I | INTRODUCTION |
Harry S.
Truman (1884-1972), 33rd president of the United States (1945-1953).
Truman initiated the foreign policy of containing Communism, a policy that was
the hallmark of the Cold War. He continued the welfare policies established
under his predecessor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Truman helped to
centralize power in the executive branch, a trend begun under Roosevelt.
Truman’s willingness to accept responsibility
for difficult decisions made him one of the most controversial of presidents.
Throughout his administration, Truman failed to rally congressional support for
most of his program of domestic legislation, called the Fair Deal. However, he
did secure sufficient legislative backing to produce an outstanding record in
foreign affairs, especially in meeting what most Americans felt was the
challenge posed by the rising power of the Communist bloc. During Truman’s
administration the United States became a charter member of the United Nations
(UN) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); sponsored important
foreign policy initiatives known as the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan
(officially called the European Recovery Program), and Point Four Program; and
assumed a leading role in the fighting in the Korean War (1950-1953).
Truman’s ability to face situations squarely
was well illustrated on November 1, 1950. Two Puerto Rican nationalists
attempted to assassinate him at Blair House, his temporary residence during
renovations at the White House. Truman’s comment: “A president has to expect
those things.”
II | EARLY LIFE |
Harry S. Truman, the oldest of three children
born to Martha Ellen Young Truman and John Anderson Truman, was born in his
family’s small frame house in Lamar, Missouri, on May 8, 1884. Truman had no
middle name; his parents apparently gave him the middle initial S. to
appease two family relatives whose names started with that letter.
When Truman was six years old, his family
moved to Independence, Missouri, where he attended the Presbyterian Church
Sunday school. There he met five-year-old Elizabeth Virginia (“Bess”) Wallace,
with whom he was later to fall in love. Truman did not begin regular school
until he was eight, and by then he was wearing thick glasses to correct extreme
nearsightedness. His poor eyesight did not interfere with his two interests,
music and reading. He got up each day at 5 am to practice the piano, and until he
was 15, he went to the local music teacher twice a week. He read four or five
histories or biographies a week and acquired an exhaustive knowledge of great
military battles and of the lives of the world’s greatest leaders.
III | EARLY CAREER |
In 1901, when Truman graduated from high
school, his future was uncertain. College had been ruled out by his family’s
financial situation, and appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point
was eliminated by his poor eyesight. He began work as a timekeeper for the Santa
Fe Railroad at $35 per month, and in his spare time he read histories and
encyclopedias. He later moved to Kansas City, where he worked as a mail clerk
for the Kansas City Star, then as a clerk for the National Bank of Commerce, and
finally as a bookkeeper for the Union National Bank. In 1906 he was called home
to help his parents run the large farm of Mrs. Truman’s widowed mother in
Grandview, Missouri.
For the next ten years, Truman was a
successful farmer. He joined Mike Pendergast’s Kansas City Tenth Ward Democratic
Club, the local Democratic Party organization, and on his father’s death in 1914
he succeeded him as road overseer. An argument soon ended the job, but Truman
became the Grandview postmaster. In 1915 he invested in lead mines in Missouri,
lost his money, and then turned to the oil fields of Oklahoma. Two years later,
just before the United States entered World War I, he sold his share in the oil
business and enlisted in the U.S. Army. He trained at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, but
returned to Missouri to help recruit others. He was elected first lieutenant by
the men of Missouri’s Second Field Artillery.
A | World War I |
World War I began in 1914 as a local
European war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, when Archduke Francis
Ferdinand, heir to the thrones of Austria and Hungary, was assassinated by a
Serbian nationalist. Though U.S. President Woodrow Wilson tried to remain
neutral, the United States was drawn into the war in April 1917.
Truman sailed for France on March 30, 1918,
and as a recently promoted captain was given command of Battery D, a rowdy and
unmanageable group known as the Dizzy D. Truman succeeded in taming his unit,
and the Dizzy D distinguished itself in the battles of Saint-Mihiel and Argonne.
