Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

Strategic Defense Initiative

2007-12-22T00:42:17Z

Iekl: links

[[Image:Sdilogo.png|200px|right|thumb]]
The Strategic Defense Initiative or SDI, which is also commonly called Star Wars (at first by detractors), was a proposal by U.S. President [[Ronald Reagan]] in 1983 to build a ground based and space based system to protect the U.S. from nuclear ballistic missiles. The system was never fully set up, but the research from this paved the way for the anti-ballistic missile systems of today{{fact}}. It is believed that the Soviet's response necessitated by SDI helped drive their financial and political downfall.

==Goals of SDI==
The basic goal of SDI was to intercept and destroy incoming [[nuclear ballistic missiles]] to prevent detonation over the U.S. In some scenarios, not all warheads would be intercepted, but enough would be to render [[Mutually Assured Destruction|mutually assured destruction]] moot. In the scenario of "partial protection", the U.S. would be immune from complete destruction, which would deter the USSR from launching a first strike. See [[Game Theory]] and [[Mutually Assured Destruction]].

==Components of SDI==
There are a limited number of ways to prevent a ballistic missile from detonating over one's territory. A brief primer on nuclear attack will help explain the problems to be solved.
===The Problems===
Missiles with nuclear payloads are launched in two primary ways: as ground based intercontinental ballistic missiles, and as shorter range missiles, such as submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and submarine-launched cruise missiles (SLCMs).

*'''ICBMs''' are launched from the ground, travel into space, and return with the assistance of gravity. Most contain "multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles" or MIRVs. This means that a single ICBM can cause many nuclear warheads to detonate over multiple targets. Problems involved include detecting the launch, and deciding on what level to intercept the target. If the target is disabled before deployment of MIRVs, this obviously solves many problems. Once MIRVs are deployed, many more targets must be eliminated. Destroying an ICBM before it enters space is essentially impossible. [[Interception]] in space requires a pre-placed infrastructure. Interception after MIRV deployment involves ground-based systems.
*SLBMs and SLCMs present serious difficulties. SLBMs have a shorter time available to intercept, as they can be launched nearer to target. SLCMs are basically a first-strike weapon, travel short distances quickly and close to the ground.

===The Solutions===
====Ground-based systems====
[[Image:SDI.jpg|thumb|right|100px|Extended Range Interceptor (ERINT)]]
Ground-based systems must be able to detect a rapidly-approaching ballistic object, and destroy or divert that object well enough to avoid catastrophic damage to the target.

====Space-based systems====
Space-based systems generally aim to destroy a ballistic missile at the height of its trajectory.
At this point, the missile is fragile and vulnerable. The difficulty lies in detecting the object, deploying the countermeasure, and successful interception. Several solutions have been proposed, including so-called "smart rocks" and "smart pebbles" which would be non-ballistic objects deployed to intercept the missile, and at low-energy, deflect or destroy the ICBM.

==Criticisms==
There are many critiques of the original program, one of the most infamous being that of the [[Union of Concerned Scientists]]. Many criticisms did, however, come from the more neutral scientific and military community.{{fact}}
[[Category:Military]]

Harry Truman

2007-12-22T00:41:23Z

Iekl:

{{President|
|name=Harry S. Truman
|image=HTruman.jpg
|country=the United States
|seq=33
|party=Democratic
|term_start=1945
|term_end=1953
|vp=None
|vp_dates=1945-1949
|2vp=Alben Barkley
|2vp_dates=1949-1953
|previous=Franklin D. Roosevelt
|next=Dwight D. Eisenhower
|seq2=34
|office2=vice
|party2=
|term2_start=April 12, 1945
|term2_end=January 20, 1945
|pres2=Franklin D. Roosevelt
|previous2=Henry A. Wallace
|next2=Alben W. Barkley
|birth_date=May 8, 1884
|birth_place=Lamar, MO
|death_date=December 26, 1972
|death_place=Kansas City, MO
|spouse=Bess Wallace Truman
|spouse2=
|religion=[[Baptist]]
}}

'''Harry S Truman''' was the 33rd [[President]] of the [[United States]] and it was by his decision that the first [[atomic bomb]]s were dropped on the [[Japan|Japanese]] cities of [[Hiroshima]] and [[Nagasaki]].

==Early life==

Truman was born on May 8, 1884 in Lamar, [[Missouri]]. He attended public school in Independence, Missouri, graduating from high school in 1901. Following a few brief jobs in the [[Kansas City area]] first as a carpenter's assistant and then a [[clerk]], he returned to help run the family farm in Grandview.

During [[World War I]], Truman went to [[France]] as a captain of artillery. After returning home from the war, he married Elizabeth "Bess" Wallace and opened a men's clothing store in [[Kansas City]] with a wartime friend.

In 1922, Truman was elected a judge in the Jackson County court, where his duties were administrative rather than judicial. Although he earned a reputation for being honest and efficient in managing county affairs, he was defeated for reelection in 1924. However, he was subsequently elected presiding judge in 1926, and reelected in 1930.

==Senate==

Truman won election to the [[United States Senate]] in 1934, and during [[World War II]] gained national prominence for serving as chairman of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program - referred to as the "Truman Committee".<ref>http://www.trumanlibrary.org/hst-bio.htm</ref>

==Selection for Vice-Presidency==

President Roosevelt had been in ill-health since his return from the [[Teheran conference]]. At the 1944 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, DNC Chairman Bob Hannegan went for instructions to President Roosevelt's private railway car just before the July convention officially began. Roosevelt had decided to dump incumbent Vice-President [[Henry Wallace]]. Worried over dissension on the choice of a successor, Roosevelt told Hannegan: "Go on down there and nominate Truman before there's any more trouble. And clear everything with Sidney." <ref>[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,791619,00.html "Clear everything with Sidney"], [[Time magazine]], Sep. 25, 1944.</ref> The President could not make the selection of Truman until [[Sidney Hillman]] <ref>''The Roosevelt Myth'', John T. Flynn, Fox and Wilkes, 1948, Book 2, Ch. 8, [http://www.rooseveltmyth.com/book/fdrmyth_Chapter_Eight___The_Shock_Troops.htm ''The Shock Troops of the Third New Deal'']</ref>, Director of the Political Action Committee for the [[Congress on Industrial Organizations]] (CIO) approved it. <ref> ''Roosevelt Myth'', Book 3, Ch. 10, [http://www.rooseveltmyth.com/book/fdrmyth_Chapter_Ten___Politics__Disease_.htm ''Politics, Disease and History''], Flynn, 1948.</ref> When Harry Truman walked into the smoke-filled room <ref>[http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/index_print.asp?ProgramID=1109 ''Truman''], Interview with David McCullough, C-Span Booknotes, July 19, 1992. Retrieved August 6, 2007.{{user:Iekl}}</ref> of DNC at headquarters at the Stevens Hotel in Chicago, Soviet spies [[John Abt]], [[Lee Pressman]], and [[Nathan Witt]], were on hand." <ref>''The Yalta Betrayal'', Felix Wittmer, Claxton Printers, 1953, pg. 75.</ref>

==Presidency==

Truman succeeded to the Presidency upon the death of FDR on April 12, 1945. Interestingly, Truman rarely met with Roosevelt during his tenure as Vice President <ref>http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ht33.html</ref>.

He was elected [[President of the United States of America]] (USA) in the [[United States presidential election of 1948|1948 Presidential Election]] as a [[Democrat]]. During his term as President, he presided over the conclusion of [[World War II]] in both [[Europe]] and [[Japan]]. Truman's decision to use atomic weapons against the Japanese cities of [[Hiroshima]] and [[Nagasaki]] forced the unconditional Japanese surrender to conclude WWII. As a consequence, the United States canceled a planned invasion of the island nation which had been projected to cause 1,000,000 American and 10,000,000 Japanese casualties, and prevented the annexation of Japan's northern islands by the Soviet Union<ref>http://www.afsc.org/newengland/pesp/DecisionToUseABomb.htm</ref><ref>http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/web/20050902-atom-bomb-hiroshima-nagasaki-enola.shtml</ref>. Prior to Japan's surrender, [[Nazi]] German troops and their Axis allies surrendered in Europe. Truman proclaimed his [[Truman Doctrine]] on March 12, 1947 that was intended to thwart the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republic]]'s designs of expansion in the Near East by committing American aid and troops to that region. Truman also committed troops to the Korean Peninsula in 1950 to halt a [[Communist]] invasion of [[South Korea]]. American troops were part of a coalition of member nations of the newly formed [[United Nations]] ("UN") in 1945. The USA had become a founding member of the newly established UN during Truman's presidency.

The bipartisan statutory [[Moynihan Secrecy Commission]] vested with extraordinary subpeaona powers to look into [[Cold War]] secrecy upon the demise of the [[Soviet Union]] wrote in its Final Report, "President Truman was almost willfully obtuse as regards [[American Communism]]." <ref>Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy. Senate Document 105-2. 103rd Congress. Washington, D.C. United States Government Printing Office. 1997. [http://www.gpo.gov/congress/commissions/secrecy/pdf/04dpm.pdf Chairman's Forward, pg. 10] pdf.</ref>

During Truman's last four budgets, expenditures on national security increased from $13 billion in 1950 to $50 billion in 1953. <ref>[http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2006/10/119975.pdf ''Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time''], Carroll Quigley, Collier-Macmillan, 1966, pg. 936. ISBN 0-945001-10-X</ref>

Truman retired from politics at the conclusion of his presidential term and died on December 26, 1972 in his Independence, Missouri home. His Presidential library is located in Independence.

===China and Korea===
Without committing U.S. combat troops and without supporting a coalition government, the [[Truman Doctrine]] saved [[Greece]] from [[communism]]. Greece received weapons and financial support and, most importantly, operational advisers at the battalion level, who ensured that American aid was used effectively. [[George Marshall]] himself testified that such aid might have prevented a [[Comintern]] victory, but General David Barr's military mission to China was specifically instructed not to supply this kind of assistance. <ref>Military Situation in the Far East, Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, 82nd Congress (Washington, 1951), p. 558.</ref> General [[Albert C. Wedemeyer]] recommended this approach in his report on his 1947 fact-finding mission, but Marshall personally suppressed the report. <ref>Tang Tsou, ''America's Failure in China, 1941-1945'', Chicago 1964, pg. 457.</ref> Chiang believed that the [[Truman Doctrine]] to [[Containment|contain]] the spread of [[International Communism]] directed from Moscow would be extended to China, and ordered an offensive as soon as word of the new policy reached him. <ref>Richard C. Thornton, ''China: A Political History, 1917-1980'', Boulder CO 1982, pg. 208.</ref> Truman however, made no effort to save China from Communism.

The Korean part of Wedemeyer's report was suppressed. Wedemeyer said:
{{Cquote|American and Soviet forces . . . are approximately equal, less than 50,000 troops each, [but] the Soviet-equipped and trained North Korean People's (Communist) Army of approximately 125,000 is vastly superior to the United States-organized constabulary of 16,000 Koreans equipped with Japanese small arms. The North Korean People's Army constitutes a potential military threat to [[South Korea]], since there is strong possibility that the Soviets will withdraw their occupation forces and thus induce our own withdrawal."<ref>Hearings before the Senate Committee on Armed Services and Committee on Foreign Relations, June 6, 1951.</ref>}}

Wedemeyer warned that this would take place as soon as "they can be sure that the [[North Korea]]n [[puppet government]] and its armed forces . . . are strong enough . . . to be relied upon to carry out Soviet objectives without the actual presence of Soviet troops."

