Harry S. Truman

Born May 8, 1884
Lamar, Missouri
Died December 26, 1972
Kansas City, Missouri
33rd president of the United States

Harry S. Truman is remembered as one of few American presidents who had a real knowledge of and feeling for the ordinary citizens of his country. Known as an honest, hardworking man with a lot of common sense, he was serving as vice president when, in April of 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945; see entry) died in office. Truman took over the presidency at a crucial time, with World War II almost over and Americans feeling both euphoric about the Allied victory and anxious about the economy and other issues. Over the next seven years, Truman would make some difficult decisions—especially the one that led to dropping two atomic bombs on Japan—and lead the United States through important changes in foreign and domestic policy.

A Missouri boyhood

Truman was born in a small farming town located about 120 miles south of Kansas City, Missouri. His father was a farmer who also bought and sold horses and mules. In 1890, after the births of two more children, the family moved to the larger town of Independence. It was here, when he was six years old, that Truman first met Elizabeth (Bess) Wallace, who would one day become his wife.

As a young boy Truman contracted diphtheria and nearly died. He also had very poor eyesight, and because he had to wear strong, expensive eyeglasses, he was not allowed to play sports. Instead, he spent a lot of his time reading and became interested in American history. In 1901, Truman graduated from high school. He applied to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, but was rejected due to his poor eyesight.

A hardworking young man

Lacking money to pay for college, Truman went to Kansas City to work. He spent the next four years in various clerical jobs—in a newspaper's mailroom, for a railroad, and in two banks. Even though his monthly salary had increased from $35 to $120, Truman was unhappy, and in 1906 he moved to a family-owned farm near Grandview (about twenty miles from Independence), where he would stay for the next eleven years.

This was an important period in Truman's life, as he managed his 600 acres of land and performed much of the farm work himself. It was on the farm that he began his lifelong habit of rising at 5:00 or 5:30 in the morning, even as president, when he had often been up very late the previous evening. This was also a lonely time for Truman, but soon he began courting Bess Wallace.

"Captain Harry"

When the United States entered World War I in April, 1917, Truman's National Guard unit was sent into action as the 129th Field Artillery, attached to the 35th Division from Missouri and Kansas. Truman arrived overseas in April of 1918 and was immediately promoted to captain.

In July he became the commander of Battery D, which had a reputation of being full of unruly, difficult soldiers. Truman tamed them, using a mixture of firmness and friendliness. Affectionately known as "Captain Harry," he led his troops in the battles at St. Mihiel and Meuse Argonne in France. Years later, after he was sworn in as president, members of the battery marched on both sides of his car during the inaugural parade.

Businessman and politician

After the war Truman returned to Missouri, and married Bess in June 1919. That November, he opened a men's clothing store with a friend from the military, Edward Jacobs, but the store was not successful and went bankrupt in 1922. Through another war buddy, Truman met Thomas J. Pendergast, the Democratic boss (a political leader whose power is often established or maintained through dishonest means) of Kansas City. Pendergast was impressed by Truman because he was honest. Needing such a man on the Democratic ticket to bolster his own reputation, he persuaded Truman to run for office.

In 1923, Truman was elected eastern judge (a position that was actually that of county commissioner, rather than a judge who sits in court) for Jackson County. To make up for his lack of legal experience, Truman studied law at night for two years at the Kansas City Law School. In February 1924 the Trumans' daughter (and only child), Mary Margaret, was born. That same year Truman was voted out of office, but in 1926 he ran for the job of presiding judge and was again elected. He served two four-year terms in this office, and was in charge of a $60 million budget for public works.

Two terms as senator

Encouraged by his political victories, Truman ran successfully for the U.S. Senate in 1934. During his first term as a senator, he was a quiet backer of President Roosevelt's New Deal (a program that featured many new laws and policies promoting social welfare and reform) and worked on transportation issues. Although an effective politician, Truman didn't get much attention from his fellow senators or from the president. Some said his old association with Pendergast (who was convicted on income tax evasion in 1938) made other Democrats want to avoid him.

