Harry S. Truman, the 33rd president of the United States (1945–1953), was born on May 8, 1884, in Lamar, Missouri, and passed away on December 26, 1972, in Kansas City, Missouri. He vigorously opposed Soviet expansionism in Europe and dispatched American forces to stop a communist invasion of South Korea. John A. and Martha E. Truman had three children; Truman was the eldest of the three. His father was a farmer and mule trader. In 1901, he graduated from high school in Independence, Missouri, and moved to Kansas City to work as a bank clerk. He relocated to the family farm close to Grandview in 1906, and after his father passed away in 1914, he assumed control of the property. Truman, who was over 33 years old and had served two tours in the National Guard (1905–11), quickly offered his services when the United States entered World War I in 1917. A year later, he was deployed to France, where he served as the leader of Battery D, a field artillery battery that participated in the battles of Saint Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne. His troops became dedicated to him and looked up to him for his bravery and fair leadership.
After returning to the country in 1919, Truman married Elizabeth Wallace (Bess Truman), whom he had known since infancy. He started a haberdashery with his army buddy, Edward Jacobson, but the enterprise collapsed during the terrible depression of the early 1920s. Thomas Pendergast, the Democratic mayor of Kansas City, was introduced to him by another military acquaintance. Truman began his political career in 1922 by campaigning successfully for county judge with the help of the Pendergast organization. He failed in his campaign for reelection in 1924, but Pendergast helped him win the election as presiding judge of the county court in 1926. He held office for two terms totaling four years, during which time he developed a reputation for honesty (rare for Pendergast politicians) and adept administration. Due to the two-term tradition associated with his position and the Pendergast machine’s resistance to promoting him to higher office, Truman’s political career appeared to be coming to an end in 1934. However, Pendergast invited Truman, who swiftly accepted it, after several candidates turned down the machine’s offer to compete in the Democratic primary for a position in the U.S. Senate. He won the primary by a margin of 40,000 votes, guaranteeing his victory in Missouri, a state that leans heavily Democratic. Truman was sworn in as Missouri’s junior senator in January 1935 by Vice President John Nance Garner.
The suspicion that Truman was a Pendergast puppet when he first entered the Senate rapidly dissipated as his colleagues came to appreciate his warmth, personal honesty, and commitment to duty. He oversaw two significant pieces of legislation: the Wheeler-Truman Transportation Act of 1940, which established government monitoring of railroad reform, and the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938, which established government regulation of the aviation sector. He won a second term in the Senate after prevailing in a difficult Democratic primary in 1940. It was during this tenure that he rose to national prominence for heading an inquiry into waste and fraud in the American military. The Truman Committee (formally known as the Special Committee Investigating National Defense) discovered fraud and manufacturing flaws while being careful not to endanger the tremendous effort being launched to prepare the country for war. To allow for the remedy of abuses before official action was taken, the committee established the practice of providing companies, unions, and government organizations under investigation with draft reports of its findings. Truman, who was well-liked by his Senate colleagues and the public, was chosen to run as Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s vice president on the Democratic ticket in 1944, taking Henry A. Wallace’s place. Truman took the oath of office as vice president on January 20, 1945, after Roosevelt and Truman’s ticket received 53% of the vote to their Republican rivals’ 46%. However, his mandate was short — 82 days — and he only had two meetings with the president during that period. Truman received limited information about the administration’s policies and objectives from Roosevelt, who did not understand how ill he was. Roosevelt also did not adequately prepare Truman for the enormous duties that were about to fall upon him. On April 12, 1945, Roosevelt passed away unexpectedly from a brain hemorrhage, shocking Truman, and the whole public. The day after taking the oath of office, Truman told reporters that he felt as though “the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen” on him. He pleaded with them to pray for him. But he wasn’t exactly a political naif, as experts have pointed out. Despite having little prior expertise in international affairs, he was an effective manager of enormous bureaucracies and a savvy politician who understood how to use the media.