[[Dean Rusk]], Assistant Secretary of State in charge of the Far Eastern Division, said on May 18,1951 what the critics had been saying,
{{Cquote|The independence of China is gravely threatened. In the Communist world there is room for only one master. . . . How many Chinese in one community after another are being destroyed because they love China more than they love [[Soviet Russia]]? The freedoms of the Chinese people are disappearing. Trial by mob, [[democide|mass slaughter]], banishment to [[slavery|forced labor]] in [[Manchuria]] and Siberia. . . . The peace and security of China are being sacrificed by the ambitions of the Chinese conspiracy. China has been driven by foreign masters into an adventure in foreign aggression.}}
John T. Flynn observes that critics of the [[FDR]] and Truman Administrations who had been saying this earlier were denounced as “[[Fascists]].”<ref>''While You Slept: Our Tragedy in Asia and Who Made It'', John T. Flynn, New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1951, [http://www.mises.org/books/whileyouslept.pdf pg. 161] pdf.</ref> Rusk continued,
{{Cquote|We do not recognize the authorities in [[Peiping]] for what they pretend to be. It is not the government of China. It does not pass the first test. It is not Chinese. . . . We recognize the [[Kuomintang|Nationalist government of the Republic of China]] even though the territory under its control is severely restricted. <ref>Hearings before the Senate Committee on Armed Services and
Committee on Foreign Relations (also known as the Mac Arthur
Inquiry), June 2, 1951.</ref>…we believe it more authoritatively represents the views of the great body of the people of China, particularly their demand for independence from foreign control….That government will continue to receive important aid and assistance from the United States.}}

Conditions inviting the North Korean attack were created by the [[United Nations]] which issued a resolution for withdrawal of both Soviet and American troops. Troops began withdrawing September 15, 1948, leaving only about 7500 Americans lightly armed. This left in South Korea 16,000 Koreans and 7500 Americans, both groups lightly armed, against 150,000 fully armed North Korean Communists. General Roberts, head of the U. S. Military Mission said the South Koreans were not permitted to arm adequately.

[[Chiang Kai-shek]] was caught between two wars—a war on China by [[Japan]] and a war on China by the Soviet Union. American leaders refused to see this and insisted on acting in the illusion that China was fighting the Japanese only and that Soviet Union was an ally. Then came the startling realization that the United States, too, like China, were engaged in two wars in Asia, one against a common enemy, Japan; the other against a common enemy, the Soviet Union. The United States, with its ally China, fought the Japanese. But all the time the Soviet Union, with its satellite Comintern army in China, was fighting both China and the United States. The [[iron curtain]] that, with the [[Yalta agreement]], was rung down over American allies in Europe—[[Poland]] and [[Czechoslovakia]] and other little countries—now fell on China. And this was made possible wholly because of the [[Soviet Union]]'s allies—conscious and unconscious—in America, in the U.S. government and even in the [[U.S. State Department]].

==Middle Initial==
There is no period after his middle initial, because it doesn't stand for anything. He was named with an "S" so that both his grandfathers could claim him as their namesake.<ref>[[Encyclopedia of Presidents]], [[Harry S. Truman]], by Jim Hargrove, Children's Press, 1987.</ref>

==Links==
*[http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ht33.html Biography]
*[http://www.trumanlibrary.org Presidential Library]

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
*[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/index.php The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb], Truman Library.
*[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/small/mb12a.htm President Truman to Senator Richard B. Russell], August 9, 1945.

{{USPresidents}}
{{USVicePresidents}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Truman, Harry}}
[[Category:Presidents of the United States]]
[[Category:World War II]]
[[Category:Vice Presidents of the United States]]
[[Category:Democratic Party]]

Harry Truman

2007-12-22T00:40:10Z

Iekl: /* Early life */

{{President|
|name=Harry S. Truman
|image=HTruman.jpg
|country=the United States
|seq=33
|party=Democratic
|term_start=1945
|term_end=1953
|vp=None
|vp_dates=1945-1949
|2vp=Alben Barkley
|2vp_dates=1949-1953
|previous=Franklin D. Roosevelt
|next=Dwight D. Eisenhower
|seq2=34
|office2=vice
|party2=
|term2_start=April 12, 1945
|term2_end=January 20, 1945
|pres2=Franklin D. Roosevelt
|previous2=Henry A. Wallace
|next2=Alben W. Barkley
|birth_date=May 8, 1884
|birth_place=Lamar, MO
|death_date=December 26, 1972
|death_place=Kansas City, MO
|spouse=Bess Wallace Truman
|spouse2=
|religion=[[Baptist]]
}}

'''Harry S Truman''' was the 33rd [[President]] of the [[United States]] and it was by his decision that the first [[atomic bomb]]s were dropped on the [[Japan|Japanese]] cities of [[Hiroshima]] and [[Nagasaki]].

==Early life==

Truman was born on May 8, 1884 in Lamar, [[Missouri]]. He attended public school in Independence, Missouri, graduating from high school in 1901. Following a few brief jobs in the [[Kansas City area]] as a carpenter's assistant and then a [[clerk]], he returned to help run the family farm in Grandview.

During [[World War I]], Truman went to [[France]] as a captain of artillery. After returning home from the war, he married Elizabeth "Bess" Wallace and opened a men's clothing store in [[Kansas City]] with a wartime friend.

In 1922, Truman was elected a judge in the Jackson County court, where his duties were administrative rather than judicial. Although he earned a reputation for being honest and efficient in managing county affairs, he was defeated for reelection in 1924. However, he was subsequently elected presiding judge in 1926, and reelected in 1930.

==Senate==

Truman won election to the [[United States Senate]] in 1934, and during [[World War II]] gained national prominence for serving as chairman of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program - referred to as the "Truman Committee".<ref>http://www.trumanlibrary.org/hst-bio.htm</ref>

==Selection for Vice-Presidency==

President Roosevelt had been in ill-health since his return from the [[Teheran conference]]. At the 1944 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, DNC Chairman Bob Hannegan went for instructions to President Roosevelt's private railway car just before the July convention officially began. Roosevelt had decided to dump incumbent Vice-President [[Henry Wallace]]. Worried over dissension on the choice of a successor, Roosevelt told Hannegan: "Go on down there and nominate Truman before there's any more trouble. And clear everything with Sidney." <ref>[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,791619,00.html "Clear everything with Sidney"], [[Time magazine]], Sep. 25, 1944.</ref> The President could not make the selection of Truman until [[Sidney Hillman]] <ref>''The Roosevelt Myth'', John T. Flynn, Fox and Wilkes, 1948, Book 2, Ch. 8, [http://www.rooseveltmyth.com/book/fdrmyth_Chapter_Eight___The_Shock_Troops.htm ''The Shock Troops of the Third New Deal'']</ref>, Director of the Political Action Committee for the [[Congress on Industrial Organizations]] (CIO) approved it. <ref> ''Roosevelt Myth'', Book 3, Ch. 10, [http://www.rooseveltmyth.com/book/fdrmyth_Chapter_Ten___Politics__Disease_.htm ''Politics, Disease and History''], Flynn, 1948.</ref> When Harry Truman walked into the smoke-filled room <ref>[http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/index_print.asp?ProgramID=1109 ''Truman''], Interview with David McCullough, C-Span Booknotes, July 19, 1992. Retrieved August 6, 2007.{{user:Iekl}}</ref> of DNC at headquarters at the Stevens Hotel in Chicago, Soviet spies [[John Abt]], [[Lee Pressman]], and [[Nathan Witt]], were on hand." <ref>''The Yalta Betrayal'', Felix Wittmer, Claxton Printers, 1953, pg. 75.</ref>

==Presidency==

Truman succeeded to the Presidency upon the death of FDR on April 12, 1945. Interestingly, Truman rarely met with Roosevelt during his tenure as Vice President <ref>http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ht33.html</ref>.

He was elected [[President of the United States of America]] (USA) in the [[United States presidential election of 1948|1948 Presidential Election]] as a [[Democrat]]. During his term as President, he presided over the conclusion of [[World War II]] in both [[Europe]] and [[Japan]]. Truman's decision to use atomic weapons against the Japanese cities of [[Hiroshima]] and [[Nagasaki]] forced the unconditional Japanese surrender to conclude WWII. As a consequence, the United States canceled a planned invasion of the island nation which had been projected to cause 1,000,000 American and 10,000,000 Japanese casualties, and prevented the annexation of Japan's northern islands by the Soviet Union<ref>http://www.afsc.org/newengland/pesp/DecisionToUseABomb.htm</ref><ref>http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/web/20050902-atom-bomb-hiroshima-nagasaki-enola.shtml</ref>. Prior to Japan's surrender, [[Nazi]] German troops and their Axis allies surrendered in Europe. Truman proclaimed his [[Truman Doctrine]] on March 12, 1947 that was intended to thwart the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republic]]'s designs of expansion in the Near East by committing American aid and troops to that region. Truman also committed troops to the Korean Peninsula in 1950 to halt a [[Communist]] invasion of [[South Korea]]. American troops were part of a coalition of member nations of the newly formed [[United Nations]] ("UN") in 1945. The USA had become a founding member of the newly established UN during Truman's presidency.

The bipartisan statutory [[Moynihan Secrecy Commission]] vested with extraordinary subpeaona powers to look into [[Cold War]] secrecy upon the demise of the [[Soviet Union]] wrote in its Final Report, "President Truman was almost willfully obtuse as regards [[American Communism]]." <ref>Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy. Senate Document 105-2. 103rd Congress. Washington, D.C. United States Government Printing Office. 1997. [http://www.gpo.gov/congress/commissions/secrecy/pdf/04dpm.pdf Chairman's Forward, pg. 10] pdf.</ref>

During Truman's last four budgets, expenditures on national security increased from $13 billion in 1950 to $50 billion in 1953. <ref>[http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2006/10/119975.pdf ''Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time''], Carroll Quigley, Collier-Macmillan, 1966, pg. 936. ISBN 0-945001-10-X</ref>

Truman retired from politics at the conclusion of his presidential term and died on December 26, 1972 in his Independence, Missouri home. His Presidential library is located in Independence.

===China and Korea===
Without committing U.S. combat troops and without supporting a coalition government, the [[Truman Doctrine]] saved [[Greece]] from [[communism]]. Greece received weapons and financial support and, most importantly, operational advisers at the battalion level, who ensured that American aid was used effectively. [[George Marshall]] himself testified that such aid might have prevented a [[Comintern]] victory, but General David Barr's military mission to China was specifically instructed not to supply this kind of assistance. <ref>Military Situation in the Far East, Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, 82nd Congress (Washington, 1951), p. 558.</ref> General [[Albert C. Wedemeyer]] recommended this approach in his report on his 1947 fact-finding mission, but Marshall personally suppressed the report. <ref>Tang Tsou, ''America's Failure in China, 1941-1945'', Chicago 1964, pg. 457.</ref> Chiang believed that the [[Truman Doctrine]] to [[Containment|contain]] the spread of [[International Communism]] directed from Moscow would be extended to China, and ordered an offensive as soon as word of the new policy reached him. <ref>Richard C. Thornton, ''China: A Political History, 1917-1980'', Boulder CO 1982, pg. 208.</ref> Truman however, made no effort to save China from Communism.

The Korean part of Wedemeyer's report was suppressed. Wedemeyer said:
{{Cquote|American and Soviet forces . . . are approximately equal, less than 50,000 troops each, [but] the Soviet-equipped and trained North Korean People's (Communist) Army of approximately 125,000 is vastly superior to the United States-organized constabulary of 16,000 Koreans equipped with Japanese small arms. The North Korean People's Army constitutes a potential military threat to [[South Korea]], since there is strong possibility that the Soviets will withdraw their occupation forces and thus induce our own withdrawal."<ref>Hearings before the Senate Committee on Armed Services and Committee on Foreign Relations, June 6, 1951.</ref>}}

Wedemeyer warned that this would take place as soon as "they can be sure that the [[North Korea]]n [[puppet government]] and its armed forces . . . are strong enough . . . to be relied upon to carry out Soviet objectives without the actual presence of Soviet troops."

[[Dean Rusk]], Assistant Secretary of State in charge of the Far Eastern Division, said on May 18,1951 what the critics had been saying,
{{Cquote|The independence of China is gravely threatened. In the Communist world there is room for only one master. . . . How many Chinese in one community after another are being destroyed because they love China more than they love [[Soviet Russia]]? The freedoms of the Chinese people are disappearing. Trial by mob, [[democide|mass slaughter]], banishment to [[slavery|forced labor]] in [[Manchuria]] and Siberia. . . . The peace and security of China are being sacrificed by the ambitions of the Chinese conspiracy. China has been driven by foreign masters into an adventure in foreign aggression.}}
John T. Flynn observes that critics of the [[FDR]] and Truman Administrations who had been saying this earlier were denounced as “[[Fascists]].”<ref>''While You Slept: Our Tragedy in Asia and Who Made It'', John T. Flynn, New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1951, [http://www.mises.org/books/whileyouslept.pdf pg. 161] pdf.</ref> Rusk continued,
{{Cquote|We do not recognize the authorities in [[Peiping]] for what they pretend to be. It is not the government of China. It does not pass the first test. It is not Chinese. . . . We recognize the [[Kuomintang|Nationalist government of the Republic of China]] even though the territory under its control is severely restricted. <ref>Hearings before the Senate Committee on Armed Services and
Committee on Foreign Relations (also known as the Mac Arthur
Inquiry), June 2, 1951.</ref>…we believe it more authoritatively represents the views of the great body of the people of China, particularly their demand for independence from foreign control….That government will continue to receive important aid and assistance from the United States.}}

Conditions inviting the North Korean attack were created by the [[United Nations]] which issued a resolution for withdrawal of both Soviet and American troops. Troops began withdrawing September 15, 1948, leaving only about 7500 Americans lightly armed. This left in South Korea 16,000 Koreans and 7500 Americans, both groups lightly armed, against 150,000 fully armed North Korean Communists. General Roberts, head of the U. S. Military Mission said the South Koreans were not permitted to arm adequately.

