Harry S. Truman (1884-1972)/biography

Harry S Truman ( – ) was the thirty-third  (1945–1953); as, he succeeded to the office upon the death of. During he served as an  officer. After the war he became part of the of  and was elected a county judge in  and eventually a. In 1944, Roosevelt replaced as vice president with Truman for Roosevelt's fourth term.

As president, Truman faced challenge after challenge in domestic affairs: a tumultuous reconversion of the marked by severe shortages, numerous strikes, and the passage of the  over his. After confounding all predictions to win re-election in, he was almost unable to pass any of his program. He used executive orders to begin of the  and to launch a system of loyalty checks to remove thousands of  sympathizers from government office, even though he strongly opposed mandatory s for governmental employees, a stance that led to charges that his administration was soft on communism. Truman's presidency was also eventful in, with the end of (including his decision to use nuclear weapons ), the founding of the , the  to rebuild , the  to contain communism, the beginning of the , the creation of , and the. Corruption in Truman's administration reached the and senior  staff. made corruption a central issue in the.

Truman, whose demeanor was very different from that of the patrician Roosevelt, was a folksy, unassuming president. He popularized such phrases as "" and "If you can't stand the heat, you better get out of the kitchen." He overcame the low expectations of many political observers who compared him (unfavorably) with his highly regarded predecessor. At one point in his second term, Truman's public opinion ratings were the lowest on record, but popular and scholarly assessments of his presidency became more positive after his retirement from politics and the publication of his memoirs. He died in 1972. Many U.S. scholars today among the top ten presidents. Truman's legendary over  is routinely invoked by underdog presidential candidates.

Personal life
Truman was born on  in, , the second child of John Anderson Truman and Martha Ellen Young Truman. His parents chose, Harry after his mother's brother, Harrison Young, Harry's uncle. His parents chose "S" as his middle name, in attempt to please both of Harry's grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young, but it didn't stand for anything, as was a common practice among. A brother, John Vivian (1886–1965), soon followed, along with sister Mary Jane Truman (1889–1978).

John Truman was a farmer and livestock dealer. The family lived in Lamar until Harry was ten months old. They then moved to a farm near, then to , and in 1887 to his grandparents' 600 acre (240 ha) farm in. When Truman was six, his parents moved the family to, so he could attend the Church Sunday School. Truman did not attend a traditional school until he was eight.

As a young boy, Truman had three main interests: music, reading, and history, all encouraged by his mother. He was very close to his mother for as long as she lived, and as president solicited political as well as personal advice from her. He got up at five every morning to practice the, and went to a local music teacher twice a week until he was fifteen. Truman also read a great deal of popular history. He was a page at the at  in.

After graduating from Independence High School (now ) in 1901, Truman worked as a timekeeper on the, sleeping in "hobo camps" near the rail lines; he then worked at a series of clerical jobs. He returned to the Grandview farm in 1906 and stayed there until 1917 when he went into military service.

The physically demanding work he put in on the Grandview farm was a formative experience. During this period he courted and even proposed to her in 1911. She turned him down, and Truman said he wanted to make more money than a farmer before he proposed again. He did propose again in 1918, after coming back as a Captain from World War I, and she accepted.

Truman was the only president who served after 1896 not to earn a college degree: poor eyesight prevented him from applying to, his childhood dream, and financial constraints prevented him from securing a degree elsewhere. He did, however, study for two years toward a law degree at the Kansas City Law School (now the School of Law) in the early 1920s.

World War I
Truman enlisted in the in 1905, and served in it until 1911. With the onset of American participation in World War I, he rejoined the Guard. At his physical in 1905, his eyesight had been an unacceptable in the right eye and 20/400 in the left. Reportedly he passed by secretly memorizing the eye chart.

Before going to France, he was sent to, near for training. He ran the camp canteen with a Jewish friend, Sergeant, who had experience in a Kansas City clothing store as a clerk. At Ft. Sill he also met Lieutenant James M. Pendergast, the nephew of, a Kansas City politician. Both men would have profound influences on later events in Truman's life.

Truman was chosen to be an officer, and then commander in an artillery regiment in France. His unit was Battery D, 129th, 60th Brigade, , known for its discipline problems. During a sudden attack by the in the, the battery started to disperse; Truman ordered them back into position using profanities that he had "learned while working on the Santa Fe railroad." Shocked by the outburst, his men reassembled and followed him to safety. Under Captain Truman's command in France, the battery did not lose a single man. The war was a transformative experience that brought out Truman's leadership qualities; he later rose to the rank of Colonel in the National Guard, and his war record made possible his later political career in Missouri.

Marriage and early business career
At the war's conclusion, Truman returned to Independence and married his longtime love interest, Bess Wallace, on. The couple had one child, (born  ).

A month before the wedding, banking on their success at Fort Sill and overseas, Truman and Jacobson opened a of the same name at 104 West 12th Street in downtown Kansas City. After a few successful years, the store went bankrupt during the, which greatly affected the farm economy. Truman blamed the fall in farm prices on the policies of the Republicans; he worked to pay off the debts until 1934, just as he was going into the U.S. Senate, when banker retrieved the note during the sale of a bankrupt bank and allowed Truman to pay it off for $1,000. (At the same time Kemper made a $1,000 contribution to Truman's campaign.)

Former comrades in arms and former business partners, Jacobson and Truman remained close friends for life. Decades later, Jacobson's advice to Truman on would play a critical role in the US government's decision to recognize.

