scale revolt of Southern "states' rights" proponents. This rebellion on the right was matched by one on the left, led by Wallace on theProgressive Party ticket. The Democratic Party was splitting three ways and victory in November seemed unlikely.[204] For his running mate, Truman accepted Kentucky SenatorAlben W. Barkley, though he really wanted JusticeWilliam O. Douglas, who turned down the nomination.[205]
Truman's political advisors described the political scene as "one unholy, confusing cacophony." They told Truman to speak directly to the people, in a personal way.[206] Campaign manager William J. Bray said Truman took this advice, and spoke personally and passionately, sometimes even setting aside his notes to talk to Americans "of everything that is in my heart and soul."[207]
The campaign was a 21,928-mile (35,290 km) presidential odyssey.[208] In a personal appeal to the nation, Truman crisscrossed the United States by train; his "whistle stop" speeches from the rear platform of the presidential car,Ferdinand Magellan, came to represent his campaign. His combative appearances captured the popular imagination and drew huge crowds. Six stops inMichigan drew a combined half-million people;[209] a full million turned out for a New York City ticker-tape parade.[210]
1948 electoral vote resultsTruman was so widely expected to lose the 1948 election that theChicago Tribune had printed papers with this erroneous headline when few returns were in.
The large crowds at Truman's whistle-stop events were an important sign of a change in momentum in the campaign, but this shift went virtually unnoticed by the national press corps. It continued reporting RepublicanThomas Dewey's apparent impending victory as a certainty. The three major polling organizations stopped polling well before the November 2 election date—Roper in September, and Crossley andGallup in October—thus failing to measure the period when Truman appears to have surged past Dewey.[211][212]
In the end, Truman held his progressive Midwestern base, won most of the Southern states despite the civil rights plank, and squeaked through with narrow victories in a few critical states, notably Ohio, California, and Illinois. The final tally showed the president had secured 303 electoral votes, Dewey 189, and Thurmond only 39. Henry Wallace got none. The defining image of the campaign came after Election Day, when an ecstatic Truman held aloft the erroneous front page of theChicago Tribune with a huge headline proclaiming "Dewey Defeats Truman."[213]
The Soviet Union'satomic bomb project progressed much faster than had been expected,[215] and they detonatedtheir first bomb on August 29, 1949. Over the next several months there was an intense debate that split the U.S. government, military, and scientific communities regarding whether to proceed with the development of the far more powerfulhydrogen bomb.[216] The debate touched on matters from technical feasibility to strategic value to the morality of creating a massively destructive weapon.[217][218] On January 31, 1950, Truman made the decision to go forward on the grounds that if the Soviets could make an H-bomb, the United States must do so as well and stay ahead in the nuclear arms race.[219][220] The development achieved fruition with thefirst U.S. H-bomb test on October 31, 1952, which was officially announced by Truman on January 7, 1953.[221]
President Truman signing a proclamation declaring a national emergency and authorizing U.S. entry into the Korean War
On June 25, 1950, theNorth Korean army underKim Il-sung invaded South Korea, starting the Korean War. In the early weeks of the war, the North Koreans easily pushed back their southern counterparts.[222] Truman called for a naval blockade of Korea, only to learn that due to budget cutbacks, the U.S. Navy could not enforce such a measure.[223]
Truman promptly urged the United Nations to intervene; it did, authorizing troops under the UN flag led by U.S. GeneralDouglas MacArthur. Truman decided he did not need formal authorization from Congress, believing that most legislators supported his position; this would come back to haunt him later when the stalemated conflict was dubbed "Mr. Truman's War" by legislators.[222] Rockoff writes that "President Truman responded quickly to the June invasion by authorizing the use of U.S. troops and ordering air strikes and anaval blockade. He did not, however, seek a declaration of war, or call for full mobilization, in part because such actions might have been misinterpreted by Russia and China. Instead, on July 19 he called for partial mobilization and asked Congress for an appropriation of $10 billion for the war."[224] Cohen writes that: "All of Truman's advisers saw the events in Korea as a test of American will to resist Soviet attempts to expand their power, and their system. The United States ordered warships to theTaiwan Strait to prevent Mao's forces from invadingTaiwan and mopping up the remnants ofChiang Kai-shek's army there."[225]
However, on July 3, 1950, Truman did give Senate Majority LeaderScott W. Lucas a draft resolution titled "Joint Resolution Expressing Approval of the Action Taken in Korea". Lucas stated Congress supported the use of force, the formal resolution would pass but was unnecessary, and the consensus in Congress was to acquiesce. Truman responded he did not want "to appear to be trying to get around Congress and use extra-Constitutional powers", and added that it was "up to Congress whether such a resolution should be introduced".[226]
By August 1950, U.S. troops pouring into South Korea under UN auspices were able to stabilize the situation.[227] Responding to criticism over readiness, Truman fired his secretary of defense,Louis A. Johnson, replacing him with the retired General Marshall. With UN approval, Truman decided on a "rollback" policy—liberation of North Korea.[228] UN forces led by GeneralDouglas MacArthur led the counterattack, scoring a stunning surprise victory with an amphibious landing at theBattle of Inchon that nearly trapped the invaders. UN forces marched north, toward theYalu River boundary with China, with the goal of reuniting Korea under UN auspices.[229]
