“ There is no substitute for facts.”
Harry S. Truman in reference to the work of the Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, known as the “Truman Committee”
FEATURED CONTENT
Throughout this issue of TRU, you’ll discover programs, articles, speeches and photographs that examine and illuminate the 75th anniversaries from Truman’s presidency. Look for this symbol for featured HST75 content.
COVER
Vice President-elect Harry S. Truman is photographed in his Washington, D.C., office on January 1, 1945. Vaulted into the public eye by his leadership of the “Truman Committee,” the senator from Missouri would be president of the United States in just more than 100 days. (Getty/ Bettman)
TRUMAN LIBRARY INSTITUTE
OUR VISION
People are inspired, enriched and empowered through the many resources of the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum.
OUR MISSION
To bring the life and legacy of Harry S. Truman to bear on current and future generations through the understanding of history, the presidency, domestic and foreign policy, and citizenship.
COVER CONTENT
The Truman Committee in 4 minutes
4 14 26
DEPARTMENTS
3 News Briefs
24 Membership
29 Worth Watching
30 TRU Timeline
32 A Word from Harry
TRUMAN AND NATO: A MONUMENTAL LEGACY
During an international Truman legacy event, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg reflect on Truman’s role in creating the most powerful alliance in history.
Evan Thomas, New York Times bestselling author, turns to a golden age of leadership to glean lessons from Truman and his “wise men.”
BOOK EXCERPT: THE WATCHDOG BY
STEVE DRUMMOND
Read an exclusive excerpt of the winner of the 2024 Harry S. Truman Book Award, The Watchdog: How the Truman Committee Battled Corruption and Helped Win World War II.
Seventy-five years ago, President Truman had a message for America.
In order to succeed in his first full term as commander in chief and leader of the free world, he asked for the “help and prayers” of every American. “I ask for your encouragement and for your support. The tasks we face are difficult. We can accomplish them only if we work together.”
On that historic day—Inauguration Day—Harry Truman was clear-eyed about the challenges he faced, including a rising tide of totalitarianism. He shared the promise of our democracy and asked Americans to commit courageously to the ideals of liberty.
Three quarters of a century later, many see parallel challenges today. There are lessons to be gleaned from those years and from President Truman’s leadership. And there is something else: hope.
This issue of TRU is filled with hope, from Washington Post columnist David Von Drehle’s personal remarks and Evan Thomas’ riveting keynote address at Wild About Harry (pages 13-19) to a new generation of exceptional scholars and our nationally acclaimed civics education programs, made possible with your support (don’t miss “3 Questions with Sadie Troy” on page 21).
The highlight of this hope-filled issue is our coverage of an international legacy event in Brussels, celebrating President Truman’s role in the creation of the greatest peacetime alliance in human history, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
On April 3, President Truman’s grandson and our honorary chair, Clifton Truman Daniel, led a small Truman delegation to Belgium to attend the historic gathering. Representatives from all 32 NATO nations were in attendance, including U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
There, we unveiled and dedicated a bronze statue of President Truman at Truman Hall, the permanent residence of the U.S. Ambassador to NATO (full story on page 4).
Many of you will remember the tremendous national coverage we received when the original Truman Statue by Tom Corbin was unveiled and dedicated in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda two years ago. I could not have imagined that the achievement would be followed by an international event centered around a second casting and installation.
Our success is a resounding affirmation of President Truman’s global leadership, which has given us a framework that continues to defend democracies and provide a shield against aggression.
Throughout this issue of TRU, we are reminded that we could easily take for granted the relative peace and prosperity Truman’s leadership has given us. The hope for our future demands that we don’t.
Harry Truman loved this democracy and worked tirelessly to safeguard it for future generations. He showed us what it means to be Americans.
It is an honor to work with you to preserve and advance his legacy. Not only for Harry but for the future of this great nation.
ALEX BURDEN Executive Director Truman Library Institute
Design: Jaron Theye
Send comments, requests, and changes of address to: Truman Library Institute, 5151 Troost Ave., Ste. 300, Kansas City, MO 64110
info@TrumanLibraryInstitute.org | 816.400.1220
TRU is published twice a year for members and friends of the Truman Library Institute.
“ THE WATCHDOG WILL MAKE YOU LONG FOR AN ERA WHEN GOVERNMENT COULD BE MADE TO WORK.”
—EVAN THOMAS, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR
MONTHS BEFORE PEARL HARBOR, Franklin D. Roosevelt knew that the U.S. was on the verge of entering another world war for which it was dangerously ill-prepared. The urgent times demanded a transformation of the economy, with the government bankrolling the unfathomably expensive task of enlisting millions of citizens while also producing the equipment necessary to successfully fight—all of which opened up opportunities for graft, fraud and corruption. In Drummond—an award-winning senior editor and executive producer at NPR—draws the reader into the fast-paced story of how Harry Truman, still a newcomer to Washington politics, cobbled together a bipartisan team of men and women that took on powerful corporate entities and the Pentagon, placing Truman in the national spotlight and paving his path to the White House. Watchdog provides a window to a time that was far from perfect but where it was possible to root out corruption and hold those responsible to account. It shows us what can be possible if politicians are governed by the principles of their office rather than self-interest.
SCAN THE QR CODE FOR MORE. READ AN EXCERPT ON PAGE 36.
THE HARRY S. TRUMAN BOOK AWARD IS GENEROUSLY ENDOWED BY MARY AND JOHN HUNKELER .