It was during Truman's second term in the Senate that he was praised as an energetic and hardworking leader who stood up for ordinary Americans. His most important role was as chairman of a committee to investigate military spending. The committee uncovered a great deal of wastefulness and reportedly saved the American taxpayers $15 billion. This issue was especially important to Americans after Pearl Harbor was bombed (December 7, 1941) and the United States entered World War II, which brought an even greater need for wise spending and efficient production.

From VP to president in eighty-two days

By 1944, Truman had proven himself a strong leader on a national level. When President Roosevelt ran for reelection in 1944, advisors recommended that he choose Truman as his running mate. The man who was then serving as vice president, Henry Wallace, was not popular and Democratic leaders wanted to find a vice presidential candidate who would make a good president if Roosevelt (who was ailing) should die in office.

At the time of the Democratic convention, Truman was supporting someone else as vice presidential candidate and had no interest in the job himself. But then he overheard a frustrated Roosevelt direct an advisor to "tell [Truman] that if he wants to break up the Democratic party in the middle of a war, that's his responsibility." So Truman accepted the nomination, and was elected with Roosevelt later that year.

Truman had served only eighty-two days as vice president when, on April 12, 1945, he was called to the White House and informed by the president's wife, Eleanor Roosevelt (see sidebar on p.236), that Roosevelt had died. Truman took the oath of office at 7:09 that evening, becoming the 33rd president of the United States. The next day, he told a group of reporters that he felt as if "the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen" on him, and he asked them to pray for him. This humble comment was widely quoted and helped make Truman seem like an ordinary man who had unexpectedly been called to play an extraordinary role.

A momentous decision

Truman had taken over the presidency at a crucial time in the nation's history, and he was immediately faced with some important tasks. On May 8—his 61st birthday—he announced the German surrender, an occasion of great public rejoicing that became known as VE (Victory in Europe) Day. In June, he signed the charter that brought the United Nations (an organization with members from all over the world who agree to cooperate with each other and promote global peace) into existence.

The most awesome responsibility facing Truman, however, was the decision about whether or not to try to end the war in Asia by dropping the atomic bomb on Japan. The U.S government had already spent $2.6 billion on the bomb, which had been developed by scientists working at Los Alamos, New Mexico (see J. Robert Oppenheimer entry). If the bomb was not used, the Allies would have to invade Japan, and military experts predicted that between 250,000 and 500,000 American soldiers would lose their lives. The Japanese were expected to be fierce defenders of their native land, who would fight to the death rather than accept capture or surrender.

Truman appointed an interim committee to weigh the alternatives. The committee recommended using the bomb on a major Japanese city without warning, even though many civilians (not just military personnel) would surely be killed. Truman gave the order to go ahead, and bombs were dropped on Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9. The bombs killed at least 100,000 people immediately, with many more falling ill and later dying from the sickness caused by the radiation released by the explosions. Whether Truman made the right choice has been debated ever since: many people feel that nothing could justify such a horrendous loss of innocent lives, while others claim that the action prevented the deaths of a much larger number of people.

"The buck stops here!"

When the Japanese signed a surrender treaty in September 1945, the war was officially over. Truman now faced a whole new host of difficult tasks, including returning the soldiers to normal life, closing down the various war agencies, managing the transition from wartime to peacetime economy, and dealing with inflation (rising prices on goods). He replaced the model of a gun on his desk with one of a plow, and also placed there a plaque that read, "The buck stops here!" That meant that as the person with final authority on so many matters, he took full responsibility for his own decisions.

Although he was a seasoned local politician, Truman lacked experience in foreign affairs. He learned fast, though, and during his first term he began to reverse America's usual tendency to stay out of other nations' affairs. He thought the United States should take an active role in keeping the whole world safe and free, and especially in keeping it free from communism (the political system in which all property is owned jointly, rather than by individuals; the Soviet Union was a strong Communist country at the time).

Taking an active role in the world

Truman opposed the spread of communism through three major programs: the Truman Doctrine, which gave billions of dollars to countries threatened by Communist takeover (in particular Turkey and Greece); the European Recovery Plan (known as the Marshall Plan), which offered economic aid to help European countries recover from the devastating effects of the war; and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which offered military assistance to protect countries from the Communist threat.

