Truman was born in Lamar, Missouri, in 1884. He grew up in Independence,
and for 12 years prospered as a Missouri farmer.
He went to France during World War I as a captain in the Field
Artillery. Returning, he married Elizabeth Virginia Wallace, and opened a
haberdashery in Kansas City.
Active in the Democratic Party, Truman was elected a judge of the
Jackson County Court (an administrative position) in 1922. He became a
Senator in 1934. During World War II he headed the Senate war
investigating committee, checking into waste and corruption and saving
perhaps as much as 15 billion dollars.
As President, Truman made some of the most crucial decisions in
history. Soon after V-E Day, the war against Japan had reached its final
stage. An urgent plea to Japan to surrender was rejected. Truman, after
consultations with his advisers, ordered atomic bombs dropped on cities
devoted to war work. Two were Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japanese
surrender quickly followed.
In June 1945 Truman witnessed the signing of the charter of the
United Nations, hopefully established to preserve peace.
Thus far, he had followed his predecessor's policies, but he soon
developed his own. He presented to Congress a 21-point program,
proposing the expansion of Social Security, a full-employment program, a
permanent Fair Employment Practices Act, and public housing and slum
clearance. The program, Truman wrote, "symbolizes for me my assumption
of the office of President in my own right." It became known as the Fair
Deal.
Dangers and crises marked the foreign scene as Truman campaigned
successfully in 1948. In foreign affairs he was already providing his
most effective leadership.
In 1947 as the Soviet Union pressured Turkey and, through
guerrillas, threatened to take over Greece, he asked Congress to aid the
two countries, enunciating the program that bears his name--the Truman
Doctrine. The Marshall Plan, named for his Secretary of State,
stimulated spectacular economic recovery in war-torn Western Europe.
When the Russians blockaded the western sectors of Berlin in
1948, Truman created a massive airlift to supply Berliners until the
Russians backed down. Meanwhile, he was negotiating a military alliance
to protect Western nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,
established in 1949.
In June 1950, when the Communist government of North Korea
attacked South Korea, Truman conferred promptly with his military
advisers. There was, he wrote, "complete, almost unspoken acceptance on
the part of everyone that whatever had to be done to meet this
aggression had to be done. There was no suggestion from anyone that
either the United Nations or the United States could back away from it."
A long, discouraging struggle ensued as U.N. forces held a line
above the old boundary of South Korea. Truman kept the war a limited
one, rather than risk a major conflict with China and perhaps Russia.
Deciding not to run again, he retired to Independence; at age 88, he
died December 26, 1972, after a stubborn fight for life.
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