[[Chiang Kai-shek]] was caught between two wars—a war on China by [[Japan]] and a war on China by the Soviet Union. American leaders refused to see this and insisted on acting in the illusion that China was fighting the Japanese only and that Soviet Union was an ally. Then came the startling realization that the United States, too, like China, were engaged in two wars in Asia, one against a common enemy, Japan; the other against a common enemy, the Soviet Union. The United States, with its ally China, fought the Japanese. But all the time the Soviet Union, with its satellite Comintern army in China, was fighting both China and the United States. The [[iron curtain]] that, with the [[Yalta agreement]], was rung down over American allies in Europe—[[Poland]] and [[Czechoslovakia]] and other little countries—now fell on China. And this was made possible wholly because of the Soviet Union's allies—conscious and unconscious—in America, in the U.S. government and even in the [[U.S. State Department]].

==Middle Initial==
There is no period after his middle initial, because it doesn't stand for anything. He was named with an "S" so that both his grandfathers could claim him as their namesake.<ref>[[Encyclopedia of Presidents]], [[Harry S. Truman]], by Jim Hargrove, Children's Press, 1987.</ref>

==Links==
*[http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ht33.html Biography]
*[http://www.trumanlibrary.org Presidential Library]

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
*[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/index.php The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb], Truman Library.
*[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/small/mb12a.htm President Truman to Senator Richard B. Russell], August 9, 1945.

{{USPresidents}}
{{USVicePresidents}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Truman, Harry}}
[[Category:Presidents of the United States]]
[[Category:World War II]]
[[Category:Vice Presidents of the United States]]
[[Category:Democratic Party]]

Harry Truman

2007-12-22T00:38:31Z

Iekl: changed on to by

{{President|
|name=Harry S. Truman
|image=HTruman.jpg
|country=the United States
|seq=33
|party=Democratic
|term_start=1945
|term_end=1953
|vp=None
|vp_dates=1945-1949
|2vp=Alben Barkley
|2vp_dates=1949-1953
|previous=Franklin D. Roosevelt
|next=Dwight D. Eisenhower
|seq2=34
|office2=vice
|party2=
|term2_start=April 12, 1945
|term2_end=January 20, 1945
|pres2=Franklin D. Roosevelt
|previous2=Henry A. Wallace
|next2=Alben W. Barkley
|birth_date=May 8, 1884
|birth_place=Lamar, MO
|death_date=December 26, 1972
|death_place=Kansas City, MO
|spouse=Bess Wallace Truman
|spouse2=
|religion=[[Baptist]]
}}

'''Harry S Truman''' was the 33rd [[President]] of the [[United States]] and it was by his decision that the first [[atomic bomb]]s were dropped on the [[Japan|Japanese]] cities of [[Hiroshima]] and [[Nagasaki]].

==Early life==

Truman was born on May 8, 1884 in Lamar, [[Missouri]]. He attended public school in Independence, Missouri, graduating from high school in 1901. Following a few brief jobs in the Kansas City area, he returned to help run the family farm in Grandview.

During [[World War I]], Truman went to [[France]] as a captain of artillery. After returning home from the war, he married Elizabeth "Bess" Wallace and opened a men's clothing store in [[Kansas City]] with a wartime friend.

In 1922, Truman was elected a judge in the Jackson County court, where his duties were administrative rather than judicial. Although he earned a reputation for being honest and efficient in managing county affairs, he was defeated for reelection in 1924. However, he was subsequently elected presiding judge in 1926, and reelected in 1930.

==Senate==

Truman won election to the [[United States Senate]] in 1934, and during [[World War II]] gained national prominence for serving as chairman of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program - referred to as the "Truman Committee".<ref>http://www.trumanlibrary.org/hst-bio.htm</ref>

==Selection for Vice-Presidency==

President Roosevelt had been in ill-health since his return from the [[Teheran conference]]. At the 1944 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, DNC Chairman Bob Hannegan went for instructions to President Roosevelt's private railway car just before the July convention officially began. Roosevelt had decided to dump incumbent Vice-President [[Henry Wallace]]. Worried over dissension on the choice of a successor, Roosevelt told Hannegan: "Go on down there and nominate Truman before there's any more trouble. And clear everything with Sidney." <ref>[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,791619,00.html "Clear everything with Sidney"], [[Time magazine]], Sep. 25, 1944.</ref> The President could not make the selection of Truman until [[Sidney Hillman]] <ref>''The Roosevelt Myth'', John T. Flynn, Fox and Wilkes, 1948, Book 2, Ch. 8, [http://www.rooseveltmyth.com/book/fdrmyth_Chapter_Eight___The_Shock_Troops.htm ''The Shock Troops of the Third New Deal'']</ref>, Director of the Political Action Committee for the [[Congress on Industrial Organizations]] (CIO) approved it. <ref> ''Roosevelt Myth'', Book 3, Ch. 10, [http://www.rooseveltmyth.com/book/fdrmyth_Chapter_Ten___Politics__Disease_.htm ''Politics, Disease and History''], Flynn, 1948.</ref> When Harry Truman walked into the smoke-filled room <ref>[http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/index_print.asp?ProgramID=1109 ''Truman''], Interview with David McCullough, C-Span Booknotes, July 19, 1992. Retrieved August 6, 2007.{{user:Iekl}}</ref> of DNC at headquarters at the Stevens Hotel in Chicago, Soviet spies [[John Abt]], [[Lee Pressman]], and [[Nathan Witt]], were on hand." <ref>''The Yalta Betrayal'', Felix Wittmer, Claxton Printers, 1953, pg. 75.</ref>

==Presidency==

Truman succeeded to the Presidency upon the death of FDR on April 12, 1945. Interestingly, Truman rarely met with Roosevelt during his tenure as Vice President <ref>http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ht33.html</ref>.

He was elected [[President of the United States of America]] (USA) in the [[United States presidential election of 1948|1948 Presidential Election]] as a [[Democrat]]. During his term as President, he presided over the conclusion of [[World War II]] in both [[Europe]] and [[Japan]]. Truman's decision to use atomic weapons against the Japanese cities of [[Hiroshima]] and [[Nagasaki]] forced the unconditional Japanese surrender to conclude WWII. As a consequence, the United States canceled a planned invasion of the island nation which had been projected to cause 1,000,000 American and 10,000,000 Japanese casualties, and prevented the annexation of Japan's northern islands by the Soviet Union<ref>http://www.afsc.org/newengland/pesp/DecisionToUseABomb.htm</ref><ref>http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/web/20050902-atom-bomb-hiroshima-nagasaki-enola.shtml</ref>. Prior to Japan's surrender, [[Nazi]] German troops and their Axis allies surrendered in Europe. Truman proclaimed his [[Truman Doctrine]] on March 12, 1947 that was intended to thwart the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republic]]'s designs of expansion in the Near East by committing American aid and troops to that region. Truman also committed troops to the Korean Peninsula in 1950 to halt a [[Communist]] invasion of [[South Korea]]. American troops were part of a coalition of member nations of the newly formed [[United Nations]] ("UN") in 1945. The USA had become a founding member of the newly established UN during Truman's presidency.

The bipartisan statutory [[Moynihan Secrecy Commission]] vested with extraordinary subpeaona powers to look into [[Cold War]] secrecy upon the demise of the [[Soviet Union]] wrote in its Final Report, "President Truman was almost willfully obtuse as regards [[American Communism]]." <ref>Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy. Senate Document 105-2. 103rd Congress. Washington, D.C. United States Government Printing Office. 1997. [http://www.gpo.gov/congress/commissions/secrecy/pdf/04dpm.pdf Chairman's Forward, pg. 10] pdf.</ref>

During Truman's last four budgets, expenditures on national security increased from $13 billion in 1950 to $50 billion in 1953. <ref>[http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2006/10/119975.pdf ''Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time''], Carroll Quigley, Collier-Macmillan, 1966, pg. 936. ISBN 0-945001-10-X</ref>

Truman retired from politics at the conclusion of his presidential term and died on December 26, 1972 in his Independence, Missouri home. His Presidential library is located in Independence.

===China and Korea===
Without committing U.S. combat troops and without supporting a coalition government, the [[Truman Doctrine]] saved [[Greece]] from [[communism]]. Greece received weapons and financial support and, most importantly, operational advisers at the battalion level, who ensured that American aid was used effectively. [[George Marshall]] himself testified that such aid might have prevented a [[Comintern]] victory, but General David Barr's military mission to China was specifically instructed not to supply this kind of assistance. <ref>Military Situation in the Far East, Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, 82nd Congress (Washington, 1951), p. 558.</ref> General [[Albert C. Wedemeyer]] recommended this approach in his report on his 1947 fact-finding mission, but Marshall personally suppressed the report. <ref>Tang Tsou, ''America's Failure in China, 1941-1945'', Chicago 1964, pg. 457.</ref> Chiang believed that the [[Truman Doctrine]] to [[Containment|contain]] the spread of [[International Communism]] directed from Moscow would be extended to China, and ordered an offensive as soon as word of the new policy reached him. <ref>Richard C. Thornton, ''China: A Political History, 1917-1980'', Boulder CO 1982, pg. 208.</ref> Truman however, made no effort to save China from Communism.

The Korean part of Wedemeyer's report was suppressed. Wedemeyer said:
{{Cquote|American and Soviet forces . . . are approximately equal, less than 50,000 troops each, [but] the Soviet-equipped and trained North Korean People's (Communist) Army of approximately 125,000 is vastly superior to the United States-organized constabulary of 16,000 Koreans equipped with Japanese small arms. The North Korean People's Army constitutes a potential military threat to [[South Korea]], since there is strong possibility that the Soviets will withdraw their occupation forces and thus induce our own withdrawal."<ref>Hearings before the Senate Committee on Armed Services and Committee on Foreign Relations, June 6, 1951.</ref>}}

Wedemeyer warned that this would take place as soon as "they can be sure that the [[North Korea]]n [[puppet government]] and its armed forces . . . are strong enough . . . to be relied upon to carry out Soviet objectives without the actual presence of Soviet troops."

[[Dean Rusk]], Assistant Secretary of State in charge of the Far Eastern Division, said on May 18,1951 what the critics had been saying,
{{Cquote|The independence of China is gravely threatened. In the Communist world there is room for only one master. . . . How many Chinese in one community after another are being destroyed because they love China more than they love [[Soviet Russia]]? The freedoms of the Chinese people are disappearing. Trial by mob, [[democide|mass slaughter]], banishment to [[slavery|forced labor]] in [[Manchuria]] and Siberia. . . . The peace and security of China are being sacrificed by the ambitions of the Chinese conspiracy. China has been driven by foreign masters into an adventure in foreign aggression.}}
John T. Flynn observes that critics of the [[FDR]] and Truman Administrations who had been saying this earlier were denounced as “[[Fascists]].”<ref>''While You Slept: Our Tragedy in Asia and Who Made It'', John T. Flynn, New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1951, [http://www.mises.org/books/whileyouslept.pdf pg. 161] pdf.</ref> Rusk continued,
{{Cquote|We do not recognize the authorities in [[Peiping]] for what they pretend to be. It is not the government of China. It does not pass the first test. It is not Chinese. . . . We recognize the [[Kuomintang|Nationalist government of the Republic of China]] even though the territory under its control is severely restricted. <ref>Hearings before the Senate Committee on Armed Services and
Committee on Foreign Relations (also known as the Mac Arthur
Inquiry), June 2, 1951.</ref>…we believe it more authoritatively represents the views of the great body of the people of China, particularly their demand for independence from foreign control….That government will continue to receive important aid and assistance from the United States.}}

Conditions inviting the North Korean attack were created by the [[United Nations]] which issued a resolution for withdrawal of both Soviet and American troops. Troops began withdrawing September 15, 1948, leaving only about 7500 Americans lightly armed. This left in South Korea 16,000 Koreans and 7500 Americans, both groups lightly armed, against 150,000 fully armed North Korean Communists. General Roberts, head of the U. S. Military Mission said the South Koreans were not permitted to arm adequately.