The Truman Library Institute is pleased to announce that Ben Zdencanovich is the 2024 recipient of the Truman Library Institute’s Scholar’s Award Generously endowed by Mary and John Hunkeler, grants of $30,000 are awarded biennially to established post-doctoral scholars engaged in work on some aspect of the life and career of Harry S. Truman or of the prominent domestic or foreign policy issues during those years. Zdencanovich is a postdoctoral associate at the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy. His grant will support work toward completion of his forthcoming book, Island of Enterprise: The United States in a World of Welfare, 1940–1955, which traces connections between the end of New Deal reformism, the rise of U.S. global power, and the birth of social and economic rights and the modern welfare state around the world in the mid-20th century. Zdencanovich earned his doctorate with distinction from the Department of History at Yale in 2019, where his dissertation—supported by a Truman Library Institute Dissertation Year Fellowship grant—was the winner of the Edwin W. Small Prize for outstanding work in United States history.
The 25th annual Wild About Harry benefit on April 18 raised a recordbreaking $1,036,511 for civics education. Led by Event Chairs Dr. Loren and Merilyn Berenbom and Honorary Chair David Von Drehle (pictured below), the event featured the presentation of the 2024 Harry S. Truman Legacy of Leadership Award to Senator Roy Blunt. For a full recap, photos, donor honor roll, and Evan Thomas’s exclusive keynote address, “The Paradox of Leadership,” turn to page 10.
Stay connected with the latest updates. Sign up for TRU e-news for exclusive content, event invitations, Member offers and benefits, TRU history, and archive highlights—all delivered straight to your inbox. Plus, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube for exciting announcements, Museum updates, wit and wisdom from Harry, and livestreamed events. Get connected at TrumanLibraryInstitute.org and stay TRU!
The Truman Library Institute awarded two Dissertation Year Fellowships in February. The competitive $20,000 grants are intended to support the completion of the most promising Ph.D. dissertations centered on the Truman era and administration. Congratulations to our 2024 Fellows, Felicitas Hargun, University of California–San Diego, for Do Not Destroy What You Cannot Create: Early Cold War Visions for Global Nonproliferation and the Politicization of Science, and James Irving, University of New Hampshire, for Developing Diplomacy in the Land of Eternal Springs: A History of American Intervention in the Costa Rican War of 1948
ON APRIL 4, 2024, the world marked the 75th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty, the most powerful and successful peacetime alliance in human history.
And in Brussels, Belgium—home to NATO Headquarters—a Truman delegation joined representatives from all 32 NATO nations to honor the American president who was the catalyst for its creation, Harry S. Truman.
Throughout the 12 months leading up to the anniversary, the Truman Library Institute worked closely with the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Mission to NATO on plans to honor President Truman’s role in the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty—specifically, to install a bronze statue of the president at the U.S. Mission to NATO, known as Truman Hall.
Now, and for decades to come, every dignitary, diplomat and military official who visits Truman Hall will be introduced to the American president who made it possible.
The events in Brussels, and the media attention they garnered, vastly exceeded our initial hopes for this international initiative.
It was a tremendous honor to represent President Truman’s legacy—and each one of you—at events attended by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Ambassador Julianne Smith.
Secretary General Stoltenberg said it best in his remarks on April 3: the celebration of NATO’s 75th anniversary is really a celebration of Harry S. Truman.
It was true 75 years ago, and it is true today: the world needs Harry Truman. Long may his legacy stand.
—Alex Burden, Executive Director
“[No] person has played a more important role for this Alliance than President Truman.”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
AS THE SECRETARY GENERAL OF NATO, I am unable to think of any individual who has played a more important role for this Alliance than President Truman because we have to try to imagine how the world looked like at the end of the Second World War.
The United States left Europe after the First World War. That was not a big success. So therefore, I’m glad that after the Second World War, the United States decided to stay—stay with their forces, stay with their troops, and not only that, but also to underpin the transatlantic bond with the Marshall aid, with a big economic program to underpin the transatlantic bond. And then on top of that—not only keeping their forces and providing enormous economic support to Europe, but on top of that, actually signed a treaty obligation to protect and defend Allies in Europe.
And the president responsible for all those decisions, knowing that to not bring back the troops, not bring back all the boys after war was potentially a very unpopular, difficult position—economically costly, politically costly, and of course also paying in human cost—the president responsible for that decision that was brave and not obvious and actually controversial at the time was President Harry S. Truman.
We would [not be here, and not have] a 75th anniversary to celebrate if it hadn’t been for that very brave political decision by the United States to stay in Europe. And therefore, it is great to celebrate the 75th anniversary, and to do that at Truman Hall together with the grandson and next to the statue of the great president.
— NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
Scan the QR code for more on this story.
“Truman understood on a personal level what can happen when we allow the forces of aggression to spread.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken
entered World War I, Harry Truman rejoined the U.S. National Guard, and he was put in command of an artillery unit that saw brutal combat in France. He later wrote this: I know the strain, the mud, the misery … of the soldier in the field. And I know too his—and add today her—courage.
The experience left Truman—along with generations of men and women who survived the two World Wars— determined that history would not repeat itself. Harry Truman believed that the best way, maybe the only way, to ensure that was to bind America’s fate to that of other nations who shared our values, for all to commit to defending one another’s territory as if it were their own.
Those of us here today, in some ways, may take that for granted now, after 75 years, but this was a radical belief in its time, and it was also an untested one. And, in some ways, it’s also easy to assume that NATO’s success was somehow preordained. It wasn’t.
As Truman said at the founding, the purpose of this defensive Alliance is to allow us to get on with the real business of life, the real business of government, the real business of society: “achieving a fuller and happier life for all … our citizens.”
So, as we celebrate this extraordinary Alliance, let’s not lose sight of why we created it, or why it has endured these 75 years.