Just a few weeks shy of his 61st birthday, Truman took the oath of office on the same day that Roosevelt passed away. With considerable vigor, he started his presidency by setting up the San Francisco summit to create the United Nations charter, assisting in the planning of Germany’s unconditional surrender on May 8, and going to Potsdam in July to meet with Allied leaders to discuss the future of postwar Germany. In Potsdam, Truman learned of the Los Alamos, New Mexico, atomic bomb test’s success, and it was from Potsdam that he issued Japan’s “destruction” or unconditional surrender order. Truman authorized the dropping of atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9), which resulted in the deaths of over 100,000 men, women, and children. This was done in response to Japan’s refusal to submit and after his advisers predicted that up to 500,000 Americans could perish in an invasion of Japan. Scholars still argue over this choice, which is arguably the most divisive one ever made by a U.S. president. (See Sidebar: The Choice to Use the Atomic Bomb.) On August 7, Truman addressed the American people, saying in part:
“It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of July 26 was issued at Potsdam. Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth….The fact that we can release atomic energy ushers in a new era in man’s understanding of nature’s forces.”
On August 14, Japan surrendered, and on September 2, 1945, the Pacific War was formally over.
Truman had to deal with the specter of Soviet expansionism in eastern Europe barely after the World War II guns had been put to rest. Truman sent British leader Winston Churchill, who had just finished his first term (1940–45) as prime minister, to Missouri in the early months of 1946 so he could issue his “iron curtain” speech and raise awareness. Truman’s Truman Doctrine, which expressly asked for financial assistance for Greece and Turkey to help those nations fight communist takeover, was released the next year and served as a warning to the world that the United States would oppose communist invasion worldwide. In the process, Truman changed American foreign policy to focus on the “containment” of Soviet strength rather than collaboration with the Soviet Union. He spoke before a joint session of Congress on March 12, 1947, saying, among other things:
“One of the primary objectives of the foreign policy of the United States is the creation of conditions in which we and other nations will be able to work out a way of life free from coercion….We shall not realize our objectives, however, unless we are willing to help free peoples to maintain their free institutions and their national integrity against aggressive movements that seek to impose upon them totalitarian regimes. This is no more than a frank recognition that totalitarian regimes imposed on free peoples, by direct or indirect aggression, undermine the foundations of international peace and hence the security of the United States. I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. I believe that we must assist free people to work out their destinies in their own way. I believe that our help should be primarily through economic and financial aid, which is essential to economic stability and orderly political processes.”
Later in 1947, the president approved Secretary of State George Marshall’s plan to undermine the attraction of communism in western Europe by sending massive sums of money (which ultimately amounted to around $13 billion) to restore the continent’s wrecked economies. Although the Marshall Plan (formally known as the European Recovery Program) and the Truman Doctrine both succeeded in achieving their goals, they also played a role in the worldwide division that marked the five decades of Cold War antagonism between the East and the West. As the 1948 election drew near, Truman appeared to have little chance of winning the presidency. In the 1946 congressional elections, the Republicans won by running against Truman, the representative of the New Deal. That electoral victory appeared to show that the American people were tired of the Democratic Party and reform. The departure of liberal Democrats from the Democratic Party over the president’s adamant opposition to the Soviet Union hurt Truman’s chances for reelection; many of these liberals backed Henry A. Wallace, the Progressive Party nominee. Southern Democrats who backed Strom Thurmond, the States’ Rights (“Dixiecrat”) presidential candidate, also left the Democratic National Convention in protest of the president’s aggressive civil rights policies.
Truman, however, shocked everyone. He began a nationwide campaign of whistle-stop speeches against the “do-nothing, good-for-nothing Republican Congress.” Crowds chanted “Give ’em hell, Harry!” as he attacked Republicans for supporting the anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act (which overrode Truman’s veto) and other conservative measures. Wallace and Thurmond had minimal effect on the result; Truman won by a comfortable margin of 49 percent to 45 percent thanks to his energetic campaigning and the contrast between the Republican nominee Thomas E. Dewey’s lackluster speeches. Motivated by his unexpected triumph, Truman unveiled his domestic reform plan in 1949. The Fair Deal featured recommendations for more public housing, more educational funding, a higher minimum salary, federal civil rights protection, and universal health care. Most Fair Deal measures either failed to secure legislative majorities or were enacted in significantly weakened form, despite Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. Truman was successful in setting the foundation for the domestic agenda for many years, though.
