Harry S. Truman

33rd President of the United States

During his few weeks as Vice President, **Harry S. Truman** scarcely saw President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and received no briefing on the development of the atomic bomb or the unfolding difficulties with Soviet Russia. Suddenly these and a host of other wartime problems became Truman’s to solve when, on April 12, 1945, he became America’s 33rd President.

*The Presidency of Harry Truman spanned the period in United States history that encompasses the end of World War 2 and the events of the Cold War Era - the age of the Space Race and the Cold War Arms Race. President Harry Truman represented the Democratic political party which influenced the domestic and foreign policies of his presidency which includes the Truman Doctrine.*

## Biography

During his few weeks as Vice President, Harry S. Truman scarcely saw President Roosevelt, and received no briefing on the development of the atomic bomb or the unfolding difficulties with Soviet Russia. Suddenly these and a host of other wartime problems became Truman’s to solve when, on April 12, 1945, he became President. He told reporters, “I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me.”

Truman was born in Lamar, Missouri, in 1884. He grew up in Independence, and for 12 years prospered as a Missouri farmer.

He went to France during World War I as a captain in the Field Artillery. Returning, he married Elizabeth Virginia Wallace, and opened a haberdashery in Kansas City.

Active in the Democratic Party, Truman was elected a judge of the Jackson County Court (an administrative position) in 1922. He became a Senator in 1934. During World War II he headed the Senate war investigating committee, checking into waste and corruption and saving perhaps as much as 15 billion dollars.

As President, Truman made some of the most crucial decisions in history. Soon after V-E Day, the war against Japan had reached its final stage. An urgent plea to Japan to surrender was rejected. Truman, after consultations with his advisers, ordered atomic bombs dropped on cities devoted to war work. Two were Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japanese surrender quickly followed.

In June 1945 Truman witnessed the signing of the charter of the United Nations, hopefully established to preserve peace.

Thus far, he had followed his predecessor’s policies, but he soon developed his own. He presented to Congress a 21-point program, proposing the expansion of Social Security, a full-employment program, a permanent Fair Employment Practices Act, and public housing and slum clearance. The program, Truman wrote, “symbolizes for me my assumption of the office of President in my own right.” It became known as the Fair Deal.

Dangers and crises marked the foreign scene as Truman campaigned successfully in 1948. In foreign affairs he was already providing his most effective leadership.

In 1947 as the Soviet Union pressured Turkey and, through guerrillas, threatened to take over Greece, he asked Congress to aid the two countries, enunciating the program that bears his name–the Truman Doctrine. The Marshall Plan, named for his Secretary of State, stimulated spectacular economic recovery in war-torn western Europe.

When the Russians blockaded the western sectors of Berlin in 1948, Truman created a massive airlift to supply Berliners until the Russians backed down. Meanwhile, he was negotiating a military alliance to protect Western nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, established in 1949.

In June 1950, when the Communist government of North Korea attacked South Korea, Truman conferred promptly with his military advisers. There was, he wrote, “complete, almost unspoken acceptance on the part of everyone that whatever had to be done to meet this aggression had to be done. There was no suggestion from anyone that either the United Nations or the United States could back away from it.”

A long, discouraging struggle ensued as U.N. forces held a line above the old boundary of South Korea. Truman kept the war a limited one, rather than risk a major conflict with China and perhaps Russia.

Deciding not to run again, he retired to Independence; at age 88, he died December 26, 1972, after a stubborn fight for life.

## Personality

The character traits of President Harry Truman can be described as open, frank, honest, independent, forceful, modest, confident and decisive. It has been speculated that the Myers-Briggs personality type for Harry Truman is an ISTJ (Introversion, Sensing, Thinking, Judgment). A reserved, well-regulated and serious character and a strong traditionalist. Harry Truman Personality type: logical, organized, sensible, thorough and dependable.

## Nicknames

* "Give 'em Hell, Harry"
* "Haberdasher Harry"

Meaning: The nickname of President Harry Truman provides an insight into how the man was viewed by the American public during his presidency. The meaning of the nickname "Give 'em Hell, Harry" refers to his famous quote in which he said after his statement "I never gave anybody hell...I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell."

## Inaugurations

### First Inauguration

The **first inauguration of Harry S. Truman** as the 33rd president of the United States was held at 7:00 pm on Thursday, April 12, 1945, at the Cabinet Room inside the White House in Washington, D.C., following the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt earlier that day. The inauguration—the seventh non-scheduled, extraordinary inauguration to ever take place—marked the commencement of the first term (a partial term of 3 years, 283 days) of Harry S. Truman as president. Truman, then serving as vice president of the United States, had just adjourned a session of the United States Senate and was on his way to share a drink with Sam Rayburn, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, when he was summoned to the White House.

