Harry S. Truman
Official portrait, c. 1947
33rd President of the United States
In office April 12, 1945 – January 20, 1953
Vice President	None (1945–1949)[a] Alben W. Barkley (1949–1953)
Preceded by	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Succeeded by	Dwight D. Eisenhower
34th Vice President of the United States
In office January 20, 1945 – April 12, 1945
President	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Preceded by	Henry A. Wallace
Succeeded by	Alben W. Barkley
United States Senator from Missouri
In office January 3, 1935 – January 17, 1945
Preceded by	Roscoe C. Patterson
Succeeded by	Frank P. Briggs
Presiding Judge of Jackson County, Missouri
In office January 1, 1927[1] – January 1, 1935[1]
Preceded by	Elihu W. Hayes[2]
Succeeded by	Eugene I. Purcell[3]
Judge of Jackson County, Missouri's Eastern District
In office January 1, 1923[4] – January 1, 1925[4]
Preceded by	James E. Gilday[5]
Succeeded by	Henry Rummel[3]
Personal details
Born	(1884-05-08)May 8, 1884 Lamar, Missouri, U.S.
Died	December 26, 1972(1972-12-26) (aged 88) Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.
Resting place	Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum, Independence, Missouri
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Bess Wallace ​ (m. 1919)​
Children	Margaret
Parent	Martha Ellen Young (mother)
Relatives	Clifton Truman Daniel (grandson) Clifton Daniel (son-in-law)
Occupation	Farmer haberdasher politician
Signature
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch/service	United States Army
Years of service	1905–1911 (National Guard) 1917–1919 (Army) 1920–1953 (Army Reserve)
Rank	Colonel (Army Reserve)
Commands	Battery D, 129th Field Artillery Regiment, 35th Division 1st Battalion, 379th Field Artillery Regiment, 102nd Infantry Division 379th Field Artillery Regiment, 102nd Infantry Division
Battles	World War I Battle of Saint-Mihiel Meuse–Argonne offensive Defensive Sector
Awards	World War I Victory Medal Armed Forces Reserve Medal (2)
Harry S. Truman's voice Excerpt from a radio broadcast regarding the Potsdam Conference Recorded November 1948

Harry S. Truman^[b] (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as a United States senator from Missouri from 1935 to 1945 and briefly as the 34th vice president in 1945 under Franklin D. Roosevelt. Assuming the presidency after Roosevelt's death, Truman implemented the Marshall Plan in the wake of World War II to rebuild the economy of Western Europe and established both the Truman Doctrine and NATO to contain the expansion of Soviet communism. He proposed numerous liberal domestic reforms, but few were enacted by the conservative coalition that dominated the Congress.

Truman was raised in Independence, Missouri, and during World War I fought in France as a captain in the Field Artillery. Returning home, he opened a haberdashery in Kansas City, Missouri, and was elected as a judge of Jackson County in 1922. Truman was elected to the United States Senate from Missouri in 1934. Between 1940 and 1944, he gained national prominence as chairman of the Truman Committee, which was aimed at reducing waste and inefficiency in wartime contracts.

Truman was elected vice president in the 1944 presidential election and assumed the presidency upon Roosevelt's death in April 1945. It was only when Truman assumed the presidency that he was informed about the ongoing Manhattan Project and the atomic bomb. Truman authorized the first and only use of nuclear weapons in war against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leading to Japan's surrender and the end of the world war. Truman's administration engaged in an internationalist foreign policy by working closely with Britain. Truman staunchly denounced isolationism. He energized the New Deal coalition during the 1948 presidential election, despite a divided Democratic Party, and won a surprise victory against Republican Party nominee Thomas E. Dewey that secured his own presidential term.

Truman presided over the onset of the Cold War in 1947. He oversaw the Berlin Airlift and Marshall Plan in 1948. With the involvement of the US in the Korean War of 1950–1953, South Korea repelled the invasion by North Korea. Domestically, the postwar economic challenges such as strikes and inflation created a mixed reaction over the effectiveness of his administration. In 1948, he proposed Congress pass comprehensive civil rights legislation. Congress refused, so Truman issued Executive Order 9980 and Executive Order 9981, which prohibited discrimination in federal agencies and desegregated the U.S. Armed Forces.

