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