Truman

I’ve become addicted to PBS’s American Experience series profiling the Presidents. Last night was the second part of their program on Harry Truman and it didn’t disappoint.

I knew of some of the important things Truman accomplished but the program really put them into perspective for me. Here was a guy who had been a farmer and a failed small businessman that was chosen to be Vice President. Less than three months later, he becomes President and has to pull himself up by the bootstraps as Roosevelt had basically ignored him.

He made the decision to drop the atomic bomb, rebuilt a shattered Europe with his Truman Doctrine and his Marshall Plan, faced down post-war Soviet aggression in Europe, created the CIA, created NATO, supported a besieged Berlin with the Berlin Airlift, ended a crippling nationwide railroad strike, fired a legendary Army general when he got too big for his britches, desegregated the armed forces, and dealt with the outbreak of the Korean War.

Any one of these could have defined or even overwhelmed any other President. Truman, though, truly was a “tough son of a bitch.” Not bad for a farmer from Independence, Missouri.