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

At the third plenary session, the clash of interests and personalities among the three leaders came to a head—the plainspoken Truman, the aristocratic Churchill, and the icy Stalin. The American delegation was itself divided over whether to promise the preservation of the emperor’s throne instead of a purely unconditional surrender demand, and whether the prospect of the atomic bomb rendered Soviet participation in the Pacific war unnecessary. The three leaders shared an elaborate and festive dinner, musing where to hold the next conference (Stalin suggested Japan) and Truman watched soldiers raise the same American flag that had been flying at Pearl Harbor the day of the attack. Truman told the soldiers present, “let’s not forget that we are fighting for peace and for the welfare of mankind. We are not fighting for conquest […] We want peace and prosperity for the world as a whole” (308). As the conference proceeded, fatigue and the sheer number of complicated issues wore down the participants, from the status of Poland to the possibility of monetary aid to the war’s millions of victims. With Truman hosting the first dinner, Stalin and then Churchill then hosted theirs, and Truman finally read a detailed report from General Groves on the test at Alamogordo. Stimson brought the report to Churchill, who simply said, “the atomic bomb is the second coming of wrath” (312).

After a prolonged debate, the US decided to retain the words “unconditional surrender” in its communications with Japan, while still leaving open the possibility of the emperor retaining his throne. “Prompt and utter destruction” (314) was assured as a consequence of non-compliance. There was certainly hope that this would come in the form of an atomic bomb, rendering Soviet intervention unnecessary, but the bomb’s actual effectiveness was still in doubt even after the Alamogordo test. At Potsdam, Stalin demanded that countries under Soviet domination be recognized as sovereign, which Truman refused. Truman then subtly indicated to Stalin that “we had a new weapon of unusual destructive force” (316), which Stalin took with surprising nonchalance, suggesting that he may have already known about it through his spies. According to Red Army leader Georghy Zhukov, Stalin told Molotov later that night to accelerate the development of the Soviet nuclear program. On July 25, Truman learned that the Japanese had not received the ultimatum due to a communication mishap, and the Big Three continued to spar over the status of Eastern Europe with little progress, as Churchill left to oversee the results of the election. After a brief meeting with General Eisenhower, who promised not to run for president in 1948, Charlie Ross handed out the Potsdam Declaration to the press, declaring that “the time has come for Japan to decide whether she will continue to be controlled by those self-willed militaristic advisers whose unintelligent calculations have brought the Empire of Japan to the threshold of annihilation, or whether she will follow the path of reason” (319).

Molotov visited Truman the next day, angry that the Soviet government had not been consulted on the Potsdam Declaration. Molotov also demanded heavy reparations from Germany, which Byrnes feared would impoverish Germany, and remembered how the punishing reparations after World War I had spurred the Germans to overturn the Versailles order. The discussion broke off without agreement, but an exhausted Truman could at least find consolation in the Senate overwhelmingly ratifying the UN Charter. Shortly thereafter, Japan rejected the Potsdam Declaration and continued to bombard US vessels with kamikaze attacks. On July 28, Clement Atlee returned to Potsdam as the new Prime Minister, stunning the other delegations, who regarded Churchill as a permanent fixture. Atlee had done his homework, and was eager to resume partnership with the United States. Negotiations continued over a host of issues, from German reparations to the boundaries of Poland to the internationalization of key waterways. The final agreement proved a modest affair, and it would be another 10 years before the US president and Soviet leader met face to face. Leaving Potsdam, Truman could be proud that he had stood up to Stalin, while anxious that the conference had essentially confirmed a status of hostility between the western and Soviet blocs.

On the journey home, Truman stopped to meet King George VI in Plymouth, England, telling him about the atomic bomb. He insisted on returning home without ceremony, as he had to focus on the difficult business of converting the economy back to peacetime, cancelling military contracts that would leave many out of work. LeMay’s bombers continued to pummel Japan, and while still on the journey home, Truman briefed reporters on the atom bomb under conditions of strict secrecy. LeMay himself finally learned about the bomb, writing later that he “didn’t wish to have any more information than it was necessary for me to have” (333). The target was Hiroshima, a city not yet struck by LeMay’s bombers. The atom bomb, code-named “Little Boy” was brought to the island of Tinian on the Marianas, which had become the largest airfield on earth. Little Boy was loaded onto a B-29 called the Enola Gay, named for the pilot’s mother, and the crew was briefed on the unique nature of their mission. While Truman was possibly “playing poker, or staring at the ceiling of his cabin, or perhaps still praying, alone” (336), the Enola Gay found its target. After an enormous aftershock, the copilot would later record (using a racial slur), “I am certain the entire crew felt this experience was more than any one human had ever thought possible…Just how many [people] did we kill?...If I live a hundred years I’ll never quite get these few minutes out of my mind” (336). Roughly 16 hours after Hiroshima was almost entirely destroyed by a single bomb, Truman heard the news and shouted, “this is the greatest thing in history!” (338). He proceeded to celebrate with the ship’s crew, who were delighted at the promise of an early homecoming. Truman then issued a statement announcing the dropping of the atomic bomb, and held a press conference, proclaiming, “The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold” (340). While watching a boxing match on the deck of the ship, Truman hoped that the advent of the atomic age could help the cause of peace.

Back at the White House, Truman regaled his staff with stories of Potsdam and played the piano, not even mentioning the atomic bomb. The next day, however, they looked at aerial photos of Hiroshima, four square miles of which were completely destroyed, and Truman received word that the Soviet Union had entered the war against Japan. As he attended to these matters, he did not even know that B-29s were at that moment delivering another atomic bomb. As the Red Army surged across Manchuria, with Stalin clearly angling for a portion of the spoils, the Bockscar carried a bomb code-named “Fat Man” initially toward Kokura, but then diverted to Nagasaki due to weather. The bomb dropped on the morning of August 9, and one day later, the Japanese government signaled its willingness to surrender. After a flurry of debate, the White House announced: “the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese government to rule the state shall be subject to the supreme Commander of the allied Powers who will take such steps as he deems proper to effectuate the surrender terms” (348). Meanwhile, the world struggled to come to grips with the implications of the new atomic age, with joy over the war’s imminent end mixing with dread of what the future might hold. Truman rejected Soviet participation in Japan’s surrender, but there was little he could do to prevent the Red Army from making gains in China and Korea, especially its northern half. By August 14, Japan formally accepted the terms of surrender, and a crowd gathered outside the White House chanting “WE WANT HARRY! WE WANT HARRY!” (353).

On September 2, a formal surrender ceremony took place on the deck of the USS Missouri, named for the president’s home state. Truman enjoyed little political capital from overseeing victory in World War II, as the postwar economy triggered bitter partisan battles, and the Cold War intensified with the division of Germany, the fall of China to the communist party, and the partition of Korea that led to the Korean War in 1950. Truman managed to win reelection in 1948 despite these political headwinds, but his broader legacy has been complicated by the dropping of the two atomic bombs. Debate continues over the morality and wisdom of that decision, although at the time, it was generally regarded as a foregone conclusion: “[T]he bomb was there. Japan was not surrendering. Few in the government thought seriously about not using it. To drop it as soon as it was ready seemed natural, the obvious thing to do” (359). Truman is nonetheless generally regarded as one of the most consequential presidents of the 20th century. He died in 1972 at the age of 88, and Bess joined him at the family plot in Independence, Missouri when she died 10 years later.