In April 1919 Truman, then a major, returned home, and on June 28 he married
Bess Wallace.
The following November, Truman and Eddie
Jacobson opened a men’s clothing store in Kansas City. With the Dizzy D veterans
as customers the store did a booming business, but in 1920, farm prices fell
sharply and the business failed. In the winter of 1922 the store finally closed,
but Truman refused to declare bankruptcy and eventually repaid his debts.
B | Entrance Into Politics |
Truman turned to the Pendergasts for help.
Jim Pendergast, Mike’s son, persuaded his father to give Truman permission to
enter a four-way Democratic primary for an eastern Jackson County judgeship,
which was actually a job to supervise county roads and buildings. Mike refused
to support Truman. In addition, one of the other candidates was supported by the
Ku Klux Klan, a semi-secret, often violent organization that championed white
supremacy. Truman was advised to join the Klan, but when he objected to its
discriminatory policies against blacks, Jews, and Roman Catholics, his entrance
fee was returned. Nonetheless, by campaigning on his war record and Missouri
background, Truman won the primary and the general election. In January 1923 he
was sworn into his first public office. A year later the Trumans’ only child,
Mary Margaret, was born.
B1 | County Judge |
As one of three county judges, Truman
had little authority to repair the bad roads, the crumbling public buildings, or
the depleted county treasury. Nevertheless, he reduced his inherited debt of
more than $1,000,000 by $600,000, and he improved some of the roads. In his
spare time he enrolled in the Kansas City Law School, participated in the local
Masonic Lodge, and maintained his interest in the National Guard, eventually
becoming a colonel.
As his two-year term drew to a close,
Truman stood for renomination in the Democratic primary. By this time, however,
the party was badly split, and the Ku Klux Klan helped bring about his only
election defeat. For the next two years he sold automobile club memberships and
ventured into the banking business.
B2 | Presiding Judge |
Political machines, such as the
Pendergast organization, were common to both parties in the 1920s. They were
based on the spoils system, in which winning politicians gave government jobs to
those loyal party members who had helped them get elected. Using government jobs
as rewards, politicians created efficient (and often almost unstoppable)
vote-getting “machines,” in which party loyalty was often more important than
doing any work. Without local machine support a political career was extremely
difficult. Political machines were especially powerful in Missouri. In 1926 Tom
Pendergast, Mike’s other son, supported Truman for a four-year term as presiding
judge of the county with full authority over county roads, buildings, and taxes.
Although the Pendergast machine was strong, with his characteristic bluntness,
Truman told Pendergast he would fire any man who failed to do an honest job.
Finding the road system a shambles, the courthouse in ruins, and tax money in
the pockets of Pendergast supporters, Truman began wholesale firings. He
appointed an independent road commission, hired reputable workers, secured
out-of-state bank loans at low interest rates, and ended graft in building
contracts. He toured the country to find the best-designed courthouse. He found
it in Shreveport, Louisiana, hired its architect, and floated a successful bond
issue to pay for a similar building in Kansas City. In 1929 Mike Pendergast
died, and his two sons replaced him. Truman’s influence was enhanced, and he was
reelected to a second four-year term as presiding county judge.
By 1934 the Pendergast machine was the
tool of gangsters who promoted gambling, vice rings, bootlegging, police bribes,
and murder. Truman, plodding along on his honest road program and courthouse
project, earned the respect of his constituents, who may have been impressed by
the novelty of an honest official. However, a presiding judge was traditionally
limited to two terms, and Truman appeared to have no hope of a political future
until Tom Pendergast asked Truman to run for the U.S. Senate.
C | United States Senator |
After a long, hard battle, Truman soundly
defeated his Republican opponent. Truman capitalized on the popularity of the
New Deal, Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s innovative domestic
legislation to counteract the effects of the Great Depression. On January 3,
1935, Truman was sworn in as the junior senator from Missouri.
