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Harry S. Truman's tenure as the 33rd president of the United States began on April 12, 1945, upon the death of
Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
, and ended on January 20, 1953. He had been
vice president A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on ...
for only days. A Democrat from
Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas to ...
, he ran for and won a full four–year term in the 1948 election. Although exempted from the newly ratified Twenty-second Amendment, Truman did not run again in the 1952 election because of his low popularity. He was succeeded by Republican
Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
in 1953. Truman's presidency was a turning point in foreign affairs, as the United States engaged in an internationalist foreign policy and renounced
isolationism Isolationism is a political philosophy advocating a national foreign policy that opposes involvement in the political affairs, and especially the wars, of other countries. Thus, isolationism fundamentally advocates neutrality and opposes entang ...
. During his first year in office, Truman approved the
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the on ...
and subsequently accepted the surrender of Japan, which marked the end of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
. In the
aftermath of World War II The aftermath of World War II was the beginning of a new era started in late 1945 (when World War II ended) for all countries involved, defined by the decline of all colonial empires and simultaneous rise of two superpowers; the Soviet Union (U ...
, he helped establish the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizi ...
and other post-war institutions. Relations with the Soviet Union declined after 1945, and by 1947 the two countries had entered a long period of tension and war preparation known as the Cold War, during which a hot fighting war with Moscow was avoided. Truman broke with Roosevelt's Vice President
Henry A. Wallace Henry Agard Wallace (October 7, 1888 – November 18, 1965) was an American politician, journalist, farmer, and businessman who served as the 33rd vice president of the United States, the 11th U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, and the 10th U.S. S ...
, who called for friendship with Moscow. Wallace was the third-party presidential candidate of the far left in 1948. In 1947, Truman promulgated the
Truman Doctrine The Truman Doctrine is an American foreign policy that pledged American "support for democracies against authoritarian threats." The doctrine originated with the primary goal of containing Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. It w ...
, which called for the United States to prevent the spread of Communism through foreign aid to Greece and Turkey. In 1948 the Republican-controlled Congress approved the
Marshall Plan The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative enacted in 1948 to provide foreign aid to Western Europe. The United States transferred over $13 billion (equivalent of about $ in ) in economic ...
, a massive financial aid package designed to rebuild Western Europe. In 1949, the Truman administration designed and presided over the creation of NATO, a military alliance of Western countries designed to prevent the further westward expansion of Soviet power. Truman proposed an ambitious domestic liberal agenda known as the Fair Deal. However nearly all his initiatives were blocked by the
conservative coalition The conservative coalition, founded in 1937, was an unofficial alliance of members of the United States Congress which brought together the conservative wings of the Republican and Democratic parties to oppose President Franklin Delano Roosev ...
of Republicans and conservative Southern Democrats. Republicans took control of Congress in the 1946 elections after the
strike wave of 1945–46 Strike may refer to: People * Strike (surname) Physical confrontation or removal * Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm *Airstrike, military strike by air forces on either a suspecte ...
. Truman suffered another major defeat by the conservative coalition when the 80th Congress passed the Taft–Hartley Act into law over his veto. It reversed some of the pro-labor union legislation that was central to the New Deal. When
Robert A. Taft Robert Alphonso Taft Sr. (September 8, 1889 – July 31, 1953) was an American politician, lawyer, and scion of the Republican Party's Taft family. Taft represented Ohio in the United States Senate, briefly served as Senate Majority ...
, the conservative Republican senator, unexpectedly supported the
Housing Act of 1949 The American Housing Act of 1949 () was a landmark, sweeping expansion of the federal role in mortgage insurance and issuance and the construction of public housing. It was part of President Harry Truman's program of domestic legislation, the Fa ...
, Truman achieved one new liberal program. Truman took a strong stance on civil rights, ordering equal rights in the military to the disgust of the white politicians in the Deep South. They supported a "
Dixiecrat The States' Rights Democratic Party (whose members are often called the Dixiecrats) was a short-lived segregationist political party in the United States, active primarily in the South. It arose due to a Southern regional split in opposition ...
" third-party candidate,
Strom Thurmond James Strom Thurmond Sr. (December 5, 1902June 26, 2003) was an American politician who represented South Carolina in the United States Senate from 1954 to 2003. Prior to his 48 years as a senator, he served as the 103rd governor of South Caro ...
, in 1948. Truman later pushed for the integration of the military in the 1950s. During his presidency, fears of Soviet espionage led to a
Red Scare A Red Scare is the promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism, anarchism or other leftist ideologies by a society or state. The term is most often used to refer to two periods in the history of the United States which a ...
; Truman denounced those who made unfounded accusations of Soviet sympathies, but also purged left-wing federal employees who refused to disavow Communism. When Communist North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, Truman sent U.S. troops to prevent the fall of South Korea. After initial successes, however, the war settled into a stalemate that lasted throughout the final years of Truman's presidency. Truman left office as one of the most unpopular presidents of the twentieth century, mainly due to the Korean War and his then controversial decision to dismiss General
Douglas MacArthur Douglas MacArthur (26 January 18805 April 1964) was an American military leader who served as General of the Army for the United States, as well as a field marshal to the Philippine Army. He had served with distinction in World War I, was ...
, resulting in a huge loss of support. In the 1952 election Eisenhower successfully campaigned against what he denounced as Truman's failures: "Korea, Communism and Corruption". Nonetheless, Truman retained a strong reputation among scholars, and his public reputation eventually recovered in the 1960s. In polls of historians and political scientists, Truman is generally ranked as one of the ten greatest presidents.


Accession

While serving as a senator from
Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas to ...
, Truman rose to national prominence as the leader of the Truman Committee, which investigated wasteful and inefficient practices in wartime production during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
. As the war continued, President
Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
sought re-election in the 1944 presidential election. Roosevelt personally favored either incumbent Vice President
Henry A. Wallace Henry Agard Wallace (October 7, 1888 – November 18, 1965) was an American politician, journalist, farmer, and businessman who served as the 33rd vice president of the United States, the 11th U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, and the 10th U.S. S ...
or
James F. Byrnes James Francis Byrnes ( ; May 2, 1882 – April 9, 1972) was an American judge and politician from South Carolina. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in U.S. Congress and on the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as in the executive branch, mo ...
as his running mate in 1944. However, Wallace was unpopular among conservatives in the
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: * Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa * Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea * Gabonese Democratic Party * ...
. Byrnes, an ex-Catholic, was opposed by many liberals and Catholics. At the behest of party leaders, Roosevelt agreed to run with Truman, who was acceptable to all factions of the party, and Truman was nominated for vice president at the
1944 Democratic National Convention The 1944 Democratic National Convention was held at the Chicago Stadium in Chicago, Illinois from July 19 to July 21, 1944. The convention resulted in the nomination of President Franklin D. Roosevelt for an unprecedented fourth term. Senator H ...
. Democrats retained control of Congress and the presidency in the 1944 elections, and Truman took office as vice president in January 1945. He had no major role in the administration and was not informed of key developments, such as the atomic bomb. On April 12, 1945, Truman was urgently summoned to the White House, where he was met by
Eleanor Roosevelt Anna Eleanor Roosevelt () (October 11, 1884November 7, 1962) was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four t ...
, who informed him that the President was dead. Shocked, Truman asked Mrs. Roosevelt, "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." The day after assuming office Truman spoke to reporters: "Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now. I don't know if you fellas ever had a load of hay fall on you, but when they told me what happened yesterday, I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me." Bipartisan favorable opinion gave the new president a honeymoon.


Administration

Truman delegated a great deal of authority to his cabinet officials, only insisting that he give the final formal approval to all decisions. After getting rid of the Roosevelt holdovers, the cabinet members were mostly old confidants. The White House was badly understaffed with no more than a dozen aides; they could barely keep up with the heavy work flow of a greatly expanded executive department. Truman acted as his own chief of staff, as well as his own liaison with Congress—a body he already knew very well. Less important matters he delegated to his Special Counsels, Samuel Rosenman in 1945–46,
Clark Clifford Clark McAdams Clifford (December 25, 1906October 10, 1998) was an American lawyer who served as an important political adviser to Democratic presidents Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Jimmy Carter. His official gove ...
in 1946 to 1950 and Charles S. Murphy in 1950 to 1953. He was not well prepared to deal with the press, and never achieved the jovial familiarity of FDR. Filled with latent anger about all the setbacks in his career, he bitterly mistrusted the journalists, seeing them as enemies laying in wait for his next careless miscue. Truman was very hard worker, often to the point of exhaustion, which left him testy, easily annoyed, and on the verge of appearing unpresidential or petty. In terms of major issues, he discussed them in depth with cabinet and other advisors, such as the atom bomb, the Truman Plan, the Korean war, or the dismissal of General MacArthur. He mastered the details of the federal budget as well as anyone. Truman's myopia made it hard to read a typescript, and he was poor at prepared addresses. However, his visible anger made him an effective stump speaker, denouncing his enemies as his supporters hollered back at him, “Give Em Hell, Harry!” At first Truman asked all the members of Roosevelt's cabinet to remain in place for the time being, but by the end of 1946 only one Roosevelt appointee, Secretary of the Navy
James Forrestal James Vincent Forrestal (February 15, 1892 – May 22, 1949) was the last Cabinet-level United States Secretary of the Navy and the first United States Secretary of Defense. Forrestal came from a very strict middle-class Irish Catholic f ...
, remained.
Fred M. Vinson Frederick "Fred" Moore Vinson (January 22, 1890 – September 8, 1953) was an American attorney and politician who served as the 13th chief justice of the United States from 1946 until his death in 1953. Vinson was one of the few Americans to ...
succeeded Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. in July 1945. Truman appointed Vinson to the Supreme Court in 1946 and John Wesley Snyder was named as the Treasury Secretary. Truman quickly replaced Secretary of State Edward Stettinius Jr. with James F. Byrnes, an old friend from Senate days. However Byrnes soon lost Truman's trust with his conciliatory policy towards Moscow in late 1945, and he was replaced by former General
George Marshall George Catlett Marshall Jr. (December 31, 1880 – October 16, 1959) was an American army officer and statesman. He rose through the United States Army to become Chief of Staff of the US Army under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry ...
in January 1947. Undersecretary of State
Dean Acheson Dean Gooderham Acheson (pronounced ; April 11, 1893October 12, 1971) was an American statesman and lawyer. As the 51st U.S. Secretary of State, he set the foreign policy of the Harry S. Truman administration from 1949 to 1953. He was also Truma ...
was the main force in foreign affairs along with a group of advisers known as the " Wise Men," Marshall emerged as the face of Truman's foreign policy. In 1947, Forrestal became the first Secretary of Defense, overseeing all branches of the United States Armed Forces. A mental breakdown sent him into retirement in 1949, and he was replaced successively by
Louis A. Johnson Louis Arthur Johnson (January 10, 1891April 24, 1966) was an American politician and attorney who served as the second United States Secretary of Defense from 1949 to 1950. He was the Assistant Secretary of War from 1937 to 1940 and the 15th ...
, Marshall, and finally Robert A. Lovett. Acheson was Secretary of State 1949–1953. Truman often appointed longtime personal friends, sometimes to positions well beyond their competence. Such friends included Vinson, Snyder, and military aide Harry H. Vaughan. Outside of the cabinet,
Clark Clifford Clark McAdams Clifford (December 25, 1906October 10, 1998) was an American lawyer who served as an important political adviser to Democratic presidents Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Jimmy Carter. His official gove ...
and
John R. Steelman John Roy Steelman (June 23, 1900 – July 14, 1999) was the first person to serve as "The Assistant to the President of the United States", in the administration of President Harry S. Truman from 1946 to 1953. The office later became the White ...
were staffers who handled lesser matters while Truman acted as his own chief off staff on big issues.


Vice presidency

The office of vice president remained vacant during Truman's first ( partial) term, as the Constitution then had no provision for filling a vacancy prior to the 1967 ratification of the Twenty-fifth Amendment. Until the passage of the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, the Secretary of State was next in the presidential line of succession. After the passage of the act in July 1947, the Speaker of the House became the next-in-line. During different points of Truman's first term, Secretary of State Stettinius, Secretary of State Byrnes, Secretary of State Marshall, Speaker Joseph Martin, and Speaker
Sam Rayburn Samuel Taliaferro Rayburn (January 6, 1882 – November 16, 1961) was an American politician who served as the 43rd speaker of the United States House of Representatives. He was a three-time House speaker, former House majority leader, two-time ...
would have succeeded to the presidency if Truman left office.
Alben Barkley Alben William Barkley (; November 24, 1877 – April 30, 1956) was an American lawyer and politician from Kentucky who served in both houses of Congress and as the 35th vice president of the United States from 1949 to 1953 under Presiden ...
served as Truman's running mate in the 1948 election, and became vice president during Truman's second term. Truman included him in Cabinet deliberations.


Judicial appointments

Truman made four appointments to the United States Supreme Court. After the retirement of
Owen Roberts Owen Josephus Roberts (May 2, 1875 – May 17, 1955) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1930 to 1945. He also led two Roberts Commissions, the first of which investigated the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the sec ...
in 1945, Truman appointed Republican Senator Harold Hitz Burton of Ohio to the Supreme Court. Roberts was the lone remaining justice on the Supreme Court who had not been appointed or elevated to the position of chief justice by Roosevelt, and Truman believed it was important to nominate a Republican to succeed Roberts. Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone died in 1946, and Truman appointed Secretary of the Treasury Fred M. Vinson as Stone's successor. Two vacancies arose in 1949 due to deaths of
Frank Murphy William Francis Murphy (April 13, 1890July 19, 1949) was an American politician, lawyer and jurist from Michigan. He was a Democrat who was named to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1940 after a political career that included serving ...
and
Wiley Blount Rutledge Wiley Blount Rutledge Jr. (July 20, 1894 – September 10, 1949) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1943 to 1949. The ninth and final justice appointed by President Frankli ...
. Truman appointed Attorney General Tom C. Clark to succeed Murphy and federal appellate judge
Sherman Minton Sherman "Shay" Minton (October 20, 1890 – April 9, 1965) was an American politician and jurist who served as a U.S. senator from Indiana and later became an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States; he was a member of th ...
to succeed Rutledge. Vinson served for just seven years before his death in 1953, while Minton resigned from the Supreme Court in 1956. Burton served until 1958, often joining the conservative bloc led by
Felix Frankfurter Felix Frankfurter (November 15, 1882 – February 22, 1965) was an Austrian-American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1939 until 1962, during which period he was a noted advocate of judic ...
. Clark served until 1967, emerging as an important swing vote on the Vinson Court and the
Warren Court The Warren Court was the period in the history of the Supreme Court of the United States during which Earl Warren served as Chief Justice. Warren replaced the deceased Fred M. Vinson as Chief Justice in 1953, and Warren remained in office unt ...
. In addition to his Supreme Court appointments, Truman also appointed 27 judges to the courts of appeals and 101 judges to federal district courts.


