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Overview Born: May 8, 1884; Lamar, Missouri...On October 5, 1947, Truman delivered the first presidential address to be televised from the White House... "Being a president is like riding a tiger. You have to keep on riding or be swallowed." Harry Truman's assessment of the office accurately described the conditions under which he found himself thrust into it. To the little-known man from Missouri would fall the burden of ending a World War and asserting the U.S.'s leadership in a newly-aligned and hostile international environment...Died: December 26, 1972. Did you know? - Read some fun facts about Harry S. Truman
World Timeline - See a timeline of world events during Harry S. Truman's administration. Captain
He was born on May 8, 1884, to John Truman, a Missouri livestock trader, and his wife Margaret, a housewife who appreciated the arts. Harry Truman grew up a weak-eyed, timid child. He seemed ill suited to the rugged frontier town of Independence, Missouri and dreamed of a career as a classical pianist. Young
In 1901, after graduating from high school, Truman went to Kansas City to seek his fortune. He studied business at Spalding's Commercial College and dropped out after one semester. He took a job as a mailroom clerk at the Kansas City Star, a local newspaper, then as a timekeeper at a railroad construction outfit. In early 1903, he moved into banking, and by 1905 he made $100 a month working for Kansas City's Union National Bank. In 1906 the Truman family fortunes changed. John Truman had invested heavily in the grain markets and come out a loser. Harry's father fell back on running the 598-acre family farm near Grandview, Missouri. At age 21, Harry returned to Grandview to help his father run the farm. For eight years, Harry farmed, and year by year, the farm sank into debt. The
On November 2, 1914, John Truman died of cancer. Free from the farm at last, Harry struck out on his own. Like his father, Harry believed in luck and gambled willingly in business. In early 1916, he invested in a zinc and lead mine in Commerce, Oklahoma, hoping to cash in on a rise in metal prices caused by the war. Unfortunately, prices fell, and Truman lost his investment. Later that year, he sank money into Oklahoma oil wells. Again, Truman went broke. In
On July 5, Truman took command of Battery D. The rowdy Kansas City Irishmen of the battery specialized in wearing out commanding officers. Many predicted the bespectacled captain would crumble quickly. Harry Truman, the son of a Missouri mule trader, knew how to handle rowdies. Scared but determined, Truman forced his men to buckle under, rewarding those who obeyed him, punishing those who did not. Within weeks, he transformed Battery D into a disciplined, loyal outfit. The test of combat lay ahead. On August 29, 1918, Battery D fired 500 rounds of artillery at a German position. When the Germans returned fire, some of Truman's men panicked and ran. "My greatest satisfaction is that my legs didn't succeed in carrying me away, although they were very anxious to do it," Harry wrote Bess later. Cursing and yelling, Truman drove his men back to their positions, and successfully repositioned two of his four guns. For the remainder of the war, Truman led Battery D across the French countryside, hammering German positions and never losing a man. On the battlefields of Europe, he experienced the success that had long eluded him. Truman returned from the war as a hero. On June 28, 1919, he married Bess Wallace. The couple lived with Bess' mother. Truman went into business with his army buddy Edward Jacobson. Together they opened a men's clothing store in Kansas City. Although the store went under in 1922, Truman wasn't without a job for long. His leadership on the battlefields of France had captured the attention of another army friend, Jim Pendergast. Their association would change Truman's life. Pendergast's uncle, Tom Pendergast, ran the Kansas City Democratic political machine. Involved in numerous illegitimate activities, from gunrunning and prostitution to bootlegging and narcotics, Pendergast needed a clean-cut candidate to run for commissioner of Jackson County, Missouri. Captain Harry Truman, war hero, fit the bill. In the Democratic primary, Truman balanced his political inexperience with work and determination. The soldiers of Battery D supported their captain, and Tom Pendergast pulled all the strings he could. Truman won the primary by less than 300 votes, and carried the general election by about 3,000. Truman earned a reputation for efficient, honest performance. He undoubtedly made concessions to the Pendergast machine -- and he was rewarded for doing so. In 1934, Pendergast chose Harry Truman as his candidate for U.S. Senate and, in a rigged election, Truman won. United States Senator Harry Truman took office in January, 1935. Just as he had on the battlefields of France, Truman faced challenges, this time fellow senators who resented his association with the Pendergast machine. Using the assets that had served him well on the battlefield -- honesty, hard work and determination -- Truman would struggle to prove himself. Again, he would succeed. World
Truman, a New Deal Democrat, delivered a message to Congress on September 6, 1945, which laid out his vision for postwar America. He listed 21 main policy points, including a minimum wage, guaranteed employment, medical insurance, housing aid, improved benefits for war veterans, and wage and price controls. Powerful forces opposed Truman's platform. Congressional Republicans -- and even some Democrats -- had begun to view social welfare programs as unnecessary giveaways. Business people argued that price controls prevented them from earning profits. Workers wanted raises, not wage controls. As Truman struggled to piece together a workable economic plan, strikes and shortages of consumer goods strangled the nation. More than 5,000 strikes occurred in 1946 alone. Supplies of durable goods such as washing machines and automobiles -- and even of basic commodities such as bread and meat -- grew scarce. Consumers who could afford to pay extra patronized black marketers; others went without. Public
