Truman, Harry S 1884-1972

TRUMAN, HARRY S 1884-1972

President of the united states, 1945-1953

Burdened President

Harry S Truman became the thirty-third president of the United States upon the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945. Compared inevitably to his predecessor at first, Truman seemed poorly suited to the office. Unlike many national politicians, he had never been ambitious for the presidency. A politician specializing in domestic issues, he found himself overwhelmed by foreign affairs. Beginning his presidency with the terrible burden of having to decide whether to use the atomic bomb, he ended it embroiled in war in Korea. He was a New Dealer through and through, committed to social and racial justice at home. While his own "Fair Deal" went largely unimplemented, it nevertheless set the agenda for the "Great Society" reforms of a later generation.

Soldier and Politician

The son of farmers, Truman was born on 8 May 1884 and grew up in rural Missouri. A serious, bookish, sheltered youth, he harbored ambitions to attend West Point but was denied admission due to poor eyesight. Nonetheless, he enlisted and became an artillery captain in the trenches of Europe during World War I. His combat experience changed him profoundly, toughening him physically and emotionally and giving him a deep appreciation for military strength. At the end of the war he joined veterans' organizations and became a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve. As an army officer he was required to command soldiers from different ethnic and religious backgrounds from his own. As a result, he developed social and personal skills that earned him the respect of his men and later benefited him in politics. After briefly owning a small business, he entered the rough-and-tumble world of Kansas City politics during the 1920s.

Judge, Senator, President

Joining the Democratic political machine of "Boss" Jim Pendergast, Truman became a county judge, and in 1934 he was the Pendergast choice for the U.S. Senate. Though elected under a cloud of suspicion about the honesty of the polling, as senator Truman developed a reputation for scrupulous honesty and became a loyal New Dealer. In his second Senate term he headed the Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. This "Truman Committee" exposed fraud and waste in government contracting and reputedly saved taxpayers more than $ 15 billion. Catapulted into prominence by his leadership of the committee, in 1942 he appeared on the cover of Time magazine. In 1944 he was chosen to replace Henry A. Wallace as the Democratic vice-presidential candidate as a concession to conservatives. Though he never sought the presidency, Truman found himself in the highest office of the land after only fifty-one days as vice-president. Consequently, the decision whether to use the newly developed atomic bomb to end the war with Japan was his.

Foreign Policy

Lacking foreign-policy expertise, Truman had to rely on Roosevelt's advisers, many of whom had grown disillusioned and frustrated with Roosevelt's personal style of diplomacy and with his willingness to cooperate with Soviet premier Joseph Stalin. A staunch anticommunist, Truman found the advice to get tough with the Soviets easy to take, and the development of the atomic bomb bolstered confidence. He considered the events of the prewar years as proof that appeasement was dangerous, and he soon saw Stalin as the equivalent of Adolf Hitler. Unable to free Eastern Europe from Soviet domination, however, he sought to contain communism within the regions it occupied after World War II. The Soviets never attempted to go beyond their security zone; indeed, they withdrew from Iran and eventually Austria. Nevertheless, Truman insisted on seeing Soviet moves as evidence of their militant expansionism and committed his administration to the creation of the "National Security State," which ultimately tripled defense spending and drove taxes to unprecedented levels. In 1947 he issued the Truman Doctrine, promising to fund anticommunist movements in Europe. He also won passage of the Marshall Plan, providing $17 billion for the reconstruction of ravaged Europe—a measure designed to thwart Soviet influence and to stimulate the American economy. Also in 1947 Truman created what would become the Central Intelligence Agency, ostensibly to collect data, but the agency soon became involved in attempts to overthrow foreign governments—both Communist and non-Communist.

Domestic Policy

Having fostered the idea that the Soviets were out to conquer the world and jeopardize America, Truman in his domestic policies became hostage to his foreign policy and thus aided the advance of highly conservative politicians. His loyalty program implied that disloyal Americans, perhaps Communists, had penetrated the government itself. His surprising support for civil rights led many racists to conclude that this was part of an international Communist conspiracy to weaken the American way of life. Truman favored the poor, submitting an "Economic Bill of Rights" to Congress in September 1945, a signal of his intention to deepen the New Deal. But the 1946 elections resulted in Democratic defeat. His efforts to restrain wages while allowing prices to rise frustrated organized labor, but he won them back in the 1948 elections by vetoing (albeit unsuccessfully) the Taft-Hartley Act, which placed restrictions on the power of labor. Even before his 1948 reelection bid he enraged Southern Democrats by sending the first civil rights measure to Congress, vowing to end second-class status for black Americans. Though he was often accused of cynically promoting civil rights to win the black vote, it took great political courage on the part of a politician from a former slave state to challenge the Jim Crow system. Truman succeeded in desegregating the armed forces over great opposition from the military and in 1949 won passage of the Housing Act, which cleared some slums and provided decent housing for some of the nation's poor. He failed, owing to the rise of Southern Democrats known as Dixiecrats, to end lynchings, poll taxes, discrimination in public transportation, and other forms of racial segregation but succeeded in raising public consciousness about these issues for future attempts at resolving them.

Foreign Problems

Commentators predicted Truman's defeat to Republican candidate Thomas Dewey, but two other parties were in the race, and he won reelection with less than half the popular vote. In his second term he continued to be dogged by foreign affairs. The crucial year 1949 saw the detonation of the first Soviet atomic bomb and the Chinese Revolution, in which the most populous nation on earth went Communist. Republicans attributed both of these events to the president's shortcomings. Some accused Truman of losing China to the Communists, while the House Un-American Activities Committee claimed that spies and traitors had sold atomic secrets to America's enemies. In 1950 a long-simmering tension between North and South Korea broke out into full-scale war, and Truman worked through the United Nations to send an American army to drive the Communists back to the North. Allowing his advisers to convince him that North Korea could be liberated from Communist rule, he then changed the military's mission. He authorized American forces to penetrate to the Chinese border, prompting the Chinese to dispatch a million soldiers to meet the threat. The results were battlefield setbacks for America and a protracted stalemate, which further undermined Truman's popularity. Truman did show his capability as a wartime leader by firing Gen. Douglas MacArthur as commander of forces in Korea. MacArthur had publicly criticized Truman's decision not to widen the war by using atomic weapons against the Chinese. Truman saw clearly that an attack against Chinese territory would precipitate World War III, and he returned to his original policy of containing Communism on the Korean peninsula.

Bowing Out

Though Truman could legally have run again in 1952, he had served for virtually eight years, and his and the Democrats' popularity was low. McCarthyite foes had succeeded in portraying him as softer on Communism than required, and the costs of the Korean War had fueled inflation. The discovery of corruption among some members of his administration sealed his desire not to run for reelection. His handpicked candidate, Adlai F. Stevenson, was roundly defeated by Dwight D, Eisenhower in 1952, which gave Republicans control of both Congress and the White House. Truman retired to be come the Democratic Party's elder statesman, lecturing extensively, writing his memoirs, and overseeing the construction of the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri. In one of his last efforts at public service he refused to endorse Lyndon Johnson's prosecution of the war in Vietnam. The man who had refused to recognize Vietnamese independence in 1945 and had subsequently financed the French effort to recolonize Indochina had learned valuable lessons in Korea. Truman died the day after Christmas 1972. His obituary in The New York Times ran for seven pages.

Source:

David McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992).