End of World War II

By April 1945, the Allied Powers, led by the United States,
Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European islands by area, largest European island and the List of is ...
, and the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
, were close to defeating
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...
, but Japan remained a formidable adversary in the Pacific War. As vice president, Truman had been uninformed about major initiatives relating to the war, including the top-secret Manhattan Project, which was about to test the world's first atomic bomb.Barton J. Bernstein, "Roosevelt, Truman, and the atomic bomb, 1941–1945: a reinterpretation." ''Political Science Quarterly'' 90.1 (1975): 23–69. Although Truman was told briefly on the afternoon of April 12 that the Allies had a new, highly destructive weapon, it was not until April 25 that Secretary of War Henry Stimson told him the details of the atomic bomb, which was almost ready. Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945, ending the war in Europe. Truman's attention turned to the Pacific, where he hoped to end the war as quickly, and with as little expense in lives or government funds, as possible. With the end of the war drawing near, Truman flew to Berlin for the Potsdam Conference, to meet with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and British leader
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from 1 ...
regarding the post-war order. Several major decisions were made at the Potsdam Conference: Germany would be divided into four occupation zones (among the three powers and
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
), Germany's border was to be shifted west to the
Oder–Neisse line The Oder–Neisse line (german: Oder-Neiße-Grenze, pl, granica na Odrze i Nysie Łużyckiej) is the basis of most of the international border between Germany and Poland from 1990. It runs mainly along the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers ...
, a Soviet-backed
group A group is a number of persons or things that are located, gathered, or classed together. Groups of people * Cultural group, a group whose members share the same cultural identity * Ethnic group, a group whose members share the same ethnic id ...
was recognized as the legitimate government of Poland, and Vietnam was to be partitioned at the 16th parallel. The Soviet Union also agreed to launch an invasion of Japanese-held Manchuria. While at the Potsdam Conference, Truman was informed that the
Trinity test Trinity was the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon. It was conducted by the United States Army at 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project. The test was conducted in the Jornada del Muerto desert ...
of the first atomic bomb on July 16 had been successful. He hinted to Stalin that the U.S. was about to use a new kind of weapon against the Japanese. Though this was the first time the Soviets had been officially given information about the atomic bomb, Stalin was already aware of the bomb project, having learned about it through espionage long before Truman did. In August 1945, the Japanese government ignored surrender demands as specified in the
Potsdam Declaration The Potsdam Declaration, or the Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender, was a statement that called for the surrender of all Japanese armed forces during World War II. On July 26, 1945, United States President Harry S. Truman, ...
. With the support of most of his aides, Truman approved the schedule of the military's plans to drop atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of
Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui ...
and
Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...
. Hiroshima was bombed on August 6, and Nagasaki three days later, leaving approximately 135,000 dead; another 130,000 would die from radiation sickness and other bomb-related illnesses in the following five years. After the Soviet Union invaded Manchuria, Japan agreed to surrender on August 10 on the sole condition that Emperor Hirohito would not be forced to abdicate; after some internal debate, the Truman administration accepted these terms of surrender. The decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki provoked long-running debates. Supporters of the bombings argue that, given the tenacious Japanese defense of the outlying islands, the bombings saved hundreds of thousands of lives that would have been lost invading mainland Japan. After leaving office, Truman told a journalist that the atomic bombing "was done to save 125,000 youngsters on the American side and 125,000 on the Japanese side from getting killed and that is what it did. It probably also saved a half million youngsters on both sides from being maimed for life." Truman was also motivated by a desire to end the war before the Soviet Union could invade Japanese-held territories and set up Communist governments. Critics, such as Allied commander and Truman's successor Dwight D. Eisenhower, have argued that the use of nuclear weapons was unnecessary, given that conventional tactics such as firebombing and blockade might induce Japan's surrender without the need for such weapons.


Foreign affairs


Postwar international order


United Nations

In his last years in office Roosevelt had promoted several major initiatives to reshape the postwar politics and economy, and avoid the mistakes of 1919. Chief among those organizations was the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizi ...
, an intergovernmental organization similar to the League of Nations that was designed to help ensure international cooperation. When Truman took office, delegates were about to meet at the
United Nations Conference on International Organization The United Nations Conference on International Organization (UNCIO), commonly known as the San Francisco Conference, was a convention of delegates from 50 Allied nations that took place from 25 April 1945 to 26 June 1945 in San Francisco, Cal ...
in San Francisco. As a Wilsonian internationalist, Truman strongly supported the creation of the United Nations, and he signed the United Nations Charter at the San Francisco Conference. Truman did not repeat
Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
's partisan attempt to ratify the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. Instead he cooperated closely with Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg and other Republican leaders to ensure ratification. Cooperation with Vandenberg, a leading figure on the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee The United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations is a standing committee of the U.S. Senate charged with leading foreign-policy legislation and debate in the Senate. It is generally responsible for overseeing and funding foreign aid pro ...
, proved crucial for Truman's foreign policy, especially after Republicans gained control of Congress in the 1946 elections. Construction of the
United Nations headquarters zh, 联合国总部大楼french: Siège des Nations uniesrussian: Штаб-квартира Организации Объединённых Наций es, Sede de las Naciones Unidas , image = Midtown Manhattan Skyline 004.jpg , im ...
in New York City was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and completed in 1952.


Trade and low tariffs

In 1934, Congress had passed the Reciprocal Tariff Act, giving the president an unprecedented amount of authority in setting
tariff A tariff is a tax imposed by the government of a country or by a supranational union on imports or exports of goods. Besides being a source of revenue for the government, import duties can also be a form of regulation of foreign trade and ...
rates. The act allowed for the creation of reciprocal agreements in which the U.S. and other countries mutually agreed to lower tariff rates. Despite significant opposition from those who favored higher tariffs, Truman was able to win legislative extension of the reciprocity program, and his administration reached numerous bilateral agreements that lowered trade barriers. The Truman administration also sought to further lower global tariff rates by engaging in multilateral trade negotiations, and the State Department proposed the establishment of the International Trade Organization (ITO). The ITO was designed to have broad powers to regulate trade among member countries, and its charter was approved by the United Nations in 1948. However, the ITO's broad powers engendered opposition in Congress, and Truman declined to send the charter to the Senate for ratification. In the course of creating the ITO, the U.S. and 22 other countries signed the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is a legal agreement between many countries, whose overall purpose was to promote international trade by reducing or eliminating trade barriers such as tariffs or quotas. According to its p ...
(GATT), a set of principles governing trade policy. Under the terms of the agreement, each country agreed to reduce overall tariff rates and to treat each co-signatory as a " most favoured nation," meaning that no non-signatory country could benefit from more advantageous tariff rates. Due to a combination of the Reciprocal Tariff Act, the GATT, and inflation, U.S. tariff rates fell dramatically between the passage of the
Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act The Tariff Act of 1930 (codified at ), commonly known as the Smoot–Hawley Tariff or Hawley–Smoot Tariff, was a law that implemented protectionist trade policies in the United States. Sponsored by Senator Reed Smoot and Representative W ...
in 1930 and the end of the Truman administration in 1953.


European refugees

World War II left millions of refugees displaced in Europe, especially former prisoners and forced laborers in Germany. Truman took a leadership role in meeting the challenge. He backed the new International Refugee Organization (IRO), a temporary international organization that helped resettle refugees. The United States also funded temporary camps and admitted large numbers of refugees as permanent residents. Truman obtained ample funding from Congress for the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, which allowed many of the displaced people of World War II to immigrate into the United States. Of the approximately one million people resettled by the IRO, more than 400,000 settled in the United States. The most contentious issue facing the IRO was the resettlement of European Jews, many of whom, with the support of Truman, were allowed to immigrate to British-controlled
Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 i ...
. The administration also helped create a new category of refugee, the "escapee," at the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. The American Escapee Program began in 1952 to help the flight and relocation of political refugees from communism in Eastern Europe. The motivation for the refugee and escapee programs was twofold: humanitarianism, and use as a political weapon against inhumane communism. Truman also set up a Presidential Displaced Person Commission, which people such as Harry N. Rosenfield and Walter Bierlinger served on.


Atomic energy and nuclear weapons

In March 1946, at an optimistic moment for postwar cooperation, the administration released the Acheson-Lilienthal Report, which proposed that all nations voluntarily abstain from constructing nuclear weapons. As part of the proposal, the U.S. would dismantle its nuclear program once all other countries agreed not to develop or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons. Fearing that Congress would reject the proposal, Truman turned to the well-connected
Bernard Baruch Bernard Mannes Baruch (August 19, 1870 – June 20, 1965) was an American financier and statesman. After amassing a fortune on the New York Stock Exchange, he impressed President Woodrow Wilson by managing the nation's economic mobilization in ...
to represent the U.S. position to the United Nations. The
Baruch Plan The Baruch Plan was a proposal by the United States government, written largely by Bernard Baruch but based on the Acheson–Lilienthal Report, to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (UNAEC) during its first meeting in June 1946. The Unite ...
, largely based on the Acheson-Lilienthal Report, was not adopted due to opposition from Congress and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union would develop its own nuclear arsenal, testing a nuclear weapon for the first time in August 1949. The United States Atomic Energy Commission, directed by
David E. Lilienthal David Eli Lilienthal (July 8, 1899 – January 15, 1981) was an American attorney and public administrator, best known for his Presidential Appointment to head Tennessee Valley Authority and later the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). He had ...
until 1950, was in charge of designing and building nuclear weapons under a policy of full civilian control. The U.S. had only 9 atomic bombs in 1946, but the stockpile grew to 650 by 1951. Lilienthal wanted to give high priority to peaceful uses for nuclear technology, especially
nuclear power plant A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a generator that produces ...
s, but coal was cheap and the power industry was largely uninterested in building
nuclear power plant A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a generator that produces ...
s during the Truman administration. Construction of the first nuclear plant would not begin until 1954. The Soviet Union's successful test of an atomic bomb in 1949 triggered an intense debate over whether the United States should proceed with development of the much more powerful
hydrogen bomb A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a low ...
. There was opposition to the idea from many in the scientific community and from some government officials, but Truman believed that the Soviet Union would likely develop the weapon itself and was unwilling to allow the Soviets to have such an advantage. Thus in early 1950, Truman made the decision to go forward with the H-bomb.Paul Y. Hammond, ''NSC-68: Prologue to Rearmament'', pp. 290–292, in Warner R. Schilling, Paul Y. Hammond, and Glenn H. Snyder, ''Strategy, Politics, and Defense Budgets'' (Columbia University Press, 1962). The first test of thermonuclear weaponry was conducted by the United States in 1952; the Soviet Union would perform its own thermonuclear test in August 1953.


Beginning of the Cold War, 1945–1949


Escalating tensions, 1945–1946

The Second World War dramatically upended the international system, as formerly-powerful nations like Germany, France, Japan, and even the USSR and Britain had been devastated. At the end of the war, only the United States and the Soviet Union had the ability to exercise influence, and a bipolar international power structure replaced the multipolar structure of the Interwar period. On taking office, Truman privately viewed the Soviet Union as a "police government pure and simple," but he was initially reluctant to take a hard-line towards it, as he hoped to work with Stalin the aftermath of Second World War. Truman's suspicions deepened as the Soviets consolidated their control in Eastern Europe throughout 1945, and the February 1946 announcement of the Soviet five-year plan further strained relations as it called for the continuing build-up of the Soviet military. At the December 1945 Moscow Conference, Secretary of State Byrnes agreed to recognize the pro-Soviet governments in the
Balkans The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the whol ...
, while the Soviet leadership accepted U.S. leadership in the
occupation of Japan Japan was occupied and administered by the victorious Allies of World War II from the 1945 surrender of the Empire of Japan at the end of the war until the Treaty of San Francisco took effect in 1952. The occupation, led by the United States ...
. U.S. concessions at the conference angered other members of the Truman administration, including Truman himself. By the beginning of 1946, it had become clear to Truman that Britain and the United States would have little influence in Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe. Henry Wallace, Eleanor Roosevelt, and many other prominent New Dealers continued to hope for cooperative relations with the Soviet Union. Some liberals, like
Reinhold Niebuhr Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr (June 21, 1892 – June 1, 1971) was an American Reformed theologian, ethicist, commentator on politics and public affairs, and professor at Union Theological Seminary for more than 30 years. Niebuhr was one of Ameri ...
, distrusted the Soviet Union but believed that the United States should not try to counter Soviet influence in Eastern Europe, which the Soviets saw as their "strategic security belt." Partly because of this sentiment, Truman was reluctant to fully break with the Soviet Union in early 1946, but he took an increasingly hard line towards the Soviet Union throughout the year. He privately approved of Winston Churchill's March 1946 "
Iron Curtain The Iron Curtain was the political boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its ...
" speech, which urged the United States to take the lead of an anti-Soviet alliance, though he did not publicly endorse it. Throughout 1946, tensions arose between the United States and the Soviet Union in places like Iran, which the Soviets had partly occupied during World War II. Pressure from the U.S. and the United Nations finally forced the withdrawal of Soviet soldiers. Turkey also emerged as a point of contention, as the Soviet Union demanded joint control over the
Dardanelles The Dardanelles (; tr, Çanakkale Boğazı, lit=Strait of Çanakkale, el, Δαρδανέλλια, translit=Dardanéllia), also known as the Strait of Gallipoli from the Gallipoli peninsula or from Classical Antiquity as the Hellespont (; ...
and the
Bosphorus The Bosporus Strait (; grc, Βόσπορος ; tr, İstanbul Boğazı 'Istanbul strait', colloquially ''Boğaz'') or Bosphorus Strait is a natural strait and an internationally significant waterway located in Istanbul in northwestern ...
, key straits that controlled movement between the
Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, ...
and the Mediterranean Sea. The U.S. forcefully opposed this proposed alteration to the 1936
Montreux Convention The (Montreux) Convention regarding the Regime of the Straits, often known simply as the Montreux Convention, is an international agreement governing the Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits in Turkey. Signed on 20 July 1936 at the Montreux Palac ...
, which had granted Turkey sole control over the straits, and Truman dispatched a fleet to the Eastern Mediterranean to show his administration's commitment to the region. Moscow and Washington also argued over Germany, which had been divided into four occupation zones. In the September 1946 Stuttgart speech, Secretary of State Byrnes announced that the United States would no longer seek reparations from Germany and would support the establishment of a democratic state. The United States, France, and Britain agreed to combine their occupation zones, eventually forming West Germany. In East Asia, Truman denied the Soviet request to reunify Korea, and refused to allow the Soviets (or any other country) a role in the post-war occupation of Japan. By September 1946, Truman was convinced that the Soviet Union sought world domination and that cooperation was futile. He adopted a policy of
containment Containment was a geopolitical strategic foreign policy pursued by the United States during the Cold War to prevent the spread of communism after the end of World War II. The name was loosely related to the term '' cordon sanitaire'', which ...
, based on a 1946 cable by diplomat George F. Kennan. Containment, a policy of preventing the further expansion of Soviet influence, represented a middle-ground position between friendly detente (as represented by Wallace), and aggressive
rollback In political science, rollback is the strategy of forcing a change in the major policies of a state, usually by replacing its ruling regime. It contrasts with containment, which means preventing the expansion of that state; and with détente, ...
to regain territory already lost to Communism, as would be adopted in 1981 by
Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 196 ...
. Kennan's doctrine was based on the notion that the Soviet Union was led by an uncompromising totalitarian regime, and that the Soviets were primarily responsible for escalating tensions. Wallace, who had been appointed Secretary of Commerce after the 1944 election, resigned from the cabinet in September 1946 due to Truman's hardening stance towards the Soviet Union.