On May 23, 1946, railroad workers ignored a presidential seizure order and walked off the job. The nation, which depended on trains for the transportation of both passengers and commercial products, ground to a halt. A desperate Truman addressed Congress on May 25, asking permission to draft striking railroad workers into the military to force them back to work. Just after he had made his request, Truman received a note. The strike had ended, he announced to Congress, "on terms proposed by the president." This victory failed to prevent the defeat of the Democrats in the mid-term Congressional elections of 1946. In the period just before the election, national meat shortages worsened, and weary consumers blamed the Democrats. The president tried to reassure voters by promising decontrol of prices, but Republicans won majorities in both houses of Congress and gained control of many state governorships. Passing domestic legislation became an even more distant possibility for the embattled president. The ways in which Truman reached out to African Americans represented a historic change from the administrations of the past. Though Truman's views on race were similar to those of most white Americans of his time, he understood that the U.S. Constitution guaranteed rights to all Americans. A pragmatist, he also realized that African Americans represented a large voting bloc. For both of these reasons, Truman moved forward on the race issue, despite overwhelming opposition. When
Perhaps Truman's most courageous action on civil rights was his executive order desegregating the military in 1947. That same year, he became the first U.S. president to address representatives of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Truman also took the case for civil rights to Congress and to the courts. Truman's action on behalf of civil rights splintered the Democratic Party. A conservative Southern faction responded by forming the States Rights' Democratic Party, with Strom Thurmond as its presidential candidate. But by 1948, the economy had begun to improve, and Truman took the credit. He campaigned tirelessly as the defender of the New Deal and managed a spectacular upset over Republican Thomas E. Dewey. Following his inauguration, Truman took a second shot at domestic reform. He petitioned Congress for a "fair deal" for all Americans, including pro-labor reform, strict economic controls, comprehensive civil rights legislation, and an extensive social welfare package including education, social security, and medical insurance provisions. Congress
As the U.S. assumed command of UN troops in Korea in 1950, the president tried in vain to rally Americans to the war effort. Prices, wages, and supplies of consumer goods had begun to stabilize, and many citizens were in no mood for sacrifice. Congress responded to the demands of its constituents by weakening economic controls and refusing to approve Truman's war taxes. The president fumed. Labor unrest continued, and sporadic strikes hampered war production. The domestic struggles of Truman's last year in office sometimes seemed like those of his first. In April 1952, workers and management in the steel industry failed to agree to terms, and a strike loomed. A frustrated Truman seized the mills. The courts invalidated the seizure, and a strike began. After more than seven weeks, the president convinced the parties to settle -- at terms nearly identical to those proposed months before. The episode seemed to characterize Truman's domestic reform -- contention, more contention, and little glory. In eight years in the White House, Harry Truman fought hard for the things he believed in, and despite numerous setbacks, achieved a degree of success. He held the economy together, if not perfectly so, and by the time he left office, America had turned the corner toward prosperity. People were working again, and the massive labor struggles of 1945-46 were a thing of the past. His positions on race helped pave the way for the equal rights legislation of the 1960s. Nonetheless, Truman left Washington at the end of his presidency with feelings of relief. "No one knows what responsibility the Presidency puts on a man," he wrote in a letter to his cousin, Ethel Noland, on January 2, 1953. "It bears down on a country boy." On
Truman learned about the atomic bomb soon after becoming president. Now, he agonized over whether to use the weapon against the Japanese. To do so might end the war quickly and minimize American casualties, but thousands of Japanese civilians would die. In June, a committee appointed by the president recommended using the bomb. Truman concurred. As
Truman's assessment of the Russian leader proved inaccurate. Even after Truman hinted about the atomic bomb, Stalin refused to budge. America's president did not know that the Soviets were developing an atomic weapon of their own. After
Circumstances, however, allowed Truman little time for remorse or celebration. Communists controlled Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Albania, and East Germany and the president's advisers made it clear that the Soviets would keep expanding their influence -- by force, if necessary. In
