Harry S. Truman

Achieving the vice presidency in 1944 because of his acceptability to all wings of the Democratic party, he became president upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, April 12, 1945. As a party leader, he hoped to maintain a grand coalition that would have room for all the diverse elements of Roosevelt's political coalition. Personally, however, he considered himself a bit to the left of center and possessed roots in the tradition of western and midwestern insurgency. As president, therefore, he pursued an aggressively liberal program (the Fair Deal) that roused the Democratic presidential party and helped him win election in 1948. Its major elements, however, were defeated by a conservative Congress and an indifferent postwar public concerned primarily with preserving the New Deal rather than with achieving new liberal breakthroughs.

In foreign policy, Truman had long been an aggressive internationalist who envisioned the United States as a world leader with the mission of spreading democratic political institutions and capitalist prosperity. As president, he adopted epochal measures (the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the North Atlantic Treaty) designed to block Soviet expansion into Western Europe. Neither original nor subtle as a diplomatist, he nevertheless displayed good judgment in selecting his lieutenants, followed their advice on the large issues, and supported them loyally. His European policies were highly successful, but Asia was less amenable to U.S. intervention. Public frustration with the fall of China to communism in 1949 and with the limited Korean War (1950-1953) gave a strong boost to McCarthyism, disrupted the coalition Truman had largely preserved in 1948, and paved the way for the Republican victory of 1952.

Truman's greatest asset, an ability to identify with the ordinary American, was also his greatest liability. He could seem, at his worst, limited, undignified, erratic, and altogether incapable of dealing with the awesome responsibilities of the postwar presidency. He attempted to mask what appears to have been a certain discomfort with his high office by adopting a pose of decisiveness that too often appeared to be impetuosity. Widely unpopular when he retired in 1953, he enjoyed a subsequent upswing in public esteem as the American people increasingly remembered him for his frank commonness and contrasted him favorably with successors who appeared artificial and devious.

Robert J. Donovan, Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945-1948 (1977) and Tumultuous Years: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1949-1953 (1982); Robert Ferrell, ed., Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman (1980).

ALONZO L. HAMBY

The Reader's Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Copyright © 1991 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.