[[Chiang Kai-shek]] was caught between two wars—a war on China by [[Japan]] and a war on China by the Soviet Union. American leaders refused to see this and insisted on acting in the illusion that China was fighting the Japanese only and that Soviet Union was an ally. Then came the startling realization that the United States, too, like China, were engaged in two wars in Asia, one against a common enemy, Japan; the other against a common enemy, the Soviet Union. The United States, with its ally China, fought the Japanese. But all the time the Soviet Union, with its satellite Comintern army in China, was fighting both China and the United States. The [[iron curtain]] that, with the [[Yalta agreement]], was rung down over American allies in Europe—[[Poland]] and [[Czechoslovakia]] and other little countries—now fell on China. And this was made possible wholly because of the Soviet Union's allies—conscious and unconscious—in America, in the U.S. government and even in the [[U.S. State Department]].

==Middle Initial==
There is no period after his middle initial, because it doesn't stand for anything. He was named with an "S" so that both his grandfathers could claim him as their namesake.<ref>[[Encyclopedia of Presidents]], [[Harry S. Truman]], by Jim Hargrove, Children's Press, 1987.</ref>

==Links==
*[http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ht33.html Biography]
*[http://www.trumanlibrary.org Presidential Library]

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
*[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/index.php The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb], Truman Library.
*[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/small/mb12a.htm President Truman to Senator Richard B. Russell], August 9, 1945.

{{USPresidents}}
{{USVicePresidents}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Truman, Harry}}
[[Category:Presidents of the United States]]
[[Category:World War II]]
[[Category:Vice Presidents of the United States]]
[[Category:Democratic Party]]

Harry Truman

2007-12-22T00:36:48Z

Iekl: un-smalled references.

{{President|
|name=Harry S. Truman
|image=HTruman.jpg
|country=the United States
|seq=33
|party=Democratic
|term_start=1945
|term_end=1953
|vp=None
|vp_dates=1945-1949
|2vp=Alben Barkley
|2vp_dates=1949-1953
|previous=Franklin D. Roosevelt
|next=Dwight D. Eisenhower
|seq2=34
|office2=vice
|party2=
|term2_start=April 12, 1945
|term2_end=January 20, 1945
|pres2=Franklin D. Roosevelt
|previous2=Henry A. Wallace
|next2=Alben W. Barkley
|birth_date=May 8, 1884
|birth_place=Lamar, MO
|death_date=December 26, 1972
|death_place=Kansas City, MO
|spouse=Bess Wallace Truman
|spouse2=
|religion=[[Baptist]]
}}

'''Harry S Truman''' was the 33rd [[President]] of the [[United States]] and it was on his decision that the first [[atomic bomb]]s were dropped on the [[Japan|Japanese]] cities of [[Hiroshima]] and [[Nagasaki]].

==Early life==

Truman was born on May 8, 1884 in Lamar, [[Missouri]]. He attended public school in Independence, Missouri, graduating from high school in 1901. Following a few brief jobs in the Kansas City area, he returned to help run the family farm in Grandview.

During [[World War I]], Truman went to [[France]] as a captain of artillery. After returning home from the war, he married Elizabeth "Bess" Wallace and opened a men's clothing store in [[Kansas City]] with a wartime friend.

In 1922, Truman was elected a judge in the Jackson County court, where his duties were administrative rather than judicial. Although he earned a reputation for being honest and efficient in managing county affairs, he was defeated for reelection in 1924. However, he was subsequently elected presiding judge in 1926, and reelected in 1930.

==Senate==

Truman won election to the [[United States Senate]] in 1934, and during World War II gained national prominence for serving as chairman of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program - referred to as the "Truman Committee".<ref>http://www.trumanlibrary.org/hst-bio.htm</ref>

==Selection for Vice-Presidency==

President Roosevelt had been in ill-health since his return from the [[Teheran conference]]. At the 1944 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, DNC Chairman Bob Hannegan went for instructions to President Roosevelt's private railway car just before the July convention officially began. Roosevelt had decided to dump incumbent Vice-President [[Henry Wallace]]. Worried over dissension on the choice of a successor, Roosevelt told Hannegan: "Go on down there and nominate Truman before there's any more trouble. And clear everything with Sidney." <ref>[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,791619,00.html "Clear everything with Sidney"], [[Time magazine]], Sep. 25, 1944.</ref> The President could not make the selection of Truman until [[Sidney Hillman]] <ref>''The Roosevelt Myth'', John T. Flynn, Fox and Wilkes, 1948, Book 2, Ch. 8, [http://www.rooseveltmyth.com/book/fdrmyth_Chapter_Eight___The_Shock_Troops.htm ''The Shock Troops of the Third New Deal'']</ref>, Director of the Political Action Committee for the [[Congress on Industrial Organizations]] (CIO) approved it. <ref> ''Roosevelt Myth'', Book 3, Ch. 10, [http://www.rooseveltmyth.com/book/fdrmyth_Chapter_Ten___Politics__Disease_.htm ''Politics, Disease and History''], Flynn, 1948.</ref> When Harry Truman walked into the smoke-filled room <ref>[http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/index_print.asp?ProgramID=1109 ''Truman''], Interview with David McCullough, C-Span Booknotes, July 19, 1992. Retrieved August 6, 2007.{{user:Iekl}}</ref> of DNC at headquarters at the Stevens Hotel in Chicago, Soviet spies [[John Abt]], [[Lee Pressman]], and [[Nathan Witt]], were on hand." <ref>''The Yalta Betrayal'', Felix Wittmer, Claxton Printers, 1953, pg. 75.</ref>

==Presidency==

Truman succeeded to the Presidency upon the death of FDR on April 12, 1945. Interestingly, Truman rarely met with Roosevelt during his tenure as Vice President <ref>http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ht33.html</ref>.

He was elected [[President of the United States of America]] (USA) in the [[United States presidential election of 1948|1948 Presidential Election]] as a [[Democrat]]. During his term as President, he presided over the conclusion of [[World War II]] in both [[Europe]] and [[Japan]]. Truman's decision to use atomic weapons against the Japanese cities of [[Hiroshima]] and [[Nagasaki]] forced the unconditional Japanese surrender to conclude WWII. As a consequence, the United States canceled a planned invasion of the island nation which had been projected to cause 1,000,000 American and 10,000,000 Japanese casualties, and prevented the annexation of Japan's northern islands by the Soviet Union<ref>http://www.afsc.org/newengland/pesp/DecisionToUseABomb.htm</ref><ref>http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/web/20050902-atom-bomb-hiroshima-nagasaki-enola.shtml</ref>. Prior to Japan's surrender, [[Nazi]] German troops and their Axis allies surrendered in Europe. Truman proclaimed his [[Truman Doctrine]] on March 12, 1947 that was intended to thwart the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republic]]'s designs of expansion in the Near East by committing American aid and troops to that region. Truman also committed troops to the Korean Peninsula in 1950 to halt a [[Communist]] invasion of [[South Korea]]. American troops were part of a coalition of member nations of the newly formed [[United Nations]] ("UN") in 1945. The USA had become a founding member of the newly established UN during Truman's presidency.

The bipartisan statutory [[Moynihan Secrecy Commission]] vested with extraordinary subpeaona powers to look into [[Cold War]] secrecy upon the demise of the [[Soviet Union]] wrote in its Final Report, "President Truman was almost willfully obtuse as regards [[American Communism]]." <ref>Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy. Senate Document 105-2. 103rd Congress. Washington, D.C. United States Government Printing Office. 1997. [http://www.gpo.gov/congress/commissions/secrecy/pdf/04dpm.pdf Chairman's Forward, pg. 10] pdf.</ref>

During Truman's last four budgets, expenditures on national security increased from $13 billion in 1950 to $50 billion in 1953. <ref>[http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2006/10/119975.pdf ''Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time''], Carroll Quigley, Collier-Macmillan, 1966, pg. 936. ISBN 0-945001-10-X</ref>

Truman retired from politics at the conclusion of his presidential term and died on December 26, 1972 in his Independence, Missouri home. His Presidential library is located in Independence.

===China and Korea===
Without committing U.S. combat troops and without supporting a coalition government, the [[Truman Doctrine]] saved [[Greece]] from [[communism]]. Greece received weapons and financial support and, most importantly, operational advisers at the battalion level, who ensured that American aid was used effectively. [[George Marshall]] himself testified that such aid might have prevented a [[Comintern]] victory, but General David Barr's military mission to China was specifically instructed not to supply this kind of assistance. <ref>Military Situation in the Far East, Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, 82nd Congress (Washington, 1951), p. 558.</ref> General [[Albert C. Wedemeyer]] recommended this approach in his report on his 1947 fact-finding mission, but Marshall personally suppressed the report. <ref>Tang Tsou, ''America's Failure in China, 1941-1945'', Chicago 1964, pg. 457.</ref> Chiang believed that the [[Truman Doctrine]] to [[Containment|contain]] the spread of [[International Communism]] directed from Moscow would be extended to China, and ordered an offensive as soon as word of the new policy reached him. <ref>Richard C. Thornton, ''China: A Political History, 1917-1980'', Boulder CO 1982, pg. 208.</ref> Truman however, made no effort to save China from Communism.

The Korean part of Wedemeyer's report was suppressed. Wedemeyer said:
{{Cquote|American and Soviet forces . . . are approximately equal, less than 50,000 troops each, [but] the Soviet-equipped and trained North Korean People's (Communist) Army of approximately 125,000 is vastly superior to the United States-organized constabulary of 16,000 Koreans equipped with Japanese small arms. The North Korean People's Army constitutes a potential military threat to [[South Korea]], since there is strong possibility that the Soviets will withdraw their occupation forces and thus induce our own withdrawal."<ref>Hearings before the Senate Committee on Armed Services and Committee on Foreign Relations, June 6, 1951.</ref>}}

Wedemeyer warned that this would take place as soon as "they can be sure that the [[North Korea]]n [[puppet government]] and its armed forces . . . are strong enough . . . to be relied upon to carry out Soviet objectives without the actual presence of Soviet troops."

[[Dean Rusk]], Assistant Secretary of State in charge of the Far Eastern Division, said on May 18,1951 what the critics had been saying,
{{Cquote|The independence of China is gravely threatened. In the Communist world there is room for only one master. . . . How many Chinese in one community after another are being destroyed because they love China more than they love [[Soviet Russia]]? The freedoms of the Chinese people are disappearing. Trial by mob, [[democide|mass slaughter]], banishment to [[slavery|forced labor]] in [[Manchuria]] and Siberia. . . . The peace and security of China are being sacrificed by the ambitions of the Chinese conspiracy. China has been driven by foreign masters into an adventure in foreign aggression.}}
John T. Flynn observes that critics of the [[FDR]] and Truman Administrations who had been saying this earlier were denounced as “[[Fascists]].”<ref>''While You Slept: Our Tragedy in Asia and Who Made It'', John T. Flynn, New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1951, [http://www.mises.org/books/whileyouslept.pdf pg. 161] pdf.</ref> Rusk continued,
{{Cquote|We do not recognize the authorities in [[Peiping]] for what they pretend to be. It is not the government of China. It does not pass the first test. It is not Chinese. . . . We recognize the [[Kuomintang|Nationalist government of the Republic of China]] even though the territory under its control is severely restricted. <ref>Hearings before the Senate Committee on Armed Services and
Committee on Foreign Relations (also known as the Mac Arthur
Inquiry), June 2, 1951.</ref>…we believe it more authoritatively represents the views of the great body of the people of China, particularly their demand for independence from foreign control….That government will continue to receive important aid and assistance from the United States.}}

Conditions inviting the North Korean attack were created by the [[United Nations]] which issued a resolution for withdrawal of both Soviet and American troops. Troops began withdrawing September 15, 1948, leaving only about 7500 Americans lightly armed. This left in South Korea 16,000 Koreans and 7500 Americans, both groups lightly armed, against 150,000 fully armed North Korean Communists. General Roberts, head of the U. S. Military Mission said the South Koreans were not permitted to arm adequately.