Truman’s arrival in Washington was met
with disdain. His colleagues regarded him as a tool of the Pendergast machine,
which the White House was already investigating. Roosevelt believed that Truman
would probably be implicated. Fortunately, Truman’s common sense and knowledge
of government and history impressed two of the Senate’s most influential men.
One was vice president John Nance Garner, and the other was Arthur H.
Vandenberg, Republican senator from Michigan. With their aid, Truman was named
to two important committees, the Appropriations Committee and the Interstate
Commerce Committee. Working on a subcommittee of the latter with Senator Warren
Austin, he wrote the Truman-Austin bill that created the Civil Aeronautics
Board.
Truman also joined the subcommittee on
railroads, becoming vice-chairman and, later, acting chairman. Steeping himself
in the history of the industry, he conducted hearings until early 1939. Despite
pressures from powerful railroad companies, including the Missouri Pacific
Railroad, he recommended major regulatory changes that were embodied in the
Transportation Act of 1940.
D | Scandal |
Because he was a consistent New Deal
senator whom Roosevelt did not have to coerce and because the Pendergast
investigation was not completed, Truman was ignored by the White House. When the
investigation ended, it disclosed widespread corruption and brutality, but it
failed to reveal a single act of wrongdoing in Truman’s career. In the light of
Roosevelt’s hatred of Pendergast, Truman could have seriously damaged his career
when, learning of Pendergast’s indictment, he told a reporter, “Tom Pendergast
has always been my friend, and I don’t desert a sinking ship.”
D1 | 1940 Election |
To no one’s surprise, the two Missouri
Democrats who brought about Pendergast’s downfall challenged Truman for his
Senate seat in the primary. One was Governor Lloyd Stark, whom Roosevelt
supported, and the other was Maurice Milligan, whose nomination for a second
term as U.S. district attorney Truman had opposed in the Senate. Truman began
his primary fight with no political backing, no money, and two popular reformers
as opponents. He traveled the state, making speeches about his record in short,
simple language. He won the primary, and despite his Pendergast association,
mentioned frequently by his Republican opponent, he won in November. His
reelection was so unexpected that when he returned to the Senate, his colleagues
gave him a standing ovation.
D2 | Second Term |
In 1941 the United States government
was preparing for World War II, a conflict that had begun in Europe in 1939. The
government was building army camps and issuing defense contracts. Even before
his second term began, Truman’s constituents had written him about waste and
confusion in the defense program. Truman toured the camps and defense plants and
discovered appalling conditions. Back in the new Senate he denounced the defense
program, demanded an investigation, and was named the head of the investigating
committee.
D3 | The Truman Committee |
During the next two years the Truman
committee produced detailed reports on the defense programs. Committee members
frequently visited defense installations to substantiate the testimony of
contractors, engineers, and army and government personnel. Truman’s success in
uncovering fraud and waste led the Senate in 1942 to give the committee
$100,000, an increase of $85,000 over the first year. It was estimated that the
Truman committee saved the country $15 billion and spent only $400,000.
The committee also put Truman on the
national stage. With increasing frequency, leading Democrats mentioned Harry S.
Truman as a potential 1944 vice-presidential candidate.
E | Vice President of the United States |
Before the Democratic National Convention
opened in July 1944, it was assumed that Roosevelt would run for a fourth term,
but his health became a matter of great concern to party leaders, whose most
difficult task was to name his running mate. The current vice president was
Henry A. Wallace, a strong proponent of using the federal government to regulate
big businesses, protect the civil rights of minorities, and encourage labor
unions. Wallace’s liberal views offended many of the more conservative leaders
of the Democratic Party, and they encouraged Roosevelt to find someone more
appealing to mainstream voters. Among the leading contenders were Supreme Court
Justice William O. Douglas, and Senators Alben W. Barkley, James F. Byrnes, and
Truman. Truman was nominated on the second ballot. After a whirlwind campaign
and overwhelming victory, Truman took the oath of office as vice president on
January 20, 1945.
