At the White House, Truman replaced Roosevelt holdovers with old confidants. The White House was badly understaffed with no more than a dozen aides; they could barely keep up with the heavy workflow of a greatly expanded executive department. Truman acted as his own
chief of staff on a daily basis, as well as his own liaison with Congress—a body he already knew very well. 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 journalists. He saw them as enemies lying in wait for his next careless miscue. Truman was a 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 top advisors. He mastered the details of the federal budget as well as anyone. Truman was a poor speaker reading a text. However, his visible anger made him an effective
stump speaker, denouncing his enemies as his supporters hollered back at him "Give Em Hell, Harry!" Truman surrounded himself with friends and appointed several to high positions that seemed beyond their competence, including his two secretaries of the treasury,
Fred Vinson and
John Snyder. His closest friend in the White House was his military aide
Harry H. Vaughan, who knew little of military or foreign affairs and was criticized for trading access to the White House for expensive gifts. Truman loved to spend as much time as possible playing poker, telling stories and sipping bourbon.
Alonzo Hamby notes that:
First term (1945–1949) Assuming office , Harry S. Truman, and
Winston Churchill in
Potsdam, July 1945 On his first full day, Truman told 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." Truman asked all the members of Roosevelt's cabinet to remain in place, but he soon replaced almost all of them, especially with friends from his Senate days.
Dropping atomic bombs on Japan Truman benefited from a honeymoon period from the success in defeating Nazi Germany in Europe and the nation celebrated on May 8, 1945, his 61st birthday. Although Truman was told briefly on the afternoon of April 12 that the United States had a new, highly destructive weapon, it was not until April 25 that
Secretary of War Henry Stimson told him the details: Truman journeyed to Berlin for the
Potsdam Conference with
Joseph Stalin and British prime minister
Winston Churchill. He was there when he learned the
Trinity test—the first atomic bomb—on July 16 had been successful. He hinted to Stalin that he 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
atomic espionage long before Truman did. In August, the Japanese government refused surrender demands as specifically outlined in the
Potsdam Declaration. With the
invasion of Japan imminent, Truman approved the schedule for dropping the two available bombs. Truman maintained the position that attacking Japan with atomic bombs saved many lives on both sides; a military estimate for the invasion of Japan submitted to Truman by Herbert Hoover indicated that an invasion could take at least a year and result in 500,000 to 1,000,000 Allied casualties. A study done for the staff of Secretary of War
Henry L. Stimson by William Shockley estimated that invading Japan would cost 1.7–4 million American casualties, including 400,000–800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese fatalities if Japanese civilians participated in the defense of Japan. The U.S. Army Service Forces estimated in their document "Redeployment of the United States Army after the Defeat of Germany" that between June 1945 and December 1946 the Army would be required to furnish replacements for 43,000 dead and evacuated wounded every month during this period. From analysis of the replacement schedule and projected strengths in overseas theaters, it suggested that Army losses alone in those categories, excluding the Navy and Marine Corps, would be approximately 863,000 through the first part of 1947, of whom 267,000 would be killed or missing. The Soviet Union
declared war on Japan on August 9 and
invaded Manchuria. Japan
agreed to surrender the following day. Supporters of Truman's decision argue that, given the tenacious Japanese defense of the outlying islands, the bombings saved hundreds of thousands of lives of Allied prisoners, Japanese civilians, and combatants on both sides that would have been lost in an invasion of Japan. Some modern criticism has argued that the use of nuclear weapons was unnecessary, given that conventional attacks or a demonstrative bombing of an uninhabited area might have forced Japan's surrender, and therefore assert that the attack constituted a crime of war. In 1948 Truman defended his decision to use atomic bombs: Truman continued to strongly defend himself in his memoirs in 1955–1956, stating many lives could have been lost had the United States invaded mainland Japan without the atomic bombs. In 1963, he stood by his decision, telling a journalist "it was done to save 125,000 youngsters on the U.S. 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."
