Harry S. Truman

A

Wartime President

Truman’s first month in office was largely devoted to briefings by Roosevelt’s aides. He asked the founding conference of the United Nations to meet in San Francisco on April 25, as had been planned before Roosevelt’s death. When victory in Europe seemed certain, he insisted on unconditional German surrender, and on May 8, 1945, his 61st birthday, he proclaimed Victory-In-Europe Day (V-E Day).

Truman convinced the San Francisco conference delegation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) that the general assembly of the new world peace organization should have free discussions and should make recommendations to the security council. On June 26 he addressed the final conference session, and six days later he presented the United Nations Charter to the Senate for ratification.

From July 17 to August 2, 1945, Truman attended the Potsdam Conference in Germany, meeting with Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Clement Attlee, Churchill’s successor as British prime minister. The conference discussed how to implement the decisions reached at the Yalta Conference. As presiding officer, Truman proposed the establishment of the council of foreign ministers to aid in peace negotiations, settlement of reparations claims, and conduct of war crimes trials. He also gained Stalin’s promise to enter the war against Japan. In this first meeting with the other Allied leaders, Truman confirmed his earlier favorable impression of Churchill, while he called the Soviets, in one of his typically blunt statements, “pigheaded people.”

On July 26, Truman issued the Potsdam Declaration, which called for Japan’s unconditional surrender and listed peace terms. He had already been informed of the successful detonation of the first atomic bomb at Alamogordo, New Mexico, ten days earlier. Military advisers had told Truman that a potential loss of about 500,000 American soldiers could be avoided if the bomb were used against Japan. When Japan rejected the ultimatum, Truman authorized use of the bomb. On August 6, 1945, at 9:15 am Tokyo time, the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, virtually destroying the city. According to U.S. estimates about 60,000 to 70,000 people were killed or missing as a result of the bomb and many more were made homeless. Stalin sent troops into Manchuria and Korea on August 8, and the following day a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. About one-third of the city was destroyed, and according to U.S. estimates about 40,000 people were killed or injured. Japan sued for peace on August 14. The official Japanese surrender took place on September 2, 1945, aboard the U.S.S. Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay.

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B

Domestic Affairs

B

1

Reconversion

With the war ended, Truman turned to the problem of reconverting the country to peacetime production without causing the inflation and unemployment that followed World War I. His message to the Congress of the United States on September 6, 1945, requested a permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission to aid blacks; wage, price, and rent controls to slow inflation; extended old-age benefits; public housing; a national health insurance program; and a higher minimum wage. His program was met with bitter opposition by congressional leaders who felt he wanted to move too far and too fast.

Congress’s price control bill was so weak that on June 19, 1946, Truman vetoed it, saying it gave a choice “between inflation with a statute and inflation without one.” When he finally signed a bill the following month, prices had already risen 25 percent, and basic commodities had risen 35 percent.

B

2

Mounting Opposition

Demobilization had proceeded smoothly, but increased prices led to strikes for higher wages, particularly in basic industries. Truman had always been on the side of labor, but he would not allow strikes to paralyze the nation. He used executive orders and court injunctions to end the strikes, offending labor unions in the process.

Truman was the central figure in three controversial issues concerning the military. First, he insisted on transferring control and development of nuclear energy from the military to the civilian Atomic Energy Commission and on placing authority to use the bomb solely with the president. Second, he persuaded Congress to unify the armed forces under a civilian secretary of defense. Third, Truman ordered the armed forces of the United States desegregated after Congress refused to do so. This decision, plus the military requirements of the Korean War, ended most discrimination in the U.S. Army and gave black men an opportunity for economic advancement denied them in many other areas.

Truman had at first retained Roosevelt’s Cabinet, but he soon felt uncomfortable with it. By September 1946 only Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal remained. New Deal supporters particularly objected to the removal of Secretary of Commerce Henry A. Wallace, although he had publicly criticized Truman’s foreign policy, including its increasingly hostile attitude toward the USSR.

C

Congressional Election of 1946

As the congressional campaigns began, even Democrats were divorcing themselves from Truman’s programs. By using the Democratic discontent and the issues of rising inflation, scarcity of meat, and labor unrest, the Republicans scored a resounding victory, capturing both houses of Congress.

In his 1947 State of the Union message, Truman requested a law to strengthen the Department of Labor, establish a labor-management relations commission, and end jurisdictional and secondary strikes. Instead, Congress presented him with its Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947, the Taft-Hartley Act that greatly weakened the position of labor unions. The act outlawed union-only workplaces; prohibited certain union tactics like secondary boycotts; forbade unions to contribute to political campaigns; established loyalty oaths for union leaders; and allowed court orders to halt strikes that could affect national health or safety. Truman vetoed the bill, but on June 23, 1947, the bill was passed over his veto.

Instead of writing anti-inflation legislation, Congress voted a tax-cut bill giving 40 percent of the relief to those with incomes in excess of $5000. The bill became law over Truman’s veto. The president once again failed to gather support for his employment, national health, or social security measures.

D

Foreign Policy

D

1

Truman Doctrine

Although the United States and the USSR had been allies against Germany during the war, this alliance began to dissolve after the end of the war, when Stalin, seeking Soviet security, began using the Soviet Army to control much of Eastern Europe. Truman opposed Stalin’s moves. Mistrust grew as both sides broke wartime agreements. Stalin failed to honor pledges to hold free elections in Eastern Europe. Truman refused to honor promises to send reparations from the defeated Germany to help rebuild the war-devastated USSR. This hostility became known as the Cold War.

In 1947 British Prime Minister Attlee told Truman that a British financial crisis was forcing the United Kingdom to end its aid to Greece. At the time the USSR was demanding naval stations on the Bosporus from Turkey, and Greece was engaged in a civil war with Communist-dominated rebels. The president proposed what was called the Truman Doctrine, which had two objectives: to send U.S. aid to anti-Communist forces in Greece and Turkey, and to create a public consensus so Americans would be willing to fight the Cold War. Truman told Congress that “it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” Congress fulfilled his request for $250 million for Greece and $150 million for Turkey.