Truman then engineered the Senate
confirmation of Roosevelt’s appointment of Henry Wallace as secretary of
commerce and Federal loan administrator, attended the funeral of Tom Pendergast
despite wide criticism, and cast the tie-breaking Senate vote that ensured that
the United States would continue delivering supplies to U.S. allies after the
war was over. However, he saw very little of the president. Soon after the
inauguration, Roosevelt left Washington for the month-long Yalta Conference,
where the Allies discussed military strategy and political problems, including
plans for governing Germany after the war.
When Roosevelt returned in March, he met
with Truman in two short meetings. When Roosevelt left for Warm Springs,
Georgia, on March 30, Roosevelt had still not informed his vice president about
the conduct of the war or the plans for peace. Thirteen days later, Truman was
summoned to the White House, where Eleanor Roosevelt told him, “Harry, the
president is dead.”
IV | PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES |
At 7:09 PM on April 12, 1945, Harry S.
Truman, who had been vice president of the United States for just 82 days, was
sworn in as president by Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone.
A | Wartime President |
Truman’s first month in office was largely
devoted to briefings by Roosevelt’s aides. He asked the founding conference of
the United Nations to meet in San Francisco on April 25, as had been planned
before Roosevelt’s death. When victory in Europe seemed certain, he insisted on
unconditional German surrender, and on May 8, 1945, his 61st birthday, he
proclaimed Victory-In-Europe Day (V-E Day).
Truman convinced the San Francisco
conference delegation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) that the
general assembly of the new world peace organization should have free
discussions and should make recommendations to the security council. On June 26
he addressed the final conference session, and six days later he presented the
United Nations Charter to the Senate for ratification.
From July 17 to August 2, 1945, Truman
attended the Potsdam Conference in Germany, meeting with Soviet Premier Joseph
Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Clement Attlee,
Churchill’s successor as British prime minister. The conference discussed how to
implement the decisions reached at the Yalta Conference. As presiding officer,
Truman proposed the establishment of the council of foreign ministers to aid in
peace negotiations, settlement of reparations claims, and conduct of war crimes
trials. He also gained Stalin’s promise to enter the war against Japan. In this
first meeting with the other Allied leaders, Truman confirmed his earlier
favorable impression of Churchill, while he called the Soviets, in one of his
typically blunt statements, “pigheaded people.”
On July 26, Truman issued the Potsdam
Declaration, which called for Japan’s unconditional surrender and listed peace
terms. He had already been informed of the successful detonation of the first
atomic bomb at Alamogordo, New Mexico, ten days earlier. Military advisers had
told Truman that a potential loss of about 500,000 American soldiers could be
avoided if the bomb were used against Japan. When Japan rejected the ultimatum,
Truman authorized use of the bomb. On August 6, 1945, at 9:15 am Tokyo time, the bomb was dropped on
Hiroshima, virtually destroying the city. According to U.S. estimates about
60,000 to 70,000 people were killed or missing as a result of the bomb and many
more were made homeless. Stalin sent troops into Manchuria and Korea on August
8, and the following day a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. About one-third
of the city was destroyed, and according to U.S. estimates about 40,000 people
were killed or injured. Japan sued for peace on August 14. The official Japanese
surrender took place on September 2, 1945, aboard the U.S.S. Missouri
anchored in Tokyo Bay.
B | Domestic Affairs |
B1 | Reconversion |
With the war ended, Truman turned to the
problem of reconverting the country to peacetime production without causing the
inflation and unemployment that followed World War I. His message to the
Congress of the United States on September 6, 1945, requested a permanent Fair
Employment Practices Commission to aid blacks; wage, price, and rent controls to
slow inflation; extended old-age benefits; public housing; a national health
insurance program; and a higher minimum wage. His program was met with bitter
opposition by congressional leaders who felt he wanted to move too far and too
fast.