Labor unions, strikes and economic issues The end of World War II was followed by an uneasy transition from war to a peacetime economy. The costs of the war effort had been enormous, and Truman was intent on diminishing military services as quickly as possible to curtail the government's military expenditures. The effect of demobilization on the economy was unknown, proposals were met with skepticism and resistance, and fears existed that the nation would slide back into depression. In Roosevelt's final years, Congress began to reassert legislative power and Truman faced a congressional body where Republicans and conservative southern Democrats formed a powerful "conservative coalition" voting bloc. The New Deal had greatly strengthened labor unions and they formed a major base of support for Truman's Democratic Party. The Republicans, working with big business, made it their highest priority to weaken those unions. The unions had been promoted by the government during the war and tried to make their gains permanent through large-scale strikes in major industries. Meanwhile, price controls were slowly ending, and inflation was soaring. Truman's response to the widespread dissatisfaction was generally seen as ineffective. sponge divers in Florida, 1947 When a national rail strike threatened in May 1946, Truman seized the railroads in an attempt to contain the issue, but two key railway unions struck anyway. The entire national railroad system was shut down, immobilizing 24,000 freight trains and 175,000 passenger trains a day. For two days, public anger mounted. His staff prepared a speech that Truman read to Congress calling for a new law, whereby railroad strikers would be drafted into the army. As he concluded his address, he was handed a note that the strike had been settled on presidential terms; nevertheless, a few hours later, the House voted to draft the strikers. The bill died in the Senate.
Approval rating falls; Republicans win Congress in 1946 The president's approval rating dropped from 82 percent in the polls in January 1946 to 52 percent by June. This dissatisfaction led to large Democratic losses in the
1946 midterm elections, and Republicans took control of Congress for the first time since 1930. When Truman dropped to 32 percent in the polls, Democratic Arkansas Senator
William Fulbright suggested that Truman resign; the president said he did not care what Senator "Halfbright" said. Truman cooperated closely with the Republican leaders on foreign policy but fought them bitterly on domestic issues. The power of the labor unions was significantly curtailed by the
Taft–Hartley Act which was enacted
over Truman's veto. Truman twice vetoed bills to lower income tax rates in 1947. Although the initial vetoes were sustained, Congress overrode his veto of a tax cut bill in 1948. In one notable instance of bipartisanship, Congress passed the
Presidential Succession Act of 1947, which replaced the secretary of state with the Speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate as successor to the president after the vice president.
Proposes "Fair Deal" liberalism As he readied for the 1948 election, Truman made clear his identity as a Democrat in the
New Deal tradition, advocating for
national health insurance, and repeal of the Taft–Hartley Act. He broke with the New Deal by initiating an aggressive civil rights program which he termed a moral priority. His economic and social vision constituted a broad legislative agenda that came to be called the "
Fair Deal". Truman's proposals were not well received by Congress, even with renewed Democratic majorities in Congress after 1948. The Solid South rejected civil rights as those states still enforced segregation. Only one of the major Fair Deal bills, the
Housing Act of 1949, was ever enacted. Many of the New Deal programs that persisted during Truman's presidency have since received minor improvements and extensions.
Marshall Plan, Cold War, and China As a
Wilsonian internationalist, Truman supported Roosevelt's policy in favor of the creation of the United Nations and included
Eleanor Roosevelt on the delegation to the first
UN General Assembly. With the Soviet Union expanding its sphere of influence through Eastern Europe, Truman and his foreign policy advisors took a hard line against the USSR. In this, he matched U.S. public opinion which quickly came to believe the Soviets were intent upon world domination. Although he had little personal expertise on foreign matters, Truman listened closely to his top advisors, especially
George Marshall and
Dean Acheson. The Republicans controlled Congress in 1947–1948, so he worked with their leaders, especially Senator
Arthur H. Vandenburg, chairman of the powerful Foreign Relations Committee. He won bipartisan support for both the
Truman Doctrine, which formalized a policy of Soviet containment, and the
Marshall Plan, which aimed to help rebuild postwar Europe. To get Congress to spend the vast sums necessary to restart the moribund European economy, Truman used an ideological argument, arguing that communism flourishes in economically deprived areas. As part of the U.S.
