The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World

Truman knew he would eventually have to relocate his family to the White House, but he decided for the time being to move them to Blair House, a nearby residence usually used for foreign guests, until Eleanor Roosevelt was able to move out. That first night back at home, he continued to study into the night, reading a memo summarizing the state of global affairs. Britain was anxious of its own declining position and the contemporaneous rise of Soviet power, while France under Charles de Gaulle was fixated on proving French valor in the wake of the country’s defeat in 1940, and was therefore liable to “put forward requests which are out of all proportion to their present strength and have in certain cases…showed unreasonable suspicions of American aims and motives” (130). The postwar environment was potentially dangerous, and US leaders worried that desperate peoples in Europe would be susceptible to the utopian promises of revolutionary communism. One of the most pressing problems was Poland, the defense of which had started the war in Europe in 1939, standing as a test of the West’s willingness to stand up to another tyrant, as they did against Hitler.

The White House was chaotic as it prepared for FDR’s funeral and Truman pondered whom to keep from the previous administration and whom to replace. At FDR’s funeral, the mood was so morose that nobody rose when Truman entered the room, as protocol demanded for the president, though everyone stood for Mrs. Roosevelt. On the train to Hyde Park, where FDR would be interred, Truman went to work on his speech for Congress, which he ended up delivering the day after the burial. In the speech, he paid tribute to his predecessor and called for American leadership in ending the war: “Truman had but a fraction of FDR’s gift for oratory, but his voice was steady and firm […] It was the voice of a common man, asking God for guidance, and the response was the loudest affirmation Truman’s ears had ever encountered” (137). After the speech, Truman dealt with news that his ambassador to Moscow, Averell Harriman, had engaged in a heated disagreement with Stalin after the Soviet leader accused US forces of supporting anticommunist partisans in Poland. Truman hoped his upcoming meaning with Foreign Minister Molotov could smooth things over. Taking up residence in the Blair House, he wrote letters to friends and family, trying to explain to them the weight of his office.

Truman’s schedule as president was relentlessly overwhelming. He tried to establish a routine of walking to work, to the delight of locals, and then receiving a briefing on military affairs from Leahy. He then met with his immediate staff before proceeding to appointments, and then, on April 17, his first press conference. Though he lacked the social graces of the well-born FDR, he managed to charm the press with witticisms and impress them with his surprisingly direct answers. Since he had such a small public profile before becoming president, the press was keen to learn everything they could about him and his family. Reporters followed Margaret around George Washington University, where she attended college, while Bess tried desperately to stay out of the public eye. While seeming to adjust well to the rigors of the job, he knew that “[t]he future was sure to thrust upon him contention and perhaps even public embarrassment” (145) and even his wife “was not sure he could do the job” (145).

In the Pacific, the battle for Okinawa built to a bloody crescendo as US forces fought off waves of kamikaze attacks and a Japanese army seemingly willing to fight to the bitter end. General Curtis LeMay’s 21st Bomber Command burned city after city in Japan with incendiary bombs thanks to the introduction of the B-29 Superfortress, the development of which was more expensive than even the Manhattan Project. The firebombing of Japanese cities, especially Tokyo, led to many tens of thousands of civilian deaths, but LeMay dismissed such concerns by saying that “[t]he smell of Pearl Harbor fires is too persistent in our own nostrils” to worry about Japanese dead (149). In Europe, US forces uncovered evidence of unspeakable Nazi atrocities, along with indications that “there is complete economic, social and political collapse going on in Central Europe […] the extent of which is unparalleled in history unless one goes back to the collapse of the Roman Empire” (150). Millions of displaced peoples intersected with the advancing armies, a problem that could destabilize postwar Europe for years to come. In a momentous decision, General Dwight Eisenhower stopped allied forces at the Elbe River rather than push to Berlin, concluding that it was not worth his soldiers’ lives to take territory that was legally due to the Soviet zone of occupation.

Back home, Truman faced the looming challenge of converting a war economy back to a peacetime footing. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau predicted that unemployment would “skyrocket” and “[m]illions of soldiers would return from overseas with money earned fighting, money they would want to spend, which would only fuel further inflation” (154). Truman appointed his high-school classmate Dennis Ross as his press secretary and selected Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson to lead the prosecution of high-ranking Nazi officials in Nuremberg, Germany. In the ensuing days, Truman had meetings to deal with everything from the looming independence of the Philippines from the United States to the settlement of Jewish refugees in Palestine to civil rights for Black Americans, who had contributed enormously on the battlefield and the factories during the war. Finally, on April 20, the Trumans began preparations for moving into the White House, with Bess reacting first to the disappointing quality of the furniture and wall paint.