Investigations revealed corruption in parts of the Truman administration, and this became a major campaign issue in the 1952 presidential election, although they did not implicate Truman himself. He was eligible for reelection in 1952 but, with poor polling, he chose not to run. Truman went into a retirement marked by the founding of his presidential library and the publication of his memoirs. It was long thought that his retirement years were financially difficult for Truman, resulting in Congress establishing a pension for former presidents, but evidence eventually emerged that he amassed considerable wealth, some of it while still president. When he left office, Truman's administration was heavily criticized. Despite this controversy, scholars rank Truman in the first quartile of American presidents. In addition, critical reassessment of his presidency has improved his reputation among historians and the general population.^[7]

Early life, family, and education

Truman was born in Lamar, Missouri, on May 8, 1884, the oldest child of John Anderson Truman and Martha Ellen Young Truman. He was named for his maternal uncle, Harrison "Harry" Young. His middle initial, "S", is not an abbreviation of one particular name. Rather, it honors both his grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young, a somewhat common practice in the American South at the time.^[8][b] A brother, John Vivian, was born soon after Harry, followed by sister Mary Jane.^[9] While Truman's ancestry was primarily English, he also had some Scots-Irish, German, and French ancestry.^[10][11]

John Truman was a farmer and livestock dealer. The family lived in Lamar until Harry was ten months old, when they moved to a farm near Harrisonville, Missouri. They next moved to Belton and in 1887 to his grandparents' 600-acre (240 ha) farm in Grandview.^[12] When Truman was six, his parents moved to Independence, Missouri, so he could attend the Presbyterian Church Sunday School. He did not attend a conventional school until he was eight years old.^[13] While living in Independence, he served as a Shabbos goy for Jewish neighbors, doing tasks for them on Shabbat that their religion prevented them from doing on that day.^[14][15][16]

Truman was interested in music, reading, and history, all encouraged by his mother, with whom he was very close. As president, he solicited political as well as personal advice from her.^[17] Truman learned to play the piano at age seven and took lessons from Mrs. E.C. White, a well-respected teacher in Kansas City.^[18] He got up at five o'clock every morning to practice the piano, which he studied more than twice a week until he was fifteen, becoming quite a skilled player.^[19] Truman worked as a page at the 1900 Democratic National Convention in Kansas City;^[20] his father had many friends active in the Democratic Party who helped young Harry to gain his first political position.^[21]

After graduating from Independence High School in 1901,^[22] Truman took classes at Spalding's Commercial College, a Kansas City business school. He studied bookkeeping, shorthand, and typing but stopped after a year.^[23]

Working career

Truman was employed briefly in the mailroom of The Kansas City Star^[24] before making use of his business college experience to obtain a job as a timekeeper for construction crews on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, which required him to sleep in workmen's camps along the rail lines.^[25] Truman and his brother Vivian later worked as clerks at the National Bank of Commerce in Kansas City.^[26]

In 1906, Truman returned to the Grandview farm, where he lived until entering the army in 1917.^[27] During this period, he courted Bess Wallace.^[28] He proposed in 1911, but she turned him down.^[29] Believing Wallace turned him down because he did not have much money, Truman later said he intended to propose again, but he wanted to have a better income than that earned by a farmer.^[30] In fact, Wallace later told Truman she did not intend to marry, but if she did, it would be to him.^[29] Still determined to improve his finances, during his years on the farm and immediately after World War I, Truman became active in several business ventures. These included a lead and zinc mine near Commerce, Oklahoma, a company that bought land and leased the oil drilling rights to prospectors, and speculation in Kansas City real estate.^[31] Truman occasionally derived some income from these enterprises, but none proved successful in the long term.^[32]

Truman is the only president since William McKinley (elected in 1896) who did not earn a college degree.^[33] In addition to having briefly attended business college, from 1923 to 1925 he took night courses toward an LL.B. at the Kansas City Law School (now the University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Law) but dropped out after losing reelection as county judge.^[34] He was informed by attorneys in the Kansas City area that his education and experience were probably sufficient to receive a license to practice law but did not pursue it because he won election as presiding judge.^[35]

While serving as president in 1947, Truman applied for a law license.^[36] A friend who was an attorney began working out the arrangements, and informed Truman that his application had to be notarized. By the time Truman received this information he had changed his mind, so he never followed up. After the discovery of Truman's application in 1996 the Missouri Supreme Court issued him a posthumous honorary law license.^[37]