Jackson County judge
In 1922, with the help of the Kansas City  led by  Tom Pendergast, Truman was elected as a judge of the County Court of the eastern district of  —an administrative, not judicial, position similar to county commissioners elsewhere.

In 1922, Truman gave a friend $10 for an initiation fee for the but later asked to get his money back; he was never initiated, never attended a meeting, and never claimed membership. Though Truman at times expressed anger towards Jews in his diaries, his business partner and close friend was Jewish. Truman's attitudes toward were typical of white Missourians of his era, and were expressed in his casual use of terms like "." Years later, another measure of his racial attitudes would come to the forefront: tales of the abuse, violence, and persecution suffered by many African American veterans upon their return from infuriated Truman, and were a major factor in his decision to use  to back  and desegregate the armed forces.

He was not reelected in 1924 but in 1926 was elected the presiding judge for the court and reelected in 1930.

In 1930 Truman coordinated the "Ten Year Plan," which transformed Jackson County and the Kansas City skyline with new public works projects, including an extensive series of roads, construction of a new -designed County Court building, and the dedication of a series of 12 monuments honoring pioneer women. Much of the building was done with Pendergast Readi-Mix concrete.

In 1933 Truman was named Missouri's director for the Federal Re-Employment program (part of the ) as payback to Pendergast for delivering the Kansas City vote to Franklin D. Roosevelt in the. The appointment confirmed Pendergast's control over federal jobs in Missouri and marked the zenith of his power. It was also to create a relationship between Truman and and assure avid Truman support for the New Deal.

First term
Truman was Tom Pendergast's chosen candidate in the for Missouri. During the Democratic, Truman defeated and Tuck Milligan, the brother of federal prosecutor. Truman then defeated the incumbent Republican,, by nearly 20 percent.

During the election day, four people were killed at the polls, prompting various investigations into Kansas City election practices.

Truman assumed office under a cloud as "the senator from Pendergast." He gave patronage decisions to Pendergast but always maintained he voted his conscience. Truman always defended the patronage by saying that by offering a little, he saved a lot.

In his first term as a U.S. Senator, Truman spoke out bluntly against corporate greed, and warned about the dangers of speculators and other moneyed special interests attaining too much influence in national affairs. He was, however, largely ignored by President Roosevelt, who appears not to have taken him seriously at this stage. Truman reportedly had difficulty getting White House secretaries to return his calls.

The 1936 election of Pendergast-backed Governor revealed even bigger voter irregularities in Missouri than had been uncovered in 1934. Milligan prosecuted 278 defendants in vote fraud cases; he convicted 259. Stark turned on Pendergast, urged prosecution, and was able to wrest federal patronage from the Pendergast machine.

Ultimately Milligan discovered that Pendergast had not paid federal taxes between 1927 and 1937 and had conducted a fraudulent insurance scam. In 1939, Pendergast pled guilty and received a $10,000 fine and a 15-month sentence at. No charges were filed against Truman.

1940 election
Truman's prospects for re-election to the Senate looked bleak. In, both Stark and Maurice Milligan challenged him in the Democratic primary for the Senate. , who controlled Democratic politics, threw his support in the election behind Truman. (Hannegan would go on to broker the 1944 deal that put Truman on the vice presidential ticket for Roosevelt.) Truman campaigned tirelessly and combatively. In the end, Stark and Milligan split the anti-Pendergast vote in the Democratic primary, with Stark and Milligan having more combined votes than Truman.

In September 1940, during the general election campaign, Truman was elected of the Missouri  of. In November of that year, he defeated Kansas City State Senator by over 40,000 votes and retained his Senate seat. Truman said later that the Masonic election assured his victory in the general election over State Senator Davis.

The successful 1940 Senate campaign is regarded by many biographers as a personal triumph and vindication for Truman and as a precursor to the much more celebrated 1948 drive for the White House, another contest where he was underestimated. It was the turning point of his political career.

Defense policy statements
On, the day after   the , Senator Truman declared: "If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don't want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances. Neither of them thinks anything of their pledged word." Although the sentiment was in line with what many Americans felt at the time, it was regarded by later biographers as both inappropriate and cynical. The remark was the first in a long series of prominently inopportune off-the-cuff statements by Truman to members of the national press corps.

Truman Committee
Truman gained fame and respect when his preparedness committee (popularly known as the "") investigated the scandal of military wastefulness by exposing fraud and mismanagement. The Roosevelt administration had initially feared the Committee would hurt war morale, and  wrote to the president declaring it was "in the public interest" to suspend the committee. Truman wrote a letter to saying that the committee was "100 percent behind the administration" and that it had no intention of criticizing the military conduct of the war. The committee was considered a success and is reported to have saved at least $15 billion. Truman's advocacy of common-sense cost-saving measures for the military attracted much attention. In 1943, his work as chairman earned Truman his first appearance on the cover of . He would eventually appear on nine Time covers and be named the magazine's for 1945 and 1948. After years as a marginal figure in the Senate, Truman was cast into the national spotlight after the success of the Truman Committee.

Vice Presidency
Following months of uncertainty over the president's preference for a running mate, Truman was selected as Roosevelt's vice presidential candidate in as the result of a deal worked out by Hannegan, who was Democratic National Chairman that year.

Although his public image remained that of a robust, engaged world leader, Roosevelt's physical condition was in fact rapidly deteriorating in mid-1944. A handful of key FDR advisers, including outgoing Democratic National Committee Chairman Frank Walker, incoming Chairman Robert Hannegan, strategist Ed Flynn, and lobbyist George E. Allen closed ranks in the summer of 1944 to "keep off the ticket." They considered Wallace, the incumbent vice president, too, and had grave concerns about the possibility of his ascension to the presidency. Allen would later recall that each of these men "realized that the man nominated to run with Roosevelt would in all probability be the next President. . ."