On April 19, James Byrnes showed Truman the secret protocols of the Yalta Conference, calling for Soviet intervention against Japan following Germany’s surrender, in exchange for Soviet access to strategic interests in East Asia (including China, who had not been consulted on the matter). Preparing for his meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov, he first met with the esteemed diplomat Harriman, who had “spent more hours in Stalin’s company than any other American” (162). Harriman reported that the Soviets wanted cooperation with the West while expanding their sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. Truman was confident that the US had enough leverage (especially in terms of reconstruction aid) to dissuade the Soviets from any unfavorable actions, and he would hold firm in negotiations with them. Molotov arrived on April 21, first meeting with state department officials. When negotiations over Poland stalled, Truman met with Molotov directly, and the president “spoke with the kind of frankness he had learned in hard-nosed Kansas City politics” (165). While some were proud of Truman’s plain talking and hard dealing, others were concerned that abandoning Roosevelt’s more conciliatory approach could sour relations further at a critical time.

April 25 proceeded normally until a meeting with General Leslie Groves, who told Truman about “the most terrible weapon ever known in human history, one bomb of which could destroy a whole city” (168). The atomic bomb had been in development for years, following Albert Einstein’s speculation that uranium could be used to build a new type of weapon, followed by the fear that the Nazis could acquire such a weapon. The US army oversaw the development of a laboratory facility in Los Alamos, New Mexico, under the direction of the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. Production of uranium was undertaken at a new facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, along with a plutonium plant in Washington state. The project had unfolded under tight secrecy, which sometimes made it difficult to secure appropriations through Congress without making their purpose known. Shortly before Roosevelt’s death, there was concern that the project would fail, even after spending an astonishing $2 billion. Truman learned all of this more or less all at once, and he immediately worried that if the Soviets also acquired a bomb, “modern civilization might be completely destroyed” 174).

Later on April 25, Truman finally connected with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and both agreed to consider only proposals of unconditional surrender from Nazi officials, rather than give the appearance of cutting a deal behind Stalin’s back. At that same exact time, the conference in San Francisco was underway, its hopes for building a cooperative world order somewhat soured by the poor state of US-Soviet relations. However, the delegates were well aware that the previous attempt to forge a postwar international institution, the post-WWI League of Nations, had failed to prevent another and even more catastrophic war. They were determined not to repeat those mistakes lest the world experience yet another world war, this time potentially with atomic weapons.

As Truman was learning about the Manhattan Project, Soviet forces stormed into the German capital. Events moved quickly, from the collapse of the German front in northern Italy to the suicide of Hitler at the end of April. Berlin fell, and surviving German officials offered to surrender the remainder of their armed forces. Humanitarian conditions in Europe were as dire as had been feared, with former president Herbert Hoover warning that “it is now 11:59 on the clock of starvation” (181). There was a sense of dread as the Soviets prepared for their occupation role, especially as stories spread of horrendous atrocities against civilians at the hands of the Red Army. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, the US and Soviet delegations clashed over who should chair the conference, with the US insisting on the traditional privilege of the host country and the Soviets refusing. Poland continued to be a major point of contention, to the point that “the only thing the delegations in San Francisco could agree on was how beautiful the city was” (183).

The Trumans finally completed their move to the White House on May 7, and it proved to be a major adjustment for the family, long accustomed to frugality and even want. Margaret Truman would write that “everything seems larger than life […] a kind of waking dream, outside time, yet paradoxically immersed in time…The White House continues to develop you the way history surrounds nations, a huge silent presence that is inescapable” (185). Even though the German army formally offered surrender on May 7, Truman refrained from making a statement until the Soviets were ready to support it, and there were reports of persistent fighting in the east. On May 8, his 61st birthday, Truman was able to announce the end of the war in Europe and pledged to finish the fight in the Pacific as well. To accomplish this goal, Truman would have to consider using the atomic bomb, and among the list of potential targets was the city of Hiroshima, which had not yet been touched by LeMay’s bombers. The city “was a virgin target, [and] so the damage of the bomb could be gauged with accuracy” (190). Secret plans were underway to refit a B-29 to make it capable of handling the massive bomb. As Truman and his advisors prepared for the potential use of the atomic bomb, Churchill called for another meeting with Truman and Stalin to discuss what appeared to be systematic violations of Yalta in territories under control of the Red Army. Warning that an “iron curtain is drawn down upon their front” (194), first introducing a term he would make famous the next year, Churchill insisted on holding this meeting as soon as possible, before the Soviets became the dominant power on the continent.