Truman Doctrine

In the first major step in implementing containment, Truman extended money to
Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wit ...
and Turkey to prevent the spread of Soviet-aligned governments. Prior to 1947, the U.S. had largely ignored Greece, which had an anti-communist government, because it was under British influence. Since 1944, the British had assisted the Greek government against a left-wing insurgency, but in early 1947 the British informed the United States that they could no longer afford to intervene in Greece. At the urging of Acheson, who warned that the fall of Greece could lead to the expansion of Soviet influence throughout Europe, Truman requested that Congress grant an unprecedented $400 million aid package to Greece and Turkey. In a March 1947 speech before a joint session of Congress, Truman articulated the
Truman Doctrine The Truman Doctrine is an American foreign policy that pledged American "support for democracies against authoritarian threats." The doctrine originated with the primary goal of containing Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. It w ...
, which called for the United States to support "free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." Overcoming those who opposed U.S. involvement in Greek affairs, as well those who feared that the aid would weaken post-war cooperation, Truman won bipartisan approval of the aid package. The congressional vote represented a permanent break with the non-interventionism that had characterized U.S. foreign policy prior to World War II. The United States supported the government against the communists in the Greek Civil War, but did not send any military force. The insurgency was defeated in 1949. Stalin and Yugoslavian leader Josip Broz Tito both provided aid to the insurgents, but a dispute over the aid led to the start of a split in the Communist bloc. American military and economic aid to Turkey also proved effective, and Turkey avoided a civil war. The Truman administration also provided aid to the Italian government in advance of the 1948 general election. The aid package, combined with a covert CIA operation, anti-Communist mobilization by the
Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
, and pressure from prominent Italian-Americans, helped to ensure a Communist defeat in the election. The initiatives of the Truman Doctrine solidified the post-war division between the United States and the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union responded by tightening its control over Eastern Europe. Countries aligned with the Soviet Union became known as the
Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
, while the U.S. and its allies became known as the Western Bloc.


Military reorganization and budgets

Learning from wartime organizational problems, the Truman administration reorganized the military and intelligence establishment to provide for more centralized control and reduce rivalries. The
National Security Act of 1947 The National Security Act of 1947 ( Pub.L.br>80-253 61 Stat.br>495 enacted July 26, 1947) was a law enacting major restructuring of the United States government's military and intelligence agencies following World War II. The majority of the ...
combined and reorganized all military forces by merging the Department of War and the Department of the Navy into the
National Military Establishment The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secur ...
(which was later renamed as the
Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to: Current departments of defence * Department of Defence (Australia) * Department of National Defence (Canada) * Department of Defence (Ireland) * Department of National Defense (Philippin ...
). The law also created the U.S. Air Force, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the
National Security Council A national security council (NSC) is usually an executive branch governmental body responsible for coordinating policy on national security issues and advising chief executives on matters related to national security. An NSC is often headed by a ...
(NSC). The CIA and the NSC were designed to be non-military, advisory bodies that would increase U.S. preparation against foreign threats without assuming the domestic functions of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...
. The National Security Act institutionalized the
Joint Chiefs of Staff The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) is the body of the most senior uniformed leaders within the United States Department of Defense, that advises the president of the United States, the secretary of defense, the Homeland Security Council and ...
, which had been established on a temporary basis during World War II. The Joint Chiefs of Staff took charge of all military action, and the Secretary of Defense became the chief presidential adviser on military matter. In 1952, Truman secretly consolidated and empowered the cryptologic elements of the United States by creating the National Security Agency (NSA). Truman and Marshall also sought to require one year of military service for all young men, but this proposal failed as it never won more than modest support among members of Congress. Truman had hoped that the National Security Act would minimize interservice rivalries, but each branch retained considerable autonomy and battles over the military budgets and other issues continued. In 1949, Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson announced that he would cancel a so-called "
supercarrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a ...
," which many in the navy saw as an important part of the service's future. The cancellation sparked a crisis known as the "
Revolt of the Admirals The "Revolt of the Admirals" was a policy and funding dispute within the United States government during the Cold War in 1949, involving a number of retired and active-duty United States Navy admirals. These included serving officers Admiral Lo ...
", when a number of retired and active-duty admirals publicly disagreed with the Truman administration's emphasis on less expensive strategic atomic bombs delivered by the air force. During congressional hearings, public opinion shifted strongly against the navy, which ultimately kept control of marine aviation but lost control over strategic bombing. Military budgets following the hearings prioritized the development of air force heavy bomber designs, and the United States accumulated a combat ready force of over 1,000 long-range strategic bombers capable of supporting nuclear mission scenarios. Following the end of World War II, Truman gave a low priority to defense budgets—he was interested in curtailing military expenditures and had priorities he wanted to address with domestic spending. From the beginning, he assumed that the American monopoly on the atomic bomb was adequate protection against any and all external threats. Military spending plunged from 39 percent of GNP in 1945 to only 5 percent in 1948, but defense expenditures overall were still eight times higher in constant dollars than they had been before the war.Warner R. Schilling, ''The Politics of National Defense: Fiscal 1950'', pp. 29–30, in Warner R. Schilling, Paul Y. Hammond, and Glenn H. Snyder, ''Strategy, Politics, and Defense Budgets'' (Columbia University Press, 1962). The number of military personnel fell from just over 3 million in 1946 to approximately 1.6 million in 1947, although again the number of military personnel was still nearly five times larger than that of U.S. military in 1939. These jumps were considerably larger than had taken place before and after the Spanish–American War or before and after
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fight ...
, indicating that something fundamental had changed regarding American defense posture. Paired with the aforementioned decision to go ahead with the H-bomb, Truman ordered a review of U.S. military policies as they related to foreign policy planning. The National Security Council drafted
NSC 68 United States Objectives and Programs for National Security, better known as NSC68, was a 66-page top secret National Security Council (NSC) policy paper drafted by the Department of State and Department of Defense and presented to President Harry ...
, which called for a major expansion of the U.S. defense budget, increased aid to U.S. allies, and a more aggressive posture in the Cold War. Despite increasing Cold War tensions, Truman dismissed the document, as he was unwilling to commit to higher defense spending. The Korean War convinced Truman of the necessity for higher defense spending, and such spending would soar between 1949 and 1953.


Marshall Plan

The United States had terminated the war-time Lend-Lease program in August 1945, but it continue a program of loans to Britain. Furthermore, the U.S. sent massive shipments of food to Europe in the years immediately following the end of the war. With the goal of stemming the spread of Communism and increasing trade between the U.S. and Europe, the Truman administration devised the
Marshall Plan The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative enacted in 1948 to provide foreign aid to Western Europe. The United States transferred over $13 billion (equivalent of about $ in ) in economic ...
, which sought to rejuvenate the devastated economies of Western Europe. To fund the Marshall Plan, Truman asked Congress to approve an unprecedented, multi-year, $25 billion appropriation. Congress, under the control of conservative Republicans, agreed to fund the program for multiple reasons. The conservative isolationist wing of the Republican Party, led by Senator Kenneth S. Wherry, argued that the Marshall Plan would be "a wasteful 'operation rat-hole'". Wherry held that it made no sense to oppose communism by supporting the socialist governments in Western Europe and that American goods would reach Russia and increase its war potential. Wherry was outmaneuvered by the emerging internationalist wing in the Republican Party, led by Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg. With support from Republican Senator
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (July 5, 1902 – February 27, 1985) was an American diplomat and Republican United States senator from Massachusetts in both Senate seats in non-consecutive terms of service and a United States ambassador. He was consider ...
, Vandenberg admitted there was no certainty that the plan would succeed, but said it would halt economic chaos, sustain Western civilization, and stop further Soviet expansion. Both houses of Congress approved of the initial appropriation, known as the Foreign Assistance Act, by large majorities, and Truman signed the act into law in April 1948. Congress would eventually allocate $12.4 billion in aid over the four years of the plan. In addition to aid, the Marshall Plan also focused on efficiency along the lines of American industry and removing tariffs and trade barriers. Though the United States allowed each recipient to develop its own plan for the aid, it set several rules and guidelines on the use of the funding. Governments were required to exclude Communists, socialist policies were discouraged, and balanced budgets were favored. Additionally, the United States conditioned aid to the French and British on their acceptance of the reindustrialization of Germany and support for
European integration European integration is the process of industrial, economic, political, legal, social, and cultural integration of states wholly or partially in Europe or nearby. European integration has primarily come about through the European Union and i ...
. To avoid exacerbating tensions, the U.S. invited the Soviet Union to become a recipient in the program, but set terms that Stalin was likely to reject. The Soviet Union refused to consider joining the program and vetoed participation by its own satellites. The Soviets set up their own program for aid, the Molotov Plan, and the competing plans resulted in reduced trade between the Eastern bloc and the Western bloc. The Marshall Plan helped European economies recover in the late 1940s and early 1950s. By 1952, industrial productivity had increased by 35 percent compared to 1938 levels. The Marshall Plan also provided critical psychological reassurance to many Europeans, restoring optimism to a war-torn continent. Though European countries did not adopt American economic structures and ideas to the degree hoped for by some Americans, they remained firmly rooted in mixed economic systems. The European integration process led to the creation of the
European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lis ...
, which eventually formed the basis of the European Union.


Berlin airlift

In reaction to Western moves aimed at reindustrializing their German occupation zones, Stalin ordered a blockade of the Western-held sectors of
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constit ...
, which was deep in the Soviet occupation zone. Stalin hoped to prevent the creation of a western German state aligned with the U.S., or, failing that, to consolidate control over eastern Germany. After the blockade began on June 24, 1948, the commander of the American occupation zone in Germany, General Lucius D. Clay, proposed sending a large armored column across the Soviet zone to West Berlin with instructions to defend itself if it were stopped or attacked. Truman believed this would entail an unacceptable risk of war, and instead approved
Ernest Bevin Ernest Bevin (9 March 1881 – 14 April 1951) was a British statesman, trade union leader, and Labour Party politician. He co-founded and served as General Secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union in the years 1922–1 ...
's plan to supply the blockaded city by air. On June 25, the Allies initiated the
Berlin Airlift The Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 – 12 May 1949) was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, ro ...
, a campaign that delivered food and other supplies, such as coal, using military aircraft on a massive scale. Nothing like it had ever been attempted before, and no single nation had the capability, either logistically or materially, to accomplish it. The airlift worked, and ground access was again granted on May 11, 1949. The Berlin Airlift was one of Truman's great foreign policy successes, and it significantly aided his election campaign in 1948.


NATO

Rising tensions with the Soviets, along with the Soviet veto of numerous United Nations Resolutions, convinced Truman, Senator Vandenberg, and other American leaders of the necessity of creating a defensive alliance devoted to collective security. In 1949, the United States, Canada, and several European countries signed the North Atlantic Treaty, creating a trans-Atlantic military alliance and committing the United States to its first permanent alliance since the 1778 Treaty of Alliance with
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
. The treaty establishing NATO was widely popular and easily passed the Senate in 1949. NATO's goals were to contain Soviet expansion in Europe and to send a clear message to communist leaders that the world's democracies were willing and able to build new security structures in support of democratic ideals. The treaty also re-assured France that the United States would come to its defense, paving the way for continuing French cooperation in the re-establishment of an independent German state. The United States,
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Nor ...
, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium,
Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small land ...
,
Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and th ...
,
Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , established ...
,
Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a Sovereign state, country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southern Europe, Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes ...
,
Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...
, and Canada were the original treaty signatories. Shortly after the creation of NATO, Truman convinced Congress to pass the
Mutual Defense Assistance Act The Mutual Defense Assistance Act was a United States Act of Congress signed by President Harry S. Truman on 6 October 1949. For US Foreign policy, it was the first U.S. military foreign aid legislation of the Cold War era, and initially to Euro ...
, which created a military aid program for European allies. Cold War tensions heightened following Soviet acquisition of nuclear weapons and the beginning of the Korean War. The United States increased its commitment to NATO, invited
Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
and Turkey to join the alliance, and launched a second major foreign aid program with the enactment of the
Mutual Security Act The Mutual Security Act of 1951 launched a major American foreign aid program, 1951–61, of grants to numerous countries. It largely replaced the Marshall Plan. The main goal was to help poor countries develop and to contain the spread of commun ...
. Truman permanently stationed 180,000 in Europe, and European defense spending grew from 5 percent to 12 percent of gross national product. NATO established a unified command structure, and Truman appointed General
Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
as the first Supreme Commander of NATO. West Germany, which fell under the aegis of NATO, would eventually be incorporated into NATO in 1955.


Latin America and Argentina

Cold War tensions and competition reached across the globe, affecting Europe, Asia, North America, Latin America, and Africa. The United States had historically focused its foreign policy on upholding the
Monroe Doctrine The Monroe Doctrine was a United States foreign policy position that opposed European colonialism in the Western Hemisphere. It held that any intervention in the political affairs of the Americas by foreign powers was a potentially hostile act ...
in the Western Hemisphere, but new commitments in Europe and Asia diminished Washington's attentions there. Partially in reaction to fears of expanding Soviet influence, the U.S. led efforts to create collective security pact in the Western Hemisphere. In 1947, the United States and most Latin American nations joined the
Rio Pact The Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (commonly known as the Rio Treaty, the Rio Pact, the Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, or by the Spanish-language acronym TIAR from ''Tratado Interamericano de Asistencia Recíproca'') is an agreem ...
, a defensive military alliance. The following year, the independent states of the Americas formed the
Organization of American States The Organization of American States (OAS; es, Organización de los Estados Americanos, pt, Organização dos Estados Americanos, french: Organisation des États américains; ''OEA'') is an international organization that was founded on 30 April ...
(OAS), an intergovernmental organization designed to foster regional unity. Many Latin American nations, seeking favor with the United States, cut off relations with the Soviet Union. Latin American countries also requested aid and investment similar to the Marshall Plan, but Truman believed that most U.S. foreign aid was best directed to Europe and other areas that could potentially fall under the influence of Communism. There was bad blood with
Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
. Washington detested dictator
Juan Peron ''Juan'' is a given name, the Spanish and Manx versions of ''John''. It is very common in Spain and in other Spanish-speaking communities around the world and in the Philippines, and also (pronounced differently) in the Isle of Man. In Spanish, t ...
, who held
fascist Fascism is a far-right, Authoritarianism, authoritarian, ultranationalism, ultra-nationalist political Political ideology, ideology and Political movement, movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and pol ...
sympathies, tried to remain neutral in the Cold War and continued to harbor Nazi war criminals. Washington blocked funds from international agencies and restricted trade and investment opportunities.