– U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken
Top: Polly and Clifton Truman Daniel, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, NATO Ambassador Julianne Smith, and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the statue unveiling event in Belgium. Middle: Executive Director Alex Burden with Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg; U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Bottom: Truman Library Director Kurt Graham, NATO Ambassador Julianne Smith, Clifton Truman Daniel, and Alex Burden on the grounds of the U.S. Mission to NATO, where the Truman Statue is permanently installed.
By Clifton Truman Daniel
A quarter century ago, diplomatic delegations from Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic celebrated the 25th anniversary of joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in an unlikely location: Independence, Missouri.
That 1999 accession ceremony had been organized by then-U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, herself a refugee. She had arrived on America’s shores at 11 years old, the daughter of Czechoslovakians escaping Nazis and communism.
For the Secretary of State, the first postCold War expansion of NATO was deeply personal. The signing ceremony and accession protocols took place at my grandfather’s presidential library in Missouri to honor the American president
on whose watch the Alliance had been formed, 50 years earlier.
Earlier this year, our nation and the world marked the 75th anniversary of the founding of NATO. Like many of my grandfather’s world-defining decisions and positions, the legacy and future of NATO has recently been—in Grandpa’s parlance—cussed and discussed thoroughly.
He was also fond of saying, “The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know.”
History, as Madeleine Albright’s story reminds us, is personal. That was true for my grandfather, as well. A captain in the First World War, he brought every soldier in his command home from France’s blood-
soaked battlefields. More than 116,000 young American men were not as lucky.
The war to end all wars didn’t. The lasting peace envisioned by President Wilson, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for the creation of the League of Nations, lasted a mere 26 years. As Senator, Vice President, and ultimately Commander in Chief, Grandpa was keenly aware of the cruel failure of the League of Nations. In the span of a single generation, the two world wars killed more than 521,000 Americans.
In Grandpa’s mind, NATO was the natural extension of the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan and the United Nations— together, pillars supporting a structure for peace that was our surest protection against World War Three.
My grandfather was keenly aware of the cruel failure of the League of Nations. In the span of a single generation, the two world wars killed more than 521,000 Americans.
“IF THERE IS ANYTHING CERTAIN TODAY, IF THERE IS ANYTHING INEVITABLE IN THE FUTURE, IT IS THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD FOR FREEDOM AND PEACE.”
In fact, he went so far as to say that had NATO been in place in the 1930s, there might not have been a Second World War. It’s staggering to consider. Current estimates calculate that 70-85 million people died as a result of WWII, roughly 3.5 percent of Earth’s population at the time.
Plenty of folks thought NATO was a bad idea in 1949, among them U.S. Senator Robert Taft from Ohio. Isolationists and noninterventionists chanted a familiar rallying cry: “America First!”
Harry Truman, however, believed it was in our national interest to be engaged in the world, and to take a leadership position in global security. On April 4, 1949, Secretary of State Dean Acheson signed the North Atlantic Treaty on behalf of the United States. A week later, Grandpa urged the Senate to ratify the Treaty:
“Events in this century have taught us that we cannot achieve peace independently. The
President Harry S. Truman April 4, 1949 Address at the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty
I am reminded of Grandpa’s warning: “We can well afford to pay the price of peace. Our only alternative is to pay the terrible cost of war.”
world has grown too small. The oceans to our east and west no longer protect us from the reach of brutality and aggression. … If we are to achieve peace we must work for peace.”
On July 21 of that year, following a vigorous debate, the Senate ratified the Treaty by a vote of 83-13. It went into effect on August 24, 1949, and has served as intended—”a shield against aggression”—for 75 years.
The North Atlantic Treaty was, Grandpa said, “only one step … on the road to peace. No single action, no matter how significant, will achieve peace. We must continue to work patiently and carefully, advancing with practical, realistic steps in the light of circumstances and events as they occur,
building the structure of peace soundly and solidly.”
As NATO turns 75 and presidential candidates, politicians and pundits weigh the cost and merits of international leadership and alliances, I am reminded of Grandpa’s warning: “We can well afford to pay the price of peace. Our only alternative is to pay the terrible cost of war.”
Clifton
WILD ABOUT HARRY RAISES MORE THAN $1 MILLION FOR PRESIDENT TRUMAN’S “CLASSROOM FOR DEMOCRACY”
On April 18, in Kansas City, Missouri, the 25th annual benefit for Harry S. Truman’s presidential library and legacy made history as it surpassed all former fund-raising records.
With nearly 800 guests in attendance, Wild About Harry featured remarkable conversations and messages of inspiration and hope from Senator Roy Blunt, Washington Post columnist David Von Drehle, and award-winning journalist, historian and author Evan Thomas
Drawing on President Truman’s enduring legacy and making parallels to our present moment, Von Drehle noted that “75 years later, we still live in the world Truman created, bolstered by sturdy institutions like NATO, the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, in relative peace and unprecedented prosperity that many of us take for granted.” Now, more than ever, Von Drehle said, “it is urgently important to help people understand the value of this architecture, and why we would
be rash and irresponsible to destroy it.”
Acknowledging the challenge of partisan politics, Senator Blunt drew enthusiastic applause when he added, “We’re a diverse people with diverse views of the world, and those views come together in a compromise that we call democracy.”
Thanks to everyone who generously supported the 25th annual Wild About Harry campaign. Together, your enthusiasm, passion and commitment to history, civics education and Truman’s enduring legacy of leadership raised a record-breaking $1,036,511 for outreach programs that strengthen our democracy and serve tens of thousands of students and teachers each year.