Congress’s price control bill was so
weak that on June 19, 1946, Truman vetoed it, saying it gave a choice “between
inflation with a statute and inflation without one.” When he finally signed a
bill the following month, prices had already risen 25 percent, and basic
commodities had risen 35 percent.
B2 | Mounting Opposition |
Demobilization had proceeded smoothly,
but increased prices led to strikes for higher wages, particularly in basic
industries. Truman had always been on the side of labor, but he would not allow
strikes to paralyze the nation. He used executive orders and court injunctions
to end the strikes, offending labor unions in the process.
Truman was the central figure in three
controversial issues concerning the military. First, he insisted on transferring
control and development of nuclear energy from the military to the civilian
Atomic Energy Commission and on placing authority to use the bomb solely with
the president. Second, he persuaded Congress to unify the armed forces under a
civilian secretary of defense. Third, Truman ordered the armed forces of the
United States desegregated after Congress refused to do so. This decision, plus
the military requirements of the Korean War, ended most discrimination in the
U.S. Army and gave black men an opportunity for economic advancement denied them
in many other areas.
Truman had at first retained Roosevelt’s
Cabinet, but he soon felt uncomfortable with it. By September 1946 only
Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal remained. New Deal supporters
particularly objected to the removal of Secretary of Commerce Henry A. Wallace,
although he had publicly criticized Truman’s foreign policy, including its
increasingly hostile attitude toward the USSR.
C | Congressional Election of 1946 |
As the congressional campaigns began, even
Democrats were divorcing themselves from Truman’s programs. By using the
Democratic discontent and the issues of rising inflation, scarcity of meat, and
labor unrest, the Republicans scored a resounding victory, capturing both houses
of Congress.
In his 1947 State of the Union message,
Truman requested a law to strengthen the Department of Labor, establish a
labor-management relations commission, and end jurisdictional and secondary
strikes. Instead, Congress presented him with its Labor-Management Relations Act
of 1947, the Taft-Hartley Act that greatly weakened the position of labor
unions. The act outlawed union-only workplaces; prohibited certain union tactics
like secondary boycotts; forbade unions to contribute to political campaigns;
established loyalty oaths for union leaders; and allowed court orders to halt
strikes that could affect national health or safety. Truman vetoed the bill, but
on June 23, 1947, the bill was passed over his veto.
Instead of writing anti-inflation
legislation, Congress voted a tax-cut bill giving 40 percent of the relief to
those with incomes in excess of $5000. The bill became law over Truman’s veto.
The president once again failed to gather support for his employment, national
health, or social security measures.
D | Foreign Policy |
D1 | Truman Doctrine |
Although the United States and the USSR
had been allies against Germany during the war, this alliance began to dissolve
after the end of the war, when Stalin, seeking Soviet security, began using the
Soviet Army to control much of Eastern Europe. Truman opposed Stalin’s moves.
Mistrust grew as both sides broke wartime agreements. Stalin failed to honor
pledges to hold free elections in Eastern Europe. Truman refused to honor
promises to send reparations from the defeated Germany to help rebuild the
war-devastated USSR. This hostility became known as the Cold War.
In 1947 British Prime Minister Attlee
told Truman that a British financial crisis was forcing the United Kingdom to
end its aid to Greece. At the time the USSR was demanding naval stations on the
Bosporus from Turkey, and Greece was engaged in a civil war with
Communist-dominated rebels. The president proposed what was called the Truman
Doctrine, which had two objectives: to send U.S. aid to anti-Communist forces in
Greece and Turkey, and to create a public consensus so Americans would be
willing to fight the Cold War. Truman told Congress that “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 fulfilled his
request for $250 million for Greece and $150 million for Turkey.
D2 | Marshall Plan |
Truman’s trip to Potsdam and reports
from former President Herbert Hoover (1929-1933), who headed a postwar food
commission, gave him an intimate knowledge of the problems of war-torn Europe.