Truman welcomed his sister and mother to the White House, with the latter expressing disgust at the idea of sleeping in a bedroom named after Abraham Lincoln. Mamma Truman proved a charming if eccentric figure, regaling staff with stories of Harry’s childhood. After a month in office, the formal mourning period for FDR was over, and the White House came to bear more of Truman’s imprint, such as his friendly and informal dealings with White House staff. He impressed everyone with his seemingly inexhaustible work ethic, and he proved sociable and often funny. Sometimes his old Missouri associates caused him some embarrassment among the Washington circuit, and his family (especially Bess) chafed under the public spotlight. Still, the Trumans settled into White House life, bringing the literal taste of the Midwest into the kitchen with a cook they brought from Independence. In short, Truman was doing well with Congress and the public, but knew that such a “warm glow” (202) was bound not to last.

On May 11, Truman made the controversial decision to reexamine the Lend-Lease program that had helped the British and Soviets win the war but fell under Congressional scrutiny as the war came to an end. Ships en route to Britain and the Soviet Union turned around, infuriating both allies. There was also a dispute with Josip Broz Tito, the leader of wartime resistance in Yugoslavia, who had become a communist dictator. Truman refused to evacuate forces from territory in northern Italy that Tito claimed for Yugoslavia, and he feared that a new conflict in Europe would delay the transfer of US forces to the Pacific. Any hopes for Soviet cooperation on the Yugoslav issue were spoiled by more arguments in San Francisco over the composition and purpose of the United Nations, with the Soviets insisting on one country’s sole right to veto any and all action by the rest of the body. As the armies of the US, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union moved into their appointed sectors of Germany, Harriman’s aide George Kennan warned that “[t]he idea of Germany running jointly with the Russians is a chimera. The idea of both the Russians and ourselves withdrawing politely at a given date and a healthy, peaceful, stable, and friendly Germany rising out of the resulting vacuum is also a chimera” (207). Instead, it appeared that the Soviets would do everything to spread communism, in Europe and even in China, posing the west with a terrible dilemma between acceding to an expansionist dictator or running the risk of war. Former ambassador Joseph Davies advised a more conciliatory approach, while Harriman “believed a hard line was now the last-ditch approach, the only one that the Soviets would understand” (209). War Secretary Stimson emphasized the need to rehabilitate Germany as a bulwark against communist expansion, and while this would require careful diplomacy with the Soviets, he also hoped that the atomic bomb might ultimately prove to be an ace up Truman’s sleeve. As part of his diplomatic strategy, Truman tapped Harry Hopkins, a longtime confidante of FDR who himself was dying of cancer, to travel to Moscow and feel out Stalin, whom he had met many times over the years, prior to another meeting of the “Big Three.”

On May 24, LeMay’s bombers launched another attack on Tokyo, followed by yet another wave on the May 26, pulverizing a city that had already withstood the full onslaught of firebombing. Americans had reacted with some revulsion to British firebombing of German cities, but there was no public outcry when their own bombers turned against Japan. In addition to racial animus, there was also a burning rage over the attack on Pearl Harbor, inflamed further by stories of Japanese atrocities against prisoners of war and civilians in areas under their occupation. On May 25, the joint chiefs of staff called for continued bombing, along with a blockade, in advance of an amphibious invasion:

The only thing they could agree on was the incertitude of it all. ‘The Japanese campaign involves therefore two great uncertainties,’ Stimson wrote in May 1945. ‘First, whether Russia will come in [to the war against Japan] though we think that will be all right; and second, when and how S-1 [the atom bomb] will resolve itself’ (219).

On May 28, Truman greeted the regent of Iraq, awkwardly following the elaborate protocol with the monarch whom FDR had invited to visit on the day he died. The State Department insisted to Truman that he make inroads with oil-rich nations in the Middle East, such as Iraq, which would also play a key role in postwar international security. The rise of Zionism as a political force, especially with the flood of Jewish refugees from Europe to Palestine, prompted severe hostility from Arab governments and peoples. Additionally, nations other than the United States looked to benefit from the region’s enormous oil reserves. Truman was generally pleased with how the visit went, although he was confused by the gift of a silver coffee set whose cups had no handles.

Six weeks into his presidency, Truman was widely popular: “He had become a symbol for ordinary Americans, who saw in him the hopes and dreams of their own lives and those of their children” (223). His cabinet was coming together, relying far less on the “East coast establishment” (224) than his predecessor, which further burnished his populist credentials. However, by the end of May, there were two negative developments. The first was the end of Lend-Lease, which struck both Stalin and Churchill as a major breach of Roosevelt’s promises. The other event was more personal, as Bess and Margaret visited Missouri, leaving Truman alone in the White House with his various worries over the United Nations, Yugoslavia, and the potential dangers of the postwar economy. On May 29, Truman agreed to a July “Big Three” meeting in Berlin, hoping that by that time the atomic bomb would have demonstrated its effectiveness.