H ARRY S. TRUMAN LEGACY OF LEADERSHIP AWARD
“No president, in such a short period of time, made more consequential decisions than Harry Truman, from ending World War II to safeguarding democracy worldwide, advancing civil rights and strengthening our national defense. It is humbling to consider how many consequential decisions Harry Truman had to make, how quickly he had to make them, and how well he made them. I am deeply honored to join the ranks of past award recipients, and to help shine a light on the enduring, and increasingly relevant, legacy of America’s 33rd president.”
The Truman Library Institute proudly honored Senator Roy Blunt with the 2024 Harry S. Truman Legacy of Leadership Award. “Like Truman, Senator Blunt’s service to his community and country has always been grounded in a deep understanding of history and a commitment to bipartisanship,” Executive Director Alex Burden said. “He is a champion of education and has been a tremendous supporter of the civics education mission at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library & Museum.”
Scan the QR code for Senator Blunt’s onstage conversation with Washington Post columnist David Von Drehle.
KEYNOTE SPEAKER EVAN THOMAS
BESTSELLING AUTH OR, HISTORIAN & JOURNALIST
“The example of Harry Truman gives me hope … Yes, we have problems galore. But we have had them before, and somehow someone like a Harry Truman comes along. Will it happen again? How can we be sure? We can’t. But I would not bet against America.”
Turn to page 14 for Evan Thomas’s full address.
MARNY AND JOHN SHERMAN
ANONYMOUS (2)
PAUL BLACK AND JULIE CHESLIK
TAMARA AND DAVID CAMPBELL
GATTERMEIR FAMILY FOUNDATION
CHERYL AND BILLY GEFFON
DONALD J. HALL
CHARLES HELZBERG AND SANDRA BAER
MARY AND DR. JOHN HUNKELER
NEIL D. KARBANK
BARBARA AND ALLEN LEFKO
JANE AND RICHARD BRUENING FAMILY
JEAN AND TOM MCDONNELL
LEIGH AND TYLER NOTTBERG FAMILY FOUNDATION
PATRICK OTTENSMEYER AND DEANNE PORTER
ANN BAUM / G. KENNETH AND ANN BAUM
PHILANTHROPIC FUND
MERILYN AND DR. LOREN BERENBOM
KATHERINE AND JAMES BERGER
BONNIE AND HERB BUCHBINDER
STANLEY J. BUSHMAN AND ANN CANFIELD
MADELEINE MCDONOUGH AND CYD SLAYTON
MCMEEL FAMILY FOUNDATION
SUE AND LEWIS NERMAN
DRS. NANCY NEWHOUSE AND PAUL MCGRAW
KAREN AND STEVEN PACK
SARAH ROWLAND
KRISTIN STEPHEN
M. JEANNINE STRANDJORD / EWING MARION KAUFFMAN FOUNDATION
URSULA TERRASI AND JIM MILLER
MARYLOU TURNER
JEAN AND DON WAGNER
KATIE AND CLYDE WENDEL
MARY AND ALAN ATTERBURY
THE BODKER FAMILY
SAM DEVINKI AND MARY STAHL
CRIS AND DR. HOWARD ELLIS
SUSIE GOLDSMITH
MARLYS AND MIKE HAVERTY
MONICA AND STEPHEN JENNINGS
MICHELE AND HARVEY KAPLAN
POLLY AND JEFFREY KRAMER, ALICIA AND JIM STARR
JAN AND TOM KREAMER
Scan the QR code for the full Wild About Harry donor salute.
KRIGEL TIVOL ENDOWMENT FUND
JOANNA MARTIN
BARBARA AND BILL NELSON FAMILY
CAPPY AND PETER POWELL
ANN AND GRANT RENNE
ANGELA AND NEAL SHARMA
BETSY AND TIM TRIPLETT
DAVID VON DREHLE AND THE LATE KAREN BALL
PAGE AND BRUCE REED, BUZZ AND PAM WILLARD
Washington Post columnist and New York Times bestselling author David Von Drehle answers the question, “Why Harry Truman?”
“THE STORIES WE TELL AND THE LEADERS WE HONOR WILL DETERMINE WHERE WE GO AS A NATION.”
Recently, I was asked, in light of my career writing about history and politics: “Why Harry Truman?”
Harry Truman is, I believe, one of the most important and sometimes undervalued presidents in American history.
It was his job, in the wreckage of World War II—when Europe and Asia lay in ruins and tens of millions of people were homeless and starving—to rebuild the shattered world. And having lived through two global conflagrations, infinitely more destructive than any wars ever seen, he was determined to create a set of institutions on the international stage that would prevent another catastrophe.
Seventy-five years later, we still live in the world Truman created, bolstered by sturdy institutions like NATO, the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, in relative peace and unprecedented prosperity that many of us take for granted. Now, more than ever, it is urgently important to help people understand the value of this architecture, and why we would be rash and irresponsible to destroy it.
I understand how one could think the world is going to hell in a handbasket. But Harry Truman, as a soldier in World War I and as a statesman in World War II, had seen up close what hell really looks like, and did his best to offer us alternatives. The work is endless, but we must do it.
What’s more, Harry Truman was a man of the people, born into pretty modest means;
he couldn’t go to college, so he educated himself. He believed in himself, even when others did not. He didn’t give up when he failed.
Ultimately, he wrote his name among the most important in American history. That’s an important story to tell to young people who need to understand their own potential.
Our young people are desperate for hope and purpose. They are bombarded with hopeless and depressing messages. Our support—as donors, volunteers and members—helps to advance the Truman mission to offer them something else, something better and more true. It’s not a Pollyanna message, but it’s a hopeful message: America has seen problems before, and we’ve faced them, as ordinary people doing our best.
Some of you may be familiar with my most recent book,
may know that I wrote that book for my children, for I saw in Charlie’s story the gifts of spirit, the hard lessons, and the buoyant traits one needs to thrive in a world of change and challenge, opportunity and loss.