The fair deal

On issues closer to home, Truman continued to push for many of the New Deal programs that President Roosevelt had established, which Truman now called the "Fair Deal." These included federal controls on the economy, more civil rights laws, low-cost housing, a higher minimum wage, and repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act (which put tight restrictions on labor unions). He called for more financial aid for education, and access to health insurance for all Americans. But the time was not ripe for many of Truman's ideas, even though they would become popular several decades later. Just after the war, people wanted to relax, not worry about social problems. In addition, the Republican-controlled Congress blocked many of Truman's plans. Republicans are generally opposed to programs and laws, such as those Truman was proposing, that increase the size of the federal government and give it more control over business and the economy.

A surprising victory

When it came time for the 1948 election, many thought Truman had little chance of winning. He was opposed not only by Republican candidate Thomas Dewey but also by a group called the "Dixiecrats," led by South Carolina governor J. Strom Thurmond, who were against Truman's policies in favor of equal rights for African Americans (especially his 1948 Executive Order 9981 that called for integration of the armed forces); and by the Progressive Party, led by Henry Wallace.

Determined to win the presidency on his own merits, Truman began a high-energy "whistle-stop" campaign (referring to the sound of the campaign train pulling into a station) during which he traveled 22,000 miles and made 271 speeches. Campaigning under the slogan, "Give 'em hell Harry!" and criticizing what he called the "Do-Nothing 80th Congress," Truman took his message to factory workers in the cities and to farmers in the rural areas; he was also the first U.S. president to appear in Harlem, an African American community in New York City.

The morning after the election, no one was more surprised that Truman had won than the Chicago Tribune, which ran the headline "Dewey Defeats Truman!" In fact, Truman had beat Dewey by 2,000,000 votes.

The Korean War

The biggest foreign policy issue of Truman's second term was the Korean War (1950-1953), which began when Communist North Korea (backed by the Soviet Union and China) invaded South Korea. The United Nations Security Council voted to back South Korea, and as the leading member of the United Nations the United States sent troops to fight the North Koreans. But Truman did not declare war, choosing to refer to the conflict as a "police action." This left many Americans confused about what was happening in Korea and why the United States was involved.

A major controversy erupted when General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964; see entry), the leader of the U.S. troops in Korea, publicly disagreed with U.S. policy in the conflict. Determined to show that in a democratic country the military must be under the control of a civilian government, Truman fired MacArthur. The Korean War ended in 1953, after Truman had left office, with a truce that left North and South Korea in an uneasy standoff.

Losing popularity

Meanwhile, back in the United States, both the Korean War and China's fall to communism in 1949 (when Nationalists led by Chiang Kai-Shek [1887-1975; see entry] were driven from the country) had raised serious concerns about the spread of communism. Republican leaders claimed that Communist sympathizers had infiltrated the U.S. government; in response Truman set up the Federal Employee Loyalty Program in 1947. He did not respond as well to charges that some parts of his own administration were corrupt, some of which proved to be true.

By 1952, Truman's popularity had dropped dramatically, and he decided not to run for president again. During the last few months of his presidency, he made labor unions as well as mill owners angry by dealing with a steel strike by having the government take over the mills. The Supreme Court agreed with the mill owners that a president did not have the power to take such an action. When election time came, Truman campaigned for the Democratic candidate, Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson, who was soundly beaten by the very popular former general, Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969; see entry).

A quiet retirement

Truman returned to Independence to live in his nearly one-hundred-year-old house and to work on his memoirs (published in three volumes: Year of Decisions, [1955]; Years of Trial and Hope, [1956]; and Mr. Citizen, [1960]. The Harry S. Truman Library opened in Independence in 1957, and Truman worked there every day for nine years, until ill health slowed him down. About the library he said (as quoted in an article by Susanne Roschwalb and Gordon Smith in USA Today), "I want this to be a place where young people can come and learn what the office of the president is, what a great office it is no matter who happens to be in it at the time."

In his last years, Truman spent most of his time reading history, biographies, and books on the development of American government. He died in Kansas City at age eighty-eight and was buried on the grounds of the Truman Library.

Where to Learn More

Books

Daniels, Jonathan. The Man of Independence. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1998.

Ferrell, Robert H. Harry S. Truman and the Modern American Presidency.Boston: Little, Brown, 1983.