After meeting personally with the party leaders, FDR agreed to replace Wallace as vice president; however, Roosevelt chose to leave the final selection of a running mate unresolved until the later stages of the Democratic National Convention in. of was initially favored, but labor leaders opposed him. In addition, his status as a gave him problems with Northern liberals, and he was also considered vulnerable because of his conversion from. The position was then offered to Governor of, who later declined. Before the convention began, Roosevelt wrote a note saying he would accept either Truman or Justice ; state and city party leaders preferred Truman. Truman himself did not campaign directly or indirectly that summer for the number two spot on the ticket, and always maintained that he had not wanted the job of vice president.

Truman's candidacy was humorously dubbed the second "" at the in Chicago, as his appeal to the party center contrasted with the liberal Wallace and the conservative Byrnes. The nomination was well received, and the Roosevelt-Truman team went on to score a 432–99 victory in the, defeating Governor  of  and Governor  of. Truman was sworn in as vice president on, and served less than three months.

Truman's vice-presidency was relatively uneventful, and Roosevelt rarely contacted him, even to inform him of major decisions. Truman shocked many when he attended his disgraced patron Pendergast's funeral a few days after being sworn in. Truman was reportedly the only elected official who attended the funeral. Truman brushed aside the criticism, saying simply, "He was always my friend and I have always been his."

On, Truman was urgently called to the White House, where  informed him that the president was dead, after suffering from a massive. Truman's first concern was for Mrs. Roosevelt. He asked if there was anything he could do for her, to which she replied, "Is there anything we can do for you? For you are the one in trouble now."

Assuming office
Truman had been vice president for only 82 days when President Roosevelt died. He had had very little meaningful communication with Roosevelt about world affairs or domestic politics after being sworn in as vice president, and was completely uninformed about major initiatives relating to the successful prosecution of the war—notably the top secret, which was about to test the world's first atomic bomb.

Shortly after taking the oath of office, Truman said to reporters:
 * "Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now. I don't know if you fellas ever had a load of hay fall on you, but when they told me what happened yesterday, I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me."

A few days after his swearing in, he wrote to his wife, Bess: "It won't be long until I can sit back and study the whole picture and. . . there'll be no more to this job than there was to running Jackson County and not anymore worry." However, the simplicity he had predicted would prove elusive.

Upon assuming the presidency, Truman asked all the members of FDR's cabinet to remain in place, told them that he was open to their advice, and laid down a central principle of his administration: he would be the one making decisions, and they were to support him. Just a few weeks after Truman assumed office, the achieved  in Europe.

Atomic bomb use
Truman was quickly briefed on the and authorized use of atomic weapons against the  in August 1945, after Japan rejected the. The atomic bombings that followed were the first, and so far the only, instance of.

On the morning of, the  bomber  dropped an atomic bomb on. Two days later, having heard nothing from the Japanese government, Truman let the U.S. military proceed with its plans to drop a second atomic bomb. On, was also devastated. Truman received news of the bombing while aboard the heavy cruiser on his way back to the U.S. after the. The Japanese agreed to on.

At the Potsdam Conference, Soviet leader was aware of the U.S. government's possession of the atomic bomb. In the years since the bombings, however, questions about Truman's choice have become more pointed. Supporters of Truman's decision to use the bomb argue that it saved hundreds of thousands of lives that would have been lost in of mainland Japan. Eleanor Roosevelt spoke in support of this view when she said, in 1954, that Truman had "made the only decision he could," and that the bomb's use was necessary "to avoid tremendous sacrifice of American lives." Others, including historian, have argued that the use of nuclear weapons was unnecessary and inherently immoral.

Strikes and economic upheaval
The end of World War II was followed in the United States by uneasy and contentious conversion back to a peacetime economy. The president was faced with a sudden renewal of labor-management conflicts that had lain dormant during the war years, severe shortages in housing and consumer products, and widespread dissatisfaction with, which at one point hit six percent in a single month. In this polarized environment, there was a wave of destabilizing strikes in major industries, and Truman's response to them was generally seen as ineffective. In the spring of 1946, a national strike, unprecedented in the nation's history, brought virtually all passenger and freight lines to a standstill for over a month. When the railway workers turned down a proposed settlement, Truman announced that he would seize control of the railways and even threatened to draft striking workers into the armed forces. While delivering a speech before requesting authority for this plan, Truman received word that the strike had been settled on his terms. He announced this development to Congress on the spot and received a tumultuous ovation that was replayed for weeks on newsreels. Although the resolution of the crippling railway strike made for stirring political theater, it actually cost Truman politically: his proposed solution was seen by many as high-handed; and labor voters, already wary of Truman's handling of workers' issues, were deeply alienated.

United Nations, Marshall Plan, and the Cold War
As a internationalist, Truman strongly supported the creation of the United Nations, and included former  Eleanor Roosevelt on the delegation to the U.N.'s first  in order to meet the public desire for peace after the carnage of World War II. Faced with communist abandonment of commitments to democracy made at the Potsdam Conference, and with communist advances in (leading to the ) and in  that suggested a hunger for global domination, Truman and his foreign policy advisors concluded that the interests of the Soviet Union were quickly becoming incompatible with those of the United States. The Truman administration articulated an increasingly hard line against the Soviets.

