Harry Truman: Dropping the Bomb | 5-Minute Videos

When Harry Truman suddenly became president, World War II was reaching its climax. He was soon confronted with one of the biggest decisions any president would ever have to make. Elizabeth Spalding, senior fellow at Pepperdine University School of Public Policy, tells the story of America’s pivotal 33rd president.

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Script:

Who was Harry Truman?

The American people didn’t really know.

He had been vice president for all of 82 days.

And now, on April 12, 1945, upon Franklin Roosevelt’s death, Truman had become the 33rd president of the United States, the commander in chief of the biggest army in the world, in the biggest war in history, and about to make some of the biggest decisions any president would ever make.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” Truman asked the late president’s wife Eleanor upon his arrival at the White House to take the oath of office.

“Is there anything we can do for you, Harry? For you are the one in trouble now."

Harry Truman was born on May 8, 1884, in a small farm village in southwestern Missouri. His values — faith, hard work, and common sense — came from the middle of the middle of America. It’s the key to understanding this straightforward, but complex man.

He never finished college – not because he wasn’t capable -- he was a voracious reader of history, biography, and the classics – but because his family needed his income, and family loyalty always came first.

He expected to be a farmer, just like his father and his father’s father.

But that path changed in April 1917, when the United States entered World War I. Truman, then 33, enlisted.

Truman commanded an artillery battery. His unerring tactical instinct and coolness under fire earned him the respect of his men. That loyalty never faded. The friendships he made during the war lasted a lifetime.

Truman returned home transformed: more confident, more worldly, and more ambitious. Now that he had seen Paris, he wasn’t going back to the farm.

In 1919, he married his hometown sweetheart, Elizabeth “Bess” Wallace. That same year, he opened a men’s clothing store with an army friend, Eddie Jacobson.

After a successful first year, the enterprise failed when the country fell into a postwar recession. Truman refused to declare bankruptcy, though he was almost $20,000 in debt. It took him 13 years to pay it back.

During this period, Truman came to the attention of Tom Pendergast, the powerful Democratic Party boss of Kansas City. Pendergast recognized a natural politician when he saw one.

Truman rose from county judge in 1923 to U.S. senator in 1935. So close was his association with his political patron that his opponents mocked him as “the senator from Pendergast.”

Once again, it was a world war that transformed him. He turned the chairmanship of an obscure committee into a national platform. It was officially known as the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, but everyone called it the Truman Committee.

Its purpose was to investigate waste and incompetence in the war effort—and there turned out to be a lot. By forcing defense contractors to meet minimum quality standards, Truman not only saved taxpayers billions but saved thousands of lives.

In 1944, President Roosevelt, despite his failing health, sought a fourth term. He wanted to see the war to its end. To win what promised to be a close election, the party bosses felt FDR needed a new running mate. They worried that the current vice president, Henry Wallace, with his very progressive views, would turn off moderate voters.

The moderate, midwestern Truman, buoyed by the positive press from his committee work, seemed to be an ideal fit.

Wallace was out. Truman was in.

That fall, the Roosevelt-Truman ticket won handily.

FDR barely acknowledged Truman’s existence, sharing nothing about war strategy—and nothing about the development of a new secret weapon, the atomic bomb.

And then Roosevelt died.

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