Asia


Recognition of Israel

Truman had long taken an interest in the history of the Middle East, and was sympathetic to Jews who sought a homeland in British-controlled
Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 i ...
. In 1943, he had called for a homeland for those Jews who survived the Nazi regime. However, State Department officials were reluctant to offend the Arabs, who were opposed to the establishment of a Jewish state in the region. Regarding policy in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, Palestine was secondary to the goal of protecting the "Northern Tier" of Greece, Turkey, and Iran from communism. In 1947, the United Nations approved the partition of Mandatory Palestine into a Jewish state (which would become known as
Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
) and an Arab state. In the months leading up to the British withdrawal from the region, the Truman administration debated whether or not to recognize the fledgling state of Israel]. Overcoming initial objections from Marshall, Clark Clifford convinced Truman that non-recognition would lead Israel to tilt towards the Soviet Union in the Cold War. Truman recognized the Israel, State of Israel on May 14, 1948, eleven minutes after it declared itself a nation. Israel would secure its independence with a victory in the
1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had ...
, but the
Arab–Israeli conflict The Arab–Israeli conflict is an ongoing intercommunal phenomenon involving political tension, military conflicts, and other disputes between Arab countries and Israel, which escalated during the 20th century, but had mostly faded out by th ...
remains unresolved.


China

In 1945 China descended into a
civil war A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policie ...
. The civil war baffled Washington, as both the Nationalists under
Chiang Kai-shek Chiang Kai-shek (31 October 1887 – 5 April 1975), also known as Chiang Chung-cheng and Jiang Jieshi, was a Chinese Nationalist politician, revolutionary, and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China (ROC) from 1928 ...
and the Communists under
Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC ...
had American advocates. Truman sent George Marshall to China in early 1946 to broker a compromise featuring a coalition government, but Marshall failed. He returned to Washington in December 1946, blaming extremist elements on both sides. Though the Nationalists held a numerical advantage in the aftermath of the war, the Communists gained the upper hand in the civil war after 1947. Corruption, poor economic conditions, and poor military leadership eroded popular support for the Nationalist government, and the Communists won many peasants to their side. As the Nationalists collapsed in 1948, the Truman administration faced the question of whether to intervene on the side of the Nationalists or seek good relations with Mao. Chiang's strong support among sections of the American public, along with desire to assure other allies that the U.S. was committed to containment, convinced Truman to increase economic and military aid to the Nationalists. However, Truman held out little hope for a Nationalist victory, and he refused to send U.S. soldiers.
Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC ...
and his Communists took control of the mainland of China in 1949, driving the Nationalists to
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
. The United States had a new enemy in Asia, and Truman came under fire from conservatives for " losing" China.Ernest R. May, "1947–48: When Marshall Kept the U.S. out of War in China." ''Journal of Military History'' (2002) 66#4: 1001–1010
online
/ref> Along with the Soviet detonation of a nuclear weapon, the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War played a major role in escalating Cold War tensions and U.S. militarization during 1949. Truman would have been willing to maintain some relationship between the U.S. and the Communist government, but Mao was unwilling. Chiang established the
Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeas ...
on Taiwan. Truman made sure it retained China's permanent seat on the UN Security Council. In June 1950, after the outbreak of fighting in Korea, Truman ordered the Navy's
Seventh Fleet The Seventh Fleet is a numbered fleet of the United States Navy. It is headquartered at U.S. Fleet Activities Yokosuka, in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It is part of the United States Pacific Fleet. At present, it is the largest of t ...
into the
Taiwan Strait The Taiwan Strait is a -wide strait separating the island of Taiwan and continental Asia. The strait is part of the South China Sea and connects to the East China Sea to the north. The narrowest part is wide. The Taiwan Strait is itself a ...
to prevent further conflict between the communist government and the Republic of China.


Japan

Under the leadership of General
Douglas MacArthur Douglas MacArthur (26 January 18805 April 1964) was an American military leader who served as General of the Army for the United States, as well as a field marshal to the Philippine Army. He had served with distinction in World War I, was ...
, the U.S. occupied Japan after the latter's surrender in August 1945. MacArthur presided over extensive reforms of the Japanese government and society that in many ways resembled the New Deal. He imposed a new constitution that established a parliamentary democracy and granted women the right to vote. He also democratized the Japanese educational system, enabled labor unions and oversaw major economic changes, although Japanese business leaders were able to resist the reforms to some degree. As the Cold War intensified in 1947, Washington officials took greater control over the occupation, ending Japanese reparations to the Allied Powers and prioritizing economic growth over long-term reform. The Japanese suffered from poor economic conditions until 1950 when heavy American spending on supplies to support the Korean War stimulated growth. In 1951, the United States and Japan signed the
Treaty of San Francisco The , also called the , re-established peaceful relations between Japan and the Allied Powers on behalf of the United Nations by ending the legal state of war and providing for redress for hostile actions up to and including World War II. It ...
, which restored Japanese sovereignty but allowed the United States to maintain bases in Japan. Over the opposition of the Soviet Union and some other adversaries of Japan in World War II, the peace treaty did not contain punitive measures such as reparations, though Japan did lose control of the
Kuril Islands The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands (; rus, Кури́льские острова́, r=Kuril'skiye ostrova, p=kʊˈrʲilʲskʲɪjə ɐstrɐˈva; Japanese: or ) are a volcanic archipelago currently administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the ...
and all its pre-war possessions.


Southeast Asia

With the end of World War II, the United States fulfilled the commitment made by the 1934
Tydings–McDuffie Act The Tydings–McDuffie Act, officially the Philippine Independence Act (), is an Act of Congress that established the process for the Philippines, then an American territory, to become an independent country after a ten-year transition period. U ...
and granted independence to the
Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...
. The U.S. had encouraged
decolonization Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on independence m ...
throughout World War II, but the start of the Cold War changed priorities. The U.S. used the Marshall Plan to pressure the Dutch to grant independence to
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guinea. In ...
under the leadership of the anti-Communist
Sukarno Sukarno). (; born Koesno Sosrodihardjo, ; 6 June 1901 – 21 June 1970) was an Indonesian statesman, orator, revolutionary, and nationalist who was the first president of Indonesia, serving from 1945 to 1967. Sukarno was the leader of ...
, and the Dutch recognized Indonesia's independence in 1949. However, in
French Indochina French Indochina (previously spelled as French Indo-China),; vi, Đông Dương thuộc Pháp, , lit. 'East Ocean under French Control; km, ឥណ្ឌូចិនបារាំង, ; th, อินโดจีนฝรั่งเศส, ...
, the Truman administration recognized the French client state led by Emperor
Bảo Đại Bảo Đại (, vi-hantu, , lit. "keeper of greatness", 22 October 191331 July 1997), born Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh Thụy (), was the 13th and final emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty, the last ruling dynasty of Vietnam. From 1926 to 1945, he was em ...
. The U.S. feared alienating the French, who occupied a crucial position on the continent, and feared that the withdrawal of the French would allow the Communist faction of
Ho Chi Minh (: ; born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), commonly known as ('Uncle Hồ'), also known as ('President Hồ'), (' Old father of the people') and by other aliases, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman. He served as Pri ...
to assume power. Despite initial reluctance to become involved in Indochina, by 1952, the United States was heavily subsidizing the French suppression of Ho's
Việt Minh The Việt Minh (; abbreviated from , chữ Nôm and Hán tự: ; french: Ligue pour l'indépendance du Viêt Nam, ) was a national independence coalition formed at Pác Bó by Hồ Chí Minh on 19 May 1941. Also known as the Việt Minh Fro ...
in the
First Indochina War The First Indochina War (generally known as the Indochina War in France, and as the Anti-French Resistance War in Vietnam) began in French Indochina from 19 December 1946 to 20 July 1954 between France and Việt Minh ( Democratic Republic of ...
. The U.S. also established alliances in the region through the creation of the
Mutual Defense Treaty A defense pact (or defence pact in Commonwealth spelling) is a type of treaty or military alliance in which the signatories promise to support each other militarily and to defend each other.Volker Krause, J. David Singer "Minor Powers, Allianc ...
with the Philippines and the
ANZUS The Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS or ANZUS Treaty) is a 1951 non-binding collective security agreement between Australia and New Zealand and, separately, Australia and the United States, to co-operate on military ...
pact with Australia and
New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island country ...
.


Korean War


Outbreak of the war

Following World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union occupied
Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic of ...
, which had been a colony of the Japanese Empire. The 38th parallel was chosen as a line of partition between the occupying powers since it was approximately halfway between Korea's northernmost and southernmost regions, and was always intended to mark a temporary separation before the eventual reunification of Korea. Nonetheless, the Soviet Union established the Democratic People's Republic of Korea ( North Korea) in 1948, while the United States established the Republic of Korea ( South Korea) that same year. Hoping to avoid a long-term military commitment in the region, Truman withdrew U.S. soldiers from the Korean Peninsula in 1949. The Soviet Union also withdrew their soldiers from Korea in 1949, but continued to supply North Korea with military aid. On June 25, 1950, Kim Il-sung's
Korean People's Army The Korean People's Army (KPA; ) is the military force of North Korea and the armed wing of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK). Under the ''Songun'' policy, it is the central institution of North Korean society. Currently, WPK General Se ...
invaded South Korea, starting the Korean War. In the early weeks of the war, the North Koreans easily pushed back their southern counterparts. The Soviet Union was not directly involved, though Kim did win Stalin's approval before launching the invasion. Truman, meanwhile, did not view Korea itself as a vital region in the Cold War, but he believed that allowing a Western-aligned country to fall would embolden Communists around the world and damage his own standing at home. The top officials of the Truman administration were heavily influenced by a desire to not repeat the "
appeasement Appeasement in an international context is a diplomatic policy of making political, material, or territorial concessions to an aggressive power in order to avoid conflict. The term is most often applied to the foreign policy of the UK governm ...
" of the 1930s; Truman stated to an aide, "there's no telling what they'll do, if we don't put up a fight right now." Truman turned to the United Nations to condemn the invasion. With the Soviet Union boycotting the
United Nations Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, and ...
due to the UN's refusal to recognize the People's Republic of China, Truman won approval of Resolution 84. The resolution denounced North Korea's actions and empowered other nations to defend South Korea. North Korean forces experienced early successes, capturing the city of
Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 of ...
on June 28. Fearing the fall of the entire peninsula, General
Douglas MacArthur Douglas MacArthur (26 January 18805 April 1964) was an American military leader who served as General of the Army for the United States, as well as a field marshal to the Philippine Army. He had served with distinction in World War I, was ...
, commander of U.S. forces in Asia, won Truman's approval to land U.S. troops on the peninsula. Rather than asking Congress for a
declaration of war A declaration of war is a formal act by which one state announces existing or impending war activity against another. The declaration is a performative speech act (or the signing of a document) by an authorized party of a national government, in ...
, Truman argued that the UN Resolution provided the presidency the constitutional power to deploy soldiers as a "
police action In military/security studies and international relations, police action is a military action undertaken without a formal declaration of war. Today the term counter-insurgency is more used. Since World War II, formal declarations of war have be ...
" under the aegis of the UN. The intervention in Korea was widely popular in the United States at the time, and Truman's July 1950 request for $10 billion was approved almost unanimously. By August 1950, U.S. troops pouring into South Korea, along with American air strikes, stabilized the front around the
Pusan Perimeter The Battle of the Pusan Perimeter ( ko, 부산 교두보 전투) was a large-scale battle between United Nations Command (UN) and North Korean forces lasting from August 4 to September 18, 1950. It was one of the first major engagements of the ...
. Responding to criticism over unreadiness, Truman fired Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson and replaced him with the former Secretary of State George Marshall. With UN approval, Truman decided on a "rollback" policy—conquest of North Korea. UN forces launched a counterattack, scoring a stunning surprise victory with an amphibious landing at the
Battle of Inchon The Battle of Incheon (), also spelled Battle of Inchon, was an amphibious invasion and a battle of the Korean War that resulted in a decisive victory and strategic reversal in favor of the United Nations Command (UN). The operation involved s ...
that trapped most of the invaders. UN forces marched north, toward the
Yalu River The Yalu River, known by Koreans as the Amrok River or Amnok River, is a river on the border between North Korea and China. Together with the Tumen River to its east, and a small portion of Paektu Mountain, the Yalu forms the border between ...
boundary with China, with the goal of reuniting Korea under UN auspices.


Stalemate and dismissal of MacArthur

As the UN forces approached the Yalu River, the CIA and General MacArthur both expected that the Chinese would remain out of the war. Defying those predictions, Chinese forces crossed the Yalu River in November 1950 and forced the overstretched UN soldiers to retreat. Fearing that the escalation of the war could spark a global conflict with the Soviet Union, Truman refused MacArthur's request to bomb Chinese supply bases north of the Yalu River. UN forces were pushed below the 38th parallel before the end of 1950, but, under the command of General
Matthew Ridgway General Matthew Bunker Ridgway (March 3, 1895 – July 26, 1993) was a senior officer in the United States Army, who served as Supreme Allied Commander Europe (1952–1953) and the 19th Chief of Staff of the United States Army (1953–1955). Alth ...
, the UN launched a counterattack that pushed Chinese forces back up to the 38th parallel. MacArthur made several public demands for an escalation of the war, leading to a break with Truman in late 1950 and early 1951. On April 5, House Minority Leader Joseph Martin made public a letter from MacArthur that strongly criticized Truman's handling of the Korean War and called for an expansion of the conflict against China. Truman believed that MacArthur's recommendations were wrong, but more importantly, he believed that MacArthur had overstepped his bounds in trying to make foreign and military policy, potentially endangering the
civilian control of the military Civilian control of the military is a doctrine in military and political science that places ultimate responsibility for a country's strategic decision-making in the hands of the civilian political leadership, rather than professional militar ...
. After consulting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and members of Congress, Truman decided to relieve MacArthur of his command. The dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur ignited a firestorm of outrage against Truman and support for MacArthur. Fierce criticism from virtually all quarters accused Truman of refusing to shoulder the blame for a war gone sour and blaming his generals instead. Others, including Eleanor Roosevelt, supported and applauded Truman's decision. MacArthur meanwhile returned to the U.S. to a hero's welcome, and addressed a joint session of Congress. In part due to the dismissal of MacArthur, Truman's approval mark in February 1952 stood at 22% according to
Gallup poll Gallup, Inc. is an American analytics and advisory company based in Washington, D.C. Founded by George Gallup in 1935, the company became known for its public opinion polls conducted worldwide. Starting in the 1980s, Gallup transitioned its bu ...
s, which was, until
George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
in 2008, the all-time lowest approval mark for an active American president. Though the public generally favored MacArthur over Truman immediately after MacArthur's dismissal, congressional hearings and newspaper editorials helped turn public opinion against MacArthur's advocacy for escalation. The war remained a frustrating stalemate for two years. UN and Chinese forces fought inconclusive conflicts like the
Battle of Heartbreak Ridge The Battle of Heartbreak Ridge (; french: Bataille de Crèvecœur), also known as the Battle of Wendengli (), was a month-long battle in the Korean War which took place between September 13th and October 15th, 1951. After withdrawing from Blood ...
and the
Battle of Pork Chop Hill The Battle of Pork Chop Hill, known as Battle of Seokhyeon-dong Northern Hill ( zh, 石峴洞北山戰鬥) in China, comprises a pair of related Korean War infantry battles during April and July 1953. These were fought while the United Nations ...
, but neither side was able to advance far past the 38th parallel. Throughout late 1951, Truman sought a cease fire, but disputes over prisoner exchanges led to the collapse of negotiations. Of the 116,000 Chinese and Korean prisoners-of-war held by the United States, only 83,000 were willing to return to their home countries, and Truman was unwilling to forcibly return the prisoners. The Korean War ended with an
armistice An armistice is a formal agreement of warring parties to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, as it may constitute only a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace. It is derived from the L ...
in 1953 after Truman left office, dividing North Korea and South Korea along a border close to the 38th parallel. Over 30,000 Americans and approximately 3 million Koreans died in the conflict. The United States maintained a permanent military presence in South Korea after the war.


