Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman
Born	Harry S. Truman 8 5, 1884
Birthplace	Lamar, Missouri, U.S.
Died	Template:Death date and age Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Politician, businessman, military officer
Known for	33rd President of the United States; authorization of atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Marshall Plan; establishment of NATO; Truman Doctrine; desegregation of the U.S. Armed Forces
Education	No college degree (attended Kansas City School of Law)
Spouse(s)	Bess Wallace (m. 1919)
Children	1
Awards	Distinguished Service Medal (Army)

Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was an American politician and military veteran who served as the 33rd President of the United States from 1945 to 1953. Thrust into the presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 12, 1945, Truman confronted some of the most consequential decisions of the twentieth century, including the authorization of atomic weapons against Japan to end World War II, the implementation of the Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe, and the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Truman Doctrine to contain Soviet communism during the early Cold War. A member of the Democratic Party, Truman had risen from modest origins in rural Missouri through local politics, the U.S. Senate, and the vice presidency before assuming the nation's highest office. Despite low approval ratings and a divided party, he won the 1948 presidential election in one of the most celebrated upset victories in American electoral history, defeating Republican nominee Thomas E. Dewey. Domestically, Truman advanced civil rights by issuing executive orders that desegregated the United States Armed Forces and prohibited discrimination in federal agencies. He chose not to seek reelection in 1952 and retired to Independence, Missouri, where he established his presidential library and published his memoirs. His reputation among historians and the public grew substantially in the decades after he left office, and presidential surveys have consistently ranked him among the near-great presidents.

Early Life

Harry S. Truman was born on May 8, 1884, in Lamar, Missouri, to John Anderson Truman and Martha Ellen Young Truman. The "S" in his name was a compromise between his two grandfathers—Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young—and did not stand for a single name. The family moved several times during Truman's early childhood before settling in Independence, Missouri, around 1890, where he would spend most of his formative years.

As a boy, Truman was an avid reader, reportedly consuming books on history and biography from the local library. Poor eyesight required him to wear thick glasses from an early age, which limited his ability to participate in some childhood sports. Despite this, he was active and sociable. He developed an early interest in music and took piano lessons, a pursuit he continued throughout his life.

Truman's family faced financial difficulties at various points during his youth. His father engaged in farming and livestock trading with mixed success. These economic struggles meant that Truman did not attend a four-year college, a fact that would later distinguish him from most twentieth-century presidents. After graduating from Independence High School in 1901, he held a series of jobs, including as a timekeeper for a railroad construction crew, a mailroom clerk, and a bank clerk in Kansas City.

From 1906 to 1917, Truman worked on the family farm near Grandview, Missouri, helping his father manage the operation. The experience grounded him in the rhythms of rural life and gave him firsthand knowledge of the economic challenges facing American farmers—an understanding that would inform his political career. During this period he also invested, with limited success, in mining ventures and oil exploration.

Truman had known Elizabeth Virginia "Bess" Wallace since childhood, and the two maintained a long courtship, primarily through letters, during his years on the farm. Their relationship would endure through his military service overseas before they married in 1919.

Education

Truman graduated from Independence High School in 1901. He briefly attended Spalding's Commercial College in Kansas City, studying bookkeeping and business courses, but did not complete a degree. Later, beginning around 1923, he enrolled at the Kansas City School of Law, attending evening classes for approximately two years. He did not earn a law degree, making him one of the few modern American presidents without a college or professional degree. Despite this, Truman was recognized as a disciplined autodidact who read extensively in American history, military history, and government.

Career

Military Service in World War I

When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Truman was already a member of the Missouri National Guard, having joined in 1905 and served until 1911. He reenlisted and helped organize the 2nd Regiment of the Missouri Field Artillery, which was federalized as the 129th Field Artillery Regiment of the 35th Division. Truman was elected as a first lieutenant by his fellow soldiers—a common practice in National Guard units at the time.