Although he claimed no personal expertise on foreign matters, and although the opposition Republicans controlled Congress, Truman was able to win bipartisan support for both the, which formalized a policy of , and the , which aimed to help rebuild postwar Europe. To get Congress to spend the vast sums necessary to restart the moribund European economy, Truman used an ideological argument, arguing forcefully that communism flourishes in economically deprived areas. His goal was to "scare the hell out of Congress." As part of the U.S. strategy, Truman signed the  and reorganized military forces by merging the  and the  into the National Military Establishment (later the ) and creating the. The act also created the and the.

Fair Deal
After many years of Democratic majorities in Congress and two Democratic presidents, with the Democrats delivered a new Republican majority in the 1946 midterm elections, with the Republicans  in the  and  in the Senate. Although Truman cooperated closely with the Republican leaders on foreign policy, he fought them bitterly on domestic issues. He failed to prevent tax cuts or the removal of price controls. The power of the labor unions was significantly curtailed by the, which was enacted by overriding Truman's veto.

As he readied for the approaching 1948 election, Truman made clear his identity as a Democrat in the tradition, advocating universal, the repeal of the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act, and an aggressive civil rights program. Taken together, it all constituted a broad legislative agenda that came to be called the "."

Truman's proposals made for potent campaign rhetoric but were not well received by Congress, even after in the 1948 election. Only one of the major Fair Deal bills, the Housing Act of 1949, was ever enacted.

Recognition of Israel
Truman was a key figure in the establishment of the in the. In 1946, an recommended the gradual establishment of two states in Palestine, with neither Jews nor s dominating. However, there was little public support for the two-state proposal, and, its in rapid decline, was under pressure to withdraw from Palestine quickly because of attacks on British forces by armed Zionist groups. At the urging of the British, a special U.N. committee recommended the immediate partitioning of Palestine into two states, and with Truman's support, this initiative was approved by the General Assembly in 1947.

The British announced that they would leave Palestine by, and the  Council nations began moving troops to Palestine's borders. The idea of a Jewish state in the Middle East was popular in the U.S., particularly among urban Jewish voters, one of Truman's key constituencies.

The, however, disagreed with the decision. Secretary of State and most of the foreign service experts strongly opposed the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. Thus, when Truman agreed to meet with, at the request of he found himself overruling his own Secretary of State. In the end, Marshall did not publicly dispute the president's decision, as Truman feared he might. Truman recognized the State of on , after it declared itself a nation.

Berlin Airlift
On, the Soviet Union blocked access to the three  of. The Allies had never negotiated a deal to guarantee supply of the sectors deep within the Soviet-occupied zone. The commander of the American occupation zone in Germany, General, proposed sending a large armored column driving peacefully, as a moral right, down the across the Soviet zone to , with instructions to defend itself if it were stopped or attacked. Truman, however, following the consensus in Washington, believed this would entail an unacceptable risk of war. He approved a plan to supply the blockaded city by air. On, the Allies initiated the , a campaign that delivered food and other supplies, such as coal, using military airplanes on a massive scale. Nothing remotely like it had ever been attempted before. The airlift worked; ground access was again granted on. The airlift continued for several months after that. The Berlin Airlift was one of Truman's great foreign policy successes as president; it significantly aided his election campaign in 1948.

Defense cutbacks
Truman, Congress, and followed a strategy of rapid demobilization after World War II, mothballing ships and sending the veterans home. The reasons for this strategy, which persisted through Truman's first term and well into his second, were largely financial. In order to fund domestic spending requirements, Truman had advocated a policy of defense program cuts for the U.S. armed forces at the end of the war. The Republican majority in Congress, anxious to enact numerous tax cuts, approved of Truman's plan to "hold the line" on defense spending. In addition, Truman's experience in the Senate left him with lingering suspicions that large sums were being wasted in the Pentagon. In 1949, Truman appointed as Secretary of Defense. Impressed by U.S. advances in atomic bomb development, Truman and Johnson initially believed that the atomic bomb rendered conventional forces largely irrelevant to the modern battlefield. This assumption eventually had to be revisited, however, as the Soviet Union exploded its in the same year.

Nevertheless, reductions continued, adversely affecting U.S. conventional defense readiness. Both Truman and Johnson had a particular antipathy to and  budget requests. Truman had a well-known dislike of the Marines dating back to his service in World War I, and famously said, "The Marine Corps is the Navy's police force, and as long as I am President that is what it will remain. They have a propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin's." Indeed, Truman had proposed disbanding the Marine Corps entirely as part of the 1948 defense reorganization plan, a plan that was abandoned only after a letter-writing campaign and the intervention of influential congressmen who were Marine veterans.

Under Truman defense budgets through Fiscal Year 1950, many Navy ships were mothballed, sold to other countries, or scrapped. The, faced with high turnover of experienced personnel, cut back on training exercises, and eased recruitment standards. Usable equipment was scrapped or sold off instead of stored, and even ammunition stockpiles were cut. The Marine Corps, its budgets slashed, was reduced to hoarding surplus inventories of World War II-era weapons and equipment. It was only after the invasion of by the s in 1950 that Truman sent significantly larger defense requests to Congress—and initiated what might be considered the modern period of defense spending in the United States.

Civil rights
A 1947 report by the Truman administration titled To Secure These Rights presented a detailed ten-point agenda of civil rights reforms. In February 1948, the president submitted a civil rights agenda to Congress that proposed creating several federal offices devoted to issues such as and  practices. This provoked a storm of criticism from Southern Democrats in the run up to the national nominating convention, but Truman refused to compromise, saying: "My forebears were . . . . But my very stomach turned over when I had learned that Negro soldiers, just back from overseas, were being dumped out of Army trucks in and beaten."

