Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States, assuming that office upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt during the waning months of World War II.
Background
Harry S. Truman was born on May 8, 1884, in Lamar, Missouri, the oldest child of John Anderson Truman and Martha Ellen Young Truman.
Harry was named after a maternal uncle Harrison Young. “S” was his full middle name. Undecided whether to give him the middle name Shippe, after his paternal grandfather, Anderson Shippe Truman, or Solomon, after his maternal grandfather, Solomon Young, his parents affixed the initial to represent both. Truman grew up on the family farm in Independence, Missouri.
Education
After graduating from high school, Truman did not attend college but worked a variety of jobs. These include: timekeeper for a railroad construction company and a series of clerical jobs.
Harry wanted to join the United States Military Academy but was rejected because of poor eyesight. He served in the Missouri Army National Guard from 1905 to 1911.
From 1923 to 1925 Harry took night courses toward an LL.B. at the Kansas City Law School (now the University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Law), but dropped out after losing reelection as county judge. 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. However, he did not pursue it, because he won election as presiding judge.
Truman's political career began after he was introduced to the Democratic boss of Kansas City, Missouri, Tom Pendergast. As a loyal worker in the Pendergast machine, he helped the organization move into rural Jackson County. He became a county judge (an administrative, not a legal, position), and in 1934 the Pendergast machine backed him in a three-way race for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. Truman won the nomination, then campaigned for and won election as a supporter of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. In 1940 he again won a three-way race for the Democratic nomination, then won re-election even though Boss Pendergast had been sentenced to prison for income tax evasion and other members of his machine had been convicted of vote fraud. Voters knew that Truman had not been involved in these activities.
In his second term in the Senate, Truman chaired the Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. He uncovered waste, fraud, and corruption and contributed greatly to the successful U.S. war effort.
In 1944 President Franklin Roosevelt dropped Henry Wallace from his ticket and offered the Democratic convention a choice between Harry Truman and Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas. Although a majority of the delegates supported Wallace on the first ballot, they bowed to Roosevelt's wishes and nominated Truman on the second ballot.
President Roosevelt's death on April 12, 1945, elevated Truman to the Presidency.
On May 7 Truman announced that the war in Europe had ended. His first important mission was the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, where he met with British prime minister Winston Churchill and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to negotiate the fate of Eastern Europe. Returning home, Truman won Senate consent to the charter of the United Nations; for the first time, the United States would be part of a world organization. In July he decided to use the atomic bomb against Japan to end the war in the Pacific. Hiroshima was destroyed on August 6, Nagasaki on August 9. On August 14 Japan surrendered.
In foreign policy, he announced in 1947 the ‘Truman Doctrine’ with reference to the Greek civil war, and reversing an earlier decision to scrap the US intelligence services, authorized the creation of the CIA. In 1948 he signed the Marshall Plan of financial aid for European economic recovery and called Stalin's bluff with the Berlin airlift. But he was such an underdog going into the 1948 elections that the day after polling day several newspapers incorrectly headlined that his opponent had won.
In 1948 Truman won the Democratic nomination for President with the support of the urban party bosses. In a brilliant election-year tactic, Truman called the Republican-dominated Congress into special session and challenged it to pass his program. While the Republicans stalled, Truman campaigned for reelection against the “Do-Nothing 80th Congress.” He made a whistle-stop railroad tour and crowds chanted “Give 'em Hell, Harry.” In the midst of the campaign Truman issued an executive order ending racial segregation in the armed forces. With overwhelming support from blacks, Truman eked out narrow margins of victory in key Northern states and defeated Republican Thomas E. Dewey. Truman won less than half the popular vote, in the closest election since 1916.
Truman returned to Washington to savor his victory, proudly holding aloft a copy of the Chicago Tribune that carried the election night headline “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN.”
In 1949 he set up NATO, and instituted a program of aid to underdeveloped countries, while his opponents yapped that he had ‘lost’ China to Mao Tse-tung and bayed for the blood of the crypto-communists in his administration who they said were responsible.
Truman's major domestic success after winning reelection was the Housing Act of 1949, which provided for slum clearance and public housing in urban areas. Congress also raised the minimum wage. It stalled, however, on Truman's farm, education, health, labor, and civil rights proposals.
The Rio Pact and the Anzus Pact committed the United States to the defense of the Western Hemisphere, Australia, and New Zealand. Mutual defense treaties were also signed with the Philippines and Japan.