"Unless Russia is faced with an iron fist and strong language, another war is in the making," Truman wrote. "I'm tired [of] babying the Soviets." He sent the U.S.S. Missouri to the eastern Mediterranean, delivering a clear message that he would oppose Soviet aggression in the region. Still, the Soviets lingered. On March 12, 1947, Truman addressed Congress to request $400 million in emergency aid for Turkey and Greece, which faced internal and external Communist threats. In his speech, the president stated "I believe it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." Congress agreed with the president and overwhelmingly approved the aid. The policy came to be known as the Truman Doctrine. Now,
Hungary's shift to Communism in May boosted the plan's fortunes, as did the idea that the Europeans would spend most of the money on goods made in America. Congress approved interim aid to Europe in December, and signed off on the Marshall Plan the following spring. But by then, Communists were in control of Czechoslovakia. Truman and his advisers restructured America's military bureaucracy to meet the world's changing conditions. In September 1947 the National Security Act created three new defense-related agencies. The National Military Establishment (later replaced by the Department of Defense) would coordinate the actions of all branches of the armed services. The Central Intelligence Agency would coordinate intelligence gathering. The National Security Agency would coordinate military and diplomatic policy. As he worked to build a defense against Communism, Truman faced a crisis of conscience in the Middle East. Jews who had fled to Palestine to escape the Holocaust now demanded a Jewish state. Truman sympathized, but he knew that the formation of Israel would result in an immediate attack by Arab states that could threaten much of the world's oil supply. Jewish Americans lobbied Truman to create a safe haven in the Middle East; the president's former business partner, Edward Jacobson, petitioned Truman in person. When Israel declared statehood on May 14, 1948, Truman recognized it immediately. Meanwhile, in Germany, Stalin tried a risky gamble. On June 18, 1948, Communist forces responded to economic help to West Germany by cutting off land access to West Berlin, isolating the democratic city within Communist East Germany. Truman responded quickly with a massive airlift of supplies to the beleaguered Germans. The Berlin Airlift lasted nearly a year, and the Soviets eventually backed down. In July 1949 Truman further solidified Europe by joining Western nations in a mutual defense pact known as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO. But the move was offset by two shocking developments later that year: The Communist victory in China, and the successful testing of a Soviet atomic bomb. The Russians and the Chinese formed a mutual defense alliance in early 1950. In mid-June of that year, war broke out in Korea. Since the end of World War II, Korea had been divided into two nations, Soviet-backed North Korea and American-backed South Korea. On June 24, 1950, North Korea attacked its southern neighbor in an attempt to unify Korea under communism. Truman
Fearful that the conflict would precipitate atomic holocaust, Truman hoped for a rapid victory. It did not come. The combat-hardened North Koreans overwhelmed the inexperienced U.S. troops, and by the end of July, four thousand Americans were dead. Truman then approved a bold invasion plan prepared by General Douglas MacArthur. The invasion succeeded. North Korea retreated above the 38th parallel, and it seemed the war was won. But at that point, Harry Truman made one of the most costly foreign policy decisions of his presidency. Communist China had promised it would enter the war if UN troops pushed beyond the 38th parallel. But a confident Truman nevertheless allowed MacArthur to move above the 38th parallel and toward China's border. In
MacArthur requested permission to use nuclear weapons and to attack the Chinese mainland. Truman refused, and the Chinese advance continued. The president's popularity nose-dived especially after he fired MacArthur. Americans had grown tired of war. But soon, the tide began to turn. By March 1951 the Americans had pushed the Chinese and the North Koreans back to areas above the 38th parallel. Peace talks began in July. When a weary Harry Truman left office in January 1953, peace had still not been achieved. From the time he entered the White House until the time he left it, Harry Truman was engaged in a war. He fought diplomatically, financially, and militarily. When he left the presidency, the lines of the Cold War were firmly drawn, and the apparatus for fighting that war -- atomic weapons, international spy agencies, and growing defense budgets -- was well established. Harry
The president began an unofficial campaign early in June, during a cross-country train trip to the University of California at Berkeley, where he was scheduled to receive an honorary degree. Along the way, Truman made a series of what came to be known as whistlestops -- quick stopovers in cities and towns along the path of the railroad. At each whistlestop, Truman made a brief public appearance, often speaking to crowds from the back of the train. The whistlestop tour proved an unexpected success. During the trip west, a new Harry Truman emerged, one who spoke casually, yet confidently, one who relaxed in front of a crowd. The president smiled and laughed. He introduced his family to audiences, so people got to know him as a family man. And he peppered the Republican Congress with accusations of laziness, incompetence, and bias toward the rich and influential. People loved the new Truman, yet he returned to Washington weeks later, still an underdog. In