Working together, the Harry S. Truman Library and the Truman Library Institute write “The Book of Harry.” It is a story so rich and relevant that we turn to its pages to understand each day’s news: debates over NATO, civil rights, the social safety net, censorship, foreign policy, economic policy, public education, and bipartisan politics. As David McCullough taught
us with his great biography, it’s also a story about character—courage, fidelity, loyalty, integrity, and accountability.
Why Harry Truman?
Because the stories we tell and the leaders
Evan Thomas—celebrated journalist, historian, and New York Times bestselling author of 11 books—captivated the Wild About Harry audience with his keynote address on April 18, 2024. His newest book is Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II.
I want to set a scene. It is February 1947. Great Britain has just informed the United States that it, Great Britain, is broke and can no longer afford the burden of empire. Specifically, it can no longer afford to prop up Greece and Turkey against the encroachments of Soviet Russia.
Dean Acheson is the undersecretary of state and he has come to the Oval Office of Harry Truman with his boss, George C. Marshall, who is the secretary of state, to try to persuade congressional leaders that America must pick up the fall on standard and stand up to communist aggression. Marshall, a soft-spoken man, goes first and he blows it. He drones on about budgets and priorities. The congressmen at the meeting are unmoved, and they have questions. How much is this going to cost? What are we getting into? Acheson, sitting there with his boss, watches with alarm. “I knew we were met at Armageddon,” he later recalls. After asking Marshall’s permission, he jumps in.
Acheson is classically educated and he does not shy away from metaphors. “Not since Athens and Sparta, not since Rome and
Carthage,” he says, “has the world been so divided. The choices between democracy and individual liberty, on the one hand, versus dictatorship and absolute conformity. If the Soviets are not stopped here, the infection will spread all through Europe. It’s not a matter of pulling British chestnuts out of the fire,” he says. “It is about saving civilization.”
The congressmen sitting there in the Oval Office are impressed. One says to President Truman, “If you say that publicly, we will be with you.”
Now, another scene. This one about President Truman. It is about a month later, March 1947, and now the question is even bigger. It is about getting Congress to pay to rebuild all of Western Europe as a bulwark against communism and also because it’s the right thing to do. One of the president’s aides, Truman’s aides, Clark Clifford suggests to the president that they call it the Truman Plan, but President Truman says, “No, we should call it the Marshall Plan.”
Now, General Marshall may not be the world’s greatest speaker, but he is seen as above reproach, above politics. Truman says,
“Not since Athens and Sparta, not since Rome and Carthage, has the world been so divided. … If the Soviets are not stopped here, the infection will spread all through Europe. It’s not a matter of pulling British chestnuts out of the fire,” Acheson says. “It is about saving civilization.”
“If we call it the Truman plan, then Congress which is controlled by the opposing party, the Republicans, will kill it.” The plan, formerly the European Recovery Act, became the Marshall plan and as we know, saved Europe. Sometimes, Harry Truman knew, the best way to get something done is to know your own limits and to give credit to others.
Acheson is a portrait of confidence. Truman is a portrait of humility. Together, they are a portrait of leadership.
These days, we read a lot about the end of Pax Americana—the end of a long peace which lasted the eight decades or so since World War II. The time during which the world has seen a lot of little wars but no truly
big war, largely because America kept it that way.
I recently read in a think tank report that there was more armed conflict today in the world than at any time since World War II.
The massive and bloody war in Ukraine, Israel’s war with Hamas. Islamic radical attacks on U.S. bases, Iranian-backed Houthis attacking ships in the Red Sea. Now the threat of a hot open war between Israel and Iran, and concerns about a much bigger war in Asia with China over Taiwan. The threat, once again, of nuclear war and also the threat of cyber war.
The Pax Americana—a name taken from ancient times and borrowed from the last great seaborne empire, the Pax Britannica—means, today, an international
rules-based system promoting free trade, liberal democracy based on the rule of law protected by a system of military alliances. For a long time, we just took it for granted. We didn’t realize the degree to which our safety and our well-being depend on it. It’s just a fact that the world became much freer and most prosperous because of the Pax Americana. We in the West got richer, much richer, but so did the rest of the world— literally, billions of people brought out of poverty and made more free.
Maybe it’s stating the obvious, but those two things, freedom and prosperity, are connected. Now, they are in danger. Our foes—China, Russia, and Iran—poke and prod, putting malware in our infrastructure so they can turn off our lights if they want, testing and probing. They sense our vulnerability, as if history has turned against us. We seem to be entering into an authoritarian age abroad and maybe at home.
Where is all this going? Is there no going back? This Pax Americana was by no means inevitable. After World War II, most Americans did not want to go out and save the world. They wanted to come home, get married, start families. Averell Harriman, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s special envoy to Churchill and Stalin—and later Harry Truman’s national security advisor—saw that most Americans were worn out by war and wanted to turn inward. Most Americans, he said, just want to go to the movies and drink Coke.
America has a very long and deep isolation streak. Remember “America First”? No, not Donald Trump’s “America First,” but Charles Lindbergh’s. “Lucky Lindy,” the huge celebrity
after he soloed across the Atlantic in 1927, was the poster boy of a movement that’s set in 1940 and 1941. Why should we get involved in the war between Germany and Britain? That’s their problem. Lots of Americans agreed, and President Roosevelt heard them. “Your boys are not going to be sent in to any foreign wars,” he promised in his 1940 campaign.
It took the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor to change the equation. Even then, FDR didn’t dare declare war on Germany. Hitler declared war on us four days later. Big mistake. As it turned out, of course, we defeated Germany and Japan and we wanted to make sure they would never make war again. After all, it was World War Two—it was the second world war in a generation.