China surprised the UN forces with a large-scale invasion in November. The UN forces were forced back to below the38th parallel, then recovered.[230] By early 1951 the war became a fierce stalemate at about the 38th parallel where it had begun. Truman rejected MacArthur's request to attack Chinese supply bases north of Yalu, but MacArthur promoted his plan to Republican House leaderJoseph Martin, who leaked it to the press. Truman was gravely concerned further escalation of the war might lead to open conflict with the Soviet Union, which was already supplying weapons and providing warplanes (with Korean markings and Soviet aircrew). Therefore, on April 11, 1951, Truman fired MacArthur from his commands.[231]
I fired him [MacArthur] because he wouldn't respect the authority of the President ... I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail.[232]
—Truman to biographerMerle Miller, 1972, posthumously quoted inTime magazine, 1973
Thedismissal of General Douglas MacArthur was among the least politically popular decisions in presidential history. Truman's approval ratings plummeted, and he faced calls for hisimpeachment from, among others, SenatorRobert A. Taft.[233] Fierce criticism from virtually all quarters accused Truman of refusing to shoulder the blame for a war gone sour and blaming his generals instead. Others, including Eleanor Roosevelt and all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, publicly supported Truman's decision. MacArthur meanwhile returned to the United States to a hero's welcome, and addressed a joint session of Congress, a speech the president called "a bunch of damn bullshit."[234]
Truman and his generals considered the use of nuclear weapons against the Chinese army, but ultimately chose not to escalate the war to a nuclear level.[235] The war remained a frustrating stalemate for two years, with over 30,000 Americans killed, until an armistice ended the fighting in 1953.[citation needed]
In February 1952, Truman's approval mark stood at 22 percent according toGallup polls, which is the all-time lowest approval mark for a sitting U.S. president, though it was matched byRichard Nixon in 1974.[236][237]
Worldwide defense
Truman and Indian Prime MinisterJawaharlal Nehru during Nehru's visit to the United States, October 1949
The escalation of the Cold War was highlighted by Truman's approval ofNSC 68, a secret statement of foreign policy. It called for tripling the defense budget, and the globalization and militarization of containment policy whereby the United States and its NATO allies would respond militarily to actual Soviet expansion. The document was drafted byPaul Nitze, who consulted State and Defense officials and was formally approved by President Truman as the official national strategy after the war began in Korea. It called for partial mobilization of the U.S. economy to build armaments faster than the Soviets. The plan called for strengthening Europe, weakening the Soviet Union, and building up the United States both militarily and economically.[238]
Truman was a strong supporter of theNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which established a formal peacetime military alliance with Canada and democratic European nations of theWestern Bloc following World War II. The treaty establishing it was widely popular and easily passed the Senate in 1949; Truman appointed GeneralDwight D. Eisenhower as commander. NATO's goals were to contain Soviet expansion in Europe and to send a clear message to communist leaders that the world's democracies were willing and able to build new security structures in support of democratic ideals. The United States, Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark, Portugal, Iceland, and Canada were the original treaty signatories. The alliance resulted in the Soviets establishing a similar alliance, called theWarsaw Pact.[239][240]
General Marshall was Truman's principal adviser on foreign policy matters, influencing such decisions as the U.S. choice against offering direct military aid toChiang Kai-shek and his nationalist Chinese forces in the Chinese Civil War against their communist opponents. Marshall's opinion was contrary to the counsel of almost all of Truman's other advisers; Marshall thought propping up Chiang's forces would drain U.S. resources necessary for Europe to deter the Soviets.[241] When the communists took control of the mainland, establishing the People's Republic of China and driving the nationalists toTaiwan, Truman would have been willing to maintain some relationship between the United States and the new government, but Mao was unwilling.[242] Truman announced on January 5, 1950, that the United States would not engage in any dispute involving the Taiwan Strait, and that he would not intervene in the event of an attack by the PRC.[243]
On June 27, 1950, after the outbreak of fighting in Korea, Truman ordered the U.S. Navy'sSeventh Fleet into theTaiwan Strait to prevent further conflict between the communist government on the China mainland and the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan.[244][245]
Truman usually worked well with his top staff – the exceptions were Israel in 1948 and Spain in 1945–1950. Truman was a very strong opponent ofFrancisco Franco, the right-wing dictator of Spain. He withdrew the American ambassador (but diplomatic relations were not formally broken), kept Spain out of the UN, and rejected any Marshall Plan financial aid to Spain. However, as the Cold War escalated, support for Spain was strong in Congress, the Pentagon, the business community and other influential elements especially Catholics and cotton growers.
Liberal opposition to Spain had faded after the Wallace element broke with the Democratic Party in 1948; the CIO became passive on the issue. As Secretary of State Acheson increased his pressure on Truman, the president stood alone in his administration as his own top appointees wanted to normalize relations. When China entered the Korean War and pushed American forces back, the argument for allies became irresistible. Admitting he was "overruled and worn down", Truman relented and sent an ambassador and made loans available.[246]
In August 1948,Whittaker Chambers, a former spy for the Soviets and a senior editor atTime magazine, testified before theHouse Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). He said an underground communist network had worked inside the U.S. government during the 1930s, of which Chambers had been a member, along withAlger Hiss, until recently a senior State Department official. Chambers did not allege any spying during the Truman presidency. Although Hiss denied the allegations, he was convicted in January 1950 for perjury for denials under oath.