Cold War strategy, Truman signed the
National Security Act of 1947 and reorganized military forces by merging the
Department of War and the
Department of the Navy into the National Military Establishment (later the
Department of Defense) and creating the
U.S. Air Force. The act also created the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the
National Security Council. On November 4, 1952, Truman authorized the official, though at the time, confidential creation of the
National Security Agency (NSA). Truman did not know what to do about China, where the
Nationalists and
Communists were fighting a large-scale
civil war. The Nationalists had been major wartime allies and had large-scale popular support in the United States, along with a powerful lobby.
General George Marshall spent most of 1946 in China trying to negotiate a compromise but failed. He convinced Truman the Nationalists would never win on their own and a very large-scale U.S. intervention to stop the Communists would significantly weaken U.S. opposition to the Soviets in Europe. By 1949, the Communists under
Mao Zedong had won the civil war, the United States had a new enemy in Asia, and Truman came under fire from conservatives for
"losing" China.
Berlin airlift On June 24, 1948, the Soviet Union blocked access to the three
Western-held sectors of Berlin. The Allies had not negotiated a deal to guarantee supply of the sectors deep within the Soviet-occupied zone. The commander of the U.S. 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. He approved
Ernest Bevin's plan to supply the blockaded city by air. On June 25, the Allies initiated the
Berlin Airlift, a campaign to deliver food, coal and other supplies 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; ground access was again granted on May 11, 1949. Nevertheless, the airlift continued for several months after that. The Berlin Airlift was one of Truman's great foreign policy successes; it significantly aided his election campaign in 1948.
Recognition of Israel Menorah from Israeli prime minister
David Ben-Gurion (center). To the right is
Abba Eban, ambassador of Israel to the United States. Truman had long taken an interest in the history of the Middle East and was sympathetic to Jews who sought to re-establish their ancient homeland in
Mandatory Palestine. As a senator, he announced support for
Zionism; in 1943 he 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 large region long populated and dominated culturally by Arabs. Secretary of Defense
James Forrestal warned Truman of the importance of Saudi Arabian oil in another war; Truman replied he would decide his policy on the basis of justice, not oil. U.S. diplomats with experience in the region were opposed, but Truman told them he had few Arabs among his constituents. Palestine was secondary to the goal of protecting the "Northern Tier" of Greece, Turkey, and Iran from communism, as promised by the Truman Doctrine. Weary of both the convoluted politics of the Middle East and pressure by Jewish leaders, Truman was undecided on his policy and skeptical about how the Jewish "underdogs" would handle power. He later cited as decisive in his recognition of the Jewish state the advice of his former business partner, Eddie Jacobson, a non-religious Jew whom Truman absolutely trusted. Truman decided to recognize Israel over the objections of Secretary of State
George Marshall, who feared it would hurt relations with the populous Arab states. Marshall believed the paramount threat to the United States was the Soviet Union and feared Arab oil would be lost to the United States in the event of war; he warned Truman the United States was "playing with fire with nothing to put it out". Truman recognized the
State of Israel on May 14, 1948, eleven minutes after
it declared itself a nation. Of his decision to recognize the Israeli state, Truman said in an interview years later: "Hitler had been murdering Jews right and left. I saw it, and I dream about it even to this day. The Jews needed some place where they could go. It is my attitude that the American government couldn't stand idly by while the victims [of] Hitler's madness are not allowed to build new lives."
Calls for civil rights at its 38th annual conference on the steps of the
Lincoln Memorial, June 29, 1947. Under his predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the
Fair Employment Practices Committee was created to address racial discrimination in war-related work. Truman wanted to keep the committee in place after the war was over, though his attempts at doing so were unsuccessful. In 1946, Truman created the
President's Committee on Civil Rights. On June 29, 1947, Truman became the first president to address the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The speech took place at the
Lincoln Memorial during the NAACP convention and was carried nationally on radio. In that speech, Truman laid out the need to end discrimination, which would be advanced by the first comprehensive, presidentially proposed civil rights legislation. Truman on "civil rights and human freedom", declared: In February 1948, Truman delivered a formal message to Congress requesting adoption of his 10-point program to secure civil rights, including anti-lynching, voter rights, and elimination of segregation. "No political act since the
Compromise of 1877," argued biographer
Taylor Branch, "so profoundly influenced race relations; in a sense it was a repeal of 1877."