Truman trained at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, before deploying to France in 1918. He was promoted to captain and given command of Battery D, 129th Field Artillery, a unit with a reputation for being difficult to manage. Under Truman's leadership, Battery D participated in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive and other engagements on the Western Front. Truman's wartime service shaped his leadership style profoundly; he earned the respect of his men through competence and decisiveness, and many of his Battery D comrades remained lifelong friends and political supporters.

Business Ventures

After returning from France in 1919, Truman married Bess Wallace on June 28 of that year. He and his wartime friend Eddie Jacobson opened a men's haberdashery at 104 West 12th Street in Kansas City. The store initially did well, benefiting from the postwar economic boom, but the recession of 1921–1922 devastated the business, and it closed in 1922. Truman was left with significant debts that took years to pay off. The failure of the haberdashery was a formative experience; Truman refused to declare bankruptcy, insisting on repaying his creditors over time—a decision that reflected the personal sense of honor and fiscal responsibility he carried into public life.

Entry into Politics and the Jackson County Court

Truman's entry into politics was facilitated by Tom Pendergast, the powerful boss of the Kansas City Democratic political machine. With the support of the Pendergast organization and his network of fellow veterans, Truman was elected as an eastern judge of the Jackson County Court in 1922. The position was an administrative rather than judicial role, roughly equivalent to a county commissioner. He lost his bid for reelection in 1924 but was elected as presiding judge of the Jackson County Court in 1926 and reelected in 1930.

As presiding judge, Truman oversaw a major road-building program and the construction of public buildings in Jackson County. He earned a reputation for honesty and efficient management of public funds, even as the Pendergast machine around him was rife with corruption. Truman walked a difficult line, benefiting from the machine's political support while maintaining his personal integrity in the management of county affairs.

United States Senate

In 1934, with Pendergast's backing, Truman won election to the United States Senate from Missouri. He arrived in Washington often dismissed as "the Senator from Pendergast," a label that stung and that he worked to overcome. During his first term, Truman was a reliable supporter of Roosevelt's New Deal legislation, voting for programs such as Social Security, the Works Progress Administration, and other relief and reform measures.

Truman's path to reelection in 1940 was complicated by the federal prosecution and conviction of Tom Pendergast on charges of income tax evasion in 1939. Without the machine's full backing, Truman ran a vigorous grassroots campaign and won the Democratic primary by a narrow margin before winning the general election.

The Truman Committee

Truman's national profile rose dramatically during his second Senate term through his chairmanship of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, commonly known as the Truman Committee. Established in 1941, the committee investigated waste, fraud, and inefficiency in military procurement and wartime contracts. The committee's work was credited with saving billions of dollars and improving the efficiency of the war effort between 1941 and 1944. Truman's leadership of the committee earned him a reputation for fairness, thoroughness, and nonpartisanship, bringing him to the attention of national Democratic Party leaders.

Vice Presidency

In 1944, Democratic Party leaders, concerned about Roosevelt's declining health and wary of the incumbent vice president Henry A. Wallace's left-leaning politics, maneuvered to replace Wallace on the ticket. Truman, viewed as a safe, moderate choice acceptable to the party's various factions, was selected as Roosevelt's running mate at the 1944 Democratic National Convention. The Roosevelt-Truman ticket won the November election decisively.

Truman served as vice president for only 82 days. During this brief period, he had limited access to Roosevelt and was not briefed on many critical matters of state, including the Manhattan Project—the secret program to develop the atomic bomb.

Presidency (1945–1953)

Accession and the End of World War II

On April 12, 1945, Franklin Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage at Warm Springs, Georgia. Truman was summoned to the White House, where Eleanor Roosevelt informed him of the president's death. "Is there anything I can do for you?" Truman asked her. She replied, "Is there anything we can do for you? For you are the one in trouble now." Truman was sworn in as president that evening.

Only after becoming president was Truman fully briefed on the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb. In the summer of 1945, faced with the prospect of a costly Allied invasion of the Japanese home islands, Truman authorized the use of atomic weapons against Japan. On August 6, 1945, the B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and three days later a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Japan announced its surrender on August 15, 1945, and formally signed the instrument of surrender on September 2, ending World War II. The decision to use atomic weapons remains one of the most debated actions in modern history.