International trips

Truman made five international trips during his presidency. His only trans-Atlantic trip was to participate in the 1945 Potsdam Conference with British Prime Ministers Churchill and Attlee and Soviet Premier Stalin. He also visited neighboring Bermuda, Canada and Mexico, plus Brazil in South America. Truman only left the continental United States on two other occasions (to
Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...
, the
Virgin Islands The Virgin Islands ( es, Islas Vírgenes) are an archipelago in the Caribbean Sea. They are geologically and biogeographically the easternmost part of the Greater Antilles, the northern islands belonging to the Puerto Rico Trench and St. Croi ...
,
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base Guantanamo Bay Naval Base ( es, Base Naval de la Bahía de Guantánamo), officially known as Naval Station Guantanamo Bay or NSGB, (also called GTMO, pronounced Gitmo as jargon by members of the U.S. military) is a United States military base ...
, Cuba, February 20-March 5, 1948; and to
Wake Island Wake Island ( mh, Ānen Kio, translation=island of the kio flower; also known as Wake Atoll) is a coral atoll in the western Pacific Ocean in the northeastern area of the Micronesia subregion, east of Guam, west of Honolulu, southeast of ...
, October 11–18, 1950) during his nearly eight years in office.


Domestic affairs


Reconversion and labor strife


Reconversion

Although foreign affairs dominated much of Truman's time in office, reconversion to a peacetime economy became his administration's central focus in late 1945. Truman faced several major challenges in presiding over the transition to a post-war economy, including a large
national debt A country's gross government debt (also called public debt, or sovereign debt) is the financial liabilities of the government sector. Changes in government debt over time reflect primarily borrowing due to past government deficits. A deficit o ...
and persistent
inflation In economics, inflation is an increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reducti ...
. The United States had emerged from the
Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagion ...
in part due to the war production that began in 1940. Most observers expected that the nation would sink into another decline with the end of the war spending. While the country had been unified in winning the war, there was no consensus on the best methods of post-war economic reconversion after the war, or the level of involvement that the federal government should have in economic affairs. Truman faced a Congress that on domestic issues was dominated by the
conservative coalition The conservative coalition, founded in 1937, was an unofficial alliance of members of the United States Congress which brought together the conservative wings of the Republican and Democratic parties to oppose President Franklin Delano Roosev ...
, an alliance of Republicans and conservative Southern Democrats. This group opposed many of Truman's domestic policies and did not welcome strong presidential leadership. Truman asked Congress for a host of measures, including a bill that would make the
Fair Employment Practice Committee The Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC) was created in 1941 in the United States to implement Executive Order 8802 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt "banning discriminatory employment practices by Federal agencies and all unions and co ...
a permanent institution, but his focus on foreign affairs during this period prevented him from effectively advocating for his programs with members of Congress. Truman was particularly concerned about keeping unemployment levels low; nearly 2 million people lost jobs within days of the Japanese surrender, and he feared that even more would lose their jobs in the following months. Liberal New Dealers pushed for an explicit federal commitment to ensuring "
full employment Full employment is a situation in which there is no cyclical or deficient-demand unemployment. Full employment does not entail the disappearance of all unemployment, as other kinds of unemployment, namely structural and frictional, may remain. Fo ...
," but Congress instead passed the Employment Act of 1946. The act created the
Council of Economic Advisers The Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) is a United States agency within the Executive Office of the President established in 1946, which advises the President of the United States on economic policy. The CEA provides much of the empirical resea ...
and mandated the federal government "to foster and promote free competitive enterprise and the general welfare... and to promote maximum employment, production, and purchasing power. The United States had instituted
price controls Price controls are restrictions set in place and enforced by governments, on the prices that can be charged for goods and services in a market. The intent behind implementing such controls can stem from the desire to maintain affordability of good ...
and wage controls during the war in order to avoid large-scale inflation or deflation. Within the Truman administration, some advocated lifting these controls immediately in order to allow private industries to hire new workers, while others feared that immediately lifting the controls would lead to runaway inflation. Truman sought to find a middle course between the two camps; price controls on many nonessential items were lifted by the end of September 1945, but others remained in place by the end of 1945. Increasingly concerned about inflation, Truman reimposed some price controls in December 1945, but the unpopularity of those controls led the administration to seek other ways to curb inflation, including cuts to federal spending. In July 1946, after average prices rose at the unprecedented rate of 5.5 percent, Truman won passage of a bill that extended his authority to institute price controls on some items. Though unemployment remained low, labor unrest, inflation, and other issues badly damaged Truman's popularity, which in turn contributed to a poor Democratic showing in the November 1946 mid-term elections. After the Republican victory in those elections, Truman announced the end of all federal wage and price controls, with the exception of rent controls.


Labor unrest

Conflict between management and labor presented one of the biggest challenges to the conversion of the economy to peacetime production. Organized labor had adhered to its pledge to refrain from striking during the war, but labor leaders were eager to share in the gains from a postwar economic resurgence. After several labor disputes broke out in September and October 1945, Truman convened a national conference between leaders of business and organized labor in November, at which he advocated collective bargaining in order to avoid labor-related economic disruptions. The conference failed to have a major impact; an unprecedented wave of major strikes affected the United States, and by February 1946 nearly 2 million workers were engaged in strikes or other labor disputes. Many of the strikes were led by John L. Lewis of the
Congress of Industrial Organizations The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. Originally created in 1935 as a committee within the American Federation of ...
(CIO), who Truman despised. When a national rail strike threatened in May 1946, Truman seized the railroads to continue operations, but two key railway unions struck anyway. The entire national railroad system was shut down—24,000 freight trains and 175,000 passenger trains a day stopped moving. For two days public anger mounted among the general public and Truman himself, and the president drafted a message to Congress that called on veterans to form a lynch mob and destroy the union leaders. After top aide Clark Clifford rewrote and toned down the speech, Truman delivered a speech calling for Congress to pass a new law to draft all the railroad strikers into the army. As he was concluding his speech he read a message just handed to him that the strike was settled on presidential terms; Truman nevertheless finished the speech, making clear his displeasure with the strike. Truman's speech marked the end of the strike wave, as business and labor leaders both generally avoided subsequent actions that would provoke a strong response from the administration. The strikes damaged the political standing of unions, and the
real wages Real wages are wages adjusted for inflation, or, equivalently, wages in terms of the amount of goods and services that can be bought. This term is used in contrast to nominal wages or unadjusted wages. Because it has been adjusted to account f ...
of blue collar workers fell by over twelve percent in the year after the surrender of Japan. At the same time, the CIO's efforts to expand massively into the South (a campaign known as " Operation Dixie") failed.


G.I. Bill

The
G.I. Bill The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in 1956, b ...
had been passed in 1944 by a conservative coalition that wanted to restrict benefits to "deserving" wartime veterans, as opposed to the larger welfare program favored by the Roosevelt administration that would reach both veterans and non-veterans. The most famous component of the G.I. Bill provided free collegiate, vocational, and high school education for veterans – not only free tuition, but also full housing and subsistence allowances for the veterans and their families. There was a remarkable transformation of higher education, as 2.2 million veterans crowded into hastily built classrooms. Due in large part to the G.I. Bill, the number of college degrees awarded rose from just over 200,000 in 1940 to nearly 500,000 in 1950. In addition to education and housing benefits, the bill included aid to veterans who wanted to start a small business or farm, as well one year of
unemployment compensation Unemployment benefits, also called unemployment insurance, unemployment payment, unemployment compensation, or simply unemployment, are payments made by authorized bodies to unemployed people. In the United States, benefits are funded by a compu ...
. The G.I. Bill also guaranteed low cost loans for veterans, with very low down payments and low interest rates. In 1947 alone, 540,000 veterans bought a house at the average price of $7,300. Developers purchased empty land just outside the city, installed tract houses based on a handful of designs, and provided streets and utilities. The most famous development was
Levittown Levittown is the name of several large suburban housing developments created in the United States (including one in Puerto Rico) by William J. Levitt and his company Levitt & Sons. Built after World War II for returning white veterans and thei ...
in
Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18th ...
; it offered a new house featuring three bedrooms and a landscaped lot of 75 by 100 feet for the total price of $10,000. 15 million housing units were built between 1945 and 1955, and the home-ownership rate grew from 50 percent in 1945 to 60 percent in 1960. Together with the growth of the automobile industry, the G.I. Bill's housing benefits helped provide for a major expansion of
suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...
s in the United States.


80th Congress and the Taft–Hartley Act

The 1946 mid-term election left Republicans in control of Congress for the first time since the early 1930s. Truman initially hoped to work with Republican leaders in Congress, focusing on the passage of housing programs and other potential areas of common ground. Truman and the 80th Congress were able to agree on a balanced budget, albeit one that spent less on defense and some other programs that Truman favored. Congress also assented to the creation of the
Hoover Commission The Hoover Commission, officially named the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, was a body appointed by President Harry S. Truman in 1947 to recommend administrative changes in the Federal Government of the Unit ...
, which proposed a series of reorganizations to the executive branch. However, the 80th Congress proved strongly resistant to Truman's policies. One of its first major acts was to approve what would become the Twenty-second Amendment, which established presidential
term limits A term limit is a legal restriction that limits the number of terms an officeholder may serve in a particular elected office. When term limits are found in presidential and semi-presidential systems they act as a method of curbing the potenti ...
in an implicit rebuke to Franklin Roosevelt, the only president who had ever served more than two terms. Congress also passed bills designed to cut taxes, weaken the
Interstate Commerce Commission The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later trucking) to ensure fair rates, to eliminat ...
, and reduce the number of employees covered by Social Security, but all were vetoed by Truman in 1947. Upon returning to session in 1948, Congress passed the Revenue Act of 1948, another major tax cut; Truman again vetoed the bill, but this time his veto was overridden by Congress. In response to the labor unrest of 1945 and 1946, Congress passed the
Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...
, also known as the Taft–Hartley Act, which amended the
National Labor Relations Act of 1935 The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, also known as the Wagner Act, is a foundational statute of United States labor law that guarantees the right of private sector employees to organize into trade unions, engage in collective bargaining, and ...
. Truman vetoed the bill, denouncing it as "slave-labor bill," but Congress overrode the veto. The Taft-Hartley Act added a list of prohibited union actions to the
National Labor Relations Act of 1935 The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, also known as the Wagner Act, is a foundational statute of United States labor law that guarantees the right of private sector employees to organize into trade unions, engage in collective bargaining, and ...
(also known as the Wagner Act), which had defined several types of employer actions as
unfair labor practice An unfair labor practice (ULP) in United States labor law refers to certain actions taken by employers or unions that violate the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (49 Stat. 449) (also known as the NLRA and the Wagner Act after NY Senator Ro ...
s. Taft-Hartley prohibited jurisdictional strikes, in which a union strikes in order to pressure an employer to assign particular work to the employees that union represents, and
secondary boycott Secondary may refer to: Science and nature * Secondary emission, of particles ** Secondary electrons, electrons generated as ionization products * The secondary winding, or the electrical or electronic circuit connected to the secondary winding i ...
s and "common situs" picketing, in which unions picket, strike, or refuse to handle the goods of a business with which they have no primary dispute but which is associated with a targeted business. The act also outlawed
closed shop A pre-entry closed shop (or simply closed shop) is a form of union security agreement under which the employer agrees to hire union members only, and employees must remain members of the union at all times to remain employed. This is different fr ...
s, which were contractual agreements that required an employer to hire only union members. The Taft–Hartley Act also granted states power to pass "
right-to-work law In the context of labor law in the United States, the term "right-to-work laws" refers to state laws that prohibit union security agreements between employers and labor unions which require employees who are not union members to contribute t ...
s," which ban
union shop In labor law, a union shop, also known as a post-entry closed shop, is a form of a union security clause. Under this, the employer agrees to either only hire labor union members or to require that any new employees who are not already union memb ...
shops. All union officials were required to sign an affidavit that they were not Communists or else the union would lose its federal bargaining powers guaranteed by the
National Labor Relations Board The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is an independent agency of the federal government of the United States with responsibilities for enforcing U.S. labor law in relation to collective bargaining and unfair labor practices. Under the Natio ...
. Despite his vocal opposition to the Taft–Hartley Act, Truman used its emergency provisions a number of times to halt strikes and lockouts. Repeated union efforts to repeal or modify it always failed, and it remains in effect today. Historian James T. Patterson concludes that: :: By the 1950s most observers agreed that Taft-Hartley was no more disastrous for workers than the Wagner Act had been for employers. What ordinarily mattered most in labor relations was not government laws such as Taft-Hartley, but the relative power of unions and management in the economic marketplace. Where unions were strong they usually managed all right; when they were weak, new laws did them little additional harm.


Fair Deal

In his first major address to Congress after taking office, Truman articulated a liberal domestic program, but his early domestic policy was dominated by post-war reconversion. As he readied for the 1948 election, Truman made clear his identity as a Democrat in the
New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...
tradition, advocating a national health care system, repeal of the Taft–Hartley Act, federal aid to education, expanded public housing programs, a higher minimum wage, more public power projects like the
Tennessee Valley Authority The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolina ...
, and a more
progressive Progressive may refer to: Politics * Progressivism, a political philosophy in support of social reform ** Progressivism in the United States, the political philosophy in the American context * Progressive realism, an American foreign policy pa ...
tax structure. The administration also put forth the
Brannan Plan The Brannan Plan was a failed United States farm bill from 1949. It called for "compensatory payments" to American farmers in response to the major problem of large agricultural surpluses stemming from price supports for farmers. The Brannan Plan wa ...
, which would have removed the government's production controls and price supports in agriculture in favor of direct payments to farmers. Taken together, Truman's proposals constituted a broad legislative agenda that came to be known as the " Fair Deal." A major difference between the New Deal and the Fair Deal was that the latter included an aggressive civil rights program, which Truman termed a moral priority. Truman's proposals were not well received by Congress, even with renewed Democratic majorities in Congress after 1948. The conservative coalition of Republicans and conservative Southern Democrats played a major role in blocking passage of the Fair Deal, but the inability of liberals to agree on the details of many programs also contributed to legislative gridlock. Only one of the major Fair Deal bills, the
Housing Act of 1949 The American Housing Act of 1949 () was a landmark, sweeping expansion of the federal role in mortgage insurance and issuance and the construction of public housing. It was part of President Harry Truman's program of domestic legislation, the Fa ...
, was ever enacted.. The Housing Act of 1949 provided for sweeping expansion of the federal role in mortgage insurance and construction of public housing. Truman did win other victories in the 81st Congress, as the minimum wage was raised from forty cents an hour to seventy-five cents an hour, Social Security benefits for the retired were doubled, and loopholes in the
Sherman Antitrust Act The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 (, ) is a United States antitrust law which prescribes the rule of free competition among those engaged in commerce. It was passed by Congress and is named for Senator John Sherman, its principal author. T ...
were closed via passage of the
Celler–Kefauver Act The Celler–Kefauver Act is a United States federal law passed in 1950 that reformed and strengthened the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914, which had amended the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. The Celler–Kefauver Act was passed to close a loophol ...
. The 1950 mid-term elections bolstered Republicans and conservative Democrats, ending any chance of passing further Fair Deal programs. Though Truman failed to pass most of his major Fair Deal deal proposals, he did help ensure that the major New Deal programs still in operation remained intact, and in many cases, received minor improvements. The Fair Deal would later serve as an inspiration for many of the
Great Society The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States launched by Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964–65. The term was first coined during a 1964 commencement address by President Lyndon B. Johnson at the University ...
programs passed during the
presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon B. Johnson's tenure as the 36th president of the United States began on November 22, 1963 following the assassination of President Kennedy and ended on January 20, 1969. He had been vice president for days when he succeeded to the p ...
.