1948 election (right) at dedication of
Idlewild Airport in New York City on July 31, 1948. This was their first meeting since being nominated as presidential candidates by their parties. The
1948 presidential election is remembered for Truman's stunning come-from-behind victory. In the spring of 1948, Truman's public approval rating stood at 36 percent, and the president was nearly universally regarded as incapable of winning the general election. At the
1948 Democratic National Convention, Truman attempted to unify the party with a vague civil rights plank in the party platform. His intention was to assuage the internal conflicts between the northern and southern wings of his party. Events overtook his efforts. A sharp address given by Mayor
Hubert Humphrey of
Minneapolis—as well as the local political interests of a number of urban bosses—convinced the convention to adopt a stronger civil rights plank, which Truman approved wholeheartedly. Truman delivered an aggressive acceptance speech attacking the 80th Congress, which Truman called the "Do Nothing Congress", and promising to win the election and "make these Republicans like it". Within two weeks of the 1948 convention Truman issued
Executive Order 9981, ending racial discrimination in the Armed Services, and Executive Order 9980 to end discrimination in federal agencies. Truman took a considerable political risk in backing civil rights, and many seasoned Democrats were concerned the loss of
Dixiecrat support might seriously weaken the party. South Carolina Governor
Strom Thurmond, a segregationist, declared his candidacy for the presidency on a Dixiecrat ticket and led a full-scale revolt of Southern "
states' rights" proponents. This rebellion on the right was matched by one on the left, led by Wallace on the
Progressive Party ticket. The Democratic Party was splitting three ways and victory in November seemed unlikely. For his running mate, Truman accepted Kentucky Senator
Alben W. Barkley, though he really wanted Justice
William O. Douglas, who turned down the nomination. Truman's political advisors described the political scene as "one unholy, confusing cacophony." They told Truman to speak directly to the people, in a personal way. Campaign manager William J. Bray said Truman took this advice, and spoke personally and passionately, sometimes even setting aside his notes to talk to Americans "of everything that is in my heart and soul." The campaign was a presidential odyssey. In a personal appeal to the nation, Truman crisscrossed the United States by train; his "
whistle stop" speeches from the rear platform of the presidential car,
Ferdinand Magellan, came to represent his campaign. His combative appearances captured the popular imagination and drew huge crowds. Six stops in
Michigan drew a combined half-million people; a full million turned out for a New York City ticker-tape parade. '' printed early editions with this erroneous headline before final voting results were known. The large crowds 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. It continued reporting Republican
Thomas Dewey's apparent impending victory as a certainty. The three major polling organizations stopped polling well before the November 2 election date—
Roper in September, and Crossley and
Gallup in October—thus failing to measure the period when Truman appears to have surged past Dewey. 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. The final tally showed the president had secured 303 electoral votes, Dewey 189, and Thurmond only 39. Henry Wallace got none. The defining image of the campaign came after Election Day, when an ecstatic Truman held aloft the erroneous front page of the
Chicago Tribune with a huge headline proclaiming "
Dewey Defeats Truman."
Second term (1949–1953) Truman's second inauguration on January 20, 1949, was the first ever televised nationally.
Hydrogen bomb decision The Soviet Union's
atomic bomb project progressed much faster than had been expected, and they detonated
their first bomb on August 29, 1949. Over the next several months there was an intense debate that split the U.S. government, military, and scientific communities regarding whether to proceed with the development of the far more powerful
hydrogen bomb. The debate touched on matters from technical feasibility to strategic value to the morality of creating a massively destructive weapon. On January 31, 1950, Truman made the decision to go forward on the grounds that if the Soviets could make an H-bomb, the United States must do so as well and stay ahead in the nuclear arms race. The development achieved fruition with the
first U.S. H-bomb test on October 31, 1952, which was officially announced by Truman on January 7, 1953.