The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan

As relations between the United States and the Soviet Union deteriorated after the war, Truman articulated a policy of containment. In March 1947, he announced what became known as the Truman Doctrine, pledging American support for nations resisting communist subjugation. The immediate context was the threat of communist insurgency in Greece and Turkey, and Congress approved $400 million in aid to those countries.

In June 1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall announced the European Recovery Program, known as the Marshall Plan, which provided more than $13 billion in economic aid to rebuild Western European economies devastated by the war. The plan was instrumental in stabilizing Western Europe and is considered one of the most successful foreign policy initiatives in American history.

The Berlin Airlift

In June 1948, the Soviet Union blockaded all land routes to the western sectors of Berlin, which lay deep within the Soviet occupation zone of Germany. Rather than abandon the city or risk war with a military convoy, Truman ordered a massive airlift of food, fuel, and supplies to the besieged city. The Berlin Airlift lasted from June 1948 to May 1949, with American and British aircraft making over 250,000 flights to sustain West Berlin's population. The blockade was eventually lifted by the Soviets, and the airlift was considered a major Cold War success for the Western allies.

Establishment of NATO

In April 1949, Truman oversaw the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, creating NATO, a mutual defense alliance among the United States, Canada, and ten Western European nations. The treaty represented a historic departure from the American tradition of avoiding entangling alliances in peacetime and committed the United States to the collective defense of Western Europe against potential Soviet aggression.

The 1948 Election

Truman's path to winning the 1948 presidential election was fraught with obstacles. His approval ratings had declined, the Democratic Party was fractured—with Strom Thurmond running as a segregationist Dixiecrat candidate and Henry Wallace running on the Progressive Party ticket—and virtually all major polls and media outlets predicted a victory for Republican nominee Thomas E. Dewey. Truman conducted an energetic whistle-stop campaign, traveling over 30,000 miles by rail and delivering hundreds of speeches. On election night, Truman won a stunning upset victory, carrying 303 electoral votes to Dewey's 189. The Chicago Daily Tribune famously printed its early edition with the erroneous headline "Dewey Defeats Truman."

The Korean War

On June 25, 1950, North Korean forces invaded South Korea. Truman committed American forces to the conflict under the auspices of the United Nations, viewing the invasion as a test of the containment policy. The war's early months saw dramatic reversals, including the successful Inchon landing led by General Douglas MacArthur, followed by Chinese intervention that pushed UN forces back. When MacArthur publicly challenged Truman's limited-war strategy and advocated for expanding the conflict into China, Truman relieved him of command in April 1951—a controversial but constitutionally grounded assertion of civilian control over the military. The Korean War continued for the remainder of Truman's presidency and did not end until an armistice was signed in July 1953, after Truman had left office.

Domestic Policy and Civil Rights

Truman proposed an ambitious domestic agenda he called the Fair Deal, which included national health insurance, federal aid to education, expansion of Social Security, increases in the minimum wage, and civil rights legislation. A conservative coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats in Congress blocked most of these proposals.

In the area of civil rights, Truman took executive action when Congress refused to act. In 1948, he issued Executive Order 9981, which ordered the desegregation of the United States Armed Forces, and Executive Order 9980, which prohibited discrimination in federal employment. These orders represented significant steps in the federal government's approach to racial equality, preceding the landmark civil rights legislation of the 1960s.

Recognition of Israel

On May 14, 1948, just eleven minutes after Israel declared its independence, the United States, under Truman's direction, became the first country to extend de facto recognition to the new state. The decision was made over the objections of the State Department, including Secretary of State George Marshall, and reflected Truman's personal conviction as well as domestic political considerations.

Corruption and the Decision Not to Run

During Truman's second term, investigations revealed corruption among some of his appointees, including officials in the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. Although Truman himself was not personally implicated, the scandals damaged his administration's reputation and became a significant issue in the 1952 presidential campaign. Facing poor approval ratings, Truman chose not to seek reelection in 1952 despite being constitutionally eligible (the Twenty-second Amendment, ratified in 1951, exempted the sitting president). He supported Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson for the Democratic nomination.