[[Chiang Kai-shek]] was caught between two wars—a war on China by [[Japan]] and a war on China by the Soviet Union. American leaders refused to see this and insisted on acting in the illusion that China was fighting the Japanese only and that Soviet Union was an ally. Then came the startling realization that the United States, too, like China, were engaged in two wars in Asia, one against a common enemy, Japan; the other against a common enemy, the Soviet Union. The United States, with its ally China, fought the Japanese. But all the time the Soviet Union, with its satellite Comintern army in China, was fighting both China and the United States. The [[iron curtain]] that, with the [[Yalta agreement]], was rung down over American allies in Europe—[[Poland]] and [[Czechoslovakia]] and other little countries—now fell on China. And this was made possible wholly because of the Soviet Union's allies—conscious and unconscious—in America, in the U.S. government and even in the [[U.S. State Department]].

==Middle Initial==
There is no period after his middle initial, because it doesn't stand for anything. He was named with an "S" so that both his grandfathers could claim him as their namesake.<ref>[[Encyclopedia of Presidents]], [[Harry S. Truman]], by Jim Hargrove, Children's Press, 1987.</ref>

==Links==
*[http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ht33.html Biography]
*[http://www.trumanlibrary.org Presidential Library]

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
*[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/index.php The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb], Truman Library.
*[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/small/mb12a.htm President Truman to Senator Richard B. Russell], August 9, 1945.

{{USPresidents}}
{{USVicePresidents}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Truman, Harry}}
[[Category:Presidents of the United States]]
[[Category:World War II]]
[[Category:Vice Presidents of the United States]]
[[Category:Democratic Party]]

Harry Truman

2007-12-22T00:35:37Z

Iekl: links, uncapped communism.

{{President|
|name=Harry S. Truman
|image=HTruman.jpg
|country=the United States
|seq=33
|party=Democratic
|term_start=1945
|term_end=1953
|vp=None
|vp_dates=1945-1949
|2vp=Alben Barkley
|2vp_dates=1949-1953
|previous=Franklin D. Roosevelt
|next=Dwight D. Eisenhower
|seq2=34
|office2=vice
|party2=
|term2_start=April 12, 1945
|term2_end=January 20, 1945
|pres2=Franklin D. Roosevelt
|previous2=Henry A. Wallace
|next2=Alben W. Barkley
|birth_date=May 8, 1884
|birth_place=Lamar, MO
|death_date=December 26, 1972
|death_place=Kansas City, MO
|spouse=Bess Wallace Truman
|spouse2=
|religion=[[Baptist]]
}}

'''Harry S Truman''' was the 33rd [[President]] of the [[United States]] and it was on his decision that the first [[atomic bomb]]s were dropped on the [[Japan|Japanese]] cities of [[Hiroshima]] and [[Nagasaki]].

==Early life==

Truman was born on May 8, 1884 in Lamar, [[Missouri]]. He attended public school in Independence, Missouri, graduating from high school in 1901. Following a few brief jobs in the Kansas City area, he returned to help run the family farm in Grandview.

During [[World War I]], Truman went to [[France]] as a captain of artillery. After returning home from the war, he married Elizabeth "Bess" Wallace and opened a men's clothing store in [[Kansas City]] with a wartime friend.

In 1922, Truman was elected a judge in the Jackson County court, where his duties were administrative rather than judicial. Although he earned a reputation for being honest and efficient in managing county affairs, he was defeated for reelection in 1924. However, he was subsequently elected presiding judge in 1926, and reelected in 1930.

==Senate==

Truman won election to the [[United States Senate]] in 1934, and during World War II gained national prominence for serving as chairman of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program - referred to as the "Truman Committee".<ref>http://www.trumanlibrary.org/hst-bio.htm</ref>

==Selection for Vice-Presidency==

President Roosevelt had been in ill-health since his return from the [[Teheran conference]]. At the 1944 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, DNC Chairman Bob Hannegan went for instructions to President Roosevelt's private railway car just before the July convention officially began. Roosevelt had decided to dump incumbent Vice-President [[Henry Wallace]]. Worried over dissension on the choice of a successor, Roosevelt told Hannegan: "Go on down there and nominate Truman before there's any more trouble. And clear everything with Sidney." <ref>[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,791619,00.html "Clear everything with Sidney"], [[Time magazine]], Sep. 25, 1944.</ref> The President could not make the selection of Truman until [[Sidney Hillman]] <ref>''The Roosevelt Myth'', John T. Flynn, Fox and Wilkes, 1948, Book 2, Ch. 8, [http://www.rooseveltmyth.com/book/fdrmyth_Chapter_Eight___The_Shock_Troops.htm ''The Shock Troops of the Third New Deal'']</ref>, Director of the Political Action Committee for the [[Congress on Industrial Organizations]] (CIO) approved it. <ref> ''Roosevelt Myth'', Book 3, Ch. 10, [http://www.rooseveltmyth.com/book/fdrmyth_Chapter_Ten___Politics__Disease_.htm ''Politics, Disease and History''], Flynn, 1948.</ref> When Harry Truman walked into the smoke-filled room <ref>[http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/index_print.asp?ProgramID=1109 ''Truman''], Interview with David McCullough, C-Span Booknotes, July 19, 1992. Retrieved August 6, 2007.{{user:Iekl}}</ref> of DNC at headquarters at the Stevens Hotel in Chicago, Soviet spies [[John Abt]], [[Lee Pressman]], and [[Nathan Witt]], were on hand." <ref>''The Yalta Betrayal'', Felix Wittmer, Claxton Printers, 1953, pg. 75.</ref>

==Presidency==

Truman succeeded to the Presidency upon the death of FDR on April 12, 1945. Interestingly, Truman rarely met with Roosevelt during his tenure as Vice President <ref>http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ht33.html</ref>.

He was elected [[President of the United States of America]] (USA) in the [[United States presidential election of 1948|1948 Presidential Election]] as a [[Democrat]]. During his term as President, he presided over the conclusion of [[World War II]] in both [[Europe]] and [[Japan]]. Truman's decision to use atomic weapons against the Japanese cities of [[Hiroshima]] and [[Nagasaki]] forced the unconditional Japanese surrender to conclude WWII. As a consequence, the United States canceled a planned invasion of the island nation which had been projected to cause 1,000,000 American and 10,000,000 Japanese casualties, and prevented the annexation of Japan's northern islands by the Soviet Union<ref>http://www.afsc.org/newengland/pesp/DecisionToUseABomb.htm</ref><ref>http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/web/20050902-atom-bomb-hiroshima-nagasaki-enola.shtml</ref>. Prior to Japan's surrender, [[Nazi]] German troops and their Axis allies surrendered in Europe. Truman proclaimed his [[Truman Doctrine]] on March 12, 1947 that was intended to thwart the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republic]]'s designs of expansion in the Near East by committing American aid and troops to that region. Truman also committed troops to the Korean Peninsula in 1950 to halt a [[Communist]] invasion of [[South Korea]]. American troops were part of a coalition of member nations of the newly formed [[United Nations]] ("UN") in 1945. The USA had become a founding member of the newly established UN during Truman's presidency.

The bipartisan statutory [[Moynihan Secrecy Commission]] vested with extraordinary subpeaona powers to look into [[Cold War]] secrecy upon the demise of the [[Soviet Union]] wrote in its Final Report, "President Truman was almost willfully obtuse as regards [[American Communism]]." <ref>Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy. Senate Document 105-2. 103rd Congress. Washington, D.C. United States Government Printing Office. 1997. [http://www.gpo.gov/congress/commissions/secrecy/pdf/04dpm.pdf Chairman's Forward, pg. 10] pdf.</ref>

During Truman's last four budgets, expenditures on national security increased from $13 billion in 1950 to $50 billion in 1953. <ref>[http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2006/10/119975.pdf ''Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time''], Carroll Quigley, Collier-Macmillan, 1966, pg. 936. ISBN 0-945001-10-X</ref>

Truman retired from politics at the conclusion of his presidential term and died on December 26, 1972 in his Independence, Missouri home. His Presidential library is located in Independence.

===China and Korea===
Without committing U.S. combat troops and without supporting a coalition government, the [[Truman Doctrine]] saved [[Greece]] from [[communism]]. Greece received weapons and financial support and, most importantly, operational advisers at the battalion level, who ensured that American aid was used effectively. [[George Marshall]] himself testified that such aid might have prevented a [[Comintern]] victory, but General David Barr's military mission to China was specifically instructed not to supply this kind of assistance. <ref>Military Situation in the Far East, Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, 82nd Congress (Washington, 1951), p. 558.</ref> General [[Albert C. Wedemeyer]] recommended this approach in his report on his 1947 fact-finding mission, but Marshall personally suppressed the report. <ref>Tang Tsou, ''America's Failure in China, 1941-1945'', Chicago 1964, pg. 457.</ref> Chiang believed that the [[Truman Doctrine]] to [[Containment|contain]] the spread of [[International Communism]] directed from Moscow would be extended to China, and ordered an offensive as soon as word of the new policy reached him. <ref>Richard C. Thornton, ''China: A Political History, 1917-1980'', Boulder CO 1982, pg. 208.</ref> Truman however, made no effort to save China from Communism.

The Korean part of Wedemeyer's report was suppressed. Wedemeyer said:
{{Cquote|American and Soviet forces . . . are approximately equal, less than 50,000 troops each, [but] the Soviet-equipped and trained North Korean People's (Communist) Army of approximately 125,000 is vastly superior to the United States-organized constabulary of 16,000 Koreans equipped with Japanese small arms. The North Korean People's Army constitutes a potential military threat to [[South Korea]], since there is strong possibility that the Soviets will withdraw their occupation forces and thus induce our own withdrawal."<ref>Hearings before the Senate Committee on Armed Services and Committee on Foreign Relations, June 6, 1951.</ref>}}

Wedemeyer warned that this would take place as soon as "they can be sure that the [[North Korea]]n [[puppet government]] and its armed forces . . . are strong enough . . . to be relied upon to carry out Soviet objectives without the actual presence of Soviet troops."

[[Dean Rusk]], Assistant Secretary of State in charge of the Far Eastern Division, said on May 18,1951 what the critics had been saying,
{{Cquote|The independence of China is gravely threatened. In the Communist world there is room for only one master. . . . How many Chinese in one community after another are being destroyed because they love China more than they love [[Soviet Russia]]? The freedoms of the Chinese people are disappearing. Trial by mob, [[democide|mass slaughter]], banishment to [[slavery|forced labor]] in [[Manchuria]] and Siberia. . . . The peace and security of China are being sacrificed by the ambitions of the Chinese conspiracy. China has been driven by foreign masters into an adventure in foreign aggression.}}
John T. Flynn observes that critics of the [[FDR]] and Truman Administrations who had been saying this earlier were denounced as “[[Fascists]].”<ref>''While You Slept: Our Tragedy in Asia and Who Made It'', John T. Flynn, New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1951, [http://www.mises.org/books/whileyouslept.pdf pg. 161] pdf.</ref> Rusk continued,
{{Cquote|We do not recognize the authorities in [[Peiping]] for what they pretend to be. It is not the government of China. It does not pass the first test. It is not Chinese. . . . We recognize the [[Kuomintang|Nationalist government of the Republic of China]] even though the territory under its control is severely restricted. <ref>Hearings before the Senate Committee on Armed Services and
Committee on Foreign Relations (also known as the Mac Arthur
Inquiry), June 2, 1951.</ref>…we believe it more authoritatively represents the views of the great body of the people of China, particularly their demand for independence from foreign control….That government will continue to receive important aid and assistance from the United States.}}

Conditions inviting the North Korean attack were created by the [[United Nations]] which issued a resolution for withdrawal of both Soviet and American troops. Troops began withdrawing September 15, 1948, leaving only about 7500 Americans lightly armed. This left in South Korea 16,000 Koreans and 7500 Americans, both groups lightly armed, against 150,000 fully armed North Korean Communists. General Roberts, head of the U. S. Military Mission said the South Koreans were not permitted to arm adequately.