The Soviet Union's success in exploding an atomic weapon in 1949 and the fall of the nationalist Chinese the same year led many Americans to conclude subversion by Soviet spies was responsible and to demand that communists be rooted out from the government and other places of influence.[247][248] Hoping to contain these fears, Truman began a "loyalty program" withExecutive Order 9835 in 1947.[249] However, Truman got himself into deeper trouble when he called the Hiss trial a "red herring".[250][251] Wisconsin SenatorJoseph McCarthy accused the State Department of harboring communists and rode the controversy to political fame,[252] leading to the SecondRed Scare,[253] also known asMcCarthyism. McCarthy's stifling accusations made it difficult to speak out against him. This led Truman to call McCarthy "the greatest asset theKremlin has" by "torpedo[ing] the bipartisan foreign policy of the United States."[254]
Charges that Soviet agents had infiltrated the government were believed by 78 percent of the people in 1946 and became a major campaign issue for Eisenhower in 1952.[255] Truman was reluctant to take a more radical stance, because he felt it could threaten civil liberties and add to a potential hysteria. At the same time, he felt political pressure to indicate a strong national security.[256] It is unclear to what extent President Truman was briefed of theVenona intercepts, which discovered widespread evidence of Soviet espionage on the atom bomb project and afterward.[257][258] Truman continued his own loyalty program for some time while believing the issue of communist espionage was overstated.[257] In 1949, Truman described American communist leaders, whom his administrationwas prosecuting, as "traitors".[256] Truman would later state in private conversations with friends that his creation of a loyalty program had been a "terrible" mistake.[259]
In 1950, Truman vetoed theMcCarran Internal Security Act, which was passed by Congress just after the start of the Korean War and was aimed at controlling communists in America.[260] Truman called the Act "the greatest danger to freedom of speech, press, and assembly since theAlien and Sedition Laws of 1798", a "mockery of the Bill of Rights" and a "long step toward totalitarianism".[261][262] His veto was immediately overridden by Congress and the Act became law.[260] In the mid-1960s, parts of the Act were found to be unconstitutional by theUnited States Supreme Court.[263][264]
View of the interior shell of the White House during renovation in 1950
In 1948, Truman ordered an addition to the exterior of theWhite House: a second-floor balcony in the south portico, which came to be known as theTruman Balcony. The addition was unpopular. Some said it spoiled the appearance of the south facade, but it gave the First Family more living space.[265][266][267] Meanwhile, structural deterioration and a near-imminent collapse of the White House led to a comprehensivedismantling and rebuilding of the building's interior from 1949 to 1952. Architectural and engineering investigations during 1948 deemed it unsafe for occupancy. Truman, his family, and the entire residence staff were relocated across the street intoBlair House during the renovations. As the newerWest Wing, including theOval Office, remained open, Truman walked to and from his work across the street each morning and afternoon.[268]
On November 1, 1950,Puerto Rican nationalistsGriselio Torresola andOscar Collazo attempted to assassinate Truman at Blair House. On the street outside the residence, Torresola mortally wounded a White House policeman,Leslie Coffelt. Before he died, the officer shot and killed Torresola. Collazo was wounded and stopped before he entered the house. He was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in 1952. Truman commuted his sentence to life in prison. To try to settle the question of Puerto Rican independence, Truman allowed aplebiscite in Puerto Rico in 1952 to determine the status of its relationship to the United States. Nearly 82 percent of the people voted in favor of a new constitution for theEstado Libre Asociado, a continued 'associated free state.'[269]
In response to a labor/management impasse arising from bitter disagreements over wage and price controls, Truman instructed hisSecretary of Commerce,Charles W. Sawyer, to take control of a number of the nation's steel mills in April 1952. Truman cited his authority as commander in chief and the need to maintain an uninterrupted supply of steel for munitions for the war in Korea. The Supreme Court found Truman's actions unconstitutional, however, and reversed the order in a majorseparation-of-powers decision,Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952). The 6–3 decision, which held that Truman's assertion of authority was too vague and was not rooted in any legislative action by Congress, was delivered by a court composed entirely of justices appointed by either Truman or Roosevelt. The high court's reversal of Truman's order was one of the notable defeats of his presidency.[270]
Scandals and controversies
Truman in an official portrait
In 1950, the Senate, led byEstes Kefauver, investigated numerous charges of corruption among senior administration officials, some of whom had received fur coats and deep freezers in exchange for favors. A large number of employees of theInternal Revenue Bureau (today the IRS) were accepting bribes; 166 employees either resigned or were fired in 1950,[271] with many soon facing indictment. When Attorney GeneralJ. Howard McGrath fired the special prosecutor in early 1952 for being too zealous, Truman fired McGrath.[272] Truman submitted a reorganization plan to reform the IRB; Congress passed it, but corruption was a major issue in the 1952 presidential election.[273][274]
On December 6, 1950,Washington Post music criticPaul Hume wrote a critical review of a concert by the president's daughter Margaret Truman:
Miss Truman is a unique American phenomenon with a pleasant voice of little size and fair quality ... [she] cannot sing very well ... is flat a good deal of the time—more last night than at any time we have heard her in past years ... has not improved in the years we have heard her ... [and] still cannot sing with anything approaching professional finish.[275]
Truman wrote a scathing response:
I've just read your lousy review of Margaret's concert. I've come to the conclusion that you are an 'eight ulcer man on four ulcer pay.' It seems to me that you are a frustrated old man who wishes he could have been successful. When you write such poppy-cock as was in the back section of the paper you work for it shows conclusively that you're off the beam and at least four of your ulcers are at work. 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!Pegler, a gutter snipe, is a gentleman alongside you. I hope you'll accept that statement as a worse insult than a reflection on your ancestry.[275]
Truman was criticized by many for the letter. However, he pointed out that he wrote it as a loving father and not as the president.[276][277][278]
In 1951,William M. Boyle, Truman's longtime friend and chairman of the Democratic National Committee, was forced to resign after being charged with financial corruption.[279]