Henry Morgenthau, secretary of the treasury, had a plan: turn Germany into a big farm, no industry. Plow it under and line up and shoot Hitler’s generals. That was pretty much Churchill’s plan. By the way, certainly, it was Russia’s plan.
But Henry Stimson, secretary of war, had a different idea. He said, “No, we should not crush them. We should rebuild them. And we should give due process to their war criminals and uphold the rule of law. We should show them the American way.” And, as you know, that’s what we did. We
rebuilt Europe, including Germany, through the Marshall plan, and we rebuilt Japan. We destroyed those countries, but we rebuilt them and, remarkably, Germany and Japan became our greatest allies and friends.
Who is Henry Stimson? Lost to history now, Stimson was a great statesman who served six presidents. He was a hard man and a realist. A relentless prosecutor and a trust buster. His nickname was “The Human Icicle,” but he was also an idealist. He believed in something he called the law of moral progress —that mankind will get better if you create the right conditions, like the rule of law.
Now these two things, realism and idealism, sound like opposites, and they can be in conflict, but they can also be balanced and made to work together. I have focused on these words because I believe—and I hope to persuade you—that the balance of realism and idealism is the key to a successful foreign policy. It is at the heart of the Pax Americana that made us safe and prosperous for so long.
To be sure, it’s tough to get that balance right, as history and experience show us. One example: “We will make the world safe for democracy,” said Woodrow Wilson, as he took us into World War I. Wilson, and later Wilsonians, tilted too far to the idealist side. They were naïve—thinking, hoping, that the rest of the world would be like us, wanting freedom and democracy and human rights. Instead, we got the rise of fascism in Europe. Then there were the so-called realists, most famously Henry Kissinger, who are more focused on power and the raw pursuit of
Acheson is a portrait of confidence. Truman is a portrait of humility. Together, they are a portrait of leadership.
national interest. As we got into Vietnam, the crude saying was, “Grab them by the b– and their hearts and minds will follow.” We know how that worked out, but even Kissinger understood that the balance and interplay of realism and idealism are the foundation stones of a successful American foreign policy.
To see how and why, let’s go back again to the beginning … to the creation, as Dean Acheson rather grandly put it when he entitled his memoirs, Present at the Creation. The good Lord, you might say, gave us Harry Truman.
Harry Truman was an unlikely candidate for the role of savior. He, as you all know, had been part of the Pendergast machine in Kansas City—a uniquely clean part, but still he was a failed haberdasher who never graduated from college. And yet, he was well-educated, and he had read his history, which included the Bible. He understood what a radical thing it was for the victors to be truly magnanimous to the vanquished. In 1948, he wrote in the longhand draft of a speech, “In all the history of the world, we are the first great nation to feed and support the conquered.”
Think about it. The historical norm was to crush your enemies, to pillage and loot them, to enslave them to exact what the Romans called a Carthaginian peace. To flatten the place.
Instead, we rebuilt Germany and Japan when they were literally starving to death. How did this happen? Truman did not do it alone, of course. He called on a group of men who became known as the wise men. Walter Isaacson and I wrote a book about them
The balance of realism and idealism is the key to a successful foreign policy. It is at the heart of the Pax Americana that made us safe and prosperous for so long.
almost 40 years ago (it still sells enough copies to buy us an occasional dinner). The wise men were bankers and lawyers and diplomats who answered the call in World War II and then stuck around to make the peace. George Kennan, Chip Bohlen, the aforementioned Averell Harriman, two of Stimson’s deputies—Bob Lovett and John McCloy—and the great Dean Acheson. A couple are Republicans, the rest are Democrats, but really, it didn’t matter. Acheson in particular was Truman’s partner in creating the post-war order.
I want you to picture another scene. It’s November 1946, and Harry Truman is arriving by train at Union Station in Washington. His party, the Democrats, have just been shellacked at the polls, losing control of Congress for the first time since 1932. Truman is feeling pretty low about it. The voters have let him know he is not FDR. On the station platform there is one person, and only one, waiting for him—Dean Acheson.
Acheson is the undersecretary of state. He has come to Union Station because he thought he was following custom and the rules of civility by welcoming home the president. But to Truman, Acheson standing there, erect as if at attention, looked like the last loyal man in Washington.
Picture them: Acheson of Groton, Yale and Harvard Law School, son of an episcopal bishop with this guardsman mustache wearing a formal cutaway coat. President Truman, a commercial college dropout who favored two-toned shoes and spoke like
the Missouri farmer he was. And yet, they became best friends and partners on a great adventure.
Acheson called Truman, “My mighty captain.” What do they have in common? They were blunt and plain-spoken, yes, and as they would grow into old age, they would exchange cranky letters.
But they shared a deeper quality. One that I believe is the key to great leadership in America and everywhere else. I call it the confidence to be humble. What do I mean by that? I don’t mean lack of ego, because you need to have a big ego to run a country or an army or a state department. I mean something more human, something we all recognize. When you think about it, people who are arrogant or stuck up are often actually insecure. They are hiding their
insecurity behind bluster and showing off.
Whereas, people who are truly confident in themselves don’t need to show off. They can be modest and often realistic about themselves and others. This quality, this confidence to be humble, is the key, I believe, to the golden rule of foreign policy— balancing realism and idealism, to not bluster, to not swagger, to not only be realistic about the limits of power but also have the confidence to use power.
When to be a realist? When to be an idealist? That requires judgment, that most enviable quality, but a quality you are more likely to have if you have both confidence and humility. The confidence to be humble shows up in different ways depending on background and culture. The wise men called it “effortless grace.” It meant appearing not
to take things too seriously, being a little offhand, but actually taking things very seriously. In other words, appearing not to sweat it when actually you are working your tail off.