Military service

National Guard

Due to the lack of funds for college, Truman considered attending the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, which had no tuition, but he was refused an appointment because of poor eyesight.^[34] He enlisted in the Missouri National Guard in 1905 and served until 1911 in the Kansas City-based Battery B, 2nd Missouri Field Artillery Regiment, in which he attained the rank of corporal.^[38] At his induction, his eyesight without glasses was unacceptable 20/50 in the right eye and 20/400 in the left (past the standard for legal blindness).^[39] The second time he took the test, he passed by secretly memorizing the eye chart.^[40] He was described as 5 feet 10 inches tall, gray eyed, dark haired and of light complexion.^[41]

World War I

When the United States entered World War I on April 6, 1917, Truman rejoined Battery B, successfully recruiting new soldiers for the expanding unit, for which he was elected as their first lieutenant.^[42] Before deployment to France, Truman was sent for training to Camp Doniphan, Fort Sill, near Lawton, Oklahoma, when his regiment was federalized as the 129th Field Artillery.^[43] The regimental commander during its training was Robert M. Danford, who later served as the Army's Chief of Field Artillery.^[44] Truman recalled that he learned more practical, useful information from Danford in six weeks than from six months of formal Army instruction, and when Truman served as an artillery instructor, he consciously patterned his approach on Danford's.^[44]

Truman also ran the camp canteen with Edward Jacobson, a clothing store clerk he knew from Kansas City. Unlike most canteens funded by unit members, which usually lost money, the canteen operated by Truman and Jacobson turned a profit, returning each soldier's initial $2 investment and $10,000 in dividends in six months.^[38] At Fort Sill, Truman met Lieutenant James M. Pendergast, nephew of Tom Pendergast, a Kansas City political boss, a connection that had a profound influence on Truman's later life.^[45][46]

In mid-1918, about one million soldiers of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) were in France.^[47] Truman was promoted to captain effective April 23,^[48] and in July became commander of the newly arrived Battery D, 129th Field Artillery, 35th Division.^[49][50] Battery D was known for its discipline problems, and Truman was initially unpopular because of his efforts to restore order.^[38] Despite attempts by the men to intimidate him into quitting, Truman succeeded by making his corporals and sergeants accountable for discipline. He promised to back them up if they performed capably and reduce them to private if they did not.^[51] In an event memorialized in battery lore as "The Battle of Who Run", his soldiers began to flee during a sudden night attack by the Germans in the Vosges Mountains; Truman succeeded at ordering his men to stay and fight, using profanity from his railroad days. The men were so surprised to hear Truman use such language that they immediately obeyed.^[38]

Truman's unit joined in a massive prearranged assault barrage on September 26, 1918, at the opening of the Meuse–Argonne offensive.^[52] They advanced with difficulty over pitted terrain to follow the infantry, and set up an observation post west of Cheppy.^[52] On September 27, Truman saw through his binoculars an enemy artillery battery deploying across a river in a position which would allow them to fire upon the neighboring 28th Division.^[52] Truman's orders limited him to targets facing the 35th Division, but he ignored this and patiently waited until the Germans had walked their horses well away from their guns, ensuring they could not relocate out of range of Truman's battery.^[52] He then ordered his men to open fire, and their attack destroyed the enemy battery.^[52] His actions were credited with saving the lives of 28th Division soldiers who otherwise would have come under fire from the Germans.^[53][54] Truman was given a dressing down by his regimental commander, Colonel Karl D. Klemm, who threatened to convene a court-martial, but Klemm never followed through, and Truman was not punished.^[52]

In other action during the Meuse–Argonne offensive, Truman's battery provided support for George S. Patton's tank brigade,^[55] and fired some of the last shots of the war on November 11, 1918. Battery D did not lose any men while under Truman's command in France. To show their appreciation for his leadership, his men presented him with a large loving cup upon their return to the United States after the war.^[38]

The war was a transformative experience in which Truman manifested his leadership qualities. He had entered the service in 1917 as a family farmer who had worked in clerical jobs that did not require the ability to motivate and direct others, but during the war, he gained leadership experience and a record of success that greatly enhanced and supported his post-war political career in Missouri.^[38]