A 1947 report by the Truman administration titledTo Secure These Rights presented a detailed ten-point agenda of civil rights reforms. Speaking about this report, international developments have to be taken into account, for with theUN Charter being passed in 1945, the question of whether international human rights law could be applicable also on an inner-land basis became crucial in the United States. Though the report acknowledged such a path was not free from controversy in the 1940s United States, it nevertheless raised the possibility for the UN-Charter to be used as a legal tool to combat racial discrimination in the United States.[280]
In February 1948, the president submitted a civil rights agenda to Congress that proposed creating several federal offices devoted to issues such asvoting rights andfair employment practices.[281] This provoked a storm of criticism from southern Democrats in the runup to the national nominating convention, but Truman refused to compromise, saying: "My forebears were Confederates ... but my very stomach turned over when I had learned that Negro soldiers, just back from overseas, were being dumped out of Army trucks in Mississippi and beaten."[282]
Tales of the abuse, violence, and persecution suffered by many African American veterans upon their return from World War II infuriated Truman and were major factors in his decision to issueExecutive Order 9981, in July 1948, requiring equal opportunity in the armed forces.[283] In the early 1950s after several years of planning, recommendations and revisions between Truman, theCommittee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity and the various branches of the military, the services became racially integrated.[284] Truman later appointed people who aligned with his civil rights agenda. He appointed fellow colonel and civil rights iconBlake R. Van Leer to the board of theUnited States Naval Academy andUNESCO who had a focus to work against racism through influentialstatements on race.[285][286] Truman made a historic move in 1949, when he gave a recess appointment toWilliam H. Hastie for theCourt of Appeals, the firstAfrican-American federal judge in the United States.[287]
Executive Order 9980, also in 1948, made it illegal to discriminate against persons applying for civil service positions based on race. A third, in 1951, established theCommittee on Government Contract Compliance, which ensured defense contractors did not discriminate because of race.[288][289]
From 1947 until 1989, world affairs were dominated by theCold War, in which the U.S. and its allies faced the Soviet Union and its allies. There was no large-scale fighting but instead several local civil wars as well as the ever-present threat of a catastrophic nuclear war.[290][291]
Unlike Roosevelt, Truman distrusted Stalin and the Soviet Union, and did not have FDR's faith in the UN to soften major tensions. Nevertheless, he cooperated in terms of dividing control over Germany. Soviet efforts to use its army to control politics in Eastern Europe and Iran angered Washington. The final break came in 1947 when the Labour government in London could no longer afford to help Greece fight communism and asked Washington to assume responsibility for suppressing the Communist uprising there.[292][293] The result was theTruman Doctrine of 1947–48 which made it national policy tocontain Communist expansion.[294]
Truman was supported by the great majority of Democrats, after he forced out theHenry Wallace faction that wanted good terms with Moscow.[295] Truman's policy had the strong support of most Republicans, who led by SenatorArthur Vandenberg overcame the isolationist Republicans led by SenatorRobert A. Taft.[296]
In 1948, Truman signed theMarshall Plan, which supplied Western Europe—including Germany—with US$13 billion in reconstruction aid. Stalin vetoed any participation by East European nations. A similar program was operated by the United States to restore the Japanese economy. The U.S. actively sought allies, which it subsidized with military and economic "foreign aid", as well as diplomatic support. The main diplomatic initiative was the establishment of theNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949, committing the United States to nuclear defense of Western Europe. The result was a peace in Europe, coupled with the fear of Soviet invasion and a reliance on American protection.[297] The United States operated a worldwide network of bases for its Army, Navy and Air Force, with large contingents stationed in Germany, Japan and South Korea.[298] Washington had a weak intelligence community before 1942, and the Soviets had a very effective network of spies. The solution was to create theCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1947.[299] Economic and propaganda warfare against the communist world became part of the American toolbox.[300]
The containment policy was developed by State Department officialGeorge Kennan in 1947.[301] Kennan characterized theSoviet Union as an aggressive, anti-Western power that necessitated containment, a characterization which would shape US foreign policy for decades to come. The idea of containment was to match Soviet aggression with force wherever it occurred while not usingnuclear weapons. The policy of containment created a bipolar, zero-sum world where the ideological conflicts between the Soviet Union and the United States dominated geopolitics. Due to the antagonism on both sides and each countries' search for security, a tense worldwide contest developed between the two states as the two nations' governments vied for global supremacy militarily, culturally, and politically.[302]
The Cold War was characterized by a lack of global hot wars. Instead there wereproxy wars, fought by client states and proxies of the United States and Soviet Union. The most important wasKorean War (1950–1953), a stalemate that drained away Truman's base of support. Truman made five international trips during his presidency.[303]
In 1951, the United States ratified the22nd Amendment, making a president ineligible for election to a third term or for election to a second full term after serving more than two remaining years of a term of a previously elected president. The latter clause did not apply to Truman's situation in 1952 because of agrandfather clause exempting the incumbent president.[304]
President Truman conferring with labor leaderWalter Reuther about economic policy in the Oval Office, 1952
Therefore, he seriously considered running for another term in 1952 and left his name on the ballot in the New Hampshire primary. However, all his close advisors, pointing to his age, his failing abilities, and his poor showing in the polls, talked him out of it.[305] At the time of the1952 New Hampshire primary (March 11, 1952), no candidate had won Truman's backing. His first choice, Chief JusticeFred M. Vinson, had declined to run. Illinois GovernorAdlai Stevenson had also turned Truman down, Vice President Barkley was considered too old,[306][307] and Truman distrusted and disliked Senator Kefauver, who had made a name for himself by his investigations of the Truman administration scandals.