1948 election


The is best remembered for Truman's stunning come-from-behind victory. In the spring of 1948, Truman's public approval rating stood at 36 percent, and the president was nearly universally regarded as incapable of winning the general election. The "New Deal" operatives within the party—including FDR's son —tried to swing the Democratic nomination to General, a wildly popular figure whose political views—and party affiliation—were totally unknown. Eisenhower emphatically refused to accept, and Truman outflanked opponents to his nomination.

At the, Truman attempted to calm turbulent domestic political waters by placing a tepid civil rights plank in the party platform; the aim was to assuage the internal conflicts between the northern and southern wings of his party. Events overtook the president's efforts at compromise, however. A sharp address given by Mayor of —as well as the local political interests of a number of urban bosses—convinced the Convention to adopt a stronger civil rights plank, which Truman approved wholeheartedly. All of 's delegates, and a portion of Mississippi's, walked out of the convention in protest. Unfazed, Truman delivered an aggressive acceptance speech attacking the 80th Congress and promising to win the election and "make these Republicans like it."

Within two weeks, Truman issued, racially the U.S. Armed Services. Truman took considerable political risk in backing civil rights, and many seasoned Democrats were concerned that the loss of support might destroy the Democratic Party. The fear seemed well justified— declared his candidacy for the presidency and led a full-scale revolt of Southern "" proponents. This revolt on the right was matched by a revolt on the left, led by former Vice President on the  ticket. Immediately after its first post-FDR convention, the Democratic Party found itself disintegrating. Victory in November seemed a remote possibility indeed, with the party not simply split but divided three ways.

There followed a remarkable 21,928 mile presidential odyssey, an unprecedented personal appeal to the nation. Truman and his staff crisscrossed the United States in the presidential train; his "" tactic of giving brief speeches from the rear platform of the  came to represent the entire campaign. His combative appearances, such as those at the town square of, captured the popular imagination and drew huge crowds. Six stops in drew a combined total of half a million people; a full million turned out for a  ticker-tape parade.

The large, mostly spontaneous gatherings at Truman's depot events were an important sign of a critical change in momentum in the campaign—but this shift went virtually unnoticed by the national press corps, which continued reporting Republican 's apparent impending victory as a certainty. One reason for the press's inaccurate projection was polls conducted primarily by telephone in a time when many people, including much of Truman's populist base, did not own a telephone. This skewed the data to indicate a stronger support base for Dewey than existed, resulting in an unintended and undetected projection error that may well have contributed to the perception of Truman's bleak chances. The three major polling organizations also stopped polling well before the election date—Roper in September, and Crossley and Gallup in October—thus failing to measure the very period when Truman appears to have surged past Dewey.

In the end, Truman held his midwestern base of progressives, won most of the Southern states despite his civil rights plank, and squeaked through with narrow victories in a few critical "battleground" states, notably, , and. The final tally showed that the president had secured 303 electoral votes, Dewey 189, and Thurmond only 39. Henry Wallace got none. The defining image of the campaign came after Election Day, when Truman held aloft the erroneous front page of the  with a huge headline proclaiming "Dewey Defeats Truman."

Truman's no-holds-barred style of campaigning in the face of seemingly impossible odds became a campaign tactic that would be repeated by, and appealed to by, many presidential candidates in years to come, notably in, another trailing incumbent who fought constantly with Congress.

Truman did not have a vice president in his first term. His running mate, and eventual vice president for the term that began, was.

Second term (1949–1953)
Truman's second term was grueling, in large measure because of foreign policy challenges connected directly or indirectly to his policy of containment. For instance, he quickly had to come to terms with the end of the American nuclear monopoly. With information provided by its espionage networks in the United States, the Soviet Union's progressed much faster than had been expected and they exploded their first bomb on. On, Truman announced the detonation of the first U.S..

NATO
Truman was a strong supporter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which established a formal peacetime military alliance with and many of the democratic European nations that had not fallen under Soviet control following World War II. The importance of this treaty, which Truman successfully guided through the Senate in 1949, is hard to overstate. It checked Soviet expansion in Europe, and sent a clear message to communist leaders that the world's democracies were willing and able to build new security structures in support of democratic ideals. The United States,, , , the , , , , , , , and Canada were the original treaty signatories; and  joined in 1952.

People's Republic of China
On,  and his  left , fleeing to  in the face of successful attacks by 's communist army during the. In June 1950, Truman ordered the U.S. Navy's into the  to prevent further conflict between the communist government at the China mainland and the  at Taiwan. Truman also called for Taiwan not to make any further attack on the mainland.

Soviet espionage and McCarthyism
Throughout his presidency, Truman had to deal with accusations that the federal government was harboring Soviet spies at the highest level. Testimony in Congress on this issue garnered national attention, and thousands of people were fired as security risks. An optimistic, patriotic man, Truman was dubious about reports of potential Communist or Soviet penetration of the U.S. government, and his oft-quoted response was to dismiss the allegations as a "red herring."

In August 1948,, a former spy for the Soviets, testified before the (HUAC) and presented a list of what he said were members of an underground communist network working within the United States government in the 1930s. One was, a senior State Department official. Hiss denied the accusations.