Civil rights

Historians Donald R. McCoy and Richard T. Ruetten write that Truman "was the first president to have a civil rights program, the first to try to come to grips with the basic problems of minorities, and the first to condemn, vigorously and consistently, the presence of discrimination and inequality in America." A 1947 report by the
President's Committee on Civil Rights The President's Committee on Civil Rights was a United States presidential commission established by President Harry Truman in 1946. The committee was created by Executive Order 9808 on December 5, 1946, and instructed to investigate the status o ...
titled ''To Secure These Rights'' presented a detailed ten-point agenda of civil rights reforms. In February 1948, the president submitted a civil rights agenda to Congress that proposed creating several federal offices devoted to issues such as
voting rights Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...
and fair employment practices. This provoked a storm of criticism from Southern Democrats in the runup to the
1948 Democratic National Convention The 1948 Democratic National Convention was held at Philadelphia Convention Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from July 12 to July 14, 1948, and resulted in the nominations of President Harry S. Truman for a full term and Senator Alben W. B ...
, but Truman refused to compromise, saying: "My forebears were Confederates ... but my very stomach turned over when I had learned that Negro soldiers, just back from overseas, were being dumped out of Army trucks in Mississippi and beaten." At the start of the 81st Congress, pro-civil rights congressmen attempted to reform the Senate's
filibuster A filibuster is a political procedure in which one or more members of a legislative body prolong debate on proposed legislation so as to delay or entirely prevent decision. It is sometimes referred to as "talking a bill to death" or "talking out ...
rules so that a filibuster could be defeated by a simple majority vote. Southern senators blocked this reform, thereby ensuring that civil rights would not emerge as an important legislative issue until the late 1950s. With his civil rights agenda blocked by Congress, Truman turned to executive actions. In July 1948, he issued
Executive Order 9981 Executive Order 9981 was issued on July 26, 1948, by President Harry S. Truman. This executive order abolished discrimination "on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin" in the United States Armed Forces, and led to the re-inte ...
, requiring equal opportunity in the Armed Forces regardless of race, color, religion or national origin. Truman also issued Executive Order 9980, ending racial discrimination in the civil service of the federal government Another Executive Order, in 1951, established the Committee on Government Contract Compliance (CGCC), which sought to prevent defense contractors from discriminating because of race. Desegregation took years, with the Air Force under Secretary
Stuart Symington William Stuart Symington III (; June 26, 1901 – December 14, 1988) was an American businessman and Democratic politician from Missouri. He served as the first Secretary of the Air Force from 1947 to 1950 and was a United States Senator from M ...
taking the lead. After several years of planning between Truman, the Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity, and the various branches of the military, Army units started to be racially integrated in the early 1950s and later the Navy. The 1948
Women's Armed Services Integration Act Women's Armed Services Integration Act () is a United States law that enabled women to serve as permanent, regular members of the armed forces in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and the recently formed Air Force. Prior to this act, women, with the exc ...
allowed women to serve in the peacetime military in all-female units. Truman appointed non-whites to unprecedented positions of power in the executive and judicial branches. Among his appointments was
William Henry Hastie William Henry Hastie Jr. (November 17, 1904 – April 14, 1976) was an American lawyer, judge, educator, public official, and civil rights advocate. He was the first African American to serve as Governor of the United States Virgin Islands, as a ...
, the first African American to serve as a federal appellate judge. In civil rights cases like ''
Sweatt v. Painter ''Sweatt v. Painter'', 339 U.S. 629 (1950), was a U.S. Supreme Court case that successfully challenged the "separate but equal" doctrine of racial segregation established by the 1896 case ''Plessy v. Ferguson''. The case was influential in the lan ...
'', the Justice Department issued amicus curiae briefs that supported ending segregation. In December 1952, the Truman administration filed an amicus curiae brief for the case of ''
Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...
''; two years later, the Supreme Court's holding in that case would effectively overturn the "
separate but equal Separate but equal was a legal doctrine in United States constitutional law, according to which racial segregation did not necessarily violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which nominally guaranteed "equal protectio ...
" doctrine that allowed for racial segregation in public education.


Health insurance

By the time Truman took office,
National health insurance National health insurance (NHI), sometimes called statutory health insurance (SHI), is a system of health insurance that insures a national population against the costs of health care. It may be administered by the public sector, the private sector ...
had been on the table for decades, but it had never gained much traction. Starting in the late 1930s hospitals promoted private insurance plans such as Blue Cross, and between 1940 and 1950, the percentage of Americans with health insurance rose from 9 percent to above 50 percent. With the support of the
American Federation of Labor The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutual ...
(AFL), Truman proposed a national health insurance plan in November 1945, but it was defeated by an alliance of conservatives, the
American Medical Association The American Medical Association (AMA) is a professional association and lobbying group of physicians and medical students. Founded in 1847, it is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Membership was approximately 240,000 in 2016. The AMA's st ...
(which rallied the medical community against the bill), and the business community. Many labor unions discovered they could negotiate with business to obtain better health benefits for their own members, so they focused increasingly on that goal. The failure of Truman's healthcare plan solidified the status of private employers as the primary sponsors of
health insurance in the United States Health insurance in the United States is any program that helps pay for medical expenses, whether through privately purchased insurance, social insurance, or a social welfare program funded by the government. Synonyms for this usage include ...
.


Crime and corruption

With more young men back on the streets and more money in circulation, petty crime rates went up after 1945. Far more serious was organized crime run by professional criminal gangs, which became a favorite attack theme of Republican politicians and the media. The Justice Department in 1947 organized a 'racket squad' to build evidence for grand jury investigations in several major cities, and the income tax returns of many gambling entrepreneurs and racketeers were audited. However, federal officials were reluctant to share their new information with local law enforcement; Truman and his Attorney General J. Howard McGrath told local officials that they had to bear the chief burden in defeating organized crime. Senator
Estes Kefauver Carey Estes Kefauver (; July 26, 1903 – August 10, 1963) was an American politician from Tennessee. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1939 to 1949 and in the Senate from 1949 until his de ...
, a liberal Democrat from Tennessee, launched a major Senate investigation in 1950 as chairman of the Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce. Kefauver, although only a freshman in the Senate, received large-scale national coverage and became a presidential contender. The Kefauver committee exposed numerous charges of corruption among senior administration officials, some of whom received expensive fur coats and deep freezers in exchange for favors. Kefauver also found that over 160
Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory tax ...
(IRS) officials took bribes, used their offices to run private businesses, embezzled federal funds, or tolerated corrupt behavior by their subordinates. The various scandals of organized crime did not directly touch Truman, but they highlighted and exacerbated his problems with scandals inside his administration, such as influence peddling. In 1952, Truman appointed
Newbold Morris Augustus Newbold Morris or Newbold Morris (February 2, 1902 – March 30, 1966) was an American politician, lawyer, president of the New York City Council, and two-time candidate for mayor of New York City. Early life Morris, who never used ...
as a
special prosecutor In the United States, a special counsel (formerly called special prosecutor or independent counsel) is a lawyer appointed to investigate, and potentially prosecute, a particular case of suspected wrongdoing for which a conflict of interest exis ...
to investigate allegations of corruption at the IRS. When Attorney General McGrath fired Morris for being too zealous, Truman fired McGrath.


Domestic responses to the Cold War


Anticommunist liberalism

The onset of the Cold War produced turmoil in the left wing of the Democratic Party over foreign policy issues, especially regarding the role of the Soviet Union and the response to domestic communism. After the 1946 elections the
Congress of Industrial Organizations The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. Originally created in 1935 as a committee within the American Federation of ...
(CIO) systematically purged communists and far-left sympathizers from leadership roles in its unions. The CIO expelled some unions that resisted the purge, notably its third-largest affiliate the
United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), is an independent democratic rank-and-file labor union representing workers in both the private and public sectors across the United States. UE was one of the first unions to be c ...
(UE). Meanwhile, the AFL set up its first explicitly political unit, Labor's League for Political Education, and increasingly abandoned its historic tradition of nonpartisanship. Expelled leftists coalesced around Henry Wallace, who ran an independent campaign for president in 1948. The reforms by the CIO and AFL put both organizations in a good position to fight off Henry Wallace, and the CIO and AFL worked enthusiastically for Truman's reelection. Opponents of Wallace also established an anti-Communist liberal group,
Americans for Democratic Action Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) is a liberal American political organization advocating progressive policies. ADA views itself as supporting social and economic justice through lobbying, grassroots organizing, research, and supporting pro ...
(ADA). Though often critical of the far-right's unrestrained attacks on alleged Communists, members of the ADA attacked left-wing activists who, they feared, took orders from Communist leaders in the Soviet Union. Truman established the
Temporary Commission on Employee Loyalty On November 25, 1946, U.S. President Harry S. Truman announced the creation of the President's Temporary Commission on Employee Loyalty (TCEL) (November 25, 1946 – February 1, 1947). Background The formation of the TCEL came two weeks after ...
in November 1946 to create employee loyalty standards designed to weed out communist sympathizers from the federal workforce. In March 1947, Truman issued
Executive Order 9835 President Harry S. Truman signed United States Executive Order 9835, sometimes known as the "Loyalty Order", on March 21, 1947. The order established the first general loyalty program in the United States, designed to root out communist influence ...
, which ordered purges of left-wingers who refused to disavow communism. It removed about 300 federal employees who currently were members of or associated with any organization identified by the Attorney General as communist, fascist, or totalitarian. Anti-communist liberals by 1947–48 thus played a central role in the Democratic Party, and enthusiastically supported Truman's anti-communist foreign policy.


Soviet espionage and McCarthyism

In August 1948,
Whittaker Chambers Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer-editor, who, after early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), defected from the Soviet underground (1938), ...
, a former spy for the Soviets and a senior editor at ''Time'' magazine, testified to the
House Un-American Activities Committee The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...
(HUAC) that an underground communist network had been working within the U.S. government since the 1930s. He accused a former State Department official,
Alger Hiss Alger Hiss (November 11, 1904 – November 15, 1996) was an American government official accused in 1948 of having spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Statutes of limitations had expired for espionage, but he was convicted of perjury in con ...
, of being a member of that network; Hiss denied the allegations but was convicted in January 1950 for perjury. The Soviet Union's success in exploding an atomic weapon in 1949 and the fall of the nationalist Chinese the same year led many Americans to conclude that subversion by Soviet spies had been responsible for American setbacks and Soviet successes, and to demand that communists be rooted out from the government and other places of influence. However, Truman did not fully share such opinions, and throughout his tenure he would balance a desire to maintain internal security against the fear that a red scare could hurt innocents and impede government operations. He famously called the Hiss trial a "red herring," but also presided over the prosecution of numerous Communist leaders under the terms of the
Smith Act The Alien Registration Act, popularly known as the Smith Act, 76th United States Congress, 3d session, ch. 439, , is a United States federal statute that was enacted on June 28, 1940. It set criminal penalties for advocating the overthrow of ...
. Secretary of State Acheson's public support for Hiss, the revelation that British atomic bomb scientist
Klaus Fuchs Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs (29 December 1911 – 28 January 1988) was a German theoretical physicist and atomic spy who supplied information from the American, British and Canadian Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union during and shortly af ...
was a spy, and various other events led current and former members of HUAC to decry the Truman administration, especially the State Department, as soft on communism. Republican Congressmen Karl E. Mundt of South Dakota and
Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
of California emerged as particularly vocal and prominent critics on HUAC. Wisconsin Senator
Joseph McCarthy Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visi ...
used a speech in West Virginia to accuse the State Department of harboring communists, and rode the controversy to political fame. Truman responded by arguing that McCarthy's efforts would undermine the bipartisan foreign policy that had prevailed since the end of World War II and thereby give a political gift to the Soviet Union, but few Republicans spoke out against McCarthy during Truman's tenure in office. Democratic Senator William Benton sponsored a motion to expel McCarthy from Congress, but the motion was defeated and Benton lost his 1952 re-election campaign; McCarthy, meanwhile, was re-elected. McCarthy's anti-Communist campaigns, part of a larger Red Scare, played a major role in shaping a more confrontational Cold War foreign policy. It also affected members of Congress and other political leaders, who now worried that the embrace of left-wing policies would leave themselves vulnerable to accusations of being "soft" on Communism. The outbreak of the Korean War led to renewed interest in such an internal security bill, which had previously been debated during the 80th Congress. Senator
Pat McCarran Patrick Anthony McCarran (August 8, 1876 – September 28, 1954) was an American farmer, attorney, judge, and Democratic politician who represented Nevada in the United States Senate from 1933 until 1954. McCarran was born in Reno, Nevada, atte ...
of Nevada put forward a bill that would require Communist organizations to register with the government, and allowed the president to indefinitely detain those who were suspected of having engaged in espionage. The bill received little opposition from members of Congress, who feared being labeled as pro-Communist, and it passed both the House and the Senate as the
McCarran Internal Security Act The Internal Security Act of 1950, (Public Law 81-831), also known as the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950, the McCarran Act after its principal sponsor Sen. Pat McCarran (D-Nevada), or the Concentration Camp Law, is a United States fede ...
. Truman vetoed the bill in September 1950, arguing that it infringed on personal liberties and would be ineffective at protecting against subversion, but Congress overrode the veto.


Immigration

Immigration had been at a low level in the Great Depression and war years. It surged as the war ended, with the arrival of refugees and family members of citizens. The issue was not a high priority for the Truman administration, but there was great interest in Congress and among various ethnic groups. In 1945, the
War Brides Act The War Brides Act (59 Stat. 659, Act of Dec. 28, 1945) was enacted (on December 28, 1945) to allow alien spouses, natural children, and adopted children of members of the United States Armed Forces, "if admissible," to enter the U.S. as non-quota ...
allowed foreign-born wives of U.S. citizens who had served in the U.S. Armed Forces to immigrate to the United States; it was later extended to include the fiancés of American soldiers. In 1946, the Luce–Celler Act extended the right to become naturalized citizens to Filipinos and Asian Indians, setting the immigration quota at 100 people per year. In 1952, the McCarran Walter Immigration Act passed over Truman's veto. It kept the quota system of the
Immigration Act of 1924 The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the Asian Exclusion Act and National Origins Act (), was a United States federal law that prevented immigration from Asia and set quotas on the number of immigrants from the Eastern ...
but added many new opportunities for immigration from Europe and elsewhere. In practice two-thirds of the new arrivals entered outside the old quota system. Immigration law was effectively controlled by Congressman
Francis E. Walter Francis Eugene Walter (May 26, 1894 – May 31, 1963) was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania. Walter was a prominent member of the House Un-American Activities Committee from 1951 to 1963, serving as ch ...
of Pennsylvania, a Democrat who wanted to minimize immigration.