The Fair Deal was partially undone by the escalating Cold War hostilities, which commanded attention and resources. The Communists in China eventually prevailed in their protracted civil war in 1949, capturing control of most of the mainland. The Soviet Union successfully tested a nuclear weapon almost at the same time, shattering the United States’ nuclear monopoly that had existed since 1945. To thwart Soviet expansionism, Truman, who had defeated the Soviet threat to Berlin in 1948 by organizing a massive airlift of food and supplies to support the city’s noncommunist areas, led the United States into a collective security agreement with non-communist European countries known as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). To preserve a military advantage over the Soviet Union, Hitler approved the development of the hydrogen bomb in 1950. By the end of the decade, the Soviet Union and the United States had entirely broken their alliance from the time of the Cold War, and they were engaged in an armaments race that might have ended the world.
Communist North Korea’s armed forces crossed the 38th parallel abruptly in June 1950 to conquer noncommunist South Korea. By God, I’m going to let them [North Korea] have it, was reportedly Truman’s outraged response. Truman was criticized afterward for his choice to forego asking Congress for a declaration of war. Instead, he dispatched U.S. soldiers led by Gen. Douglas MacArthur to South Korea with UN approval in order to fight the invasion. Due to their lack of battle readiness, the Americans were forced to retreat to the southernmost point of the Korean peninsula before MacArthur’s masterful Inchon attack drove the communists north of the 38th parallel. South Korea was freed, but MacArthur wanted more than just a return to normalcy; he wanted to defeat the communists. The Yalu River border with Manchuria was almost reached by U.S. soldiers as they advanced north. After that, tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers poured into North Korea, escalating the conflict once again to the 38th parallel. Truman courageously asserted civilian authority over the military by removing MacArthur from leadership when he pushed on expanding the war to China and deploying nuclear weapons to crush the communists. The administration was committed to its containment strategy. But the conflict continued ineffectively after Truman’s administration ended, eventually taking the lives of more than 33,000 Americans and leaving a wave of lingering anger back home.
Many Americans believed that the United States was losing the Cold War because of the Soviet invasion of eastern Europe, communism’s victory in China, and the United States' inability to win a decisive victory in Korea. Rumors started to spread that the president and some of his senior advisers were “soft on communism,” which would account for why the United States, which was unquestionably the biggest force in the world in 1945, had failed to stop the communist march. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Truman’s popularity started to decline as the country experienced its second “Red Scare,” which was the worry that communists had penetrated important positions in the government and society. He declared he will not seek reelection in March 1952. His popularity rating was just 31% when he departed the White House in January 1953; it had reached its highest point of 87 percent in July 1945.
But during the following two decades, Truman’s reputation among American presidents improved. In Truman’s own words, he started to gain respect as a leader who had “done his damnedest.” Truman, the quintessential ordinary man, was thrown into leadership at a pivotal juncture in the history of the country, yet he rose to the occasion and performed far above expectations. Regardless of their political affiliation, other presidents admired him for his willingness to assume responsibility for the nation (as seen by the sign that said, “The Buck Stops Here!”) and his ability to appeal to the common voter. While he was president, his Fair Deal social programs — such as those outlining civil rights for African Americans — had been rejected; but they were implemented in the 1960s and upheld by both Democratic and Republican administrations. However, Truman was credited with desegregating the military by an executive order he issued in 1981, and he was also known for appointing African Americans to prominent posts. In the 1980s, researchers drew attention to the fact that Truman made crude jokes and disparaged minorities and ethnic groups in private communication, which are now widely regarded as being exceedingly offensive.
His humble but active retirement life was arguably best exemplified by his morning ritual of going for a brisk “constitutional” stroll around Independence, Missouri’s sidewalks. He liked to make jokes with the media, and he seems to have started a debate about whether to put a period after his middle initial. (See Note from the Researcher.) Up until the middle of the 1960s, when his health began to gradually deteriorate, he was in good health and spent his days reading voraciously. On Christmas Day 1972, Truman fell asleep and passed on the next morning.
