Harry S. Truman (1884 - 1972) was an American politician who served as the 33rd president of the United States from 1945 to 1953, succeeding to the office on the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He authorised the use of atomic weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, oversaw the end of the Second World War, and established the policy of containment that shaped American foreign relations for the next four decades. [1] His administration launched the Marshall Plan and the Berlin airlift, helped found NATO, desegregated the armed forces, and committed the United States to the Korean War. [2]
Early life
Truman was born on 8 May 1884 in Lamar, Missouri, and grew up on a farm near Independence. His middle initial stood for no particular name, a compromise between the names of two grandfathers. Poor eyesight and family finances kept him from university; he worked as a bank clerk and then for more than a decade on the family farm. [1]
He served in France during the First World War as an artillery captain. On his return he opened a haberdashery in Kansas City, which failed in the postwar recession and left him with debts he spent years repaying. [2]
Senate and vice presidency
With the backing of the Kansas City Democratic organisation led by Tom Pendergast, Truman was elected a county judge, an administrative rather than judicial post, and in 1934 won election to the United States Senate. [1]
His national reputation was made by the special committee he chaired from 1941 investigating waste and profiteering in the defence programme, which was credited with saving substantial public funds. This record made him an acceptable compromise choice as Roosevelt's running mate in 1944. He had been vice president for 82 days, and knew nothing of the atomic bomb project, when Roosevelt died on 12 April 1945. [3]
End of the Second World War
Truman presided over the German surrender in May 1945 and represented the United States at the Potsdam Conference. In August 1945 he authorised the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which killed well over a hundred thousand people, most of them civilians, and were followed within days by the Japanese surrender. [2] The decision has remained among the most debated in modern history.
The Cold War and domestic policy
Faced with Soviet expansion in Europe, Truman announced in 1947 the doctrine that bears his name, committing American support to states resisting communist pressure, beginning with Greece and Turkey. The Marshall Plan financed the reconstruction of Western Europe, the Berlin airlift of 1948 and 1949 supplied the blockaded city by air, and the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949 created a standing Western alliance. [1]
Domestically he proposed the Fair Deal programme of social legislation, most of which Congress rejected, but he issued executive orders in 1948 desegregating the armed forces and the federal civil service. He won an unexpected victory over Thomas E. Dewey in the 1948 election. [3]
When North Korean forces invaded the South in June 1950, Truman committed American troops under United Nations command. The war became a stalemate, and his dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur in 1951 for public insubordination asserted civilian control of the military but was deeply unpopular. Domestic anti-communist investigations and loyalty programmes also marked these years. [2]
Later life and legacy
Truman declined to seek another term and left office in January 1953 with low approval ratings, returning to Independence, where he wrote his memoirs and established his presidential library. He died in Kansas City on 26 December 1972 at the age of 88. [1]
Later assessments have been more favourable than contemporary opinion, crediting his administration with constructing the institutions of the postwar Western order, while the atomic bombings and the escalation of the Cold War remain subjects of sustained historical argument. [4]