Failed seizure of steel mills

Though they never reached the severity of the strike wave of 1945–1946, labor disruptions continued to affect the country after 1946. When a steel strike loomed in April 1952, Truman instructed Secretary of Commerce
Charles W. Sawyer Charles W. Sawyer (February 10, 1887April 7, 1979) was an American lawyer and diplomat who served as the United States Secretary of Commerce from May 6, 1948 to January 20, 1953 in the administration of Harry Truman. Early life Sawyer was born in ...
to seize and continue operations of the nation's steel mills. Truman cited his authority as Commander in Chief and the need to maintain an uninterrupted supply of steel for munitions to be used in the war in Korea. The Supreme Court found the seizure unconstitutional, and reversed the order in a major separation-of-powers decision, '' Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer'' (1952). The 6–3 decision, which held that Truman's assertion of authority was too vague and was not rooted in any legislative action by Congress, was delivered by a Court composed entirely of Justices appointed by either Truman or Roosevelt. The high court's reversal of Truman's order was his most notable legal defeat. The Supreme Court decision left the country with the possibility of a critical steel shortage, but Truman was able to convince the steel managers and organized labor to reach a settlement in July 1952.


Territories and dependencies

Truman sought to grant greater rights to the territories and dependencies of the United States. He unsuccessfully pushed for the admission of Hawaii and Alaska as states but Congress did not act on this proposal. Truman was more successful in pushing organic legislation for
Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...
,
Samoa Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa; sm, Sāmoa, and until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands ( Savai'i and Upolu); two smaller, inhabited islands ( Manono and Apolima); ...
, and the
Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands The Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI) was a United Nations trust territory in Micronesia administered by the United States from 1947 to 1994. History Spain initially claimed the islands that later composed the territory of the Trus ...
, the latter of which had been acquired from Japan after World War II. This legislation, passed in 1950 and 1951, transferred the territories from military to civilian administration, though the Navy continued to exercise considerable influence. In 1952, Congress passed a bill to recognize Puerto Rico's newly written constitution.


Elections


1946 mid-term election

In the 1946 mid-term elections, Truman's Democrats suffered losses in both houses of Congress. Republicans, who had not controlled a chamber of Congress since the 1932 elections, took control of both the House and the Senate. Truman's party was hurt by a disappointing postwar economy, and the election was a major blow to Truman's hopes of passing his domestic policies. However, Dallek points to the 1946 elections as the moment when Truman became more sure of himself as president, and stopped trying to appease all factions of the public.


1948 election

In the spring of 1948, Truman's public approval rating stood at 36%, and the president was nearly universally regarded as incapable of winning reelection in the
1948 presidential election The following elections occurred in the year 1948. Africa * 1948 Mauritian general election * 1948 South African general election * 1948 Southern Rhodesian general election Asia * 1948 North Korean parliamentary election * 1948 Republic of China ...
. The "New Deal" loyalists within the party—including FDR's son
James James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguati ...
—tried to swing the Democratic nomination to General
Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
, a highly popular figure whose political views and party affiliation were totally unknown. Other liberals favored Associate Justice
William O. Douglas William Orville Douglas (October 16, 1898January 19, 1980) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who was known for his strong progressive and civil libertarian views, and is often ...
, but both Eisenhower and Douglas refused to enter the race, and the "Stop Truman" movement failed to unite around any other candidate. At the
1948 Democratic National Convention The 1948 Democratic National Convention was held at Philadelphia Convention Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from July 12 to July 14, 1948, and resulted in the nominations of President Harry S. Truman for a full term and Senator Alben W. B ...
, Truman attempted to unify the Northern delegations with a vague civil rights plank in the party platform. He was upstaged by liberals like Minneapolis Mayor
Hubert Humphrey Hubert Horatio Humphrey Jr. (May 27, 1911 – January 13, 1978) was an American pharmacist and politician who served as the 38th vice president of the United States from 1965 to 1969. He twice served in the United States Senate, representing Mi ...
, who convinced Truman and the convention to adopt a stronger civil rights plank. In response, many of the delegates from Alabama and Mississippi walked out of the convention. Unfazed, Truman delivered an aggressive acceptance speech attacking the 80th Congress, labeling it the "Do Nothing Congress." For his running mate, Truman accepted Kentucky Senator Alben W. Barkley after his preferred candidate, Justice William O. Douglas, turned down the nomination. South Carolina Governor
Strom Thurmond James Strom Thurmond Sr. (December 5, 1902June 26, 2003) was an American politician who represented South Carolina in the United States Senate from 1954 to 2003. Prior to his 48 years as a senator, he served as the 103rd governor of South Caro ...
, a segregationist, declared his candidacy for the presidency on a
Dixiecrat The States' Rights Democratic Party (whose members are often called the Dixiecrats) was a short-lived segregationist political party in the United States, active primarily in the South. It arose due to a Southern regional split in opposition ...
ticket and led a full-scale revolt of Southern "
states' rights In American political discourse, states' rights are political powers held for the state governments rather than the federal government according to the United States Constitution, reflecting especially the enumerated powers of Congress and the ...
" proponents. This rebellion on the right was matched by one on the left, led by Wallace on the Progressive Party ticket. Wallace strongly criticized Truman's approach to the Soviet Union, and the Progressive Party's platform addressed a wide array of issues, including support for the desegregation of public schools,
gender equality Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making; and the state of valuing d ...
, a national health insurance program, free trade, and public ownership of large banks, railroads, and power utilities. Wallace won support from many liberals, intellectuals, union members, and military veterans. The Republicans, meanwhile, nominated New York Governor
Thomas E. Dewey Thomas Edmund Dewey (March 24, 1902 – March 16, 1971) was an American lawyer, prosecutor, and politician who served as the 47th governor of New York from 1943 to 1954. He was the Republican candidate for president in 1944 and 1948: althou ...
, who had been the party's 1944 presidential nominee. Dewey waged a low-risk campaign and issued vague generalities on his plans once in office, while Thurmond found less support in the South than many had expected, as most white Southerners believed him to be too extreme. Wallace was unable to galvanize support behind his domestic policies, and his conciliatory attitude towards the Soviet Union alienated many potential supporters. Truman, meanwhile, crisscrossed the U.S. by train, delivering " whistle stop" speeches from the rear platform of the
observation car An observation car/carriage/coach (in US English, often abbreviated to simply observation or obs) is a type of railroad passenger car, generally operated in a passenger train as the rearmost carriage, with windows or a platform on the rear of t ...
. His combative appearances, such as those at the town square of
Harrisburg Harrisburg is the capital city of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Dauphin County. With a population of 50,135 as of the 2021 census, Harrisburg is the 9th largest city and 15th largest municipality in P ...
, Illinois, captured the popular imagination and drew huge crowds. The large, mostly spontaneous gatherings at Truman's whistle stop events were an important sign of a change in momentum in the campaign, but this shift went virtually unnoticed by the national press corps. The three major polling organizations stopped polling well before the November 2 election date—
Roper Roper is a craftsman who makes ropes; a ropemaker. It may also refer to: Places * Roper, North Carolina, USA * Roper River, Northern Territory, Australia People * Roper (surname) Other *''Roper v. Simmons'', a decision of the United States S ...
in September, and Crossley and Gallup in October—thus failing to measure the period when Truman may have surged past Dewey in public support. In the end, Truman held his progressive Midwestern base, won most of the Southern states despite the civil rights plank, and squeaked through with narrow victories in a few critical states, notably Ohio, California, and Illinois. He won over 50 percent of the popular vote and secured 303 electoral votes. Dewey received only 189 electoral votes; Thurmond garnered 39, and Henry Wallace none. Dewey carried several Northeastern states that had generally voted for Roosevelt, and the 1948 election was the closest presidential election since the 1916 election. In the concurrent congressional elections, the Democrats re-took control of the House and the Senate. The defining image of the campaign was a photograph snapped in the early morning hours of the day after the election, when an ecstatic Truman held aloft the erroneous front page of the '' Chicago Tribune'' with a huge headline proclaiming "
Dewey Defeats Truman "Dewey Defeats Truman" was an incorrect banner headline on the front page of the ''Chicago Daily Tribune'' (later ''Chicago Tribune'') on November 3, 1948, the day after incumbent United States president Harry S. Truman won an upset victory ...
."


1950 mid-term election

In Truman's second mid-term election, Republicans ran against Truman's proposed domestic policies and his handling of the Korean War. They picked up seats in both the House and the senate, but failed to gain control of either house of Congress. Truman was particularly upset by the apparent success of those who campaigned on McCarthyism.


1952 election

By the time of the 1952 New Hampshire primary, one of the first major contests held in the 1952 Democratic primaries, Truman had not stated whether he would seek re-election, and no other candidate had won Truman's backing. Although the Twenty-second Amendment had been ratified, Truman could run for another term due to a
grandfather clause A grandfather clause, also known as grandfather policy, grandfathering, or grandfathered in, is a provision in which an old rule continues to apply to some existing situations while a new rule will apply to all future cases. Those exempt from t ...
in the amendment. Truman's first choice to succeed him, Chief Justice Vinson, had declined to run, Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson had also turned Truman down, Vice President Barkley was considered too old, and Truman disliked Senator Kefauver. Accordingly, Truman let his name be entered in the New Hampshire primary by supporters. The highly unpopular Truman was handily defeated by Kefauver; 18 days later the president announced he would not seek a second full term. Truman was eventually able to persuade Stevenson to run, and the governor ultimately gained the nomination at the
1952 Democratic National Convention The 1952 Democratic National Convention was held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois from July 21 to July 26, 1952, which was the same arena the Republicans had gathered in a few weeks earlier for their national convention fr ...
. General Dwight D. Eisenhower's public stature, along with his unknown views on domestic issues, had made him appealing as a potential candidate for both parties in the 1948 election. Though he had generally supported Truman's foreign policy, Eisenhower privately held conservative views on most domestic issues and never seriously considered running for office as a Democrat. Beginning in 1951, eastern, internationalist Republicans, led by Thomas Dewey and Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., coordinated a draft movement designed to nominate Eisenhower as the Republican candidate for president. Eisenhower initially resisted these efforts, but in March 1952 he agreed to allow his name to be entered into the New Hampshire primary. He was motivated in part by his desire to defeat
Robert A. Taft Robert Alphonso Taft Sr. (September 8, 1889 – July 31, 1953) was an American politician, lawyer, and scion of the Republican Party's Taft family. Taft represented Ohio in the United States Senate, briefly served as Senate Majority ...
, the other major contender for the Republican nomination. The 1952 Republican primaries became a battle between Dewey's internationalist wing of the party and Taft's conservative, isolationist wing. Eisenhower narrowly prevailed over Taft at the
1952 Republican National Convention The 1952 Republican National Convention was held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois from July 7 to 11, 1952, and nominated the popular general and war hero Dwight D. Eisenhower of New York, nicknamed "Ike," for president and ...
; with the approval of Eisenhower, the convention nominated Richard Nixon for vice president. The once good Truman-Eisenhower relationship soured during the campaign. Truman was appalled when Eisenhower appeared on the same platform with Joseph McCarthy in Wisconsin, and failed to defend General George Marshall, who McCarthy had recently denounced as a failure in China. Eisenhower was outraged when Truman, who made a whistle-stop tour in support of Stevenson, accused Ike of disregarding "sinister forces ... Anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, and anti-foreignism" within the Republican Party. Though Stevenson's public service and issue-oriented campaign appealed to many liberals, he was unable to rally support among blacks, ethnic whites, and the working class. Eisenhower campaigned against what he denounced as Truman's failures: "Korea, Communism and Corruption." Polls consistently indicated that Eisenhower would win the race, and Nixon deftly handled a potentially dangerous controversy over his finances with his
Checkers speech The Checkers speech or Fund speech was an address made on September 23, 1952, by Senator Richard Nixon ( R- CA), six weeks before the 1952 United States presidential election, in which he was the Republican nominee for Vice President. Nixon had ...
, delivered live on national
television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, e ...
. In part due to the Checkers speech, television emerged as an important medium in the race; the number of households with televisions had grown from under 200,000 in 1948 to over 15 million in 1952. On election day, as widely expected, Eisenhower defeated Stevenson by a wide margin. Eisenhower took 55.4 percent of the popular vote and won 442 electoral votes, taking almost every state outside of the South. Though Eisenhower ran ahead of most congressional Republicans, his party nonetheless took control of both the House and Senate, giving the Republican Party unified control of Congress and the presidency for the first time since the 1930 elections.


Historical reputation

Truman's ranking in polls of historians and political scientists have never fallen lower than ninth, and he has ranked as high as fifth in a C-SPAN poll in 2009. A 2018 poll of the
American Political Science Association The American Political Science Association (APSA) is a professional association of political science students and scholars in the United States. Founded in 1903 in the Tilton Memorial Library (now Tilton Hall) of Tulane University in New Orleans, ...
’s Presidents and Executive Politics section ranked Truman as the seventh best president, and a 2017 C-SPAN poll of historians ranked Truman as the sixth best president. When he left office in 1953, the American public saw Truman as one of the most unpopular chief executives in history. His job approval rating of 22% in the Gallup Poll of February 1952 was lower than Richard Nixon's 24% in August 1974, the month that Nixon resigned in the wake of the
Watergate scandal The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's continual ...
. In 1952, journalist
Samuel Lubell Samuel Lubell (November 3, 1911 – August 16, 1987), born Samuel Lubelsky, was an American public opinion pollster, journalist, and author who successfully predicted election outcomes using door-to-door voter interviews. He published six books ...
stated that "after seven years of Truman's hectic, even furious, activity the nation seemed to be about on the same general spot as when he first came to office ... Nowhere in the whole Truman record can one point to a single, decisive break-through ... All his skills and energies—and he was among our hardest-working Presidents—were directed to standing still". During the years of campus unrest in the 1960s and 1970s, revisionist historians on the left attacked his foreign policy as too hostile to Communism, and his domestic policy as too favorable toward business. However, Truman's image in university textbooks was quite favorable in the 1950s, and more established scholars never accepted the critiques of revisionist historians. American public feeling towards Truman grew steadily warmer with the passing years. Truman died in 1972, when the nation was consumed with crises in
Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making it ...
and Watergate, and his death brought a new wave of attention to his political career. During this period, Truman captured the popular imagination, emerging as a kind of political folk hero, a president who was thought to exemplify an integrity and accountability many observers felt was lacking in the Nixon White House. This public reassessment of Truman was aided by the popularity of a book of reminiscences which Truman had told to journalist
Merle Miller Merle Dale Miller (May 17, 1919 – June 10, 1986) was an American writer, novelist, and author who is perhaps best remembered for his best-selling biography of Harry S. Truman, and as a pioneer in the gay rights movement. Miller came out ...
beginning in 1961, with the agreement that they would not be published until after Truman's death. Scholars who have compared the audio tapes with the published transcripts have concluded that Miller often distorted what Truman said or fabricated statements Truman never said. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 caused Truman advocates to claim vindication for Truman's decisions in the postwar period. According to Truman biographer Robert Dallek, "His contribution to victory in the cold war without a devastating nuclear conflict elevated him to the stature of a great or near-great president." The 1992 publication of
David McCullough David Gaub McCullough (; July 7, 1933 – August 7, 2022) was an American popular historian. He was a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. In 2006, he was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States ...
's favorable biography of Truman further cemented the view of Truman as a highly regarded chief executive. Nevertheless, Truman continued to receive criticism. After a review of information available to Truman about the presence of espionage activities in the U.S. government, Democratic Senator
Daniel Patrick Moynihan Daniel Patrick Moynihan (March 16, 1927 – March 26, 2003) was an American politician, diplomat and sociologist. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented New York in the United States Senate from 1977 until 2001 and served as an ...
concluded that Truman was "almost willfully obtuse" concerning the danger of American communism. In 2002, historian
Alonzo Hamby Alonzo L. Hamby (born January 30, 1940) is an American historian and academic. He is distinguished professor of history emeritus at Ohio University and the recipient of two National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships, a Harry S. Truman Li ...
concluded that "Harry Truman remains a controversial president." According to historian Daniel R. McCoy in his book on the Truman presidency, Biographer Robert Donovan has emphasized Truman's personality:
Vigorous, hard-working, simple, he had grown up close to the soil of the Midwest and understood the struggles of the people on the farms and in the small towns....After 10 years in the Senate, he had risen above the Pendergast organization. Still, he had come from a world of two-bit politicians, and its aura was one that he never was able to shed entirely. And he did retain certain characteristics one often sees in machine-bred politicians: intense partisanship, stubborn loyalty, a certain insensitivity about the transgressions of political associates, and a disinclination for the companionship of intellectuals and artists. Robert J. Donovan, ''Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945–1948'' (1977) p. xv.