Truman let his name be entered in the New Hampshire primary by supporters. The highly unpopular Truman was handily defeated by Kefauver; 18 days later the president formally announced he would not seek a second full term. Truman was eventually able to persuade Stevenson to run, and the governor gained the nomination at the1952 Democratic National Convention.[308]
Eisenhower gained the Republican nomination, with Senator Nixon as his running mate, and campaigned against what he denounced as Truman's failures: "Korea, communism and corruption". He pledged to clean up the "mess in Washington", and promised to "go to Korea".[306][307] Eisenhower defeated Stevenson decisively inthe general election, ending 20 years of Democratic presidents. While Truman and Eisenhower had previously been on good terms, Truman felt annoyed that Eisenhower did not denounce Joseph McCarthy during the campaign.[309] Similarly, Eisenhower was outraged when Truman accused the former general of disregarding "sinister forces ... Anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, and anti-foreignism" within the Republican Party.[310]
Post-presidency (1953–1972)
Financial situation
Truman and his wife Bess attend the signing of theMedicare Bill onJuly 30, 1965, by PresidentLyndon B. Johnson.
Before being elected as Jackson County judge, Truman had earned little money, and was in debt from the failure of his haberdashery. His election as senator in 1934 carried with it a salary of $10,000 (equivalent to $235,000 in 2024), high for the time, but the need to maintain two homes, with one in expensive Washington, Margaret Truman's college expenses, and contributions to the support of needy relatives, left the Trumans little extra money. He likely had around $7,500 (equivalent to $131,000 in 2024) in cash and government bonds when nominated for vice president.[311]
His finances were transformed by his accession to the presidency, which carried with it a salary of $75,000 (equivalent to $1,310,000 in 2024), which was increased to $100,000 (equivalent to $1,322,000 in 2024) in 1949. This was a higher salary than anyMajor League Baseball star, exceptJoe DiMaggio, who also earned $100,000 in his final two seasons (1950 and 1951). Beginning in 1949, the president was also granted a $50,000 (equivalent to $661,000 in 2024) expense allowance, which was initially tax-free, and did not have to be accounted for. Although the allowance became taxable later in his presidency, Truman never reported it on his tax return, and converted some of the funds to cash he kept in the White House safe and later in a safe deposit box in Kansas City.[311]
Upon leaving the presidency, Truman returned to Independence, Missouri, to live at theWallace home, which he and Bess had shared for years with her mother.[312] In a biography that contributed greatly to the myth that Truman was near penury after departing the White House,[311]David McCullough stated that the Trumans had little alternative than to return to Independence, for his only income was his army pension of $112.56 per month (equivalent to $1,323 in 2024), and he had only been able to save a modest amount from his salary as president.[313] In February 1953, Truman signed a book deal for his memoirs, and in a draft will dated December of that year listed land worth $250,000 (equivalent to $2,938,000 in 2024), savings bonds of the same amount, and cash of $150,000 (equivalent to $1,763,000 in 2024).[311] He wrote, "Bonds, land, and cash all come from savings of presidential salary and free expense account. It should keep you and Margaret comfortably."[311]
The writing of the memoirs was a struggle for Truman, and he went through a dozen collaborators during the project,[314] not all of whom served him well,[315] but he remained heavily involved in the result.[316] For the memoirs, Truman received a payment of $670,000 (equivalent to $7,864,385 in 2024).[317] The memoirs were a commercial and critical success.[318][319] They were published in two volumes:Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Year of Decisions (1955) andMemoirs by Harry S. Truman: Years of Trial and Hope (1956).[320][321]
Former members of Congress and the federal courts received a federal retirement package; President Truman himself ensured that former servants of the executive branch of government received similar support. In 1953, however, there was no such benefit package for former presidents, and Congressional pensions were not approved until 1946, after Truman had left the Senate, so he received no pension for his Senate service.[322] Truman, behind the scenes, lobbied for a pension, writing to congressional leaders that he had been near penury but for the sale of family farmlands. In February 1958, in the first televised interview of a former US president that aired on CBS, Truman claimed that "If I hadn't inherited some property that finally paid things through, I'd be on relief right now."[311] That year, Congress passed theFormer Presidents Act, offering a $25,000 (equivalent to $272,463 in 2024) yearly pension to each former president, and it is likely that Truman's claim to be in difficult financial straits played a role in the law's enactment.[323] The only other living former president at the time,Herbert Hoover, also took the pension, even though he did not need the money; reportedly, he did so to avoid embarrassing Truman.[324]
Truman's net worth improved further in 1958 when he and his siblings sold most of the family farm to a Kansas City real estate developer.[325] When he was serving as a county judge, Truman borrowed $31,000 (equivalent to $364,327 in 2024) by mortgaging the farm to the county school fund, which was legal at the time.[325] When Republicans controlled the court in 1940, they foreclosed in an effort to embarrass Truman politically, and his mother and sister Mary Jane had to vacate the home.[325] In 1945, Truman organized a syndicate of supporters who purchased the farm with the understanding that they would sell it back to the Trumans.[325] Harry and Vivian Truman purchased 87 acres in 1945, and Truman purchased another portion in 1946.[325] In January 1959, Truman calculated his net worth as $1,046,788.86 (equivalent to $11,291,000 in 2024), including a share in theLos Angeles Rams football team. Nevertheless, the Trumans always lived modestly in Independence, and when Bess Truman died in 1982, almost a decade after her husband, the house was found to be in poor condition due to deferred maintenance.[311]
Bess Truman's personal papers were made public in 2009,[326] including financial records and tax returns. The myth that Truman had been in straitened circumstances after his presidency was slow to dissipate;Paul Campos wrote in 2021, "The current, 20,000-plus-word Wikipedia biography of Truman goes so far as to assert that, because his earlier business ventures had failed, Truman left the White House with 'no personal savings.' Every aspect of this narrative is false."[311][g]
Truman's predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had organized his ownpresidential library, but legislation to enable future presidents to do something similar had not been enacted. Truman worked to garner private donations to build a presidential library, which he donated to the federal government to maintain and operate—a practice adopted by his successors.[327]
He testified before Congress to have money appropriated to have presidential papers copied and organized. He was proud of the bill's passage in 1957. Max Skidmore, in his book on the life of former presidents, wrote that Truman was a well-read man, especially in history. Skidmore added that the presidential papers legislation and the founding of his library "was the culmination of his interest in history. Together they constitute an enormous contribution to the United States—one of the greatest of any former president."[328]
Truman taught occasional courses at universities, includingYale, where he was aChubb Fellow visiting lecturer in 1958.[329] In 1962, Truman was a visiting lecturer atCanisius College.[330]
Politics
Former President Truman greeting with President John F. Kennedy during his visit at the White House in Washington D.C.Former President Truman sits with PresidentJohn F. Kennedy in the Oval Office at White House.