Korean War On June 25, 1950, the
North Korean army under
Kim Il-sung invaded South Korea, starting the Korean War. In the early weeks of the war, the North Koreans easily pushed back their southern counterparts. Truman called for a naval blockade of Korea, only to learn that due to budget cutbacks, the U.S. Navy could not enforce such a measure. Truman promptly urged the United Nations to intervene; it did, authorizing troops under the UN flag led by U.S. General
Douglas MacArthur. Truman decided he did not need formal authorization from Congress, believing that most legislators supported his position; this would come back to haunt him later when the stalemated conflict was dubbed "Mr. Truman's War" by legislators. Rockoff writes that "President Truman responded quickly to the June invasion by authorizing the use of U.S. troops and ordering air strikes and a
naval blockade. He did not, however, seek a declaration of war, or call for full mobilization, in part because such actions might have been misinterpreted by Russia and China. Instead, on July 19 he called for partial mobilization and asked Congress for an appropriation of $10 billion for the war." Cohen writes that: "All of Truman's advisers saw the events in Korea as a test of American will to resist Soviet attempts to expand their power, and their system. The United States ordered warships to the
Taiwan Strait to prevent Mao's forces from invading
Taiwan and mopping up the remnants of
Chiang Kai-shek's army there." However, on July 3, 1950, Truman did give Senate Majority Leader
Scott W. Lucas a draft resolution titled "Joint Resolution Expressing Approval of the Action Taken in Korea". Lucas stated Congress supported the use of force, the formal resolution would pass but was unnecessary, and the consensus in Congress was to acquiesce. Truman responded he did not want "to appear to be trying to get around Congress and use extra-Constitutional powers", and added that it was "up to Congress whether such a resolution should be introduced". By August 1950, U.S. troops pouring into South Korea under UN auspices were able to stabilize the situation. Responding to criticism over readiness, Truman fired his secretary of defense,
Louis A. Johnson, replacing him with the retired General Marshall. With UN approval, Truman decided on a "rollback" policy—liberation of North Korea. UN forces led by General
Douglas MacArthur led the counterattack, scoring a stunning surprise victory with an amphibious landing at the
Battle of Inchon that nearly trapped the invaders. UN forces marched north, toward the
Yalu River boundary with China, with the goal of reuniting Korea under UN auspices. China surprised the UN forces with a large-scale invasion in November. The UN forces were forced back to below the
38th parallel, then recovered. By early 1951 the war became a fierce stalemate at about the 38th parallel where it had begun. Truman rejected MacArthur's request to attack Chinese supply bases north of Yalu, but MacArthur promoted his plan to Republican House leader
Joseph Martin, who leaked it to the press. Truman was gravely concerned further escalation of the war might lead to open conflict with the Soviet Union, which was already supplying weapons and providing warplanes (with Korean markings and Soviet aircrew). Therefore, on April 11, 1951, Truman fired MacArthur from his commands. The
dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur was among the least politically popular decisions in presidential history. Truman's approval ratings plummeted, and he faced calls for his
impeachment from, among others, Senator
Robert A. Taft. 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 and all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, publicly supported Truman's decision. MacArthur meanwhile returned to the United States to a hero's welcome, and addressed a joint session of Congress, a speech the president called "a bunch of damn bullshit." Truman and his generals considered the use of nuclear weapons against the Chinese army, but ultimately chose not to escalate the war to a nuclear level. The war remained a frustrating stalemate for two years, with over 30,000 Americans killed, until an armistice ended the fighting in 1953. In February 1952, Truman's approval mark stood at 22 percent according to
Gallup polls, which is the all-time lowest approval mark for a sitting U.S. president, though it was matched by
Richard Nixon in 1974.