With General George C. Marshall, who was now secretary of state, Truman drew up
the European Recovery Plan for the economic rehabilitation of free Europe. This
act, also known as the Marshall Plan, was designed to rebuild the European
market, which would benefit U.S. trade, and to strengthen democratic governments
in Western Europe. The United States wanted to counter the influence of the
USSR, which it was beginning to see as its main rival. The U.S. government also
believed that West Germany, the zone occupied by U.S., British, and French
forces, would have to be rebuilt and integrated into a larger Europe.
After careful planning, Marshall
announced in June 1947 that if Europe devised a cooperative, long-term
rebuilding program, the United States would provide funds. When the USSR learned
that the United States insisted on Soviet cooperation with the capitalist
societies of Western Europe and an open accounting of how funds were used, the
USSR established its own plan to integrate Communist states in Eastern Europe.
Under the Marshall Plan, the United States spent more than $13 billion over a
four-year period.
D3 | Berlin Airlift |
The Marshall Plan and the amazing
postwar recovery of West Germany highlighted the Soviet Union’s failure to
stabilize the economy of the zone it occupied, East Germany. To embarrass the
Allies the Soviets closed off all Allied access to the city of Berlin, which was
surrounded by Soviet-controlled East Germany but the western part of which was
under Allied control. Truman recognized that an accessible Berlin was vital for
European confidence in the United States. On June 26, 1948, he ordered a
full-scale airlift of essential products into the city that continued until May
12, 1949, when the blockade was lifted.
D4 | Israel |
Since his early days in the White House,
Truman supported the British Balfour Declaration of 1917, which had promised the
Jews support for a national homeland in Palestine. He sympathized with the
Jewish survivors of Nazi Germany, and in November 1947 he supported the UN plan
to partition Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states. In the face of
sustained pressure from pro-Arab delegations and from those who feared the loss
of Arabian oil, Truman recognized the State of Israel on May 14, 1948.
E | Presidential Election of 1948 |
When Truman decided to run for a full
term, he was faced with a major split in the Democratic Party. In 1948 Truman
had asked for an end to Jim Crow laws, which maintained segregation in the
South. He also proposed laws to punish those responsible for the hanging of
blacks without trials, called lynching; laws to protect the voting rights of
blacks; and a fair employment practices commission to end job discrimination.
All of these angered Southern Democrats. When Northern Democrats inserted these
positions into the 1948 Democratic Party platform, a group of Southerners led by
Governor J. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina left the party and formed the
States’ Rights Democrats, or Dixiecrats. Henry Wallace and his supporters had
also left to form the Progressive Party, and in addition, some influential
Democrats thought victory would be possible only if the popular General Dwight
D. Eisenhower could be drafted. The prospects were dim as Truman and his running
mate, Senator Alben W. Barkley, set out on their campaign.
Truman received the Democratic Party
nomination, and in his acceptance speech, he told the convention he would
reconvene Congress on July 26 to give the Republicans a chance to carry out
their party’s platform pledges. When the special session ended without passing
any important legislation, Truman had his campaign weapon. He embarked on a
cross-country whistle-stop tour, defending his record and blasting the
“do-nothing Republican 80th Congress.” No one knows who first shouted, “Give ‘em
Hell, Harry!” but the phrase became the campaign slogan of 1948.
While thousands publicly and privately
conceded the election to the Republican candidate, New York Governor Thomas E.
Dewey, Truman continued to campaign, making as many as 16 speeches in one day. A
few hours after the polls closed on November 2, the Chicago Tribune
issued an early edition with the headline “Dewey Defeats Truman,” but when the
ballots were counted, Truman beat Dewey by more than 2 million votes.
V | SECOND TERM AS PRESIDENT |
A | Foreign Affairs |
Truman’s inaugural address proposed four
points of action. The first was support of the United Nations, the second was a
continuation of the Marshall Plan, the third was collective defense against
Communist aggression, and the fourth was aid to underdeveloped countries.
