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

In the first week of June, many of the international tensions Truman had been facing began to abate, from Yugoslavia to the San Francisco conference. Truman found particular satisfaction in scoring a diplomatic victory over Free French leader Charles de Gaulle, whose forces were encroaching on the Italian border and refusing to move. After Truman threatened to withdraw Lend-Lease (which operated independently with France), de Gaulle quickly backed down, although Truman let him operate under the pretense that the French leader had made the decision on his own. On the night of June 4, Truman met with the diplomat Joseph Davies, who had been meeting with Churchill. The meeting started poorly, with Churchill exploding at the idea of Truman first meeting with Stalin prior to the upcoming summit, and Churchill’s hardline views on communism did not mesh with Davies’s more conciliatory approach to the Soviet Union. Toward the end, Churchill insisted on the need for a continued American presence in Europe, les the continent “be at the mercy of the Red Army and of communism” (243).

Nine days later, Harry Hopkins returned from his sojourn to Moscow, where he reported that he and Stalin had communicated their nation’s grievances with one another, but that Stalin took the encouraging step of pledging a firm date for Soviet participation in the war against Japan and supported a policy of unconditional surrender. However, he then ominously suggested wanting a Soviet role in the occupation of Japan, promising not to claim any Chinese territory in the process (as the Soviet invasion would require their moving through Japanese-occupied Manchuria). Hopkins was widely praised for his trip, and it proved the last of his long career, as he soon returned to the hospital and died the following January.

Loneliness continued to haunt Truman as he turned his eye from foreign policy to domestic needs, particularly the slashing of the military budget and labor unrest. Then, on June 18, Truman listened to a grim briefing from General Marshall on the prospective invasion of Japan. Truman was concerned that a policy of unconditional surrender would provoke fierce resistance, but he also knew that conditional surrender, such as allowing the emperor to maintain his throne, would arouse the fury of a public still incandescent over Pearl Harbor. At that point, the Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy mentioned the atomic bomb, jolting the room. As he later recalled, “You didn’t mention the bomb out loud; it was like mentioning Skull and Bones in polite society at Yale. It just wasn’t done” (251). Truman postponed an official decision until the bomb had been successfully tested, in the meantime authorizing a ground invasion of Japan for later in the year. At Los Alamos, some of Oppenheimer’s staff were beginning to question the morality of their actions, but he insisted that what they were working on could end the war more quickly, and that was the supreme consideration. On June 18, Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower returned to a hero’s welcome in Washington, and Truman greeted him warmly at a reception in the White House. Writing to Bess about rumors that Eisenhower would run for president, Truman said “I’d turn it over to him now if I could” (254).

Truman took the presidential airplane (not yet known as Air Force One) to Tacoma, Washington, to visit the governor, an old friend and former Senate colleague. He spent a few days relaxing and attending to routine business before traveling down to San Francisco to attend the conclusion of the United Nations conference. Woodrow Wilson had failed to convince the US to join the League of Nations, but this time there was immense public and congressional support for the new international organization. After attending the signature of the United Nations Charter, Truman addressed the then-50-nation body, declaring the UN Charter “a solid structure upon which we can build a better world. History will honor you for it. Between the victory in Europe and the final victory in Japan, in this most destructive of all wars, you have won a victory against war itself” (259). From there, Truman made a homecoming to Kansas City and Independence, where his old family home had been freshly painted, a 34-foot flagpole installed. The mortgage on his family farm had also been paid off by friends in a gesture of gratitude for bringing about the end of the war. Truman gave a press conference announcing that Stettinius would be the inaugural ambassador to the United Nations, clearing the way for Byrnes to take over as secretary of state (though he refused to say so publicly). He vowed first to win the war and then to secure the “peace of the world, for generations to come” (262). Missouri’s first president came home to a state much changed by the war, although Truman was able to find his old partner in the haberdasher business, Eddie Jacobson, running his own men’s clothing store. Back in Washington, Truman presented the UN Charter to the Senate, and James Byrnes officially became secretary of state, rankling some in Washington who had admired Stettinius and saw Byrnes as an ambitious backstabber. But Truman had settled on him, and so Byrnes would escort the president to the postwar conference in Berlin.

The conference was to be held in the neighborhood of Potsdam, inside the Soviet-controlled portion of Berlin. Elections were occurring in Britain at that same time, so Churchill brought along his principal opponent, Clement Atlee, in case Atlee was prime minister when the conference began. Right before leaving, Truman accepted the resignation of Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau: He had never gotten along with Morgenthau and strongly objected to his plan to de-industrialize Germany after the war. He also met with Stimson, who was becoming more anxious about the costs of an invasion and occupation of the Japanese home islands. He wondered if “by issuing a public and official warning, the United States could convince Japan to capitulate. And if Japan did not (more likely the case), history would record the moral position of an attacking nation that had done its best to warn its victims of what was to come—annihilation of a city; perhaps more than one” (270). Before leaving, Truman had finally informed the Chinese foreign minister of Stalin’s agreement to join the war against Japan, which would almost surely require concessions on China’s part. The issue remained unsettled, and both the Chinese government and Truman would have to discuss the matter further with Stalin. Truman at last left for the conference with an astounding public approval rating of 87% (272). Still, Truman was gloomy at the toll that the last few months had taken on his marriage, as Bess continued to despise life in the public eye.

On board the USS Augusta en route to the Potsdam Conference, Truman used the ship’s ample library to prepare himself for the meeting, while also being friendly with the sailors on board. Often retiring to play poker in the evenings, he anxiously awaited news from the British election and the looming test at Los Alamos. The ship birthed at Antwerp, greeted by Eisenhower himself, and then began the trip to Germany under heavy military escort. As Truman’s motorcade entered the Soviet zone of occupation, it was evident that the Red Army had ransacked the city until there was “not even a tin spoon left” (277). The US delegation essentially formed a pop-up city of its own within Berlin, supplying its own food, bedsheets, and cleaning materials. On the morning of July 16, Truman at last met with Winston Churchill, who was in a foul mood for having to wake up early by his standards (11 o’clock in the morning) but was nonetheless a formidable presence. Churchill would later write: “I felt that here was a man of exceptional character and ability […] with an excellent outlook exactly along the lines of Anglo-American relations as they had developed, simple and direct methods of speech, and a great deal of self-confidence and resolution” (279). While awaiting the arrival of Stalin, who had suffered a mild heart attack, Truman toured the city and was horrified by the extent of the destruction and human misery. Even as a veteran of the World War I, the sight of Berlin “left him philosophical and fearful for the future of mankind” (281).

In Alamogordo, New Mexico, Leslie Groves and Robert Oppenheimer insisted that the test proceed before Truman’s arrival at Potsdam. The weather was poor, which could cause the weapon to malfunction or even “ignite the atmosphere” (284)—likely causing the extinction of all life on Earth—but they decided to move forward. At 5:30 am on the morning of July 16, a blinding burst of light gave way to a mushroom cloud 1,000 feet high. The test was a success, and Oppenheimer muttered to himself a line from the Hindu sacred text the Bhagavad Gita, “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds” (285). The news of the test reached Truman in Berlin, and he and Stimson discussed the possibility of a vague warning to Japan concerning the potential for greater destruction if they refused to surrender. The following day, Stalin arrived in Potsdam, and they quickly agreed that the Soviet Union would soon join the war against Japan. After their meeting, Truman noted, “I can deal with Stalin. He is honest. But smart as hell” (290). Later that day, Truman prepared for the first plenary meeting at the palace of an old Prussian prince, and Truman sat down at the large table feeling like he was in a poker game.