[[Chiang Kai-shek]] was caught between two wars—a war on China by [[Japan]] and a war on China by the Soviet Union. American leaders refused to see this and insisted on acting in the illusion that China was fighting the Japanese only and that Soviet Union was an ally. Then came the startling realization that the United States, too, like China, were engaged in two wars in Asia, one against a common enemy, Japan; the other against a common enemy, the Soviet Union. The United States, with its ally China, fought the Japanese. But all the time the Soviet Union, with its satellite Comintern army in China, was fighting both China and the United States. The [[iron curtain]] that, with the [[Yalta agreement]], was rung down over American allies in Europe—[[Poland]] and [[Czechoslovakia]] and other little countries—now fell on China. And this was made possible wholly because of the Soviet Union's allies—conscious and unconscious—in America, in the U.S. government and even in the [[U.S. State Department]].

==Middle Initial==
There is no period after his middle initial, because it doesn't stand for anything. He was named with an "S" so that both his grandfathers could claim him as their namesake.<ref>[[Encyclopedia of Presidents]], [[Harry S. Truman]], by Jim Hargrove, Children's Press, 1987.</ref>

==Links==
*[http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ht33.html Biography]
*[http://www.trumanlibrary.org Presidential Library]

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
*[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/index.php The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb], Truman Library.
*[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/small/mb12a.htm President Truman to Senator Richard B. Russell], August 9, 1945.

{{USPresidents}}
{{USVicePresidents}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Truman, Harry}}
[[Category:Presidents of the United States]]
[[Category:World War II]]
[[Category:Vice Presidents of the United States]]
[[Category:Democratic Party]]

Harry Truman

2007-12-22T00:34:51Z

Iekl: adding period

{{President|
|name=Harry S. Truman
|image=HTruman.jpg
|country=the United States
|seq=33
|party=Democratic
|term_start=1945
|term_end=1953
|vp=None
|vp_dates=1945-1949
|2vp=Alben Barkley
|2vp_dates=1949-1953
|previous=Franklin D. Roosevelt
|next=Dwight D. Eisenhower
|seq2=34
|office2=vice
|party2=
|term2_start=April 12, 1945
|term2_end=January 20, 1945
|pres2=Franklin D. Roosevelt
|previous2=Henry A. Wallace
|next2=Alben W. Barkley
|birth_date=May 8, 1884
|birth_place=Lamar, MO
|death_date=December 26, 1972
|death_place=Kansas City, MO
|spouse=Bess Wallace Truman
|spouse2=
|religion=[[Baptist]]
}}

'''Harry S Truman''' was the 33rd [[President]] of the [[United States]] and it was on his decision that the first [[atomic bomb]]s were dropped on the [[Japan|Japanese]] cities of [[Hiroshima]] and [[Nagasaki]].

==Early life==

Truman was born on May 8, 1884 in Lamar, [[Missouri]]. He attended public school in Independence, Missouri, graduating from high school in 1901. Following a few brief jobs in the Kansas City area, he returned to help run the family farm in Grandview.

During [[World War I]], Truman went to [[France]] as a captain of artillery. After returning home from the war, he married Elizabeth "Bess" Wallace and opened a men's clothing store in [[Kansas City]] with a wartime friend.

In 1922, Truman was elected a judge in the Jackson County court, where his duties were administrative rather than judicial. Although he earned a reputation for being honest and efficient in managing county affairs, he was defeated for reelection in 1924. However, he was subsequently elected presiding judge in 1926, and reelected in 1930.

==Senate==

Truman won election to the [[United States Senate]] in 1934, and during World War II gained national prominence for serving as chairman of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program - referred to as the "Truman Committee".<ref>http://www.trumanlibrary.org/hst-bio.htm</ref>

==Selection for Vice-Presidency==

President Roosevelt had been in ill-health since his return from the [[Teheran conference]]. At the 1944 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, DNC Chairman Bob Hannegan went for instructions to President Roosevelt's private railway car just before the July convention officially began. Roosevelt had decided to dump incumbent Vice-President [[Henry Wallace]]. Worried over dissension on the choice of a successor, Roosevelt told Hannegan: "Go on down there and nominate Truman before there's any more trouble. And clear everything with Sidney." <ref>[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,791619,00.html "Clear everything with Sidney"], [[Time magazine]], Sep. 25, 1944.</ref> The President could not make the selection of Truman until [[Sidney Hillman]] <ref>''The Roosevelt Myth'', John T. Flynn, Fox and Wilkes, 1948, Book 2, Ch. 8, [http://www.rooseveltmyth.com/book/fdrmyth_Chapter_Eight___The_Shock_Troops.htm ''The Shock Troops of the Third New Deal'']</ref>, Director of the Political Action Committee for the [[Congress on Industrial Organizations]] (CIO) approved it. <ref> ''Roosevelt Myth'', Book 3, Ch. 10, [http://www.rooseveltmyth.com/book/fdrmyth_Chapter_Ten___Politics__Disease_.htm ''Politics, Disease and History''], Flynn, 1948.</ref> When Harry Truman walked into the smoke-filled room <ref>[http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/index_print.asp?ProgramID=1109 ''Truman''], Interview with David McCullough, C-Span Booknotes, July 19, 1992. Retrieved August 6, 2007.{{user:Iekl}}</ref> of DNC at headquarters at the Stevens Hotel in Chicago, Soviet spies [[John Abt]], [[Lee Pressman]], and [[Nathan Witt]], were on hand." <ref>''The Yalta Betrayal'', Felix Wittmer, Claxton Printers, 1953, pg. 75.</ref>

==Presidency==

Truman succeeded to the Presidency upon the death of FDR on April 12, 1945. Interestingly, Truman rarely met with Roosevelt during his tenure as Vice President <ref>http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ht33.html</ref>.

He was elected [[President of the United States of America]] (USA) in the [[United States presidential election of 1948|1948 Presidential Election]] as a [[Democrat]]. During his term as President, he presided over the conclusion of [[World War II]] in both [[Europe]] and [[Japan]]. Truman's decision to use atomic weapons against the Japanese cities of [[Hiroshima]] and [[Nagasaki]] forced the unconditional Japanese surrender to conclude WWII. As a consequence, the United States canceled a planned invasion of the island nation which had been projected to cause 1,000,000 American and 10,000,000 Japanese casualties, and prevented the annexation of Japan's northern islands by the Soviet Union<ref>http://www.afsc.org/newengland/pesp/DecisionToUseABomb.htm</ref><ref>http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/web/20050902-atom-bomb-hiroshima-nagasaki-enola.shtml</ref>. Prior to Japan's surrender, [[Nazi]] German troops and their Axis allies surrendered in Europe. Truman proclaimed his [[Truman Doctrine]] on March 12, 1947 that was intended to thwart the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republic]]'s designs of expansion in the Near East by committing American aid and troops to that region. Truman also committed troops to the Korean Peninsula in 1950 to halt a [[Communist]] invasion of [[South Korea]]. American troops were part of a coalition of member nations of the newly formed [[United Nations]] ("UN") in 1945. The USA had become a founding member of the newly established UN during Truman's presidency.

The bipartisan statutory [[Moynihan Secrecy Commission]] vested with extraordinary subpeaona powers to look into [[Cold War]] secrecy upon the demise of the [[Soviet Union]] wrote in its Final Report, "President Truman was almost willfully obtuse as regards [[American Communism]]." <ref>Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy. Senate Document 105-2. 103rd Congress. Washington, D.C. United States Government Printing Office. 1997. [http://www.gpo.gov/congress/commissions/secrecy/pdf/04dpm.pdf Chairman's Forward, pg. 10] pdf.</ref>

During Truman's last four budgets, expenditures on national security increased from $13 billion in 1950 to $50 billion in 1953. <ref>[http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2006/10/119975.pdf ''Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time''], Carroll Quigley, Collier-Macmillan, 1966, pg. 936. ISBN 0-945001-10-X</ref>

Truman retired from politics at the conclusion of his presidential term and died on December 26, 1972 in his Independence, Missouri home. His Presidential library is located in Independence.

===China and Korea===
Without committing U.S. combat troops and without supporting a coalition government, the [[Truman Doctrine]] saved Greece from Communism. Greece received weapons and financial support and, most importantly, operational advisers at the battalion level, who ensured that American aid was used effectively. [[George Marshall]] himself testified that such aid might have prevented a [[Comintern]] victory, but General David Barr's military mission to China was specifically instructed not to supply this kind of assistance. <ref>Military Situation in the Far East, Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, 82nd Congress (Washington, 1951), p. 558.</ref> General [[Albert C. Wedemeyer]] recommended this approach in his report on his 1947 fact-finding mission, but Marshall personally suppressed the report. <ref>Tang Tsou, ''America's Failure in China, 1941-1945'', Chicago 1964, pg. 457.</ref> Chiang believed that the [[Truman Doctrine]] to [[Containment|contain]] the spread of [[International Communism]] directed from Moscow would be extended to China, and ordered an offensive as soon as word of the new policy reached him. <ref>Richard C. Thornton, ''China: A Political History, 1917-1980'', Boulder CO 1982, pg. 208.</ref> Truman however, made no effort to save China from Communism.

The Korean part of Wedemeyer's report was suppressed. Wedemeyer said:
{{Cquote|American and Soviet forces . . . are approximately equal, less than 50,000 troops each, [but] the Soviet-equipped and trained North Korean People's (Communist) Army of approximately 125,000 is vastly superior to the United States-organized constabulary of 16,000 Koreans equipped with Japanese small arms. The North Korean People's Army constitutes a potential military threat to [[South Korea]], since there is strong possibility that the Soviets will withdraw their occupation forces and thus induce our own withdrawal."<ref>Hearings before the Senate Committee on Armed Services and Committee on Foreign Relations, June 6, 1951.</ref>}}

Wedemeyer warned that this would take place as soon as "they can be sure that the [[North Korea]]n [[puppet government]] and its armed forces . . . are strong enough . . . to be relied upon to carry out Soviet objectives without the actual presence of Soviet troops."

[[Dean Rusk]], Assistant Secretary of State in charge of the Far Eastern Division, said on May 18,1951 what the critics had been saying,
{{Cquote|The independence of China is gravely threatened. In the Communist world there is room for only one master. . . . How many Chinese in one community after another are being destroyed because they love China more than they love [[Soviet Russia]]? The freedoms of the Chinese people are disappearing. Trial by mob, [[democide|mass slaughter]], banishment to [[slavery|forced labor]] in [[Manchuria]] and Siberia. . . . The peace and security of China are being sacrificed by the ambitions of the Chinese conspiracy. China has been driven by foreign masters into an adventure in foreign aggression.}}
John T. Flynn observes that critics of the [[FDR]] and Truman Administrations who had been saying this earlier were denounced as “[[Fascists]].”<ref>''While You Slept: Our Tragedy in Asia and Who Made It'', John T. Flynn, New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1951, [http://www.mises.org/books/whileyouslept.pdf pg. 161] pdf.</ref> Rusk continued,
{{Cquote|We do not recognize the authorities in [[Peiping]] for what they pretend to be. It is not the government of China. It does not pass the first test. It is not Chinese. . . . We recognize the [[Kuomintang|Nationalist government of the Republic of China]] even though the territory under its control is severely restricted. <ref>Hearings before the Senate Committee on Armed Services and
Committee on Foreign Relations (also known as the Mac Arthur
Inquiry), June 2, 1951.</ref>…we believe it more authoritatively represents the views of the great body of the people of China, particularly their demand for independence from foreign control….That government will continue to receive important aid and assistance from the United States.}}

Conditions inviting the North Korean attack were created by the [[United Nations]] which issued a resolution for withdrawal of both Soviet and American troops. Troops began withdrawing September 15, 1948, leaving only about 7500 Americans lightly armed. This left in South Korea 16,000 Koreans and 7500 Americans, both groups lightly armed, against 150,000 fully armed North Korean Communists. General Roberts, head of the U. S. Military Mission said the South Koreans were not permitted to arm adequately.

[[Chiang Kai-shek]] was caught between two wars—a war on China by [[Japan]] and a war on China by the Soviet Union. American leaders refused to see this and insisted on acting in the illusion that China was fighting the Japanese only and that Soviet Union was an ally. Then came the startling realization that the United States, too, like China, were engaged in two wars in Asia, one against a common enemy, Japan; the other against a common enemy, the Soviet Union. The United States, with its ally China, fought the Japanese. But all the time the Soviet Union, with its satellite Comintern army in China, was fighting both China and the United States. The [[iron curtain]] that, with the [[Yalta agreement]], was rung down over American allies in Europe—[[Poland]] and [[Czechoslovakia]] and other little countries—now fell on China. And this was made possible wholly because of the Soviet Union's allies—conscious and unconscious—in America, in the U.S. government and even in the [[U.S. State Department]].