Chambers's revelations led to a crisis in American political culture, as Hiss was convicted of perjury. On, Republican Senator  accused the State Department of having communists on the payroll, and specifically claimed that Secretary of State  knew of, and was protecting, 205 communists within the State Department. At issue was whether Truman had discovered all the subversive agents that had entered the government during the Roosevelt years. Many on the right, such as McCarthy and Congressman, insisted that he had not.

By spotlighting this issue and attacking Truman's administration, McCarthy quickly established himself as a national figure, and his explosive allegations dominated the headlines. His claims were short on confirmable details, but they nevertheless transfixed a nation struggling to come to grips with frightening new realities: the Soviet Union's nuclear explosion, the loss of U.S. atom bomb secrets, the fall of China, and new revelations of Soviet intelligence penetration of other U.S. agencies, including the. Truman, a pragmatic man who had made allowances for the likes of Tom Pendergast and Stalin, quickly developed an unshakable loathing of Joseph McCarthy. He counterattacked, saying that "Americanism" itself was under attack by elements "who are loudly proclaiming that they are its chief defenders. . . . They are trying to create fear and suspicion among us by the use of slander, unproved accusations and just plain lies. . . . They are trying to get us to believe that our Government is riddled with communism and corruption. . . . These slandermongers are trying to get us so hysterical that no one will stand up to them for fear of being called a communist. Now this is an old communist trick in reverse. . . . That is not fair play. That is not Americanism." Nevertheless Truman was never able to shake his image among the public of being unable to purge his government of subversive influences.

Korean War
On, the North Korean People's Army under the command of  invaded South Korea, precipitating the outbreak of the. Poorly trained and equipped, without tanks or air support, the South Korean Army was rapidly pushed backwards, quickly losing the capital,.

Stunned, Truman called for a naval blockade of Korea, which went into effect; while the U.S. Navy no longer possessed sufficient surface ships with which to enforce such a measure, no ships tried to challenge it. Truman promptly urged the United Nations to intervene; it did, authorizing armed defense for the first time in its history. (The Soviet Union was not present at the vote that approved the measure.) However, Truman decided not to consult with Congress, an error that greatly weakened his position later in the conflict.

In the first four weeks of the conflict, the American infantry forces hastily deployed to Korea proved too few and were under-equipped. The Eighth Army in was forced to recondition World War II  from depots and monuments for use in Korea.

Responding to criticism over readiness, Truman fired his Secretary of Defense,, replacing him with retired general. Truman (with UN approval) decided on a roll-back policy—that is, conquest of North Korea. UN forces led by General led the counterattack, scoring a stunning surprise victory with an amphibious landing at the  that nearly trapped the invaders. UN forces then marched north, toward the boundary with China, with the goal of reuniting Korea under UN auspices.

China surprised the UN forces with a large-scale invasion in November. The UN forces were forced back to below the, then recovered; by early 1951 the war became a fierce stalemate at about the 38th parallel where it had begun. UN and U.S. casualties were heavy. Truman rejected MacArthur's request to attack Chinese supply bases north of the Yalu, but MacArthur nevertheless promoted his plan to Republican House leader, who leaked it to the press. Truman was gravely concerned that further escalation of the war might draw the Soviet Union further into the conflict: it was already supplying weapons and providing warplanes (with Korean markings and Soviet fliers). On, Truman fired MacArthur from all his commands in Korea and Japan.

Relieving MacArthur of his command was among the least politically popular decisions in presidential history. Truman's approval ratings plummeted, and he faced calls for his from, among others, Senator. The Chicago Tribune called for immediate impeachment proceedings against Truman:

"President Truman must be impeached and convicted. His hasty and vindictive removal of Gen. MacArthur is the culmination of series of acts which have shown that he is unfit, morally and mentally, for his high office. . . . The American nation has never been in greater danger. It is led by a fool who is surrounded by knaves. . .."

Fierce criticism from virtually all quarters accused Truman of refusing to shoulder the blame for a war gone sour and blaming his generals instead. MacArthur returned to the United States to a hero's welcome, and, after an address before Congress, was even rumored as a candidate for the presidency.

The war remained a frustrating stalemate for two years, with over 30,000 Americans killed, until a peace agreement restored borders and ended the conflict. In the interim, the difficulties in Korea and the popular outcry against Truman's sacking of MacArthur helped to make the president so unpopular that Democrats started turning to other candidates. In the on , Truman lost to , who won the preference poll 19,800 to 15,927 and all eight delegates. Truman was forced to cancel his reelection campaign. In February 1952, Truman's approval mark stood at 22 percent according to s, the all-time lowest approval mark for an active American president.

Indochina
United States' involvement in widened during the Truman administration. On 1945, ese Communist leader  declared independence from France, but the U.S. announced its support of restoring. In 1950, Ho again declared Vietnamese independence, which was recognized by Communist China and the Soviet Union. He controlled some remote territory along the Chinese border, while France controlled the remainder. Truman's "containment policy" called for opposition to Communist expansion, and led the U.S. to continue to recognize French rule, support the French client government, and increase aid to Vietnam. However, a basic dispute emerged: the Americans wanted a strong and independent Vietnam, while the French cared little about containing China but instead wanted to suppress local nationalism and integrate Indochina into the.

White House renovations
In 1948 Truman ordered a controversial addition to the exterior of the : a second-floor balcony in the south portico that came to be known as the "Truman Balcony." The addition was unpopular.