Truman was brought up in the Presbyterian and Baptist churches,^[56] but avoided revivals and sometimes ridiculed revivalist preachers.^[57] He rarely spoke about religion, which to him, primarily meant ethical behavior along traditional Protestant lines.^[58] Truman once wrote in a letter to his future wife, Bess: "You know that I know nothing about Lent and such things..."^[59] Most of the soldiers he commanded in the war were Catholics, and one of his close friends was the 129th Field Artillery's chaplain, Monsignor L. Curtis Tiernan.^[60] The two remained friends until Tiernan's death in 1960.^[61] Developing leadership and interpersonal skills that later made him a successful politician helped Truman get along with his Catholic soldiers, as he did with soldiers of other Christian denominations and the unit's Jewish members.^[62][63]

Officers' Reserve Corps

Truman was honorably discharged from the Army as a captain on May 6, 1919.^[64] In 1920, he was appointed a major in the Officers Reserve Corps.^[65] He became a lieutenant colonel in 1925 and a colonel in 1932.^[66] In the 1920s and 1930s he commanded 1st Battalion, 379th Field Artillery Regiment, 102nd Infantry Division.^[67] After promotion to colonel, Truman advanced to command of the regiment.^[68]

After his election to the U.S. Senate, Truman was transferred to the General Assignments Group, a holding unit for less active officers, although he had not been consulted in advance.^[69] Truman protested his reassignment, which led to his resumption of regimental command.^[69] He remained an active reservist until the early 1940s.^[70] Truman volunteered for active military service during World War II, but was not accepted, partly because of age, and partly because President Franklin D. Roosevelt desired senators and congressmen who belonged to the military reserves to support the war effort by remaining in Congress, or by ending their active duty service and resuming their congressional seats.^[71] He was an inactive reservist from the early 1940s until retiring as a colonel in the then redesignated U.S. Army Reserve on January 20, 1953.^[72]

Military awards and decorations

Truman was awarded a World War I Victory Medal with two battle clasps (for St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne) and a Defensive Sector Clasp. He was also the recipient of two Armed Forces Reserve Medals.^[73]

Politics

Jackson County judge

After his wartime service, Truman returned to Independence, where he married Bess Wallace on June 28, 1919.^[74] The couple had one child, Mary Margaret Truman.^[75]

Shortly before the wedding, Truman and Jacobson opened a haberdashery together at 104 West 12th Street in downtown Kansas City.^[76] After brief initial success, the store went bankrupt during the recession of 1921.^[17] Truman did not pay off the last of the debts from that venture until 1935, when he did so with the aid of banker William T. Kemper, who worked behind the scenes to enable Truman's brother Vivian to buy Truman's $5,600 promissory note during the asset sale of a bank that had failed in the Great Depression.^[77][78] The note had risen and fallen in value as it was bought and sold, interest accumulated and Truman made payments, so by the time the last bank to hold it failed, it was worth nearly $9,000.^[79] Thanks to Kemper's efforts, Vivian Truman was able to buy it for $1,000.^[78] Jacobson and Truman remained close friends even after their store failed, and Jacobson's advice to Truman on Zionism later played a role in the U.S. Government's decision to recognize Israel.^[80]

With the help of the Kansas City Democratic machine led by Tom Pendergast, Truman was elected in 1922 as County Court judge of Jackson County's eastern district—Jackson County's three-judge court included judges from the western district (Kansas City), the eastern district (the county outside Kansas City), and a presiding judge elected countywide. This was an administrative rather than a judicial court, similar to county commissions in many other jurisdictions. Truman lost his 1924 reelection campaign in a Republican wave led by President Calvin Coolidge's landslide election to a full term. Two years selling automobile club memberships convinced him that a public service career was safer for a family man approaching middle age, and he planned a run for presiding judge in 1926.^[81]

Truman won the job in 1926 with the support of the Pendergast machine, and he was re-elected in 1930. As presiding judge, Truman helped coordinate the Ten Year Plan, which transformed Jackson County and the Kansas City skyline with new public works projects, including an extensive series of roads and construction of a new Wight and Wight-designed County Court building. Also in 1926, he became president of the National Old Trails Road Association, and during his term he oversaw dedication of 12 Madonna of the Trail monuments to honor pioneer women.^[81][82]