Upon his arrival, he was met by Eleanor Roosevelt, who informed him that President Roosevelt was dead. Shocked, Truman asked her, "Is there anything I can do for you?", to which she replied: "Is there anything *we* can do for *you*? For you are the one in trouble now." Chief Justice of the United States Harlan F. Stone administered the presidential oath of office; Stone began the oath "Do you, Harry Shipp Truman..." in the erroneous belief that Shipp was the President's mother's maiden name and, by extension, his middle name, to which Truman replied, "I Harry S. Truman..." before the oath was continued. At the end of the ceremony, which lasted about a minute, Truman kissed the Bible.

Among witnesses of this ceremony were Truman's wife Bess Truman, daughter Margaret Truman, Eleanor Roosevelt, Speaker Rayburn, and members of the cabinet. This was the second presidential inauguration in 1945, after the regularly scheduled inauguration for Roosevelt's fourth term on January 20. This event has the distinction of being the first extraordinary inauguration to be photographed: Theodore Roosevelt had ejected the photographers from his 1901 inauguration after they started fighting with each other, and Calvin Coolidge's 1923 inauguration was during night time with no press or electric lighting.

### Second Inauguration

The **second inauguration of Harry S. Truman** as president of the United States was held on Thursday, January 20, 1949, at the East Portico of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. This was the 41st inauguration and marked the commencement of the second and only full term of Harry S. Truman as president as well as the only term of Alben W. Barkley as vice president. Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson administered the presidential oath of office while Justice Stanley Forman Reed administered the vice-presidential oath of office.

It was the first televised U.S. presidential inauguration and the first with an air parade. Truman also restarted the tradition of an official inaugural ball, which had disappeared since the inauguration of William Howard Taft in 1909.

## Presidents born during his Presidency

* Bill Clinton
* George W. Bush
* Donald Trump

## Famous Films

* Cinderella (1950)
* Out of the Past
* Alice in Wonderland (1951)
* The Red Shoes
* Peter Pan (1953)
* Song of the South
* Strangers on a Train
* Superman and the Mole Man

## Accomplishments and major events

*President Harry S. Truman authorized Atomic Bombs to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 6 and 9, 1945) and WW2 ended September 2, 1945 but the Cold War began and the Iron Curtain fell. The other main events that occurred during the time that Harry Truman was president included the creation of the United Nations in 1945, the Nuremburg Trials, the Truman Doctrine (1947), the Taft-Hartley Act, the NATO Treaty (1949), McCarthyism and the outbreak of the Korean War (1950-1953).*

**The Atomic Bomb**

Summary: The Atomic Bomb was developed during World War 2 by the scientists working in the Manhattan Project led by Robert Oppenheimer. The authorization for the atomic bomb to be dropped on Japan was given by President Harry Truman.

**Hiroshima and Nagasaki**

Summary: The United States, with the authorization of President Harry Truman, dropped an atomic bomb on the people of Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945 and one on Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945. The nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought World War 2 to an end.

**The Enola Gay**

Summary: The Enola Gay was the name given by the pilot of the Boeing B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bomb "Little Boy" on Hiroshima

**VJ Day (Victory over Japan Day)**

Summary: VJ Day (August 14, 1945) was the day on which Japan surrendered, effectively ending WW2. World War 2 officially ended on September 2, 1945 with the unconditional surrender of all the Axis powers.

**The Cold War (1945 - 1991)**

Summary: No sooner had World War 2 ended, The Cold War began. The Cold War was a 'war of words'  involving the Cold War Space Race and the Cold War Arms Race involving the nuclear build-up between the USA and the West and the Communist countries dominated by the USSR and China in the East. Nine US Presidents were in office during the dangerous period in history known as the Cold War from  1945 - 1991 in which the US adopted the policy of Containment to restrict the spread of communism abroad.

**The Potsdam Conference (1945)**

Summary: The Potsdam Conference (17 July 17, 1945 - August 2, 1945) was the last of the WW2 wartime summit meetings, led by Harry Truman, Clement Attlee and Joseph Stalin, to clarify the terms for the for the end of World War 2.

**The United Nations (1945)**

Summary: The United Nations (UN) was founded on 24 October 1945 to work for world peace and security.

**The Iron Curtain (1945)**

Summary: The term "Iron Curtain" was used to describe the boundary that separated the free democratic countries of the West with the communist dominated countries of the East from 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991.