Truman supported Adlai Stevenson's second bid for the White House in 1956, although he had initially favored Democratic governorW. Averell Harriman of New York.[331] He continued to campaign for Democratic senatorial candidates for many years.[332]
In 1960 Truman gave a public statement announcing he would not attend theDemocratic Convention that year, citing concerns about the way that the supporters ofJohn F. Kennedy had gained control of the nominating process, and called on Kennedy to forgo the nomination for that year.[333] Kennedy responded with a press conference where he bluntly rebuffed Truman's advice.[334]
Despite his supportive stance on civil rights during his presidency, Truman expressed criticism of thecivil rights movement during the 1960s. In 1960, he stated that he believed thesit-in movement to be part of a Soviet plot.[335] Truman's statement garnered a response fromMartin Luther King Jr., who wrote a letter to the former president stating that he was "baffled" by the accusation, and demanded a public apology.[336] Truman would later criticize King following theSelma march in 1965, believing the protest to be "silly" and claiming that it "can't accomplish a darn thing except to attract attention."[337] In 1963, Truman voiced his opposition tointerracial marriage, believing that daughters of white people would never love someone of an opposite color.[338][339]
On December 22, 1963, Truman published an article inThe Washington Post entitled ‘Limit CIA Role to Intelligence' where he said that “for some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government” and that he “never had any thought that when I set up the CIA that it would be injected into peacetime cloak and dagger operations”. He concluded that “there is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic position and I feel that we need to correct it”.[340]
Upon turning 80 in 1964, Truman was feted in Washington, and addressed the Senate, availing himself of a new rule that allowed former presidents to be grantedprivilege of the floor.[341]
Medicare
After a fall in his home in late 1964, Truman's physical condition declined. In 1965, PresidentLyndon B. Johnson signed theMedicare bill at theHarry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum and gave the first two Medicare cards to Truman and his wife Bess to honor the former president's fight for government health care while in office.[332]
Death
Wreath by Truman's casket, December 27, 1972Graves of Harry S. Truman and Bess Truman in Independence, Missouri
On December 5, 1972, Truman was admitted to Kansas City'sResearch Hospital and Medical Center withpneumonia. He developedmultiple organ failure, fell into acoma, and died at 7:50 a.m. on December 26, at the age of 88. At the time of his death, Truman had been the oldest living president, a distinction he held from the time of Hoover's death in 1964.[342][312]
Bess Truman opted for a simple private service at the library rather than a state funeral in Washington. A week after the funeral, foreign dignitaries and Washington officials attended a memorial service atWashington National Cathedral.[343]
Former President Harry Truman with "The Buck Stops Here" sign on a recreation of his Oval Office desk
When he left office in 1953, Truman was one of the most unpopular chief executives in history. His job approval rating of 22% in theGallup Poll of February 1952 was lower thanRichard Nixon's 24% in August 1974, the month that Nixon resigned. American public feeling towards Truman grew steadily warmer with the passing years; as early as 1962, a poll of 75 historians conducted byArthur M. Schlesinger, Sr. ranked Truman among the "near great" presidents. The period following his death consolidated a partial rehabilitation of his legacy among both historians and members of the public.[346] Truman died when the nation was consumed with crises inVietnam andWatergate, and his death brought a new wave of attention to his political career.[232] In the early and mid-1970s, Truman captured the popular imagination much as he had in 1948, this time emerging as a kind of political folk hero, a president who was thought to exemplify an integrity and accountability many observers felt was lacking inthe Nixon White House. This public reassessment of Truman was aided by the popularity of a book of reminiscences which Truman had told to journalistMerle Miller beginning in 1961, with the agreement that they would not be published until after Truman's death.[347]
Truman had his latter-day critics as well. After a review of information available to Truman about the presence of espionage activities in the U.S. government, Democratic SenatorDaniel Patrick Moynihan concluded that Truman was "almost willfully obtuse" concerning the danger of American communism.[348] In 2010, historian Alonzo Hamby concluded that "Harry Truman remains a controversial president."[349] However, Truman has fared well inpolls ranking the presidents, consistently being listed in the top ten;[350] this includes a 2022 poll by theSiena College Research Institute, which placed him in seventh.[351]
The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 caused Truman advocates to claim vindication for Truman's decisions in the postwar period. According to Truman biographer Robert Dallek, "His contribution to victory in thecold war without a devastating nuclear conflict elevated him to the stature of a great or near-great president."[352] The 1992 publication ofDavid McCullough's favorable biography of Truman further cemented the view of Truman as a highly regarded chief executive.[352] According to historian Daniel R. McCoy in his book on the Truman presidency:
Harry Truman himself gave a strong and far-from-incorrect impression of being a tough, concerned and direct leader. He was occasionally vulgar, often partisan, and usually nationalistic ... On his own terms, Truman can be seen as having prevented the coming of athird world war and having preserved from Communist oppression much of what he called the free world. Yet clearly he largely failed to achieve hisWilsonian aim of securing perpetual peace, making the world safe for democracy, and advancing opportunities for individual development internationally.[353]
In 1956, Truman traveled to Europe with his wife. In Britain, he received an honorary degree in Civic Law fromOxford University and met withWinston Churchill.[331] In 1959, he was given a 50-year award by theMasons, recognizing his longstanding involvement: he was initiated on February 9, 1909, into the BeltonFreemasonry Lodge in Missouri. In 1911, he helped establish the Grandview Lodge, and he served as its first Worshipful Master. In September 1940, during his Senate re-election campaign, Truman was electedGrand Master of theGrand Lodge of Missouri; Truman said later that the Masonic election assured his victory in the general election. In 1945, he was made a 33° Sovereign Grand Inspector General and an Honorary Member of the supreme council at the Supreme Council A.A.S.R. Southern Jurisdiction Headquarters in Washington D.C.[355][356] Truman was also a member ofSons of the American Revolution (SAR)[357] and a card-carrying member of theSons of Confederate Veterans.[358] Two of his relatives wereConfederate soldiers.[358][359]
In 1975, theTruman Scholarship was created as a federal program to honor U.S. college students who exemplified dedication to public service and leadership in public policy.[360]
In 1983 the Harry S. Truman State Office Building inJefferson City was completed.[361]
In 1991, Truman was inducted into theHall of Famous Missourians, and a bronze bust depicting him is on permanent display in the rotunda of theMissouri State Capitol. In 2006, Thomas Daniel, grandson of the Trumans, accepted a star on the Missouri Walk of Fame to honor his late grandfather. In 2007, John Truman, a nephew, accepted a star for Bess Truman. The Walk of Fame is inMarshfield, Missouri, a city Truman visited in 1948.[368]
On the 70th anniversary of the Korean War armistice in 2023, South Korea erected a statue of Truman in Dabu-dong,Gyeongsangbuk-do to commemorate him sending US troops to defend the country.[371]
Other sites associated with Truman include:
Harry S. Truman National Historic Site includes the Wallace House at 219 N. Delaware in Independence and the family farmhouse atGrandview, Missouri (Truman sold most of the farm for Kansas City suburban development including the Truman Corners Shopping Center).
^Truman was vice president underFranklin D. Roosevelt and became president upon Roosevelt's death on April 12, 1945. As this was prior to the adoption of theTwenty-fifth Amendment in 1967, a vacancy in the office of vice president was not filled until the next election and inauguration.
^Truman was given the initialS as a middle name. There is disagreement over whether the period after the S should be included or omitted, or if both forms are equally valid. Truman's own archived correspondence shows that he regularly used the period when writing his name.[2]
^Truman held several leadership positions at the local and state level and in 1940 was elected to a one year term as Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Missouri.[88] In October 1945 he received the 33rd degree of theScottish Rite.[88]
^Truman organized the firstAmerican Legion post in Missouri, aided in organizing several others, and attended numerous annual conventions as a delegate.[90]
^For example, seeFussell, Paul (1988). "Thank God for the Atomic Bomb".Thank God for the Atomic Bomb and Other Essays. New York Summit Books.
^That claim was removed from this article on August 1, 2021, withthis edit.
^Devine, Michael J. (2009).Harry S. Truman, the State of Israel, and the Quest for Peace in the Middle East. Truman State Univ Press. p. 93.ISBN978-1-935503-80-4.
^Schultz, Joseph P. (1982).Mid-America's Promise: A Profile of Kansas City Jewry. Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City. p. 33.
^"San Francisco Jewish Bulletin, Volume 129". Jewish Community Publications. 1979. p. v.
^McCullough, David (August 20, 2003).Truman. Simon and Schuster. p. 50.ISBN978-0-7432-6029-9.
^Tiernan, L. Curtis."Biographical Sketch, L. Curtis Tiernan".Monsignor L. Curtis Tiernan Papers. Independence, MO: Harry S. Truman Presidential Library & Museum. RetrievedMay 21, 2018.
^Spalding, Elizabeth Edwards (2009), "Religion and the presidency of Harry S. Truman", in Espinosa, Gastón (ed.),Religion and the American Presidency: George Washington to George W. Bush, pp. 219–249.
^Tucker, Frank (December 1, 2010). "Army History: Truman, you're too old ...".Gateway Today. St. Louis: Association of the United States Army, St. Louis Chapter. pp. 5–8.
^"County Judges 1826–1922".County History: County Judges. Kansas City, Missouri: Jackson County, Missouri. 2018. Archived fromthe original on September 30, 2020. RetrievedApril 20, 2018.
^"County Judges 1923–1972".County History: County Judges. Kansas City, Missouri: Jackson County, Missouri. 2018. Archived fromthe original on September 20, 2020. RetrievedApril 20, 2018.
^ab"Grandview Masonic Lodge 618".Harry S. Truman Library and Museum. Independence, MO: National Archives and Records Administration. RetrievedJune 28, 2022.