Worldwide defense during Nehru's visit to the United States, October 1949 The escalation of the Cold War was highlighted by Truman's approval of
NSC 68, a secret statement of foreign policy. It called for tripling the defense budget, and the globalization and militarization of containment policy whereby the United States and its NATO allies would respond militarily to actual Soviet expansion. The document was drafted by
Paul Nitze, who consulted State and Defense officials and was formally approved by President Truman as the official national strategy after the war began in Korea. It called for partial mobilization of the U.S. economy to build armaments faster than the Soviets. The plan called for strengthening Europe, weakening the Soviet Union, and building up the United States both militarily and economically. Truman was a strong supporter of the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which established a formal peacetime military alliance with Canada and democratic European nations of the
Western Bloc following World War II. The treaty establishing it was widely popular and easily passed the Senate in 1949; Truman appointed General
Dwight D. Eisenhower as commander. 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 United States, Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark, Portugal, Iceland, and Canada were the original treaty signatories. The alliance resulted in the Soviets establishing a similar alliance, called the
Warsaw Pact. General Marshall was Truman's principal adviser on foreign policy matters, influencing such decisions as the U.S. choice against offering direct military aid to
Chiang Kai-shek and his nationalist Chinese forces in the Chinese Civil War against their communist opponents. Marshall's opinion was contrary to the counsel of almost all of Truman's other advisers; Marshall thought propping up Chiang's forces would drain U.S. resources necessary for Europe to deter the Soviets. When the communists took control of the mainland, establishing the People's Republic of China and driving the nationalists to
Taiwan, Truman would have been willing to maintain some relationship between the United States and the new government, but Mao was unwilling. Truman announced on January 5, 1950, that the United States would not engage in any dispute involving the Taiwan Strait, and that he would not intervene in the event of an attack by the PRC. On June 27, 1950, after the outbreak of fighting in Korea, Truman ordered the U.S. Navy's
Seventh Fleet into the
Taiwan Strait to prevent further conflict between the communist government on the China mainland and the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan. Truman usually worked well with his top staff – the exceptions were Israel in 1948 and Spain in 1945–1950. Truman was a very strong opponent of
Francisco Franco, the right-wing dictator of Spain. He withdrew the American ambassador (but diplomatic relations were not formally broken), kept Spain out of the UN, and rejected any Marshall Plan financial aid to Spain. However, as the Cold War escalated, support for Spain was strong in Congress, the Pentagon, the business community and other influential elements especially Catholics and cotton growers. Liberal opposition to Spain had faded after the Wallace element broke with the Democratic Party in 1948; the CIO became passive on the issue. As Secretary of State Acheson increased his pressure on Truman, the president stood alone in his administration as his own top appointees wanted to normalize relations. When China entered the Korean War and pushed American forces back, the argument for allies became irresistible. Admitting he was "overruled and worn down", Truman relented and sent an ambassador and made loans available.
Soviet espionage and McCarthyism , 1947 In August 1948,
Whittaker Chambers, a former spy for the Soviets and a senior editor at
Time magazine, testified before the
House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). He said an underground communist network had worked inside the U.S. government during the 1930s, of which Chambers had been a member, along with
Alger Hiss, until recently a senior State Department official. Chambers did not allege any spying during the Truman presidency. Although Hiss denied the allegations, he was convicted in January 1950 for perjury for denials under oath. 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 subversion by Soviet spies was responsible and to demand that communists be rooted out from the government and other places of influence. Hoping to contain these fears, Truman began a "loyalty program" with
Executive Order 9835 in 1947. However, Truman got himself into deeper trouble when he called the Hiss trial a "red herring". Wisconsin Senator
Joseph McCarthy accused the State Department of harboring communists and rode the controversy to political fame, leading to the Second
Red Scare, also known as
McCarthyism. McCarthy's stifling accusations made it difficult to speak out against him. This led Truman to call McCarthy "the greatest asset the
Kremlin has" by "torpedo[ing] the bipartisan foreign policy of the United States." Charges that Soviet agents had infiltrated the government were believed by 78 percent of the people in 1946 and became a major campaign issue for Eisenhower in 1952. Truman was reluctant to take a more radical stance, because he felt it could threaten civil liberties and add to a potential hysteria. At the same time, he felt political pressure to indicate a strong national security. It is unclear to what extent President Truman was briefed of the
Venona intercepts, which discovered widespread evidence of Soviet espionage on the atom bomb project and afterward. Truman continued his own loyalty program for some time while believing the issue of communist espionage was overstated. His veto was immediately overridden by Congress and the Act became law. In the mid-1960s, parts of the Act were found to be unconstitutional by the
United States Supreme Court.
