Truman, Harry S. (1884–1972)

33rd President of the United States

Harry S. Truman was a president who fought in one war and then led the nation through two others as chief executive, making some of the most controversial wartime decisions in the nation's history. He oversaw the final victory of the Grand Alliance in World War II and approved history's only case of the battlefield use of nuclear weapons. Truman was pivotal in shaping the foundation for U.S. policy throughout the Cold War, and he is remembered for his controversial firing of Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War—by which he firmly established the supremacy of the president's civilian authority over the military even in wartime—and for the integration of the American armed forces that began during his administration.

Truman's military history surpassed that of most American presidents. Born in 1884 in Lamar, Missouri, Truman grew up in what is now the Kansas City suburb of Independence, intent on a military career. He applied for admission to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point but was rejected because of his poor eyesight. Instead, he joined the Missouri National Guard in 1905 as an enlisted man. In 1917, after the American declaration of war against Germany, Truman rejoined the Guard and, to his own surprise, was elected first lieutenant in the 2nd Missouri Field Artillery. On August 5, 1917, his unit was sworn into the regular army as the 129th Field Artillery, a component of the 35th Division. The regiment went to France in May 1918, and eventually fought in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. Truman was commissioned a second lieutenant and was made a battery commander. He commanded almost 200 soldiers, mostly Irish Catholics from Kansas City with a reputation for unruliness. Truman won their loyalty, and many of these men became Truman's trusted friends and his local postwar power base. In 1919, Truman was discharged as a captain.

When he returned from the battlefields of Europe, Truman opened a men's clothing store in Kansas City. The store failed after only three years amidst the postwar recession. He was elected to one of the three administrative positions of judge of the Jackson County Court in 1922 but failed to gain reelection in 1924. Two years later he was elected presiding judge in the Jackson County Court, a position he held until he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1934.

As a senator, Truman focused on interstate commerce. After his reelection in 1940, he became chair of the Senate's Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, which examined industry for cases of profiteering and waste of taxpayer dollars. Visiting a large number of military installations and war plants across the country, Truman became convinced that mismanagement of defense appropriations led to massive overspending. The Special Committee questioned witnesses during hundreds of hearings and published more than 50 reports, its efforts reputedly saving $15 billion. This gave Truman national publicity and a reputation as an honest politician pivotal to the war effort. It may also have helped him to become Franklin D. Roosevelt's running mate in 1944, a position he did not really want and accepted only after FDR insisted. After the inauguration, he met the president only a couple of times outside of cabinet meetings, and Roosevelt kept his vice president at arm's length: FDR did not discuss with Truman any matters pertaining to the approaching end of the war or any details about the development of the atomic bomb. When Truman was summoned to the White House on April 12, 1945, to learn from Eleanor Roosevelt that the president had died and that he was to become the 33rd president of the United States of America, he knew precious little about the Roosevelt administration's stance on critical issues involving the war.

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