Not long afterwards, engineering experts concluded that the building, much of it over 130 years old, was in a dangerously dilapidated condition. That August, a section of floor collapsed and Truman's own bedroom and bathroom were closed as unsafe. No public announcement about the serious structural problems of the White House was made until after the 1948 election had been won, by which time Truman had been informed that his new balcony was the only part of the building that was sound. The Truman family moved into nearby ; as the newer, including the , remained open, Truman found himself walking to work across the street each morning and afternoon. In due course the decision was made to demolish and rebuild the whole interior of the main White House, as well as excavating new basement levels and underpinning the foundations. The famous exterior of the structure, however, was buttressed and retained while the renovations proceeded inside. The work lasted from December 1949 until March 1952.

Assassination attempt
On,  nationalists  and  attempted to assassinate Truman at Blair House. On the street outside the residence, Torresola mortally wounded a White House policeman,, who shot Torresola dead before expiring himself. Collazo, as a co-conspirator in a felony that turned into a homicide, was found guilty of murder and was sentenced to death in 1952. Truman later commuted his sentence to life in prison.

Acknowledging the importance of the question of Puerto Rican independence, Truman allowed for a plebiscite in Puerto Rico to determine the status of its relationship to the United States.

The attack, which could easily have taken the president's life, drew new attention to security concerns surrounding his residence at Blair House. He had jumped up from his nap, and was watching the gunfight from his open bedroom window until a passerby shouted at him to take cover.

Steel industry seizure attempt
In response to a labor/management impasse arising from bitter disagreements over wage and price controls, Truman instructed his, , to take control of a number of the nation's steel mills in April of 1952. Truman cited his authority as Commander in Chief and the need to maintain an uninterrupted supply of steel for munitions to be used in the war in Korea. The found Truman's actions unconstitutional, however, and reversed the order in a major  decision, . The 6–3 decision, which held that Truman's assertion of authority was too vague and was not rooted in any legislative action by Congress, was delivered by a Court composed entirely of Justices appointed by either Truman or Roosevelt. The high court's reversal of Truman's order was one of the notable defeats of his presidency.

Scandals
In 1950, the Senate, led by, investigated numerous charges of corruption among senior administration officials, some of whom received s and for favors. The (IRS) was involved. In 1950, 166 IRS employees either resigned or were fired, and many were facing indictments from the on a variety of tax-fixing and bribery charges, including the assistant attorney general in charge of the Tax Division. When Attorney General fired the special prosecutor for being too zealous, Truman fired McGrath. Historians agree that Truman himself was innocent and unaware—with one exception. In 1945, Mrs. Truman received a new, expensive, hard-to-get deep freezer. The businessman who provided the gift was the president of a perfume company and, thanks to Truman's aide and confidante General, received priority to fly to Europe days after the war ended, where he bought new perfumes. On the way back he "bumped" a wounded veteran from a flight that would have taken him back to the US. Disclosure of the episode in 1949 humiliated Truman. The president responded by vigorously defending Vaughan, an old friend with an office in the White House itself. Vaughan was eventually connected to multiple influence-peddling scandals.

Charges that Soviet agents had infiltrated the government bedeviled the Truman administration and became a major campaign issue for Eisenhower in 1952. In 1947, Truman set up loyalty boards to investigate espionage among federal employees. Between 1947 and 1952, "about 20,000 government employees were investigated, some 2500 resigned 'voluntarily,' and 400 were fired." He did, however, strongly oppose mandatory loyalty oaths for governmental employees, a stance that led to charges that his administration was soft on communism.

In 1953, Senator and Attorney General  claimed that Truman had known  was a Soviet spy when Truman appointed him to the. However, this has now been refuted by declassified documents obtained through the that show President Truman and the White House had not known of the existence of the.

Administration and Cabinet
All of the cabinet members when Truman became president in 1945 had been previously serving under Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Supreme Court appointments
Truman appointed the following Justices to the :


 * —1945
 * —1946
 * —1949
 * —1949

1952 election
In 1951, the U.S. ratified the, making a president ineligible to be elected for a third time, or to be elected for a second time after having served more than two years of the previous president's term. The latter clause would have applied to Truman in 1952, but he was still eligible to run for a third term since a in the amendment explicitly excluded the current president from its provisions.

At the time of the 1952 New Hampshire primary, no candidate had won Truman's backing. His first choice, Chief Justice, had declined to run; Illinois Governor had also turned Truman down; Vice President Barkley was considered too old; and Truman distrusted and disliked Senator , whom he privately called "Cowfever."

Truman's name was on the New Hampshire primary ballot, but Kefauver won. On Truman announced his decision not to run for re-election. Stevenson, having reconsidered his presidential ambitions, received Truman's backing and won the Democratic nomination. Dwight D. Eisenhower, now a partisan Republican and the nominee of his party, campaigned against what he denounced as Truman's failures regarding "Korea, Communism and Corruption" and the "mess in Washington," and promised to "go to Korea." Eisenhower defeated Stevenson decisively in the, ending 20 years of Democratic rule.

Truman Library, Memoirs, and life as a private citizen
Truman returned to Independence, Missouri to live at the Wallace home he and Bess had shared for years with her mother. His predecessor,, had organized his own , but legislation to enable future presidents to do something similar still remained to be enacted. Truman worked to garner private donations to build a presidential library, which he then donated to the federal government to maintain and operate—a practice adopted by all of his successors.

Once out of office, Truman quickly decided that he did not wish to be on any corporate payroll, believing that taking advantage of such financial opportunities would diminish the integrity of the nation's highest office. He also turned down numerous offers for commercial endorsements. Since his earlier business ventures had proved unremunerative, he had no personal savings. As a result, he faced financial challenges. Once Truman left the White House, his only income was his old army pension: $112.56 per month. Former members of Congress and the federal courts received a federal retirement package; President Truman himself had ensured that former servants of the executive branch of government would receive similar support. In 1953, however, there was no such benefit package for former presidents.

