Truman

Thinking about the atomic bombing anniversaries, I am prompted to write a little about Harry Truman. As president, he will always live in the shadow of FDR, but the man has had tremendous impact on his world and on the office he reluctantly assumed on FDR's death. In spite of, or perhaps because of, his lack of ambition to be president, he showed himself capable of great leadership. Three examples of his leadership and long-term impact make the point.

1. The bombings themselves. Remember, Truman had only been vice-president for a few months when he took over. He had not been privy to the research and development of the bomb, nor really to the planning of the war. So, only a few months into a job for which was not well prepared and for which he had not aspired, he was faced with one of the most momentous decisions of the war.
   
   Long term, the impact of dropping the bombs fundamentally changed the global balance of power. If there was any doubt that the United States had emerged as the dominant power in the West, it was laid to rest in the ashes of Hiroshima. Just a few years earlier, the US had been a staunchly isolationist nation. With the occupation of Germany and Japan and the bombs, the US was now positioned as the leader of the free world.
   
   
2. On a related note, he started the Cold War. Whether one approves of this or not, the Cold War was the prevailing paradigm for US foreign relations for 45 years, and in years since we have struggled to deal with the fallout of the Cold War.
   
   
3. Kennedy and Johnson will be remembered as the presidents who championed civil rights reform in the 1960's. Not to detract from what they did, but it is worth remembering that the civil rights movement by then was a notable political force, and those presidents ignored civil rights at their own electoral peril. In contrast, civil rights was not much of an issue when Truman was president. But Truman pushed the issue in 1947 and 1948, the latter an election year. He was the first president to address the NAACP. He desegrated the military, not because of heavy external pressure which forced him to do so, but because he thought it was right. In fact, his support of civil rights in 1948 split the Democratic party and nearly cost him re-election.