Blair House and assassination attempt In 1948, Truman ordered an addition to the exterior of the
White House: a second-floor balcony in the south portico, which came to be known as the
Truman Balcony. The addition was unpopular. Some said it spoiled the appearance of the south facade, but it gave the First Family more living space. Meanwhile, structural deterioration and a near-imminent collapse of the White House led to a comprehensive
dismantling and rebuilding of the building's interior from 1949 to 1952. Architectural and engineering investigations during 1948 deemed it unsafe for occupancy. Truman, his family, and the entire residence staff were relocated across the street into
Blair House during the renovations. As the newer
West Wing, including the
Oval Office, remained open, Truman walked to and from his work across the street each morning and afternoon. On November 1, 1950,
Puerto Rican nationalists
Griselio Torresola and
Oscar Collazo attempted to assassinate Truman at Blair House. On the street outside the residence, Torresola mortally wounded a White House policeman,
Leslie Coffelt. Before he died, the officer shot and killed Torresola. Collazo was wounded and stopped before he entered the house. He was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in 1952. Truman commuted his sentence to life in prison. To try to settle the question of Puerto Rican independence, Truman allowed a
plebiscite in Puerto Rico in 1952 to determine the status of its relationship to the United States. Nearly 82 percent of the people voted in favor of a new constitution for the
Estado Libre Asociado, a continued 'associated free state.'
Steel and coal strikes In response to a labor/management impasse arising from bitter disagreements over wage and price controls, Truman instructed his
Secretary of Commerce,
Charles W. Sawyer, to take control of a number of the nation's steel mills in April 1952. Truman cited his authority as commander in chief and the need to maintain an uninterrupted supply of steel for munitions for the war in Korea. The Supreme Court found Truman's actions unconstitutional, however, 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 one of the notable defeats of his presidency.
Scandals and controversies In 1950, the Senate, led by
Estes Kefauver, investigated numerous charges of corruption among senior administration officials, some of whom had received fur coats and deep freezers in exchange for favors. A large number of employees of the
Internal Revenue Bureau (today the IRS) were accepting bribes; 166 employees either resigned or were fired in 1950, with many soon facing indictment. When Attorney General
J. Howard McGrath fired the special prosecutor in early 1952 for being too zealous, Truman fired McGrath. Truman submitted a reorganization plan to reform the IRB; Congress passed it, but corruption was a major issue in the 1952 presidential election. On December 6, 1950,
Washington Post music critic
Paul Hume wrote a critical review of a concert by the president's daughter Margaret Truman: Truman wrote a scathing response: Truman was criticized by many for the letter. However, he pointed out that he wrote it as a loving father and not as the president. In 1951,
William M. Boyle, Truman's longtime friend and chairman of the Democratic National Committee, was forced to resign after being charged with financial corruption.
Civil rights , the first African-American federal judge, was appointed by Truman on October 21, 1949 A 1947 report by the Truman administration titled
To Secure These Rights presented a detailed ten-point agenda of civil rights reforms. Speaking about this report, international developments have to be taken into account, for with the
UN Charter being passed in 1945, the question of whether international human rights law could be applicable also on an inner-land basis became crucial in the United States. Though the report acknowledged such a path was not free from controversy in the 1940s United States, it nevertheless raised the possibility for the UN-Charter to be used as a legal tool to combat racial discrimination in the United States. 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 and
fair employment practices. This provoked a storm of criticism from southern Democrats in the runup to the national nominating convention, 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." Tales of the abuse, violence, and persecution suffered by many African American veterans upon their return from World War II infuriated Truman and were major factors in his decision to issue
Executive Order 9981, in July 1948, requiring equal opportunity in the armed forces. In the early 1950s after several years of planning, recommendations and revisions between Truman, the
Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity and the various branches of the military, the services became racially integrated. Truman later appointed people who aligned with his civil rights agenda. He appointed fellow colonel and civil rights icon
Blake R. Van Leer to the board of the
United States Naval Academy and
UNESCO who had a focus to work against racism through influential
statements on race. Truman made a historic move in 1949, when he gave a recess appointment to
William H. Hastie for the
Court of Appeals, the first
African-American federal judge in the United States. Executive Order 9980, also in 1948, made it illegal to discriminate against persons applying for civil service positions based on race. A third, in 1951, established the
Committee on Government Contract Compliance, which ensured defense contractors did not discriminate because of race.