He took out a personal loan from a Missouri bank shortly after leaving office, and then set about establishing another precedent for future former chief executives: a book deal for his memoirs of his time in office. had overcome similar financial issues with his own memoirs, but the book had been published posthumously, and he had declined to write about life in the White House in any detail. For the memoirs Truman received only a flat payment of $670,000, and had to pay two-thirds of that in tax; he calculated he got $37,000 after he paid his assistants.

Truman's memoirs were a commercial and critical success; they were published in two volumes in 1955 and 1956 by Doubleday (Garden City, N.Y) and Hodder & Stoughton (London): Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Year of Decisions and Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Years of Trial and Hope.

Truman was quoted in 1957 as saying to then-House Majority Leader, "Had it not been for the fact that I was able to sell some property that my brother, sister, and I inherited from our mother, I would practically be on relief, but with the sale of that property I am not financially embarrassed."

In 1958, Congress passed the Former Presidents Act, offering a $25,000 yearly pension to each former president, and it is likely that Truman's financial status played a role in the law's enactment. The one other living former president at the time,, also took the pension, even though he did not need the money; reportedly, he did so to avoid embarrassing Truman.

Later life and death
In 1956, Truman took a trip to Europe with his wife, and was a sensation. In Britain he received an honorary degree in Civic Law from, an event that moved him to tears. He met with his friend for the last time, and on returning to the U.S., he gave his full support to Adlai Stevenson's second bid for the White House, although he had initially favored Democratic Governor  of New York for the nomination.

Upon turning 80, Truman was feted in Washington and asked to address the United States Senate, as part of a new rule that allowed former presidents to be granted "privilege of the floor." Truman was so emotionally overcome by the honor and by his reception that he was barely able to deliver his speech. He also campaigned for senatorial candidates. A bad fall in the bathroom of his home in late 1964 severely limited his physical capabilities, and he was unable to maintain his daily presence at his presidential library.

In 1965, President signed the  bill at the  and gave the first two Medicare cards to Truman and his wife Bess to honor his fight for government health care as president.

On, he was admitted to 's Research Hospital and Medical Center with lung congestion from. He subsequently developed multiple organ failure and died at 7:50 a.m. on. Bess Truman died nearly ten years later, on. He and Bess are buried at the.

Legacy
When he left office in 1953, Truman was one of the most unpopular chief executives in history. His job approval rating of 22 percent in the Gallup Poll as of February 1952 was actually lower than 's was in August 1974 at 24 percent, the month that Nixon finally resigned. Public feeling toward Truman grew steadily warmer with the passing years, however, and the period shortly after his death consolidated a partial rehabilitation among both historians and members of the general public. Since leaving office, Truman has fared well in. He has never been listed lower than ninth, and most recently was seventh in a Wall Street Journal poll in 2005. He has also had his critics. After a review of information available to Truman on the presence of espionage activities in the U.S. government, Democratic Senator concluded that Truman was "almost willfully obtuse" concerning the danger of American communism. Truman died during a time when the nation was consumed with crises in and, and his death brought a new wave of attention to his political career. In the early and mid-1970s, Truman captured the popular imagination much as he had in 1948, this time emerging as a kind of political folk hero, a president who was thought to exemplify an integrity and accountability many observers felt was lacking in the Nixon White House. was nominated for an for his portrayal of Truman in the one-man show  ,  won an  for playing Truman in Harry S. Truman: Plain Speaking, and the pop band  recorded a nostalgic song, "" (1975).

Due to Truman's critical role in the US government's decision to recognize Israel, the Israeli rural town Kfar Truman, founded in 1949, was named after him.

The, a federal program that sought to honor U.S. college students who exemplified dedication to public service and leadership in public policy, was created in 1975.

The was named on. The ship, sometimes known as the 'HST', was authorized as USS United States, but her name was changed before the keel laying.

To mark its transformation from a regional state to a selective  and to honor the only Missourian to become president, Northeast Missouri State University became  on. The headquarters for the State Department, built in the 1930s but never officially named, was dedicated as the in 2000.

Historic sites

 * includes the Wallace House at 219 Delaware in Independence and the family farmhouse at (Truman sold most of the farm for Kansas City suburban development including the Truman Corners Shopping Center).
 * Harry S Truman Birthplace State Historic Site is the house where Truman was born and spent 11 months in.
 * —The in Independence
 * —Truman's winter getaway at

Truman's middle initial
Truman did not have a, only a middle initial. In his autobiography, Truman stated, "I was named for . . . Harrison Young. I was given the diminutive Harry and, so that I could have two initials in my given name, the letter S was added. My Grandfather Truman's name was Anderson Shippe Truman and my Grandfather Young's name was Solomon Young, so I received the S for both of them." Anderson's name was also spelled Shipp. He once joked that the S was a name, not an initial, and it should not have a period, but official documents and his presidential library all use a period. Furthermore, the has numerous examples of the signature written at various times throughout Truman's lifetime where his own use of a period after the S is conspicuous. The Stylebook has called for a period after the S since the early 1960s, when Truman indicated he had no preference. However, the use of a period after his middle initial is not universal, and the official White House biography does not use it.

Truman's bare initial caused an unusual slip when he first became president and had to take the. At a meeting in the Cabinet Room,  began reading the oath by saying "I, Harry Shippe Truman, . . ." Truman responded: "I, Harry S. Truman, . . ."