For Harry Truman, plain spoken midwesterner, it meant “the buck stops here.” Taking responsibility for things. Not shirking, but not making excuses or pretending to be something that you are not. Another midwesterner who had this quality was Truman’s successor, Dwight D. Eisenhower of Abilene, Kansas. Now, Ike had a huge ego. How could he not? He was the Supreme Allied Commander who liberated Europe. He had a big temper, but he controlled his ego. He liked to be underestimated. That helped him when it came to dealing with the likes of Winston Churchill or Charles de Gaulle. It was Eisenhower who firmed up the Western alliance and faced down the Russians as the Cold War deepened. He did this by keeping his cool, and he kept us out of wars. In fact, Eisenhower cut defense spending largely by cutting back the army, because he did not intend to use it.
Of course, he and his successors made mistakes. Under Ike, the nuclear arms race began. While Eisenhower was careful not to fight the land war in Asia, Kennedy and Johnson got sucked into Vietnam, and other mistakes followed. The pictures of the helicopter taking off from the embassy roof in Saigon as we fled or the pictures of the giant planes taking off in the airport in Afghanistan as men fell from the wheels, shocking scenes. In an age of “forever wars,” Americans began to lose their confidence in their leaders. Gradually, faith in the old foreign policy establishment and in the elite,
Acheson and Truman … shared a deeper quality. One that I believe is the key to great leadership in America and everywhere else. I call it the confidence to be humble.
generally, eroded. And along came Donald Trump.
I am guilty of getting nostalgic about the good old days, about the wise men. I was waxing on about them at a dinner at the Metropolitan Club in Washington when one of the members sitting next to me said, “You know they’re not coming back.”
More recently, I was talking to a distinguished military historian, Mark Stoler, about the great George C. Marshall, the organizer of victory in World War II. Marshall had the confidence to be humble in spades. He was honest and frank with his bosses, even if it meant talking back to them. He was humbled by his own sense of duty. “People are always asking me,” Professor Stoler said, “‘Why can’t we have another George Marshall?’ The answer is, you can’t. Marshall was a 19th-century Victorian. You would have to tear him out of the pages of history.”
Maybe so. Maybe, we can’t have another
Marshall, or for that matter Dean Acheson or Henry Stimson. Their time has passed. Still the example, Harry Truman, gives me hope. As Truman noted, America is or has been different from the rest. Even now, when things seem sort of grim, even a little hopeless, it’s worth noting that the American economy has done better than every other economy in the world including the rising superpower, China. We are still the center of science and research, especially hightech—including artificial intelligence which may save us all if it doesn’t destroy us. Our universities are still the best, if a little unsettled right now. We are still the country that people want to come to because we are prosperous and more free.
Yes, we have problems galore. But we have had them before and somehow, someone like a Harry Truman comes along.
Will it happen again? How can we be sure?
We can’t.
But I would not bet against America.
The Buck Stops Here Society is the Truman Library Institute’s premier membership program, designed specifically for individuals and corporations wanting to make a significant annual investment in the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum.
Your Society membership plays an important role in the continued success of our nation’s best presidential museum—helping it remain a vibrant center for exploring our nation’s history, the presidency, public policy, and citizenship.
With a minimum annual gift of $1,000, you will guarantee your access to privileges and benefits that are offered exclusively to Buck Stops Here Society members. The greatest benefit, however, will be knowing your annual membership donation supports the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum’s efforts to remain a “Classroom for Democracy,” where America’s next generation of great leaders are inspired.
If you have questions or comments regarding membership in The Buck Stops Here Society, please contact Kim Rausch, director of development, at 816.400.1214 or Kim.Rausch@TrumanLibraryInstitute.org.
A study of high school curricula across the country shows that public knowledge about how the government works is lagging. We asked Sadie Troy, director of The White House Decision Center, how the Truman Library is working to change that.
How important are the education programs offered by our presidential libraries, and, specifically, the Truman Library?
Invaluable! I like to say that civics is an action verb that requires us to understand our roles and privileges as American citizens … and then to act on them. Through programs like The White House Decision Center, we not only help students understand the role of the executive branch through role playing, we push the students to utilize the critical thinking skills they’ll need to become active and engaged citizens. Our programs teach kids how to gather and analyze information, compare multiple points of view, and make decisions based on their personal interpretation of evidence through real-world experiences. We turn civics education from a study of past events to present-day actions that feel achievable and relevant. It’s needed now more than ever.
What role does civic literacy play in a healthy democracy?
By definition, civic literacy is understanding the principles of our democracy and how they are applied. It’s the application part that is so important when it comes to working with students. If students do not understand how our democratic principles apply to their lives, they will not be inspired to participate in our democracy. Thanks to donor and member support, we are able to fight against that. Our programs turn large, abstract, and distant government policies into tangible learning experiences that connect our democratic principles with students’ lives. We’re able to extend what schools offer by providing authentic learning experiences that nurture engaged citizens.
Tell us about an inspirational moment you won’t forget.
Sometimes, I pinch myself when I think how lucky I am that I am here to see students find their voices. One moment happened last year with students from Lawrence (KS) High School. They were finishing up their simulation on the Berlin Airlift and the students portraying President Truman were hosting the final press conference. They were being hammered with questions from students acting as members of the press. Finally, one student portraying President Truman stepped forward and said, “Listen, this is important because people are suffering, and when people are suffering, they will turn to whatever hand feeds them. When they reach out, we want that hand to be democracy.” The entire room of high schoolers erupted in applause.
