Jeffrey Frank - The Trials of Harry S. Truman: The Extraordinary Presidency of an Ordinary Man, 1945-1953

Just terrificwith a perfect tone, and a perfect understanding of Trumans strengths and shortcomings. Frank has managed this with a profound and deep understanding of the human struggle.BOB WOODWARD

The Trials of Harry S. Truman

The Extraordinary Presidency of an Ordinary Man, 19451953

Jeffrey Frank

Author of Ike and Dick

for Thomas Adam Frank, and his mother, Diana

The first time you are in Washington I wish you would come in and see me. There are several things I want to talk to you about.

Harry Truman to Harry L. Hopkins, August 18, 1945

When Harry S. Truman became President of the United States, after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, he was sixty years old and, outwardly, the portrait of a Midwestern striver: a bit too well dressed, in natty suits, fedoras or Stetsons, and two-tone shoes. His thick glasses, at certain angles, could give his eyes a sudden, unsettling enlargement. His facethe face of a sympathetic small-town bankerappeared gray in newsreels, but was actually a weather-beaten red, the complexion of a retired farmer. That was not surprising, because he was someone who, for a decade, had plowed the fields and raised livestock on his familys farm. Roy Roberts, the Kansas City Stars managing editor and not a Truman admirer, was struck by the idea that someone who not so long before was still looking at the rear end of a horse should find himself leading the worlds most powerful nation. What a story in democracy, he wrote, and added, What a test of democracy, if it works. What a test indeed.

Trumans nearly eight years as presidenta time of exalted national goals, virulent anti-Communism, and accelerated social changewould encompass a lot: the end of wars in Europe and the Pacific; the emergence of the United States, ready or not, as the worlds preeminent military and economic power; the first use of an atomic bomb, and the development of far more destructive weapons; the beginning of a long cold war with the Soviet Union, and an unwinnable hot war in the Far East. He was prepared for none of thisalthough, having been a United States senator for ten years and a vice president for about three months, he had some idea how an operation like the Executive Branch functioned. But this was a bigger job than any hed ever heldimmeasurably soand he wondered if he was up to it.

Having suddenly been handed the role of world leader, he knew that he had to take his rightful place, as Roosevelts successor, alongside the British prime minister Winston Churchill and the Soviet chairman Joseph Stalin. That was daunting. Churchill and Stalin had led their nations during a monstrous war while Truman was representing a semi-rural American state with a population under four million. Nor would it be easy to lead a nation of a hundred and forty million diverse people. Truman pretty much supported the New Deal, though not with the zeal of Roosevelts East Coast menwho knew that he wasnt one of them. He believed that leaders needed to be resolute, and considered indecisiveness something of a character flaw, but this made him inclined to decide questions quickly, intuitivelymaking what he called jump decisions, with all the risks of undue haste.

Every administration has personnel problems, but Truman seemed to have more of them than usual. His first two secretaries of defense showed signs of mental instability. His first appointment as secretary of state, the cunning, and nervously high-strung James Francis ByrnesJimmy Byrnesthought he should have been president; his eccentric secretary of commerce, Henry Agard Wallace, thought the same thing about himself. Trumans fallings-out within his own administration were often followed by rancorous recriminations, and he fired so many top officials that, as he neared the end of his second term, the Washington Post counted the number and labeled him the champion axman among Presidents. That statistic bespoke Trumans insecurities as well as his imperfect knowledge of the people who surrounded him, many of whom hed first met when, without warning, he found himself holding the nations highest office.

He was deferential, too much so, toward the generals and admirals of World War II, particularly the three five-stars: George Catlett Marshall, who would hold two major cabinet posts; Dwight D. Eisenhower, whom Truman turned to until they turned on each other; and, until things went very wrong, the vainglorious and charismatic Douglas MacArthur, the Pacific commander. He relied inordinately on the honorable and steadfast Dean Gooderham Acheson, his fourth, and final, secretary of state, whose certainties about the postwar world would lead Truman into some dangerous policy cul-de-sacs. To better understand Truman, it helps to see how he was affected, and guided, by these men (there were no women) and quite a few others: antagonistic members of Congress, some principled and others consumed by partisanship; atomic scientists and engineers; a generation of unusually powerful newspaper columnists who disdained Truman, the parvenu, and didnt hide it; and a coterie of Missouriansfriends, cronies, and assorted hangers-on who sullied his reputation by casting doubt on his probity. One also needs to know the leaders of the Grand Alliance, not only Churchill and Stalin, but Roosevelt, whose absence was sharply felt during some of the most critical moments of Trumans White House years.

Truman liked to be known for directness and honestyit became a trademark of sortsbut he could fudge, and even lie, when he felt cornered or embarrassed. He was not a hater, but he had a sharp temper and could be a topnotch grudge-holder, especially if someone offended his wife, Bess, or his daughter, MargaretMary Margaret, whom her father called Marg or Margie, with a hard g. He saw himself as a defender of the Bill of Rights and talked, privately, about the danger of the FBI becoming a domestic Gestapo. Yet, by executive order, he established a loyalty program that affected more than two million federal workers, and didnt entertain many second thoughts about its malign collateral damage.

Truman was the only modern-day president never to attend college, and certain gaps in his education were evident in what could be unusual readings of history. But he was highly intelligent, shrewd, and able to give close attention to the unending influx of papers that piled up on his desk. He was also a diligent student of the presidency, and his respect for it was such that he sometimes referred to the Presidents office, as if it were a place apart. He wouldnt be asking what I ought to do, but what should the President do, an aide said. He was rarely introspective, or reflective, and could be jingoistic and reactive, but then hed come out with a burst of insightfulness or good humor. He could laugh with others, and at himself: I have appointed a Secretary for Columnists, he wrote in his diary. His duties are to listen to all radio commentators, read all columnists in the newspapers from ivory tower to lowest gossip, coordinate them and give me the results so I can run the United States and the World as it should be. He was the most approachable of postwar presidents, and the least self-important: There were several thousand people at the airport in Paducah, all of whom wanted to see Jumbo, the Cardiff giant, the President of the United States, he wrote, after a visit to Kentucky. It is a most amazing spectacle, this worship of high office. He never shed the romantic idea that America was a land of community, democratic values, opportunity, and dont-fence-me-in freedom. Yet he once said that it might someday be necessary for the government to seize control of the press, much as he would one day seize the nations steel mills.