**Atomic Tests at Bikini Atoll (1946)**

Summary: Operation Crossroads was the name of a program at Bikini Atoll, in the Marshall Islands of the central Pacific, in which two nuclear weapon tests were conducted by the United States  and the first public demonstration of America's atomic arsenal after the Atomic bombs was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War 2. The "Able" test detonated an atomic bomb on July 1, 1946 and the "Baker" test was detonated on July 25, 1946

**The Truman Doctrine (1947)**

Summary: The Truman Doctrine was based on a speech made to Congress on March 27, 1947 by President Harry Truman in which he pledged to support other countries in their struggle against communism.

**The Marshall Plan (1947)**

Summary: The Marshall Plan proposed by US Secretary of State George C. Marshall in June 1947 and endorsed by Harry Truman. It was a US-financed relief package to European nations following the devastation and economic ruin caused by WW2.

**The Roswell UFO Incident (1947)**

Summary: The Roswell UFO Incident began when a large number of alleged sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO's) occurred in the area of Roswell, New Mexico between May 17,1947 and July 12, 1947.

**The Loyalty Review Program (1947)**

Summary: The Loyalty Review Program was established by Harry Truman on March 21, 1947, fueled by the second Red Scare that began after World War 2. The Loyalty Review Program screened federal employees for loyalty and root out any possibility of communist infiltration or influence in the U.S. government during the Cold War.

**1947 Taft Hartley Act**

Summary: The Taft Hartley Act was passed by Harry Truman on June 23, 1947 during the wave of anti-communist hysteria to curb the power of the Unions by outlawing the 'closed shop' system and opening up jobs to non-union members. President Harry Truman vetoed the act, but the law was passed over his veto.

**The HUAC - House of Un-American Activities Committee**

Summary: The House of Un-American Activities Committee, known as HUAC, came into prominence in 1947 during the second Red Scare and the "Communist Witch Hunts". One of the most famous cases referred to HUAC was the investigation of Alger Hiss

**McCarthyism (1950 - 1956)**

Summary: The term McCarthyism was applied to the notorious Joe McCarthy Communist Witch hunts (1950 - 1956), that took place during the presidency of Harry Truman, instigated investigations and the persecution of alleged communists in America with accusations of treason or subversion being made without proper regard for evidence.

**The Berlin Blockade (1948)**

Summary: Joseph Stalin mounted the Soviet Berlin Blockade in East Germany (1 April, 1948 – 12 May, 1949) by closing the entry points to the Western zones of Berlin in an attempt to starve the Western allies out of the capital and abandon the city of Berlin. The United States, led by Harry Truman, and the British responded to the blockade with the Berlin Airlift.

**The Berlin Airlift (1948)**

Summary: The United States, led by Harry Truman, and the British responded to the Berlin blockade with the Berlin Airlift (1 April 1948 – 12 May 1949), a rescue mission to keep West Berlin alive despite the Soviet blockade of the city.

**Mao Zedong (1949)**

Summary: After World War 2, the Communists led by Mao Zedong mounted the Chinese Revolution ousting Chiang Kai-shek, and taking control of China in 1949.

**NATO (1949)**

Summary: NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was formed in Washington, D.C. on April 4, 1949 as a mutual Defense pact aimed at containing Soviet expansion.

**The Korean War (1950 - 1953)**

Summary: The Korean War (June 25, 1950 - July 27, 1953) began when North Korea invaded South Korea. The Korean War was fought between the Soviet-backed communist North Korea and China against the United States and the UN-backed South Korea.

**CONELRAD (1951)**

Summary: The Control of Electromagnetic Radiation CONELRAD was an emergency broadcasting system, introduced in 1951 by the US government for use in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack on the United States in addition to the existing siren warning systems.

## Post Presidency

### Financial situation

Before being elected as Jackson County judge, Truman had earned little money, and was in debt from the failure of his haberdashery. His election as senator in 1934 carried with it a salary of $10,000 (about $210,000 in 2022), high for the time, but the need to maintain two homes, with one in expensive Washington, Margaret Truman's college expenses, and contributions to the support of needy relatives, left the Trumans little extra money. He likely had around $7,500 in cash and government bonds when nominated for vice president.

His finances were transformed by his accession to the presidency, which carried with it a salary of $75,000 ($1.24 million in 2022), which was increased to $100,000 in 1949 (about $1.25 million in 2022). This was more than any Major League Baseball star except Joe DiMaggio, who also earned $100,000 in his final two seasons (1950 and 1951). Beginning in 1949, the president was also granted a $50,000 expense allowance ($589,000 in 2022), which was initially tax-free, and did not have to be accounted for. Although the allowance became taxable later in his presidency, Truman never reported it on his tax return, and converted some of the funds to cash he kept in the White House safe and later in a safe deposit box in Kansas City.