The Soviets tested their first atomic bomb in 1949, so in 1950 Truman permitted development of the powerful hydrogen bomb to proceed. It was successfully tested in 1952.
His foreign policies elsewhere were highly successful, but Asia was less amenable to U.S. intervention.
The containment policy against communist aggression was put to the test. On June 28, 1950, Truman ordered U.S. air and ground forces to repel a North Korean invasion of South Korea. Truman's conduct of the war was controversial. On the advice of Secretary of State Dean Acheson, he did not ask Congress for a declaration of war. He allowed General Douglas MacArthur to invade North Korea, but when communist Chinese troops entered the war, Truman refused to allow bombing of North Korean supply bases in China because he feared it might lead to all-out war between the United States and China. On April 11, 1951, Truman fired MacArthur for insubordination after the general called for bombing China. MacArthur received a hero's welcome back in the United States and addressed a joint session of Congress.
The Korean War dragged on. Close to 50,000 U.S. troops were killed and 100,000 wounded. The war created problems in the economy and contributed to Truman's declining popularity.
After Truman seized steel mills on April 8, 1952, during a strike, claiming he had to ensure production as a war measure, the Supreme Court ordered that he return the mills to their owners. This ruling further diminished Truman's popularity.
On March 29, 1952, Truman announced that he would not seek reelection. In his farewell address, he observed that “the President's job is to make decisions. … He can't pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him. That's his job.” With his job over, he retired to Independence, Missouri, where he wrote his memoirs and oversaw the creation of his Presidential library.
Harry S. Truman is known for launching the Marshall Plan to rebuild the economy of Western Europe, for leading the Cold War against Soviet and Chinese communism by establishing the Truman Doctrine and NATO, and for intervening in the Korean War. He is also the only world leader to have ever used nuclear weapons in war, desegregated the U. S. Armed Forces, supported a newly independent Israel, and was a founder of the United Nations.
In 1975, the Truman Scholarship was created as a federal program to honor U. S. college students who exemplified dedication to public service and leadership in public policy.
Despite Truman's attempt to curtail the naval carrier arm, which led to the 1949 Revolt of the Admirals, an aircraft carrier is named after him. The USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) was christened on September 7, 1996. The 129th Field Artillery Regiment is designated "Truman's Own" in recognition of Truman's service as commander of its D Battery during World War I.
On July 1, 1996, Northeast Missouri State University became Truman State University—to mark its transformation from a teachers' college to a highly selective liberal arts university and to honor the only Missourian to become president. A member institution of the City Colleges of Chicago, Harry S Truman College in Chicago, Illinois, is named in his honor for his dedication to public colleges and universities.
In 2000, the headquarters for the State Department, built in the 1930s but never officially named, was dedicated as the Harry S Truman Building.
In 2004, the President Harry S. Truman Fellowship in National Security Science and Engineering was created as a distinguished postdoctoral three-year appointment at Sandia National Laboratories.
There are sites associated with Truman : Harry S. Truman National Historic Site includes the Wallace House at 219 N. Delaware in Independence and the family farmhouse at Grandview, Missouri. Harry S Truman Birthplace State Historic Site is the house where Truman was born and spent 11 months in Lamar, Missouri. Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum – The Presidential library in Independence
Harry S. Truman Little White House – Truman's winter getaway at Key West, Florida.
In 1953, Harry S. Truman received the Solomon Bublick Award of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1956, Truman traveled to Europe and in England, he met with Churchill and received an honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree from Oxford University. In 1959, he was given a 50-year award by the Masons. In 1984, Truman was posthumously awarded the United States Congressional Gold Medal. In 1991, he was inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians, and a bronze bust depicting him is on permanent display in the rotunda of the Missouri State Capitol.
Truman kept his religious beliefs private and alienated some Baptist leaders by doing so.
Politics
Truman strongly supported the creation of the United Nations, and included Eleanor Roosevelt on the delegation to the UN's first General Assembly. 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.
Although he had little personal expertise on foreign matters, Truman listened closely to his top advisors, especially George Marshall and Dean Acheson. He won bipartisan support for both the Truman Doctrine, which formalized a policy of Soviet containment, and the Marshall Plan, which aimed to help rebuild postwar Europe. To get Congress to spend the vast sums necessary to restart the moribund European economy, Truman used an ideological argument, arguing that Communism flourishes in economically deprived areas. As part of the U.S. Cold War strategy, Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 and reorganized military forces by merging the Department of War and the Department of the Navy into the National Military Establishment (later the Department of Defense) and creating the U.S. Air Force. The act also created the CIA and the National Security Council. In 1952, Truman secretly consolidated and empowered the cryptologic elements of the United States by creating the National Security Agency (NSA).