==Middle Initial==
There is no period after his middle initial, because it doesn't stand for anything. He was named with an "S" so that both his grandfathers could claim him as their namesake.<ref>[[Encyclopedia of Presidents]], [[Harry S. Truman]], by Jim Hargrove, Children's Press, 1987.</ref>

==Links==
*[http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ht33.html Biography]
*[http://www.trumanlibrary.org Presidential Library]

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
*[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/index.php The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb], Truman Library.
*[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/small/mb12a.htm President Truman to Senator Richard B. Russell], August 9, 1945.

{{USPresidents}}
{{USVicePresidents}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Truman, Harry}}
[[Category:Presidents of the United States]]
[[Category:World War II]]
[[Category:Vice Presidents of the United States]]
[[Category:Democratic Party]]

Harry Truman

2007-12-22T00:34:28Z

Iekl: /* Middle Initial */ fixed ref

{{President|
|name=Harry S Truman
|image=HTruman.jpg
|country=the United States
|seq=33
|party=Democratic
|term_start=1945
|term_end=1953
|vp=None
|vp_dates=1945-1949
|2vp=Alben Barkley
|2vp_dates=1949-1953
|previous=Franklin D. Roosevelt
|next=Dwight D. Eisenhower
|seq2=34
|office2=vice
|party2=
|term2_start=April 12, 1945
|term2_end=January 20, 1945
|pres2=Franklin D. Roosevelt
|previous2=Henry A. Wallace
|next2=Alben W. Barkley
|birth_date=May 8, 1884
|birth_place=Lamar, MO
|death_date=December 26, 1972
|death_place=Kansas City, MO
|spouse=Bess Wallace Truman
|spouse2=
|religion=[[Baptist]]
}}

'''Harry S Truman''' was the 33rd [[President]] of the [[United States]] and it was on his decision that the first [[atomic bomb]]s were dropped on the [[Japan|Japanese]] cities of [[Hiroshima]] and [[Nagasaki]].

==Early life==

Truman was born on May 8, 1884 in Lamar, [[Missouri]]. He attended public school in Independence, Missouri, graduating from high school in 1901. Following a few brief jobs in the Kansas City area, he returned to help run the family farm in Grandview.

During [[World War I]], Truman went to [[France]] as a captain of artillery. After returning home from the war, he married Elizabeth "Bess" Wallace and opened a men's clothing store in [[Kansas City]] with a wartime friend.

In 1922, Truman was elected a judge in the Jackson County court, where his duties were administrative rather than judicial. Although he earned a reputation for being honest and efficient in managing county affairs, he was defeated for reelection in 1924. However, he was subsequently elected presiding judge in 1926, and reelected in 1930.

==Senate==

Truman won election to the [[United States Senate]] in 1934, and during World War II gained national prominence for serving as chairman of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program - referred to as the "Truman Committee".<ref>http://www.trumanlibrary.org/hst-bio.htm</ref>

==Selection for Vice-Presidency==

President Roosevelt had been in ill-health since his return from the [[Teheran conference]]. At the 1944 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, DNC Chairman Bob Hannegan went for instructions to President Roosevelt's private railway car just before the July convention officially began. Roosevelt had decided to dump incumbent Vice-President [[Henry Wallace]]. Worried over dissension on the choice of a successor, Roosevelt told Hannegan: "Go on down there and nominate Truman before there's any more trouble. And clear everything with Sidney." <ref>[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,791619,00.html "Clear everything with Sidney"], [[Time magazine]], Sep. 25, 1944.</ref> The President could not make the selection of Truman until [[Sidney Hillman]] <ref>''The Roosevelt Myth'', John T. Flynn, Fox and Wilkes, 1948, Book 2, Ch. 8, [http://www.rooseveltmyth.com/book/fdrmyth_Chapter_Eight___The_Shock_Troops.htm ''The Shock Troops of the Third New Deal'']</ref>, Director of the Political Action Committee for the [[Congress on Industrial Organizations]] (CIO) approved it. <ref> ''Roosevelt Myth'', Book 3, Ch. 10, [http://www.rooseveltmyth.com/book/fdrmyth_Chapter_Ten___Politics__Disease_.htm ''Politics, Disease and History''], Flynn, 1948.</ref> When Harry Truman walked into the smoke-filled room <ref>[http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/index_print.asp?ProgramID=1109 ''Truman''], Interview with David McCullough, C-Span Booknotes, July 19, 1992. Retrieved August 6, 2007.{{user:Iekl}}</ref> of DNC at headquarters at the Stevens Hotel in Chicago, Soviet spies [[John Abt]], [[Lee Pressman]], and [[Nathan Witt]], were on hand." <ref>''The Yalta Betrayal'', Felix Wittmer, Claxton Printers, 1953, pg. 75.</ref>

==Presidency==

Truman succeeded to the Presidency upon the death of FDR on April 12, 1945. Interestingly, Truman rarely met with Roosevelt during his tenure as Vice President <ref>http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ht33.html</ref>.

He was elected [[President of the United States of America]] (USA) in the [[United States presidential election of 1948|1948 Presidential Election]] as a [[Democrat]]. During his term as President, he presided over the conclusion of [[World War II]] in both [[Europe]] and [[Japan]]. Truman's decision to use atomic weapons against the Japanese cities of [[Hiroshima]] and [[Nagasaki]] forced the unconditional Japanese surrender to conclude WWII. As a consequence, the United States canceled a planned invasion of the island nation which had been projected to cause 1,000,000 American and 10,000,000 Japanese casualties, and prevented the annexation of Japan's northern islands by the Soviet Union<ref>http://www.afsc.org/newengland/pesp/DecisionToUseABomb.htm</ref><ref>http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/web/20050902-atom-bomb-hiroshima-nagasaki-enola.shtml</ref>. Prior to Japan's surrender, [[Nazi]] German troops and their Axis allies surrendered in Europe. Truman proclaimed his [[Truman Doctrine]] on March 12, 1947 that was intended to thwart the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republic]]'s designs of expansion in the Near East by committing American aid and troops to that region. Truman also committed troops to the Korean Peninsula in 1950 to halt a [[Communist]] invasion of [[South Korea]]. American troops were part of a coalition of member nations of the newly formed [[United Nations]] ("UN") in 1945. The USA had become a founding member of the newly established UN during Truman's presidency.

The bipartisan statutory [[Moynihan Secrecy Commission]] vested with extraordinary subpeaona powers to look into [[Cold War]] secrecy upon the demise of the [[Soviet Union]] wrote in its Final Report, "President Truman was almost willfully obtuse as regards [[American Communism]]." <ref>Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy. Senate Document 105-2. 103rd Congress. Washington, D.C. United States Government Printing Office. 1997. [http://www.gpo.gov/congress/commissions/secrecy/pdf/04dpm.pdf Chairman's Forward, pg. 10] pdf.</ref>

During Truman's last four budgets, expenditures on national security increased from $13 billion in 1950 to $50 billion in 1953. <ref>[http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2006/10/119975.pdf ''Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time''], Carroll Quigley, Collier-Macmillan, 1966, pg. 936. ISBN 0-945001-10-X</ref>

Truman retired from politics at the conclusion of his presidential term and died on December 26, 1972 in his Independence, Missouri home. His Presidential library is located in Independence.

===China and Korea===
Without committing U.S. combat troops and without supporting a coalition government, the [[Truman Doctrine]] saved Greece from Communism. Greece received weapons and financial support and, most importantly, operational advisers at the battalion level, who ensured that American aid was used effectively. [[George Marshall]] himself testified that such aid might have prevented a [[Comintern]] victory, but General David Barr's military mission to China was specifically instructed not to supply this kind of assistance. <ref>Military Situation in the Far East, Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, 82nd Congress (Washington, 1951), p. 558.</ref> General [[Albert C. Wedemeyer]] recommended this approach in his report on his 1947 fact-finding mission, but Marshall personally suppressed the report. <ref>Tang Tsou, ''America's Failure in China, 1941-1945'', Chicago 1964, pg. 457.</ref> Chiang believed that the [[Truman Doctrine]] to [[Containment|contain]] the spread of [[International Communism]] directed from Moscow would be extended to China, and ordered an offensive as soon as word of the new policy reached him. <ref>Richard C. Thornton, ''China: A Political History, 1917-1980'', Boulder CO 1982, pg. 208.</ref> Truman however, made no effort to save China from Communism.

The Korean part of Wedemeyer's report was suppressed. Wedemeyer said:
{{Cquote|American and Soviet forces . . . are approximately equal, less than 50,000 troops each, [but] the Soviet-equipped and trained North Korean People's (Communist) Army of approximately 125,000 is vastly superior to the United States-organized constabulary of 16,000 Koreans equipped with Japanese small arms. The North Korean People's Army constitutes a potential military threat to [[South Korea]], since there is strong possibility that the Soviets will withdraw their occupation forces and thus induce our own withdrawal."<ref>Hearings before the Senate Committee on Armed Services and Committee on Foreign Relations, June 6, 1951.</ref>}}

Wedemeyer warned that this would take place as soon as "they can be sure that the [[North Korea]]n [[puppet government]] and its armed forces . . . are strong enough . . . to be relied upon to carry out Soviet objectives without the actual presence of Soviet troops."

[[Dean Rusk]], Assistant Secretary of State in charge of the Far Eastern Division, said on May 18,1951 what the critics had been saying,
{{Cquote|The independence of China is gravely threatened. In the Communist world there is room for only one master. . . . How many Chinese in one community after another are being destroyed because they love China more than they love [[Soviet Russia]]? The freedoms of the Chinese people are disappearing. Trial by mob, [[democide|mass slaughter]], banishment to [[slavery|forced labor]] in [[Manchuria]] and Siberia. . . . The peace and security of China are being sacrificed by the ambitions of the Chinese conspiracy. China has been driven by foreign masters into an adventure in foreign aggression.}}
John T. Flynn observes that critics of the [[FDR]] and Truman Administrations who had been saying this earlier were denounced as “[[Fascists]].”<ref>''While You Slept: Our Tragedy in Asia and Who Made It'', John T. Flynn, New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1951, [http://www.mises.org/books/whileyouslept.pdf pg. 161] pdf.</ref> Rusk continued,
{{Cquote|We do not recognize the authorities in [[Peiping]] for what they pretend to be. It is not the government of China. It does not pass the first test. It is not Chinese. . . . We recognize the [[Kuomintang|Nationalist government of the Republic of China]] even though the territory under its control is severely restricted. <ref>Hearings before the Senate Committee on Armed Services and
Committee on Foreign Relations (also known as the Mac Arthur
Inquiry), June 2, 1951.</ref>…we believe it more authoritatively represents the views of the great body of the people of China, particularly their demand for independence from foreign control….That government will continue to receive important aid and assistance from the United States.}}

Conditions inviting the North Korean attack were created by the [[United Nations]] which issued a resolution for withdrawal of both Soviet and American troops. Troops began withdrawing September 15, 1948, leaving only about 7500 Americans lightly armed. This left in South Korea 16,000 Koreans and 7500 Americans, both groups lightly armed, against 150,000 fully armed North Korean Communists. General Roberts, head of the U. S. Military Mission said the South Koreans were not permitted to arm adequately.

[[Chiang Kai-shek]] was caught between two wars—a war on China by [[Japan]] and a war on China by the Soviet Union. American leaders refused to see this and insisted on acting in the illusion that China was fighting the Japanese only and that Soviet Union was an ally. Then came the startling realization that the United States, too, like China, were engaged in two wars in Asia, one against a common enemy, Japan; the other against a common enemy, the Soviet Union. The United States, with its ally China, fought the Japanese. But all the time the Soviet Union, with its satellite Comintern army in China, was fighting both China and the United States. The [[iron curtain]] that, with the [[Yalta agreement]], was rung down over American allies in Europe—[[Poland]] and [[Czechoslovakia]] and other little countries—now fell on China. And this was made possible wholly because of the Soviet Union's allies—conscious and unconscious—in America, in the U.S. government and even in the [[U.S. State Department]].

==Middle Initial==
There is no period after his middle initial, because it doesn't stand for anything. He was named with an "S" so that both his grandfathers could claim him as their namesake.<ref>[[Encyclopedia of Presidents]], [[Harry S. Truman]], by Jim Hargrove, Children's Press, 1987.</ref>

==Links==
*[http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ht33.html Biography]
*[http://www.trumanlibrary.org Presidential Library]

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
*[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/index.php The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb], Truman Library.
*[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/small/mb12a.htm President Truman to Senator Richard B. Russell], August 9, 1945.