Upon leaving the presidency, Truman returned to Independence, Missouri, to live at the Wallace home he and Bess had shared for years with her mother. In a biography that contributed greatly to the myth that Truman was near penury after departing the White House, David McCullough stated that the Trumans had little alternative than to return to Independence, for his only income was his army pension of $112.56 per month (equivalent to $1,231 in 2022), and he had only been able to save a modest amount from his salary as president. In February 1953, Truman signed a book deal for his memoirs, and in a draft will dated December of that year listed land worth $250,000, savings bonds of the same amount, and cash of $150,000. He wrote, "Bonds, land, and cash all come from savings of presidential salary and free expense account. It should keep you and Margaret comfortably."

The writing of the memoirs was a struggle for Truman, and he went through a dozen collaborators during the project, not all of whom served him well, but he remained heavily involved in the result. For the memoirs, Truman received a payment of $670,000 (equivalent to $7,319,230 in 2022). The memoirs were a commercial and critical success. They were published in two volumes: *Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Year of Decisions* (1955) and *Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Years of Trial and Hope* (1956).

Former members of Congress and the federal courts received a federal retirement package; President Truman himself ensured that former servants of the executive branch of government received similar support. In 1953, however, there was no such benefit package for former presidents, and Congressional pensions were not approved until 1946, after Truman had left the Senate, so he received no pension for his Senate service. Truman, behind the scenes, lobbied for a pension, writing to congressional leaders that he had been near penury but for the sale of family farmlands, and in February 1958, in the first televised interview of a former US president that aired on CBS, Truman claimed that "If I hadn't inherited some property that finally paid things through, I'd be on relief right now." That year, Congress passed the Former Presidents Act, offering a $25,000 (equivalent to $253,576 in 2022) yearly pension to each former president, and it is likely that Truman's claim to be in difficult financial straits played a role in the law's enactment. The only other living former president at the time, Herbert Hoover, also took the pension, even though he did not need the money; reportedly, he did so to avoid embarrassing Truman.

Truman's net worth improved further in 1958 when he and his siblings sold most of the family farm to a Kansas City real estate developer. When he was serving as a county judge, Truman borrowed $31,000 (equivalent to $339,072 in 2022) by mortgaging the farm to the county school fund, which was legal at the time. When Republicans controlled the court in 1940, they foreclosed in an effort to embarrass Truman politically, and his mother and sister Mary Jane had to vacate the home. In 1945, Truman organized a syndicate of supporters who purchased the farm with the understanding that they would sell it back to the Trumans. Harry and Vivian Truman purchased 87 acres in 1945, and Truman purchased another portion in 1946. In January 1959, Truman calculated his net worth as $1,046,788.86 ($10.71 million in 2022), including a share in the Los Angeles Rams football team. Nevertheless, the Trumans always lived modestly in Independence, and when Bess Truman died in 1982, almost a decade after her husband, the house was found to be in poor condition due to deferred maintenance.

Bess Truman's personal papers were made public in 2009, including financial records and tax returns. The myth that Truman had been in straitened circumstances after his presidency was slow to dissipate; Paul Campos wrote in 2021, "The current, 20,000-plus-word Wikipedia biography of Truman goes so far as to assert that, because his earlier business ventures had failed, Truman left the White House with 'no personal savings.' Every aspect of this narrative is false."

### Truman Library and academic positions

Truman's predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had organized his own presidential library, but legislation to enable future presidents to do something similar had not been enacted. Truman worked to garner private donations to build a presidential library, which he donated to the federal government to maintain and operate—a practice adopted by his successors.

He testified before Congress to have money appropriated to have presidential papers copied and organized. He was proud of the bill's passage in 1957. Max Skidmore, in his book on the life of former presidents, wrote that Truman was a well-read man, especially in history. Skidmore added that the presidential papers legislation and the founding of his library "was the culmination of his interest in history. Together they constitute an enormous contribution to the United States—one of the greatest of any former president."

Truman taught occasional courses at universities, including Yale, where he was a Chubb Fellow visiting lecturer in 1958. In 1962, Truman was a visiting lecturer at Canisius College.

### Politics

Truman supported Adlai Stevenson's second bid for the White House in 1956, although he had initially favored Democratic governor W. Averell Harriman of New York. He continued to campaign for Democratic senatorial candidates for many years.