In 1933, Truman was named Missouri's director for the Federal Re-Employment program (part of the Civil Works Administration) at the request of Postmaster General James Farley. This was payback to Pendergast for delivering the Kansas City vote to Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 presidential election. The appointment confirmed Pendergast's control over federal patronage jobs in Missouri and marked the zenith of his power. It also created a relationship between Truman and Roosevelt's aide Harry Hopkins and assured Truman's avid support for the New Deal.^[83]

U.S. Senator from Missouri

After serving as a county judge, Truman wanted to run for governor or Congress,^[84][85] but Pendergast rejected these ideas. Truman then thought he might serve out his career in some well-paying county sinecure;^[85] circumstances changed when Pendergast reluctantly backed him as the machine's choice in the 1934 Democratic primary election for the U.S. Senate from Missouri, after Pendergast's first four choices had declined to run.^[86] In the primary, Truman defeated Congressmen John J. Cochran and Jacob L. Milligan with the solid support of Jackson County, which was crucial to his candidacy. Also critical were the contacts he had made statewide in his capacity as a county official, member of the Freemasons,^[c] military reservist,^[d] and member of the American Legion.^[e][90] In the general election, Truman defeated incumbent Republican Roscoe C. Patterson by nearly 20 percentage points in a continuing wave of pro-New Deal Democrats elected during the Great Depression.^[86][91][92]

Truman assumed office with a reputation as "the Senator from Pendergast". He referred patronage decisions to Pendergast but maintained that he voted with his own conscience. He later defended the patronage decisions by saying that "by offering a little to the machine, saved a lot".^[92][93] In his first term, Truman spoke out against corporate greed and the dangers of Wall Street speculators and other moneyed special interests attaining too much influence in national affairs.^[94] Though he served on the high-profile Appropriations and Interstate Commerce Committees, he was largely ignored by President Roosevelt and had trouble getting calls returned from the White House.^[92][95]

During the U.S. Senate election in 1940, U.S. Attorney Maurice Milligan (former opponent Jacob Milligan's brother) and former governor Lloyd Stark both challenged Truman in the Democratic primary. Truman was politically weakened by Pendergast's imprisonment for income tax evasion the previous year; the senator had remained loyal, having claimed that Republican judges (not the Roosevelt administration) were responsible for the boss's downfall.^[96] St. Louis party leader Robert E. Hannegan's support of Truman proved crucial; he later brokered the deal that put Truman on the national ticket. In the end, Stark and Milligan split the anti-Pendergast vote in the Senate Democratic primary and Truman won by a total of 8,000 votes. In the November election, Truman defeated Republican Manvel H. Davis by 51–49 percent.^[97] As senator, Truman opposed both Nazi Germany and Communist Russia. Two days after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Truman said:

If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible although I don't want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances.^[98]

This quote without its last part later became a staple in Soviet and later Russian propaganda as "evidence" of an American conspiracy to destroy the country.^[99][100]

Truman Committee

In late 1940, Truman traveled to various military bases. The waste and profiteering he saw led him to use his chairmanship of the Committee on Military Affairs Subcommittee on War Mobilization to start investigations into abuses while the nation prepared for war. A new special committee was set up under Truman to conduct a formal investigation; the White House supported this plan rather than weather a more hostile probe by the House of Representatives. The main mission of the committee was to expose and fight waste and corruption in the gigantic government wartime contracts.

Truman's initiative convinced Senate leaders of the necessity for the committee, which reflected his demands for honest and efficient administration and his distrust of big business and Wall Street. Truman managed the committee "with extraordinary skill" and usually achieved consensus, generating heavy media publicity that gave him a national reputation.^[101][102] Activities of the Truman Committee ranged from criticizing the "dollar-a-year men" hired by the government, many of whom proved ineffective, to investigating a shoddily built New Jersey housing project for war workers.^[103][104] In March 1944, Truman attempted to probe the expensive Manhattan Project but was persuaded by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson to discontinue with the investigation.^[105]: 634

The committee reportedly saved as much as $15 billion (equivalent to $260 billion in 2023),^{[106][107][108][109]} and its activities put Truman on the cover of Time magazine.^[110] According to the Senate's historical minutes, in leading the committee, "Truman erased his earlier public image as an errand-runner for Kansas City politicos", and "no senator ever gained greater political benefits from chairing a special investigating committee than did Missouri's Harry S. Truman."^[111]

Vice presidency (1945)

Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=President_Harry_S._Truman
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