^Wright, Tom, ed. (July–August 1984)."ROA Conclave".The Air Reservist. Bolling Air Force Base, Washington, D.C.: Headquarters, United States Air Force. p. 29 – viaGoogle Books.
^Hamilton 2009, p. 301: "Over seven years (1941–1948) the committee heard from 1,798 witnesses during 432 public hearings. It published nearly two thousand pages of documents and saved perhaps $15 billion and thousands of lives by exposing faulty airplane and munitions production."
^Harold Foote Gosnell,Truman's Crises: A Political Biography of Harry S. Truman (Greenwood Press, 1980), p. 212: "On only one occasion did [Truman] break a tie, and this was when his negative vote defeated a Taft amendment to the Lend-Lease Act which would have prevented postwar delivery of lend-lease goods contracted for during the war."
^Kramer, Ronald C; Kauzlarich, David (2011), Rothe, Dawn; Mullins, Christopher W (eds.), "Nuclear weapons, international law, and the normalization of state crime",State crime: Current perspectives, pp. 94–121,ISBN978-0-8135-4901-9.
^Lambers, William (May 30, 2006).Nuclear Weapons. William K Lambers. p. 11.ISBN0-9724629-4-5.
^Daniel DiSalvo, "The politics of a party faction: The Liberal-Labor alliance in the Democratic Party, 1948–1972."Journal of Policy History 22.3 (2010): 269–299.
^Lamb, Charles M; Nye, Adam W (2012), "Do Presidents Control Bureaucracy? The Federal Housing Administration during the Truman-Eisenhower Era",Political Science Quarterly,127 (3):445–467,doi:10.1002/j.1538-165x.2012.tb00734.x,JSTOR23563185.
^Harvard Sitkoff, "Harry Truman and the election of 1948: The coming of age of civil rights in American politics."Journal of Southern History 37.4 (1971): 597–616.
^Summary Minutes of Meeting. United States National Commission for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. 1956.Archived from the original on April 12, 2023. RetrievedMarch 20, 2023.
^Gardner, Michael J. (2003).Harry S. Truman and Civil Rights. Southern Illinois University Press. p. 93.ISBN978-0809325504.
^King Jr., Martin Luther (April 19, 1960)."To Harry S. Truman".The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute, Stanford University. RetrievedMay 27, 2025.
Judis, John B. (2014).Genesis: Truman, American Jews, and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli Conflict. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.ISBN978-0-374-16109-5.
Margolies, Daniel S. ed.A Companion to Harry S. Truman (2012); 614pp; emphasis on historiography; see Sean J. Savage, "Truman in Historical, Popular, and Political Memory," pp. 9–25.excerpt
Pietrusza, David (2011).1948: Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year That Transformed America. New York: Union Square Press.ISBN978-1-4027-6748-7.
Truman, Harry S. (2002).Ferrell, Robert H. (ed.).The Autobiography of Harry S. Truman. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press.ISBN0-8262-1445-2.
Martin, Joseph William (1960).My First Fifty Years in Politics as Told to Robert J. Donovan. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Journals
Griffith, Robert, ed. (Autumn 1975). "Truman and the Historians: The Reconstruction of Postwar American history".The Wisconsin Magazine of History.59 (1).
Hamby, Alonzo L (August 2008). "1948 Democratic Convention The South Secedes Again".Smithsonian.
Hechler, Ken;Elsey, George M. (2006). "The Greatest Upset in American Political History: Harry Truman and the 1948 Election".White House Studies (Winter).
Heaster, Brenda L. "Who's on Second: The 1944 Democratic Vice Presidential Nomination."Missouri Historical Review 80.2 (1986): 156–175.
Matray, James I. (September 1, 1979). "Truman's Plan for Victory: National Self-determination and the Thirty-eighth Parallel Decision in Korea".Journal of American History.66 (2):314–333.doi:10.2307/1900879.ISSN0021-8723.JSTOR1900879.
Smaltz, Donald C. (July 1998). "Independent Counsel: A View from Inside".The Georgetown Law Journal.86 (6).
Strout, Lawrence N. (1999). "Covering McCarthyism: How the Christian Science Monitor Handled Joseph R. McCarthy, 1950–1954".Journal of Political and Military Sociology.2001 (Summer).
McCray, Suzanne, and Tara Yglesias, eds.Wild about Harry: Everything You Have Ever Wanted to Know about the Truman Scholarship (University of Arkansas Press, 2021), how to work at this Library.online
"Background Information".The Truman Balcony. Harry S. Truman Library & Museum. Archived fromthe original on October 12, 2017. RetrievedOctober 16, 2012.
McDonald, John W. (May 1984)."10 of Truman's Happiest Years Spent in Senate". Harry S. Truman Library & Museum. RetrievedMay 10, 2014. Originally published in theIndependence Examiner, Truman Centennial Edition.
Roberts, Christopher N.J. (1949)."William H. Fitzpatrick's Editorials on Human Rights". Quellen zur Geschichte der Menschenrechte. RetrievedNovember 4, 2017., published by Arbeitskreis Menschenrechte im 20. Jahrhundert
Curran, Jeanne; Takata, Susan R. (2002)."Getting a Sample Isn't Always Easy".Dear Habermas. California State University—Dominguez Hills. Archived fromthe original on September 5, 2012. RetrievedSeptember 6, 2012.
"Biographical Dictionary of the Federal Judiciary". Washington, D.C.: Federal Judicial Center. Archived fromthe original on July 30, 2016. RetrievedMarch 4, 2012. searches run from page, "select research categories" then check "court type" and "nominating president", then select U.S. District Courts (or U.S. Circuit Courts) and also Harry Truman.
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