In 1960 Truman gave a public statement announcing he would not attend the Democratic Convention that year, citing concerns about the way that the supporters of John F. Kennedy had gained control of the nominating process, and called on Kennedy to forgo the nomination for that year. Kennedy responded with a press conference where he bluntly rebuffed Truman's advice.

Despite his supportive stance on civil rights during his presidency, Truman expressed criticism of the civil rights movement during the 1960s. In 1960, he stated that he believed the sit-in movement to be part of a Soviet plot. Truman's statement garnered a response from Martin Luther King Jr., who wrote a letter to the president stating that he was "baffled" by the accusation, and demanded a public apology. Truman would later criticize King following the Selma march in 1965, believing the protest to be "silly" and claiming that it "[couldn't] accomplish a darn thing except to attract attention." In 1963, Truman voiced his opposition to interracial marriage, believing that daughters of white people would never love someone of an opposite color.

Upon turning 80 in 1964, Truman was feted in Washington, and addressed the Senate, availing himself of a new rule that allowed former presidents to be granted privilege of the floor.

### Medicare

After a fall in his home in late 1964, Truman's physical condition declined. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Medicare bill at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum and gave the first two Medicare cards to Truman and his wife Bess to honor the former president's fight for government health care while in office.

## Death

On December 5, 1972, Truman was admitted to Kansas City's Research Hospital and Medical Center with pneumonia. He developed multiple organ failure, fell into a coma, and died at 7:50 a.m. on December 26, at the age of 88.

Bess Truman opted for a simple private service at the library rather than a state funeral in Washington. A week after the funeral, foreign dignitaries and Washington officials attended a memorial service at Washington National Cathedral.

## Facts and trivia

* Harry S. Truman is the only 20th century American President not to have a college degree.
* He was named for his maternal uncle, Harrison "Harry" Young. His middle initial, "S", is not an abbreviation of one particular name, but rather honors both his grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young, a semi-common practice in the American South.
* The Truman family lived in Lamar, Missouri until Harry was ten months old, when they moved to a farm near Harrisonville, Missouri. They next moved to Belton and in 1887 to his grandparents' 600-acre (240 ha) farm in Grandview. When Truman was six, his parents moved to Independence, Missouri, so he could attend the Presbyterian Church Sunday School. He did not attend a conventional school until he was eight.
* While living in Independence, he served as a Shabbos goy for Jewish neighbors, doing tasks for them on Shabbath that their religion prevented them from doing on that day.
* Truman was interested in music, reading, and history, all encouraged by his mother, with whom he was very close. As president, he solicited political as well as personal advice from her. He rose at five every morning to practice the piano, which he studied more than twice a week until he was fifteen, becoming quite a skilled player.
* Truman worked as a page at the 1900 Democratic National Convention in Kansas City; his father had many friends active in the Democratic Party who helped young Harry to gain his first political position.
* After graduating from Independence High School in 1901, Truman took classes at Spalding's Commercial College, a Kansas City business school. He studied bookkeeping, shorthand, and typing but stopped after a year.
* Despite Truman's passion to attend West Point Military Academy, he was refused admittance due to pour eyesight. He did manage to serve in World War I, where he fought in France as a captain in the Field Artillery.
* Returning home from the war, he opened a haberdashery in Kansas City, Missouri, and was elected as a judge of Jackson County in 1922.
* Truman and his wife, Bess, had known each other since they were children, and attended the school together in Independence, Missouri. Bess and Truman married on June 28, 1919, at Trinity Episcopal Church in Independence. Harry courted Bess before he went off to fight during World War I; he proposed in 1911, but she turned him down. Truman later said that he intended to propose again, but when he did he wanted to be earning more money than a farmer did. Their only child, Margaret, was born in 1924.
* During Truman's term in office, World War II ended, nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan, the United Nations and NATO wee formed, and the Cold War and Korean War took place.
* In Truman's bid for reelection to a full term against Thomas A. Dewey in the 1948 U.S. Presidential Election, newspaper outlets had predicted Truman's defeat, so much, that they began printing newspapers stating that Truman had been defeated by Dewey.
* He was eligible for reelection in 1952, but with weak polls he decided not to run. Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower attacked Truman's record and won easily.
* Truman went into a retirement marked by the founding of his presidential library and the publication of his memoirs. It was long thought that his retirement years were financially difficult for Truman, resulting in Congress voting a pension for former presidents, but ample evidence eventually emerged that he amassed considerable wealth, some of it while still president.
* When he left office, Truman's administration was heavily criticized, though critical reassessment of his presidency has improved his reputation among historians and the general population.