A1 | North Atlantic Treaty Organization |
Truman’s third point was developed into
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a regional defense alliance,
created by the North Atlantic Treaty signed on April 4, 1949. NATO’s purpose was
to enhance the stability, well-being, and freedom of its members by means of a
system of collective security. The defense plan was greeted warmly by Western
Europe, which saw Stalin tighten the USSR’s grip on the countries of Eastern
Europe and threaten the rest of Europe. The Senate ratified the treaty, but only
after debating it at length. Truman then placed Eisenhower in command of the
defense organization.
A2 | Korea |
At the end of World War II Korea was
divided, and a Communist regime was established in North Korea and an
anti-Communist one in the South. Considerable civil strife in the South and
growing opposition to South Korea’s president, Syngman Rhee, persuaded the North
Korean leader, Kim Il Sung, that he would be welcomed by many South Koreans as a
liberator intent on reuniting the two Koreas. At the same time, Kim would also
undermine ongoing opposition to his own regime in North Korea.
A war began on June 25, 1950, when the
North Korean army, equipped mainly by the USSR, crossed the border and invaded
South Korea. The United States immediately sent supplies to Korea and quickly
broadened its commitment in the conflict. On June 27 the UN Security Council,
with the Soviet Union voluntarily absent, passed a resolution sponsored by the
United States calling for military sanctions against North Korea. Three days
later, President Truman ordered U.S. troops stationed in Japan to Korea.
American forces, those of South Korea, and, ultimately, combat contingents from
15 other nations were placed under United Nations command. The action was unique
because neither the UN, nor its predecessor, the League of Nations, had ever
used military measures to repel an aggressor. The UN forces were commanded by
the U.S. commander in chief in East Asia, General Douglas MacArthur.
Although the official policy of the
United States and the United Nations was to limit the war to Korea to prevent
the entrance of the USSR, early successes persuaded Truman to move troops into
North Korea. As UN soldiers approached the Chinese border, however, China, after
several warnings to the United States, crossed into North Korea and began
driving UN forces back toward the South. In response, MacArthur publicly
requested an extension of the war into Communist China itself, but now Truman
abandoned the idea of reunifying Korea by force and returned to the original
goal of stopping the invasion of South Korea. When MacArthur then publicly
attacked this policy, Truman relieved MacArthur of his command in April 1951 and
replaced him with Lieutenant General Matthew Ridgway. Until July 1953 UN forces
mostly engaged in a series of probing actions known as the active defense.
A3 | Point Four |
Truman’s Point Four Program—aid to
underdeveloped countries—stemmed from his belief “that we should make available
to peace-loving peoples the benefits of our store of technical knowledge in
order to help them realize their aspirations for a better life.” Congress
debated Point Four for nearly 18 months before approving it on June 5, 1950. By
offering technical and scientific aid to those who requested it, Point Four
helped reduce famine, disease, and the economic hardships of 35 African and
Asian nations by 1953.
B | Domestic Affairs |
B1 | Fair Deal |
Although he had a Democratic Congress,
Truman’s Fair Deal domestic program again met stiff opposition. Congress
approved his public housing bill, expanded social security coverage, increased
minimum wages and passed stronger farm price support bills, as well as
flood-control, rural electrification, and public power measures. However, the
legislators rejected his request to have the Taft-Hartley Act repealed, his
plans for agricultural stabilization, for construction of the St. Lawrence
Seaway, and for the creation of public hydroelectric companies in the Missouri
Valley and Columbia Valley. They also rejected his civil rights proposals.
However, he strengthened the civil rights section of the Justice Department by
executive orders, and he appointed blacks to a few high offices.
B2 | Cold War at Home |
There was also a Cold War at home. Some
of Truman’s opponents considered MacArthur’s removal to be evidence that the
administration was lenient on Communism. This was despite the fact that Truman
had begun investigating applicants for government jobs in 1946; that he had led
the fight to aid Greece and Turkey when the British could no longer do so; and
that Truman had used that issue to create new security and intelligence agencies
such as the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council.