In theory, the CIA had the purview to gather, process, and analyze national security information from around the world. The CIA's legacy was not lost on Truman, he wrote a letter to the Washington Post in December 1963, calling for the CIA's responsibilities to be scaled back significantly: "For some time I have been disturbed by the way the CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the government. This has led to trouble and may have compounded our difficulties in several explosive areas."
Truman was torn about China, where the Nationalists and Communists were fighting a large-scale civil war, because 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 that the Nationalists would never win on their own, and that 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 under Mao 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.
Views
He was a Wilsonian internationalist.
Quotations:
"America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand."
"There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know."
"Washington is a very easy city for you to forget where you came from and why you got there in the first place."
"When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship."
"Always be sincere, even if you don't mean it."
Membership
In September 1940, during his Senate re-election campaign, Harry S. Truman was elected Grand Master of the Missouri Grand Lodge of Freemasonry. Truman was also a member of Sons of the American Revolution and a card-carrying member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Personality
“To really understand Harry S Truman,” wrote his daughter, “you must grasp the importance of humility in his thinking.” To brag about himself or claim credit for something in public was anathema to him. “But,” Margaret Truman added, “this practice of humility never meant that dad downgraded his worth, his accomplishments, in his own mind.” Indeed, he was supremely confident of his own judgment. He acted boldly, and decisively. Once he made a decision, he forgot about it and went on to something else. He was earnest, incorruptible, and blunt in speech. Like Andrew Jackson, he was notorious for his explosive temper and salty language. To some it was refreshing to see a president honest enough to blow off steam in public. It disturbed others, like David Lilienthal, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, who worried that his temper might set off World War III. Although irascible, Truman was not moody or prone to depression. He thrived on the rough and tumble of politics. “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen,” was his much-heralded philosophy. Truman delivered prepared addresses poorly in a flat voice marked by a distinct Missouri twang. But out on the stump, he fired up crowds with off-the-cuff speeches, characteristically of simple, straightforward sentences.
Physical Characteristics:
Truman stood 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed 185 pounds when he became president, 175 pounds during his last year in office. He had blue eyes, brown hair that was mostly gray by the time he became president, a droopy nose, and a round full face. He had a slow heartbeat and chronic low blood pressure. He was extremely nearsighted and wore eyeglasses from age 6. Otherwise his health was generally sound. He dressed fashionably in tailor-made suits; he was named one of the ten best dressed senators.
Quotes from others about the person
"In 1948 the Democrats had little choice but to nominate President Truman, under the banner HE'S GOING TO LOSE. Everybody felt this way: the politicians, the press, the pollsters, the piccolo players, Peter Piper, everybody. The Republicans were so confident that they nominated an individual named Thomas Dewey, whose lone accomplishment was inventing the decimal system. Truman campaigned doggedly around the nation, but his cause appeared to be hopeless. A Dewey victory seemed so inevitable that on election night, the Chicago Tribune printed the famous front-page headline DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN. This was because Dewey had defeated Truman, who immediately threatened to drop an atomic bomb on Chicago, so everybody went ha-ha-ha-ha, just kidding, and wisely elected to have the feisty ex-haberdasher have another term."
Dave Barry, Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States (1989), p. 131
"During most of the campaign, Dad had very little to say about General Eisenhower's running mate, Senator Richard M. Nixon of California. He made no comment on Mr. Nixon's "Checkers" speech, where he discussed the virtues of his cocker spaniel to exonerate himself from implications of corruption arising from some $18,000 given to him by a "millionaire's club" of wealthy Republicans. Several times Dad refused to say whether he thought this fund was ethical or not. He took the position that this was something the public could decide for themselves. Following the Biblical injunction to "judge not," Dad always hesitated to take ethical stands on the actions of his fellow politicians. Privately, however, Dad made it clear that the fund confirmed his longstanding opinion of Mr. Nixon- that he was a spokesman for special interests."
Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman (1972), p. 547-548
Interests
Reading, history, swimming, fishing, playing the panio
Connections
On June 28, 1919, Harry S. Truman married Bess Wallace. He had known his future wife since they were children attending the same school in Independence, Missouri. The couple had one child, Mary Margaret Truman.