Notes


References


Works cited

* * * * * * Hamby, Alonzo. "Truman, Harry S." in ''The Encyclopedia of the American Presidency'' edited by Leonard Levy and Louis Fisher (vol 4 1994) pp. 1497–1505. * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Further reading


Truman's roles, politics

* Baime, Albert J. ''Dewey Defeats Truman: The 1948 Election and the Battle for America's Soul'' (Houghton Mifflin, 2020). * Berman, William C. ''The politics of civil rights in the Truman administration'' (Ohio State UP, 1970)
dissertation version online
* Bernstein, Barton J. "The Truman administration and the steel strike of 1946." ''Journal of American History'' 52.4 (1966): 791–803
online
* Bernstein, Barton J. "The Truman administration and its reconversion wage policy." ''Labor History'' 6.3 (1965): 214–231. * * Brinkley, Douglas. ''Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and the Great Environmental Awakening'' (2022
excerpt
chapter 2 on Truman * * Ciment, James, ed. ''Postwar America: An Encyclopedia Of Social, Political, Cultural, And Economic History'' (4 vol 2006); 550 articles in 2000 pp * Cochran, Bert. ''Harry Truman and the crisis presidency'' (1973); 432pp. * Congressional Quarterly. ''Congress and the Nation 1945–1964'' (1965), Highly detailed and factual coverage of Congress and presidential politics; 1784 pages
online
* * Daniels. Roger, ed. ''Immigration and the Legacy of Harry S. Truman'' (2010). * Daynes, Byron W. and Glen Sussman, ''White House Politics and the Environment: Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush'' (2010) pp 36–45. * Donaldson, Gary A. ''Truman Defeats Dewey'' (University Press of Kentucky, 2014). * Donovan, Robert J. ''Conflict and crisis: The presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945–1948.'' (1977). '' Tumultuous Years: The Presidency of Harry S Truman, 1949–1953'' (vol 2 1982); journalistic * * Freeland, Richard. ''The Truman Doctrine and the Rise of McCarthyism'' (1971). * Gardner, Michael R. ''Harry Truman and civil rights'' (SIU Press, 2002). * Goulden, Joseph C. ''The Best Years: 1945–1950'' (1976), popular social history * Graff, Henry F. ed. ''The Presidents: A Reference History'' (2nd ed. 1997), pp 443–58. * Gronlund, Mimi Clark. "A Controversial Appointment." ''Supreme Court Justice Tom C. Clark'' (University of Texas Press, 2021) pp. 137-146. * Hah, Chong-do, and Robert M. Lindquist. "The 1952 steel seizure revisited: A systematic study in presidential decision making." ''Administrative Science Quarterly'' (1975): 587-60
online
* * Hartmann, Susan M. ''Truman and the 80th Congress'' (1971
online
* James, Rawn. ''The Truman Court: Law and the Limits of Loyalty'' (University of Missouri Press, 2021). * Karabell, Zachary. ''The Last Campaign: How Harry Truman Won the 1948 Election'' (Vintage, 2001). * Lacey, Michael J. ed. ''The Truman Presidency'' (Cambridge University Press, 1991) 13 essays by specialists. * Lee, R. Alton. "The Truman-80th Congress Struggle over Tax Policy." ''Historian'' 33.1 (1970): 68–82
online
* Lee, R. Alton. ''Truman and Taft-Hartley: A Question of Mandate'' (1966) * McCoy, Donald R. and Richard T. Ruetten. ''Quest and Response: Minority Rights and the Truman Administration'' (U Press of Kansas, 1973). * Marcus, Maeva. ''Truman and the Steel Seizure Case'' (Duke UP, 1994)
link
* Matusow, Allen J. ''Farm policies and politics in the Truman years'' (Harvard UP, 1967). * Mitchell, Franklin D. ''Harry S. Truman and the news media: contentious relations, belated respect'' (U of Missouri Press, 1998). * * Poen, Monte M. ''Harry S. Truman versus the medical lobby: The genesis of Medicare'' (U of Missouri Press, 1996). * Pusey, Allen. "Truman Seizes Steel Mills." ''American Bar Association Journal'' 103 (2017): 72+. * Richardson, Elmo. ''Dams, Parks and Politics: Resource Development and Preservation the Truman-Eisenhower Era'' (1973). * Savage, Sean J. ''Truman and the Democratic Party'' (1997). * Schoenebaum, Eleanora W. ed. ''Political Profiles: The Truman Years'' (1978) 715pp; short biographies of 435 players in national politics 1945–1952. * Sitkoff, Harvard. "Harry Truman and the election of 1948: The coming of age of civil rights in American politics." ''Journal of Southern History'' 37.4 (1971): 597-61
online
* Stebbins, Phillip E. "Truman and the Seizure of Steel: A Failure in Communication." ''The Historian'' 34.1 (1971): 1-2
online
* Swanson, Charles E., James Jenkins, and Robert L. Jones. "President Truman Speaks: A Study of Ideas vs. Media." ''Journalism Quarterly'' 27.3 (1950): 251–262.


Foreign and military policy

* Acheson, Dean. ''Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department '' (1969), a major primary source.
online
* Anderson Terry H. ''The United States, Great Britain, and the Cold War, 1944–1947.'' (1981) * Beisner, Robert L. ''Dean Acheson: A Life in the Cold War'' (2015
online
a major scholarly study * * * Congressional Quarterly. ''Congress and the Nation 1945–1964'' (1965), Highly detailed and factual coverage of foreign and defense policy; pp 89–334
online
* Dobbs, Michael. ''Six Months in 1945: FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman—from World War to Cold War'' (2012) popular narrative * * * Freda, Isabelle. "Screening Power: Harry Truman and the Nuclear Leviathan" ''Comparative Cinema'' 7.12 (2019): 38–52. Hollywood's take. * Gaddis, John Lewis. ''Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy'' (1982, 2nd ed 2005
online
* Gaddis, John Lewis. ''George F. Kennan: An American Life'' (2011)
online
* * Herken, Gregg. ''The winning weapon: The atomic bomb in the cold war, 1945–1950'' (1980
online
* * House, Jonathan. ''A Military History of the Cold War, 1944–1962'' (2012
excerpt and text search
* Isaacson Walter, and
Evan Thomas Evan Welling Thomas III (born April 25, 1951) is an American journalist, historian, and author. He is the author of nine books, including two ''New York Times'' bestsellers. Early life and career Thomas was born in Huntington, New York, and r ...
. '' The Wise Men. Six Friends and the World They Made. Acheson, Bohlen, Harriman, Kennan, Lovett, McCloy.'' (1986
excerpt
* Larson, Deborah Welch. "Truman as World Leader." in ''Origins of Containment'' (Princeton University Press, 2021) pp. 126–149. * * * Leffler, Melvyn P. ''For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War'' (2007) * McFarland, Keith D. and Roll, David L. ''Louis Johnson and the Arming of America: The Roosevelt And Truman Years'' (2005) * McGhee, George. ''The US-Turkish-NATO Middle East Connection: How the Truman Doctrine and Turkey's NATO Entry Contained the Soviets'' (Springer, 2016). * McMahon Robert J. ''Dean Acheson and the Creation of an American World Order'' (2008) * Maddox, Robert James. ''From War to Cold War: The Education of Harry S. Truman'' (Routledge, 2019). * * Matray, James I., and Donald W. Boose Jr, eds. ''The Ashgate research companion to the Korean War'' (2014
excerpt
* * Miscamble, Wilson D. ''The most controversial decision: Truman, the atomic bombs, and the defeat of Japan'' (Cambridge UP, 2011). * Miscamble, Wilson D. ''From Roosevelt to Truman: Potsdam, Hiroshima, and the Cold War'' (2007) * Neuse, Steven. ''David E. Lilienthal: The Journey of an American Liberal.'' (University of Tennessee Press, 1996). on Atomic Energy Commission * ** Offner, Arnold A. ''Another Such Victory: President Truman and the Cold War, 1945–1953'' (Stanford University Press, 2002)
online
* Paterson, Thomas G. "Presidential Foreign Policy, Public Opinion, and Congress: The Truman Years." ''Diplomatic History'' 3.1 (1979): 1–18
online
* Paterson, Thomas G. ''Meeting the communist threat: Truman to Reagan'' (Oxford UP, 1989). * Pierpaoli, Paul G. ''Truman and Korea: The Political Culture of the Early Cold War'' (U of Missouri Press, 1999). * Pogue, Forrest C. ''George C. Marshall. vol 4. Statesman: 1945–1959'' (1987)
online
* * Schwartzberg, Steven. ''Democracy and US Policy in Latin America during the Truman Years'' (UP of Florida, 2003). * Shaffer, Robert. "The Christian Century: Protestants Protesting Harry Truman's Cold War." ''Peace & Change'' 42.1 (2017): 93–127. * Walton, Richard J. ''Henry Wallace, Harry Truman, and the cold war'' (Viking, 1976). * Warren, Aiden, and Joseph M. Siracusa. "The Transition from Roosevelt to Truman." in ''US Presidents and Cold War Nuclear Diplomacy'' (Palgrave Macmillan Cham, 2021) pp. 19-34., * Watson, Robert P. Michael J. Devine, Robert J. Wolz, eds. ''The National Security Legacy of Harry S. Truman'' (2005) * Weissman, Alexander D. "Pivotal politics—The Marshall Plan: A turning point in foreign aid and the struggle for democracy." ''History Teacher'' 47.1 (2013): 111–129
online
for middle and high schools


Historiography

* * * Dalfiume, Richard M. "Truman and the Historians: A Review Article." ''Wisconsin Magazine of History'' 50#3 (1967), pp. 261–26
online
* Ferrell, Robert H. ''Harry S. Truman and the Cold War Revisionists'' (U of Missouri Press, 2006). * * Griffith, Robert. "Truman and the Historians: The Reconstruction of Postwar American History." ''Wisconsin Magazine of History'' (1975) 59#1 : 20–47
in JSTOR
* * Kirkendall, Richard S. ''The Truman period as a research field: A Reappraisal, 1972'' (2nd ed. 1974; 1st ed. 1967); For major essays plus commentaries by experts, 246pp. * Kort, Michael. "The Historiography of Hiroshima: The Rise and Fall of Revisionism." ''New England Journal of History'' 64#1 (2007): 31–48
online
* * Orren, Karen, and Stephen Skowronek. "Regimes and regime building in American government: A review of literature on the 1940s." ''Political Science Quarterly'' 113.4 (1998): 689-702.
online
* * * *


Primary sources

* Acheson, Dean. ''Present at the creation: My years in the State Department'' (1987)
online
* Bernstein, Barton J. and Allen J. Matusow, eds. ''The Truman administration: A Documentary History'' (1966); 518 pp.
online
* Clark, Clifford, and Holbrooke Richard. ''Counsel to the President'' (1991). * Gallup, George H., ed. ''The Gallup Poll-Public Opinion-Volume One (1935–1948)''; (1972); ''The Gallup Poll-Public Opinion-Volume Two (1949–1958)'' (1972) * * Hamby, Alonzo L., ed. ''Harry S. Truman and the Fair Deal'' (1974); 223pp; short excerpts from primary sources and from experts. * * Leahy, William D. ''I was There: The Personal Story of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, Based on His Notes and Diaries Made at the Time'' (1950). * Merrill, Dennis, ed. ''Documentary history of the Truman presidency'' (University Publications of America, 2001). * Miller, Merle. ''Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman'' (1974). WARNING: Scholars who have compared the audio tapes with the published transcripts have concluded the Miller often distorted what Truman said or fabricated statements Truman never made. See Robert H. Ferrell, & Francis H. Heller, (May–June 1995). "Plain Faking?". ''American Heritage'' Vol. 46, no. 3. pp. 21–33. * Roosevelt, Eleanor. ed. ''Eleanor and Harry: The Correspondence of Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman'' (Citadel Press, 2004) * Truman, Harry S. ''Public papers of the presidents of the United States'' (8 vol. Federal Register Division, National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, 1946–53). * *
online
*
online v 2
* Lyman Van Slyke, ed. ''The China White Paper: August 1949'' (1967: 2 vol. Stanford U.P.); 1124pp; copy of official U.S. Department of State. ''China White Paper: 1949'
vol 1 online at Googleonline vol 1 pdf
vol 2 is not online; se
library holdings via World Cat
excerpt are in Barton J. Bernstein, and Allen J. Matusow, eds. ''The Truman administration: A Documentary History'' (1966) pp 299–355. * Vandenberg, Arthur Hendrick. ''The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg'' (1952), ed by Joe Alex Morris. * ''The Documentary History of the Truman Presidency'', edited by Dennis Merrill (35 vol. University Publications of America, 1996
table of contents


External links

*
Harry S. Truman Library & Museum


from the Library of Congress
Essays on Harry S. Truman, each member of his cabinet and First Lady
from the
Miller Center of Public Affairs The Miller Center is a nonpartisan affiliate of the University of Virginia that specializes in United States presidential scholarship, public policy, and political history. History The Miller Center was founded in 1975 through the philanthrop ...

Newsreel May 23, 1946: Rail strike paralyzes the nation

Newsreel May 29, 1946: End of coal strike
{{Democratic Party (United States) Truman, Harry S. 1940s in the United States 1950s in the United States Harry S. Truman 1945 establishments in the United States 1953 disestablishments in the United States