{{USPresidents}}
{{USVicePresidents}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Truman, Harry}}
[[Category:Presidents of the United States]]
[[Category:World War II]]
[[Category:Vice Presidents of the United States]]
[[Category:Democratic Party]]

Harry Truman

2007-12-22T00:34:05Z

Iekl: refs

{{President|
|name=Harry S Truman
|image=HTruman.jpg
|country=the United States
|seq=33
|party=Democratic
|term_start=1945
|term_end=1953
|vp=None
|vp_dates=1945-1949
|2vp=Alben Barkley
|2vp_dates=1949-1953
|previous=Franklin D. Roosevelt
|next=Dwight D. Eisenhower
|seq2=34
|office2=vice
|party2=
|term2_start=April 12, 1945
|term2_end=January 20, 1945
|pres2=Franklin D. Roosevelt
|previous2=Henry A. Wallace
|next2=Alben W. Barkley
|birth_date=May 8, 1884
|birth_place=Lamar, MO
|death_date=December 26, 1972
|death_place=Kansas City, MO
|spouse=Bess Wallace Truman
|spouse2=
|religion=[[Baptist]]
}}

'''Harry S Truman''' was the 33rd [[President]] of the [[United States]] and it was on his decision that the first [[atomic bomb]]s were dropped on the [[Japan|Japanese]] cities of [[Hiroshima]] and [[Nagasaki]].

==Early life==

Truman was born on May 8, 1884 in Lamar, [[Missouri]]. He attended public school in Independence, Missouri, graduating from high school in 1901. Following a few brief jobs in the Kansas City area, he returned to help run the family farm in Grandview.

During [[World War I]], Truman went to [[France]] as a captain of artillery. After returning home from the war, he married Elizabeth "Bess" Wallace and opened a men's clothing store in [[Kansas City]] with a wartime friend.

In 1922, Truman was elected a judge in the Jackson County court, where his duties were administrative rather than judicial. Although he earned a reputation for being honest and efficient in managing county affairs, he was defeated for reelection in 1924. However, he was subsequently elected presiding judge in 1926, and reelected in 1930.

==Senate==

Truman won election to the [[United States Senate]] in 1934, and during World War II gained national prominence for serving as chairman of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program - referred to as the "Truman Committee".<ref>http://www.trumanlibrary.org/hst-bio.htm</ref>

==Selection for Vice-Presidency==

President Roosevelt had been in ill-health since his return from the [[Teheran conference]]. At the 1944 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, DNC Chairman Bob Hannegan went for instructions to President Roosevelt's private railway car just before the July convention officially began. Roosevelt had decided to dump incumbent Vice-President [[Henry Wallace]]. Worried over dissension on the choice of a successor, Roosevelt told Hannegan: "Go on down there and nominate Truman before there's any more trouble. And clear everything with Sidney." <ref>[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,791619,00.html "Clear everything with Sidney"], [[Time magazine]], Sep. 25, 1944.</ref> The President could not make the selection of Truman until [[Sidney Hillman]] <ref>''The Roosevelt Myth'', John T. Flynn, Fox and Wilkes, 1948, Book 2, Ch. 8, [http://www.rooseveltmyth.com/book/fdrmyth_Chapter_Eight___The_Shock_Troops.htm ''The Shock Troops of the Third New Deal'']</ref>, Director of the Political Action Committee for the [[Congress on Industrial Organizations]] (CIO) approved it. <ref> ''Roosevelt Myth'', Book 3, Ch. 10, [http://www.rooseveltmyth.com/book/fdrmyth_Chapter_Ten___Politics__Disease_.htm ''Politics, Disease and History''], Flynn, 1948.</ref> When Harry Truman walked into the smoke-filled room <ref>[http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/index_print.asp?ProgramID=1109 ''Truman''], Interview with David McCullough, C-Span Booknotes, July 19, 1992. Retrieved August 6, 2007.{{user:Iekl}}</ref> of DNC at headquarters at the Stevens Hotel in Chicago, Soviet spies [[John Abt]], [[Lee Pressman]], and [[Nathan Witt]], were on hand." <ref>''The Yalta Betrayal'', Felix Wittmer, Claxton Printers, 1953, pg. 75.</ref>

==Presidency==

Truman succeeded to the Presidency upon the death of FDR on April 12, 1945. Interestingly, Truman rarely met with Roosevelt during his tenure as Vice President <ref>http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ht33.html</ref>.

He was elected [[President of the United States of America]] (USA) in the [[United States presidential election of 1948|1948 Presidential Election]] as a [[Democrat]]. During his term as President, he presided over the conclusion of [[World War II]] in both [[Europe]] and [[Japan]]. Truman's decision to use atomic weapons against the Japanese cities of [[Hiroshima]] and [[Nagasaki]] forced the unconditional Japanese surrender to conclude WWII. As a consequence, the United States canceled a planned invasion of the island nation which had been projected to cause 1,000,000 American and 10,000,000 Japanese casualties, and prevented the annexation of Japan's northern islands by the Soviet Union<ref>http://www.afsc.org/newengland/pesp/DecisionToUseABomb.htm</ref><ref>http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/web/20050902-atom-bomb-hiroshima-nagasaki-enola.shtml</ref>. Prior to Japan's surrender, [[Nazi]] German troops and their Axis allies surrendered in Europe. Truman proclaimed his [[Truman Doctrine]] on March 12, 1947 that was intended to thwart the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republic]]'s designs of expansion in the Near East by committing American aid and troops to that region. Truman also committed troops to the Korean Peninsula in 1950 to halt a [[Communist]] invasion of [[South Korea]]. American troops were part of a coalition of member nations of the newly formed [[United Nations]] ("UN") in 1945. The USA had become a founding member of the newly established UN during Truman's presidency.

The bipartisan statutory [[Moynihan Secrecy Commission]] vested with extraordinary subpeaona powers to look into [[Cold War]] secrecy upon the demise of the [[Soviet Union]] wrote in its Final Report, "President Truman was almost willfully obtuse as regards [[American Communism]]." <ref>Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy. Senate Document 105-2. 103rd Congress. Washington, D.C. United States Government Printing Office. 1997. [http://www.gpo.gov/congress/commissions/secrecy/pdf/04dpm.pdf Chairman's Forward, pg. 10] pdf.</ref>

During Truman's last four budgets, expenditures on national security increased from $13 billion in 1950 to $50 billion in 1953. <ref>[http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2006/10/119975.pdf ''Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time''], Carroll Quigley, Collier-Macmillan, 1966, pg. 936. ISBN 0-945001-10-X</ref>

Truman retired from politics at the conclusion of his presidential term and died on December 26, 1972 in his Independence, Missouri home. His Presidential library is located in Independence.

===China and Korea===
Without committing U.S. combat troops and without supporting a coalition government, the [[Truman Doctrine]] saved Greece from Communism. Greece received weapons and financial support and, most importantly, operational advisers at the battalion level, who ensured that American aid was used effectively. [[George Marshall]] himself testified that such aid might have prevented a [[Comintern]] victory, but General David Barr's military mission to China was specifically instructed not to supply this kind of assistance. <ref>Military Situation in the Far East, Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, 82nd Congress (Washington, 1951), p. 558.</ref> General [[Albert C. Wedemeyer]] recommended this approach in his report on his 1947 fact-finding mission, but Marshall personally suppressed the report. <ref>Tang Tsou, ''America's Failure in China, 1941-1945'', Chicago 1964, pg. 457.</ref> Chiang believed that the [[Truman Doctrine]] to [[Containment|contain]] the spread of [[International Communism]] directed from Moscow would be extended to China, and ordered an offensive as soon as word of the new policy reached him. <ref>Richard C. Thornton, ''China: A Political History, 1917-1980'', Boulder CO 1982, pg. 208.</ref> Truman however, made no effort to save China from Communism.

The Korean part of Wedemeyer's report was suppressed. Wedemeyer said:
{{Cquote|American and Soviet forces . . . are approximately equal, less than 50,000 troops each, [but] the Soviet-equipped and trained North Korean People's (Communist) Army of approximately 125,000 is vastly superior to the United States-organized constabulary of 16,000 Koreans equipped with Japanese small arms. The North Korean People's Army constitutes a potential military threat to [[South Korea]], since there is strong possibility that the Soviets will withdraw their occupation forces and thus induce our own withdrawal."<ref>Hearings before the Senate Committee on Armed Services and Committee on Foreign Relations, June 6, 1951.</ref>}}

Wedemeyer warned that this would take place as soon as "they can be sure that the [[North Korea]]n [[puppet government]] and its armed forces . . . are strong enough . . . to be relied upon to carry out Soviet objectives without the actual presence of Soviet troops."

[[Dean Rusk]], Assistant Secretary of State in charge of the Far Eastern Division, said on May 18,1951 what the critics had been saying,
{{Cquote|The independence of China is gravely threatened. In the Communist world there is room for only one master. . . . How many Chinese in one community after another are being destroyed because they love China more than they love [[Soviet Russia]]? The freedoms of the Chinese people are disappearing. Trial by mob, [[democide|mass slaughter]], banishment to [[slavery|forced labor]] in [[Manchuria]] and Siberia. . . . The peace and security of China are being sacrificed by the ambitions of the Chinese conspiracy. China has been driven by foreign masters into an adventure in foreign aggression.}}
John T. Flynn observes that critics of the [[FDR]] and Truman Administrations who had been saying this earlier were denounced as “[[Fascists]].”<ref>''While You Slept: Our Tragedy in Asia and Who Made It'', John T. Flynn, New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1951, [http://www.mises.org/books/whileyouslept.pdf pg. 161] pdf.</ref> Rusk continued,
{{Cquote|We do not recognize the authorities in [[Peiping]] for what they pretend to be. It is not the government of China. It does not pass the first test. It is not Chinese. . . . We recognize the [[Kuomintang|Nationalist government of the Republic of China]] even though the territory under its control is severely restricted. <ref>Hearings before the Senate Committee on Armed Services and
Committee on Foreign Relations (also known as the Mac Arthur
Inquiry), June 2, 1951.</ref>…we believe it more authoritatively represents the views of the great body of the people of China, particularly their demand for independence from foreign control….That government will continue to receive important aid and assistance from the United States.}}

Conditions inviting the North Korean attack were created by the [[United Nations]] which issued a resolution for withdrawal of both Soviet and American troops. Troops began withdrawing September 15, 1948, leaving only about 7500 Americans lightly armed. This left in South Korea 16,000 Koreans and 7500 Americans, both groups lightly armed, against 150,000 fully armed North Korean Communists. General Roberts, head of the U. S. Military Mission said the South Koreans were not permitted to arm adequately.

[[Chiang Kai-shek]] was caught between two wars—a war on China by [[Japan]] and a war on China by the Soviet Union. American leaders refused to see this and insisted on acting in the illusion that China was fighting the Japanese only and that Soviet Union was an ally. Then came the startling realization that the United States, too, like China, were engaged in two wars in Asia, one against a common enemy, Japan; the other against a common enemy, the Soviet Union. The United States, with its ally China, fought the Japanese. But all the time the Soviet Union, with its satellite Comintern army in China, was fighting both China and the United States. The [[iron curtain]] that, with the [[Yalta agreement]], was rung down over American allies in Europe—[[Poland]] and [[Czechoslovakia]] and other little countries—now fell on China. And this was made possible wholly because of the Soviet Union's allies—conscious and unconscious—in America, in the U.S. government and even in the [[U.S. State Department]].

==Middle Initial==
There is no period after his middle initial, because it doesn't stand for anything. He was named with an "S" so that both his grandfathers could claim him as their namesake.<ref>[[Encyclopedia of Presidents, Harry S. Truman]], by Jim Hargrove, Children's Press, 1987.</ref>

==Links==
*[http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ht33.html Biography]
*[http://www.trumanlibrary.org Presidential Library]

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
*[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/index.php The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb], Truman Library.
*[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/small/mb12a.htm President Truman to Senator Richard B. Russell], August 9, 1945.

{{USPresidents}}
{{USVicePresidents}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Truman, Harry}}
[[Category:Presidents of the United States]]
[[Category:World War II]]
[[Category:Vice Presidents of the United States]]
[[Category:Democratic Party]]