During his few weeks as Vice President, Harry Truman barely saw President Franklin Roosevelt and received no briefings on the development of the atomic bomb or the plethora of problems in relations with Soviet Russia.
Suddenly called upon to manage these and a host of other wartime difficulties, on April 12, 1945, he became America's 33rd President. He told reporters: "I felt like the moon, the stars and all the planets had fallen on me."
From the fields to war and politics
Truman was born in Lamar, Missouri on this day, May 8, 1884. He became a farmer, and when World War I broke out he went to France and fought as a captain in the Artillery.
Returning, he married Elizabeth Virginia Wallace and opened a general store in Kansas City. But he was always fascinated by politics.
The Great Depression
He thus became a member of the Democratic Party and in 1922 was elected to the seat of judge in Jackson County (it was an administrative position with which he began his political career). Twelve years later he was elected to the Senate.
In the last years of his term as a judge and the first as a senator, the USA was faced with the Great Depression, as we usually call the term Great Depression in Greek. It was then that he said the infamous phrase: "A recession is when the neighbor loses his job." When you lose her, it's...depression."
During World War II he headed the Senate's war investigative committee, checking waste and corruption and is credited with saving up to $15 billion.
The bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
As President, Truman made some of the most critical decisions in history. The war against Japan had reached its final stage. An urgent appeal to Japan to surrender was rejected. Truman, after consulting with his advisers, ordered atomic bombs to be dropped on cities devoted to war work. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were targeted, in one of the darkest pages in world history.
In June 1945 Truman witnessed the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, hopefully established to preserve peace.
The Fair Deal
In economic policy, he had initially followed the policies of his predecessor, but soon developed his own. He presented a 21-point program to Congress, proposing the expansion of Social Security, a full-time job program, a permanent Fair Employment Practices Act, and public housing and slum clearance. The program went down in history as the Fair Deal.
Perils and crises marked the world stage as Truman campaigned successfully in 1948. In foreign affairs he already provided his most effective leadership.
The Truman Doctrine
In 1947, as Turkey and Greece were in danger of falling under the influence of the Soviet Union, he asked Congress to help the two countries, drawing up the program that bears his name – the Truman Doctrine. The Marshall Plan, named after its Secretary of State, brought about a spectacular economic recovery in war-torn Western Europe.
When the Russians blockaded the western sectors of Berlin in 1948, Truman created a massive airlift to feed the Berliners until they retreated. Meanwhile, a military alliance was being negotiated to protect Western nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, established in 1949.
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