Kirkendall, Richard S. Harry S. Truman Encyclopedia. Boston: G. K. Hall,1989.

McCullough, David. Truman. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

Ross, Irwin. The Loneliest Campaign: The Truman Victory of 1948.Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1968.

Periodicals

Roschwalb, Susanne A. and Gordon L. Smith. "Harry S. Truman: America's Last Great Leader?" USA Today (January 1995): 86.

Harry S. Truman became president during the last months of World War II, and led the country into peacetime.

What the Atomic Bombs Did to Nagasaki and Hiroshima

On August 6, 1945 at 8:15 A.M., a B-29 Superfortress bomber plane called the Enola Gay flew over the city of Hiroshima, Japan, and Major Thomas W. Ferebee released the atomic bomb nicknamed "Little Boy." Most people ignored the air raid sirens when they saw only two planes approaching. Life was going on as usual—with many people outside on streets and children on playgrounds— when the atomic bomb exploded.

Survivors later reported seeing a blinding flash followed by a descent into terror and pain. Tens of thousands of people died instantly, while those who had not been killed but were close enough to sustain injuries were severely burned. People ran and stumbled amidst the rubble of the tremendous explosion, many with their skin charred or shredded away from their bodies, some missing limbs or facial features, as they searched desperately for relief, for water, and for missing family members.

It is estimated that about 130,000 to 140,000 people were killed at Hiroshima, including those killed instantly (about 80,000) as well as those who died later from burns or the sickness caused by the radiation released by the explosion. Another 25,000 or so died three days later whenanother atomic bomb—this one called "Fat Man"—landed on the city of Nagasaki, following the Japanese government's failure to surrender after the first attack. Althoughthe Nagasaki bomb was bigger, it did notprove as deadly because the city's natural terrain protected it somewhat from the impact of the explosion.

In the decades following World War II, the approximately 350,000 survivors of the atomic bombs formed a special group in Japanese society. Called hibakusha, they suffered not only from physical pain and disfiguring scars but from being ridiculed and shunned byothers. Studies have also shown that the radiation to which the hibakusha were exposed has had long lasting effects, including increased rates of cancer, liver and heart disease, and mental retardation in babies born to survivors.

Did Truman Make The Right Decision?

Before the bomb was dropped, the true extent of its power was known only to a few scientists and leaders, and no one could guess what its long-term effects would be. Soon after he became president in April 1945, Harry S. Truman had to decide whether or not to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. He decided that bombing Japan was the right thing to do, but since then the question has been hotly debated. Some feel that the Allies had to drop the bomb in order to end the war, while others claim it was not the only solution. If you had been Truman, what would you have done?

After Germany surrendered (May 1945), Allied leaders had to decide how to bring the war in Asia to a close. In fact, Japan had no chance of winning now; its cities were in ruins after months of bombing and its economy was a shambles. Yet the Japanese still refused to surrender, and its leaders encouraged their people to fight to the bitter end. Japanese troops were highly disciplined, and they believed that surrender would bring disgrace. During the recent battle for the island of Okinawa, for example, over 100,000 Japanese soldiers had died while only 11,000 surrendered, and more than 100,000 civilians had been killed.

Allied leaders believed that an invasion of Japan's main islands would cause many casualties (deaths and injuries) on both sides. In fact, President Truman had been told that as many as 500,000 to one million Allied soldiers might die (later estimates put that figure at around 70,000). During the war, Japan had gained a bad reputation not only for the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor but because of its harsh treatment of political prisoners, and there was a widespread feeling that Japan deserved to be punished. It is also known that Japan was working on its own atomic bomb and might have used it against the United States.

Yet some military commanders claimed that neither dropping the bomb nor invading would be necessary, because Japan was about to collapse. Those who now condemn Truman's decision point out that the United States had already spent $2 billion on the development of the atomic bomb that would go to waste if it were not used. They even contend that the main reason the bombs (especially the second one) were dropped was to test their effects on human beings. Others claim that Truman wanted to keep the Soviet Union in line by demonstrating U.S. power.

Did the atomic bomb actually prevent far more deaths than it caused, or did it cause an event of unprecedented human suffering that could and should have been avoided? This question is still being argued.