Some Republicans nevertheless believed
that Truman had not done enough. In 1948 American writer and editor Whittaker
Chambers testified before Representative Richard Nixon and the House Committee
on Un-American Activities that he had been a Communist in the 1920s and 1930s
and a courier in transmitting secret information to Soviet agents. He charged
that State Department member Alger Hiss was also a Communist, and that he had
turned classified documents over to Chambers to be sent to the Soviet Union.
Hiss denied the charges but Chambers produced microfilm copies of documents that
were later identified as classified papers belonging to the Departments of
State, Navy, and War, some apparently annotated by Hiss in his own handwriting.
The Department of Justice conducted its own investigation, and Hiss was indicted
for perjury, or lying under oath. The jury failed to reach a verdict, but Hiss
was convicted after a second trial in January 1950 (see Hiss Case).
In China the Nationalist government of
Chiang Kai-shek, which had been supported by the United States, was unable to
withstand the advance of Communist forces under Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung). By
the end of 1949 government troops had been overwhelmingly defeated, and Chiang
led his forces into exile on Taiwan. The triumphant Mao formed the People’s
Republic of China. Truman critics charged that the administration had failed to
support Chiang Kai-shek against the Communists. Many people were also alarmed in
September 1949, when Truman announced that the USSR had developed an atomic
bomb.
In February 1950 Wisconsin Senator Joseph
R. McCarthy charged in a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, that the State
Department knowingly employed 205 Communists. He later reduced the number to 57,
and after an investigation all of the charges were found to be false. McCarthy
continued to accuse other officials of Communist sympathies. Without any
evidence, he was eventually discredited, and the word McCarthyism came to
refer to accusations of subversive activities without any evidence.
These incidents and others convinced
Congress to pass the Internal Security Act of 1950, called the McCarran Act,
over Truman’s veto. The act forced the registration of all Communist
organizations, allowed the government to intern Communists during any national
emergencies, and prohibited Communists from doing any defense work. The act also
prohibited the entrance into the United States of anyone who was a member of a
“totalitarian” organization.
B3 | Seizure of the Steel Mills |
Despite the administration’s efforts to
prevent a strike that would close the country’s steel mills, a strike date was
set for early April 9, 1952. Just hours before the scheduled strike, before a
nationwide radio audience, Truman directed Secretary of Commerce Charles Sawyer
to seize the mills to ensure their production to support the war efforts.
However, on June 2, 1952, the Supreme Court of the United States in a 6 to 3
decision on Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer declared the seizure
unconstitutional. The Court held that Truman could have used the Taft-Hartley
Act to delay the strike, but Truman disliked the law too much to use it.
In March 1952, Truman declared he would
not seek reelection. He supported the candidacy of Adlai E. Stevenson, governor
of Illinois, who was defeated by General Eisenhower.
VI | LAST YEARS |
Truman retired to his home in Independence,
Missouri, at the age of 67. He remained active in politics but found that he was
no longer a dominant force in his party’s affairs. Although his personal choices
were not nominated at the Democratic national conventions in 1956 and 1960, he
loyally supported the nominees and campaigned throughout the country for
Democrats seeking state and federal offices.
One of Truman’s proudest moments came in
July 1957, when he dedicated the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, where
he maintained his office. His two-volume Memoirs, Year of Decisions
(1955) and Years of Trial and Hope, 1946-1952 (1956), recorded the events
of his presidency. He explained the major events of his administration before a
national television audience in the series Decision—The Conflicts of Harry S.
Truman in 1964. In 1960 his account of his retirement years was published in
Mr. Citizen. He also toured the nation’s colleges and universities giving
lectures on American government. Some of his addresses were published in
Freedom and Equality (1960), Truman Speaks (1960), and Free
World and Free Trade (1963).
Truman maintained his habit of taking brisk
morning walks, and spoke with reporters who could keep pace with him. In 1965 he
was the recipient of the Freedom Award. Truman died on December 26, 1972, and is
buried on the grounds of the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri.
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