The Democratic party had problems of its own. Henry Wallace, Roosevelt's former vice-president and secretary of commerce, had left the Democrats to run as the Progressive party candidate. His candidacy threatened to draw some traditional Democratic voters -- liberals and African Americans -- away from Truman. Conservative Southerners, angered at Truman's support for civil rights, split from the Democrats after the convention to form the States' Rights Democratic party, with Strom Thurmond as their candidate. The defections, from the right and the left, meant trouble for Truman. The Republicans chose New York governor Thomas E. Dewey as their candidate. Confident, handsome, and a polished public speaker, Dewey had run as the Republican presidential candidate four years before, losing to the revered Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But Harry Truman was no FDR. Dewey seemed capable of losing the election only by shooting himself in the foot. When the official phase of Truman's 1948 campaign began, the president repeated the whistlestop strategy he had honed on his trip to California in the spring. He blasted the Republicans in speech after speech, telling voters that Dewey and the GOP wanted to dismantle Roosevelt's New Deal and make America a nation by the rich and for the rich. "Give 'em hell, Harry" became the battle cry of his supporters. Meanwhile, Dewey focused on looking good, speaking in platitudes, and being inoffensive. And his strategy seemed to be working. Just days before the election, the media still gave him a big edge. Some of his aides had even bought houses in Washington, D.C., anticipating work in a Thomas Dewey White House. On the evening of the election, November 2, Truman stepped out of the spotlight, retiring to a hotel suite in Excelsior Springs, Missouri. He ate dinner, had a drink, and went to bed early. At midnight, an aide awakened Truman to tell him that he was ahead, but still expected to lose. At 4 a.m., the president was awakened again. This time, he found his lead growing, not shrinking as expected. It seemed that the impossible -- a Truman victory -- was about to happen. At
Many
When Truman took office in April 1945, he faced a unique and terrible decision -- whether to use the atomic bomb against Japan. Scientists promised that the yet untried weapon would be more destructive than any the world had ever known. In an attempt, he would later claim, to shorten the war and minimize the loss of American soldiers, Truman approved the use of the bomb. He would spend a lifetime trying to justify his decision. Truman had let the most horrible genie imaginable out of the bottle, and the world would forever live in fear that someone might employ that genie again. The
At first, Truman misjudged Stalin as a personable, malleable party boss, but Stalin's belligerent behavior taught Truman an unforgettable lesson. During the year he took office, Truman adopted a hard-line approach to the communist threat. With public speeches and political and military action, he engaged America in an all-consuming Cold War against the communism. The war would last nearly fifty years. In early 1947, in an address to Congress clearly aimed at Stalin and the Soviets, Truman laid out the foreign policy position that became known as the Truman Doctrine. Truman said, "I believe it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." He then quickly moved to back up his words. Truman
Harry Truman spent millions to prop up democracy in Greece and Turkey. He funded the rebuilding of war-ravaged Europe with his $13 billion Marshall Plan. When the Soviets blockaded West Berlin in an effort to draw that German city behind the iron curtain, Truman organized a massive airlift and kept it going for a year until the Soviets backed down. He joined democratic European nations in NATO, the first international alliance against communism. When Communist China allied with the Soviet Union in early 1950, Truman added the Chinese to his enemies' list. He led a United Nations force, made up of mostly Americans, into a bloody war against North Korea in which US and Chinese troops fought face-to-face. When General Douglas MacArthur advised attacking mainland China with nuclear weapons, Truman refused. The presidents actions probably prevented a nuclear war. Later, the UN force finally saved South Korea from Communist domination. The world that took shape under Truman, starkly divided into hostile, nuclear-armed camp would largely hold its shape for more than four decades. If
Truman made determined efforts to move forward on civil rights. He desegregated the armed services. He was the first president to address the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the first president to ask Congress for comprehensive civil rights legislation. Although Congress and a majority of Americans resoundingly rejected his civil rights platform, Truman nonetheless battered down a significant barricade. African Americans deserved equal rights, and the President of the United States -- a man from the former slave state of Missouri -- publicly and forcefully said so. When Harry Truman retired to Independence in 1953, the world was a much different place than it had been when he took office. It was a politically polarized world, a world in which nuclear holocaust could be months -- or minutes -- away. But Truman had beaten back communist advances in Europe and Asia. He had held America together, however shakily, through tough domestic times. And he had laid out a plan for civil rights reform that would one day revolutionize American democracy. He would be remembered as a plain-speaking farmer from Missouri, but he had dramatically changed the world. |
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