Administration and cabinet Foreign policy From 1947 until 1989, world affairs were dominated by the
Cold War, in which the U.S. and its allies faced the Soviet Union and its allies. There was no large-scale fighting but instead several local civil wars as well as the ever-present threat of a catastrophic nuclear war. Unlike Roosevelt, Truman distrusted Stalin and the Soviet Union, and did not have FDR's faith in the UN to soften major tensions. Nevertheless, he cooperated in terms of dividing control over Germany. Soviet efforts to use its army to control politics in Eastern Europe and Iran angered Washington. The final break came in 1947 when the Labour government in London could no longer afford to help Greece fight communism and asked Washington to assume responsibility for suppressing the Communist uprising there. The result was the
Truman Doctrine of 1947–48 which made it national policy to
contain Communist expansion. Truman was supported by the great majority of Democrats, after he forced out the
Henry Wallace faction that wanted good terms with Moscow. Truman's policy had the strong support of most Republicans, who led by Senator
Arthur Vandenberg overcame the isolationist Republicans led by Senator
Robert A. Taft. In 1948, Truman signed the
Marshall Plan, which supplied Western Europe—including Germany—with US$13 billion in reconstruction aid. Stalin vetoed any participation by East European nations. A similar program was operated by the United States to restore the Japanese economy. The U.S. actively sought allies, which it subsidized with military and economic "foreign aid", as well as diplomatic support. The main diplomatic initiative was the establishment of the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949, committing the United States to nuclear defense of Western Europe. The result was a peace in Europe, coupled with the fear of Soviet invasion and a reliance on American protection. The United States operated a worldwide network of bases for its Army, Navy and Air Force, with large contingents stationed in Germany, Japan and South Korea. Washington had a weak intelligence community before 1942, and the Soviets had a very effective network of spies. The solution was to create the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1947. Economic and propaganda warfare against the communist world became part of the American toolbox. The containment policy was developed by State Department official
George Kennan in 1947. Kennan characterized the
Soviet Union as an aggressive, anti-Western power that necessitated containment, a characterization which would shape US foreign policy for decades to come. The idea of containment was to match Soviet aggression with force wherever it occurred while not using
nuclear weapons. The policy of containment created a bipolar, zero-sum world where the ideological conflicts between the Soviet Union and the United States dominated geopolitics. Due to the antagonism on both sides and each countries' search for security, a tense worldwide contest developed between the two states as the two nations' governments vied for global supremacy militarily, culturally, and politically. The Cold War was characterized by a lack of global hot wars. Instead there were
proxy wars, fought by client states and proxies of the United States and Soviet Union. The most important was
Korean War (1950–1953), a stalemate that drained away Truman's base of support. Truman made five international trips during his presidency.
1952 election Senator
John J. Sparkman, vice presidential nominee; and
Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, presidential nominee, in the Oval Office, 1952 In 1951, the United States ratified the
22nd Amendment, making a president ineligible for election to a third term or for election to a second full term after serving more than two remaining years of a term of a previously elected president. The latter clause did not apply to Truman's situation in 1952 because of a
grandfather clause exempting the incumbent president. Therefore, he seriously considered running for another term in 1952 and left his name on the ballot in the New Hampshire primary. However, all his close advisors, pointing to his age, his failing abilities, and his poor showing in the polls, talked him out of it. At the time of the
1952 New Hampshire primary (March 11, 1952), no candidate had won Truman's backing. His first choice, Chief Justice
Fred M. Vinson, had declined to run. Illinois Governor
Adlai Stevenson had also turned Truman down, Vice President Barkley was considered too old, and Truman distrusted and disliked Senator Kefauver, who had made a name for himself by his investigations of the Truman administration scandals. 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 formally announced he would not seek a second full term. Truman was eventually able to persuade Stevenson to run, and the governor gained the nomination at the
1952 Democratic National Convention. Eisenhower gained the Republican nomination, with Senator Nixon as his running mate, and campaigned against what he denounced as Truman's failures: "Korea, communism and corruption". He pledged to clean up the "mess in Washington", and promised to "go to Korea". Eisenhower defeated Stevenson decisively in
the general election, ending 20 years of Democratic presidents. While Truman and Eisenhower had previously been on good terms, Truman felt annoyed that Eisenhower did not denounce Joseph McCarthy during the campaign. Similarly, Eisenhower was outraged when Truman accused the former general of disregarding "sinister forces ... Anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, and anti-foreignism" within the Republican Party. == Post-presidency (1953–1972) ==