Transcript: Chapter 26

NARRATOR: Sixty-four years old, Truman had redeemed himself and his party ... but in the next four years, he would need all his Missouri optimism to confront the challenges he would meet abroad and the frustrations he would suffer at home.

TRUMAN ARCHIVAL: "Every segment of our population and every individual have a right to expect from our government a fair deal."

NARRATOR: At home, Truman once again evoked the spirit of Franklin Roosevelt, and asked Congress to support what he now called "the fair deal" -- a higher minimum wage, civil rights, aid to education, health insurance for all Americans. Congress refused. One critic called it 'the same old dog with a new name.' Overseas, Truman was facing a new threat from the Soviet Union. In reaction to America's efforts to strengthen West Germany, the Russians had blockaded western controlled Berlin, cutting all rail, highway, and water traffic in and out of the city. Two and a half million Berliners had only enough food to last a month. But Truman would force the Communists to back down. In a daring move, Truman ordered a full-scale airlift to fly food and supplies for more than a year to the beleaguered Berliners. Truman had once again confronted the Soviet Union with a show of strength. But his efforts to stand firm were challenged by two blows that came in swift succession.

WALTER LAFEBER: In late August of 1949, Truman learned from American intelligence that the Soviets had exploded an atomic device, and this shocked Truman. America's monopoly on the atomic bomb had ended. Just weeks later, China, the most populous country in the world, fell to Mao Tse Tung's Communists.

DAVID MCCULLOUGH: In Congress and in the country, there was a feeling that something must be wrong in Washington. Something must be wrong in the government. And out of this fear and this uncertainty arose the voice of Senator Joe McCarthy, who began to rant and rave about Communist conspiracy and high treason in high places.

NARRATOR: As Americans grew increasingly frightened by a world that seemed to be spinning out of control, the pressure on Truman mounted to spend more money on defense. Early in 1950, the National Security Council tried to convince the president to quadruple military spending, but Truman turned their request aside. He believed that the best way to fight Communism was by building a strong America, and to Truman, that began with a balanced budget.

WALTER LAFEBER: There's a story that Harry Truman made his defense budget somewhat like this. He would take the amount of money coming into the government every year, he'd put it on a piece of paper, he'd subtract from that figure whatever was needed for education, running the government, so on. Whatever was left was the defense budget for that year.

NARRATOR: But then, in early summer, everything changed. Harry Truman was about to confront the Communists one more time. And he would need all his stamina and grit to keep from going under.

Saturday, June 24, 1950, was a baking hot summer day in Independence, Missouri. Truman was home spending the weekend with his family in the house where he and Bess had lived with Bess's mother ever since they were married thirty years before. At 9 o'clock, he received a phone call from Secretary of State Dean Acheson.

"Mr. President," Acheson said, "I have very serious news. The North Koreans have invaded South Korea."

Supported by tanks and artillery, seven North Korean infantry divisions -- some ninety thousand men -- had launched a surprise attack. The crisis that would haunt Truman for the rest of his years in office had begun.

Not long after Truman had become president, Korea was divided at the 38th parallel into two hostile parts -- a Soviet supported North and an American backed South. Now the North had attacked the South, with just one goal, to unify Korea under Communist rule.

GEORGE ELSEY: He was convinced from the very beginning that the Soviets were behind this. He had no doubts at all of that. We'd seen it as they'd taken over the satellite countries in Eastern Europe, as they had poked and prodded and pressed elsewhere.

WALTER LAFEBER: His initial response was that this was a Soviet directed attack, that he was being directly challenged by Stalin. Stalin did support the invasion but at North Korea's insistence ... and it was from a safe distance, by sending Soviet supplies and advisers. What the United States got involved with in 1950 was not aggression from the Soviet Union. What we got involved with was an incredibly bloody civil war in Korea...There are as many as 100,000 Koreans killed... before the Korean War of 1950 occurred ... And I think it's fair to say that Truman knew very little about this background.

NARRATOR: As Truman headed back to Washington, he turned to the war that had ended just five years before to help him understand the war he was facing now.

"Communism was acting in Korea," he wrote, "just as Hitler, and the Japanese had acted earlier...

"If the Communists were permitted to force their way into the Republic of Korea, no small nation would have the courage to resist threats and aggression."

As his plane touched down at National Airport, the president appeared grim.

"By God," he would tell his advisers, "I am going to let them have it."

That same evening Truman authorized weapons and supplies to reinforce the South Koreans. The next day, he ordered American planes to strike at the North Korean army. Truman hoped that America's show of strength would force the North Koreans to back down. He did not want to send American soldiers to fight a land war in Asia. But Truman was being pushed closer and closer to the abyss.

On June 27, just three days after launching their attack, the North Korean army overran Seoul, the capital of South Korea. That evening, Truman appealed to the United Nations for help. "We started the United Nations," he told an aide. "It must be made to work." For the first time the world organization devoted to peace authorized an army to wage war.

But Truman knew that American soldiers would carry the burden of the fighting, and the president, unwilling to risk American lives, withheld the order that would send them into action.

WALTER LAFEBER: I think that Truman thought that by getting the United Nations to condemn the attack, that by beefing up South Korean forces, he could probably handle the situation. The Communists would learn their lesson, would back off, and we'd be back to before the war.

DAVID MCCULLOUGH: He was concerned that he might be taking the world into another terrible war. And, of course, this time, it would be an atomic war, because now it was known that both sides had the atomic bomb.

NARRATOR: By June 30, less than a week after the fighting began, the situation seemed hopeless. American supplies and planes had not been enough to stop the relentless advance of the North Korean army. The president was going to have to send American boys.

GENERAL VERNON WALTERS, Lieutenant Colonel, US Army: I heard him say, "I know that, some day, I will have to stand before the throne of God and account for every young life that is about to be lost because of what I am about to do. But in the fulfillment of the oath that I took when I became president, I have no choice." As one of the young men that might be covered by that, I was quite impressed. That's the first time I realized we were not dealing with a bankrupt haberdasher.

NARRATOR: On June 30, the president approved the use of a combat team and two divisions in Korea. What the Chinese or the Russians would do now, he wrote in his diary, he did not know. What he believed was that the president of the United States had to stand firm.

"I'm not going to tremble like a psychopath before the Russians," he told a worried Senator. "I am not going to surrender our rights or the rights of the South Koreans."

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