Personal Life

Harry Truman married Bess Wallace on June 28, 1919, in Independence, Missouri. The couple had met as children, and Truman had courted her for years, including through a long correspondence during his military service in France. They had one daughter, Mary Margaret Truman, born in 1924. Margaret pursued a career as a singer and later became a successful author of mystery novels and a biography of her father.

Truman was known for his forthright personality, his colorful language, and his habit of early-morning walks. He was a lifelong member of the Baptist Church and was active in Masonic organizations, eventually becoming a 33rd Degree Mason. He enjoyed playing poker with friends and reading history.

The Trumans returned to their home at 219 North Delaware Street in Independence after leaving the White House in January 1953. Truman declined lucrative corporate positions, believing that commercializing the presidency would diminish the office. He relied on his Army pension and modest savings. The financial difficulties of former presidents became a matter of public concern, contributing to the passage of the Former Presidents Act of 1958, which provided a pension and support for ex-presidents.

Harry S. Truman died on December 26, 1972, at the age of 88, at Research Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. Bess Truman survived him and died in 1982 at the age of 97.

Recognition

Truman's presidency has been the subject of extensive historical reassessment. During his time in office, his approval ratings fluctuated dramatically, reaching lows during the Korean War and the corruption scandals. However, in the decades following his departure from office, historians increasingly recognized the significance and effectiveness of his foreign policy decisions.

In C-SPAN's surveys of presidential historians, Truman has consistently been ranked among the top ten American presidents. His leadership during the transition from World War II to the Cold War, the Marshall Plan, the Berlin Airlift, NATO, and the desegregation of the armed forces are frequently cited as his most significant achievements.

Numerous institutions bear Truman's name. The Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri, was dedicated in 1957 and continues to serve as a center for research and public education. The Harry S. Truman Scholarship, established by Congress in 1975, is a prestigious fellowship awarded to college students committed to public service careers.

The aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75), commissioned in 1998, is a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered carrier that has served in multiple deployments, including operations in the U.S. 5th and 6th Fleet areas of operation. The Harry S. Truman Building, which houses the U.S. Department of State headquarters in Washington, D.C., was renamed in his honor in 2000. The University of Missouri has maintained the Harry S. Truman Conference, which in its sixteenth iteration in 2025 convened university leaders and Korean alumni to strengthen ties between the United States and South Korea—a relationship rooted in the Korean War era of Truman's presidency.

Legacy

Harry S. Truman's legacy is defined by the extraordinary scope of the challenges he faced and the decisions he made during a pivotal period in American and world history. He assumed the presidency with no prior briefing on the atomic bomb, the details of wartime diplomacy, or the emerging tensions with the Soviet Union, and within months was required to make decisions that shaped the remainder of the twentieth century.

The authorization of atomic weapons against Japan remains the most controversial element of his legacy. Truman himself maintained throughout his life that the decision saved lives by avoiding a prolonged invasion of Japan, though the moral and strategic dimensions of the bombings have been debated by historians, ethicists, and the public since 1945.

In foreign policy, the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the Berlin Airlift, and the creation of NATO established the framework of American Cold War strategy that persisted for four decades. The containment policy he adopted, influenced by diplomat George Kennan's analysis of Soviet behavior, became the guiding principle of American foreign policy until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Domestically, Truman's executive orders desegregating the military and banning discrimination in federal employment represented early federal commitments to civil rights that preceded the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. While many of his Fair Deal proposals were blocked by Congress, some elements—including expansion of Social Security and increases in the minimum wage—were eventually enacted.

Truman's personal qualities—his directness, his sense of accountability (symbolized by the sign on his desk reading "The Buck Stops Here"), and his willingness to make difficult decisions—have become part of American political culture. His upset victory in the 1948 election remains a standard reference point in discussions of political polling and electoral uncertainty.

The reassessment of Truman's presidency, from the relatively low regard in which he was held when he left office to his current standing among the top tier of American presidents, is itself a notable phenomenon in American historiography, illustrating how the passage of time and the availability of new evidence can reshape judgments about political leadership.