Harry Truman

Harry S Truman was the 33rd President of the United States of America, taking over from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Second World War. He is perhaps best remembered for his decision that the first atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and his attempts to address emerging civil rights issues in the years afterward.

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.

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".^[1]

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." ^[2] The President could not make the selection of Truman until Sidney Hillman ^[3], Director of the Political Action Committee for the Congress on Industrial Organizations (CIO) approved it. ^[4] When Harry Truman walked into the smoke-filled room ^[5] of DNC at headquarters at the Stevens Hotel in Chicago, Soviet spies John Abt, Lee Pressman, and Nathan Witt, were on hand." ^[6]

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 ^[7].

He was elected President of the United States of America (USA) in the 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^[8][9]. 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." ^[10]

During Truman's last four budgets, expenditures on national security increased from $13 billion in 1950 to $50 billion in 1953. ^[11]

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. ^[12] General Albert C. Wedemeyer recommended this approach in his report on his 1947 fact-finding mission, but Marshall personally suppressed the report. ^[13] Chiang believed that the Truman Doctrine to 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. ^[14] Truman however, made no effort to save China from Communism.

The Korean part of Wedemeyer's report was suppressed. Wedemeyer said:

Wedemeyer warned that this would take place as soon as "they can be sure that the North Korean 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,

John T. Flynn observes that critics of the FDR and Truman Administrations who had been saying this earlier were denounced as “Fascists.”^[16] Rusk continued,

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.

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. ^[18]

• Biography
• Presidential Library

• The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb, Truman Library.
• President Truman to Senator Richard B. Russell, August 9, 1945.