So many students walk in our doors thinking of presidents, like Truman, as elite historical figures high up on pedestals doing things that average people can’t. They leave seeing him as someone who occasionally stumbled, made mistakes, and relied on others for help, as well as succeeded and changed the world. This may seem counterintuitive, but it’s very impactful. They leave seeing Truman’s humanity, his struggles, and how he had to fight to get things done. Again, it makes history and civics personal, relatable, and achievable.
With the world watching the pivotal 2024 election, a new Truman Library exhibition recalls the biggest political upset in U.S. history. Promising Americans a “fair deal” while campaigning against a “do-nothing Congress,” Truman changed the nation’s tune—from MILD to WILD about Harry.
It was the most stunning presidential election surprise in American history. Harry Truman had been written off by all the pollsters, most of the press, and even by members of his own staff. The large crowds that came out to see him during his 1948 Whistle Stop campaign were explained away as curiosity-seekers hoping to catch a last glimpse of the outgoing “accidental president.” Even his financial support was tenuous, at one point halting his campaign train for lack of funds.
Now, a new temporary exhibition, UPSET! Harry Truman and the 1948 Election, allows visitors to the Truman Library to travel back in time to share the story. The exhibit, which includes more than 100 artifacts, original political cartoons, interactive displays, vintage campaign memorabilia, diary entries, historic photographs and newsreel footage, opened May 30, 2024, and runs through February 1, 2025.
“Walking into the gallery is a bit like walking into a time capsule,”
said Mark Adams, museum curator at the Truman Library, “but this story holds timeless lessons for modern-day candidates.” Lessons like, “know your audience,” “give ’em hell,” “get out the vote,” and “fight for all Americans.” It was this last point that would, many feared, doom the Democrat’s chances.
The 1948 Democratic Convention in Philadelphia reluctantly renominated Harry Truman, but at a price. Objecting to the party’s progressive civil rights platform, conservative southern Democrats bolted from the convention and formed the State’s Rights Party with J. Strom Thurmond as their candidate. Truman didn’t blink and even made history as the first presidential nominee of a major U.S. political party to campaign in Harlem.
For Adams, the most important lesson in UPSET! is “don’t give up.”
“Few Americans thought Harry could win the White House. A notable exception was India Edwards, a journalist and political advisor who served as the vice chair of the Democratic National Committee,”
Adams said. “At one point in the campaign, she joined Harry and Bess for breakfast on the Ferdinand Magellan. ‘There are two people at this table who believe I am going to win,’ Truman said, ‘and one of them is not my wife!’”
On November 2, 1948, Truman had the last laugh, pulling off the election surprise of the century.
Learn more and plan your visit at TrumanLibraryInstitute.org/Upset.
Harry Truman and the 1948 Election May 30, 2024–February 1, 2025
Included with Museum admission MEMBERS FREE
Member support advances the enduring
HONORARY
Truman Library Institute members enjoy these exclusive benefits:
• Free Museum admission at the Truman Library and all Presidential Libraries of the National Archives
• Museum Store discounts
• Invitations to member-only events
• Subscription to TRU Magazine
• Free or discounted tickets to the annual Howard & Virginia Bennett Forum on the Presidency
STUDENT/TEACHER | $25
1 membership card
Free and unlimited admission for 1 to the Truman Library
BASIC | $35-$49
1 membership card
Free and unlimited admission for 2 to the Truman Library
FAMILY | $50-$119
2 membership cards
Free and unlimited admission for 4 to the Truman Library DVD of Harry S. Truman by award-winning filmmaker Charles Guggenheim (one time gift for new and upgrading members)
ASSOCIATE | $120-$249
All Family benefits, plus a special gift from the Truman Library Institute
DIPLOMAT | $250-$499
All Associate benefits, plus recognition on the Annual Donor Honor Roll in Museum Lobby
AMBASSADOR | $500-$999
All Diplomat benefits, plus a private tour of The White House Decision Center
The Buck Stops Here Society is the Truman Library Institute’s premier membership program, designed specifically for individuals and corporations wanting to make a significant annual investment in the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum.
Learn more: Kim.Rausch@TrumanLibraryInstitute.org or 816.400.1214.
Renew or join the Honorary Fellows at the Associate Level or higher, and you’ll receive a gift designed exclusively for our members—a limited-edition Truman crossbody sling pack.
Share the gift of membership while helping preserve and advance the legacy of America’s 33rd president. Your gift recipient will receive a gracious acknowledgment of your thoughtfulness, will receive recognition in TRU Magazine (new members), and will enjoy all the benefits of membership. It’s a gift that gives all year long. Use the enclosed gift envelope or call 816.400.1220.
To Join, Renew, or Upgrade your Truman Library Institute Membership
CALL
816.400.1220 | Monday–Friday, 8:30am to 5:00pm MAIL
Complete the gift envelope enclosed in this issue of your magazine. ONLINE
Visit TrumanLibraryInstitute.org or scan the QR code to join, renew or upgrade!
“An original and insightful chronicle of an overlooked yet critical stage in the career of Harry Truman. … Vividly, The Watchdog takes Truman from junior Missouri senator to his stunning ascension as leader of a world still fighting for freedom.”
—Tom Clavin, New York Times bestselling author of Lightning Down: A World War II Story of Survival
BY STEVE DRUMMOND
Portland, Oregon, January 16, 1943
SATURDAY NIGHT was quieter than usual in war-booming Portland. A cold snap on Friday had killed two people in a storm that brought high winds and left a thin blanket of snow across the city. Temperatures were expected to sink into the low twenties. At the Swan Island Shipyard in the northern part of the city, the brand-new tanker ship SS Schenectady floated gently in calm water, tied up at the fitting-out pier. The 16,500-ton vessel was a source of pride and wonder for the new shipyard, and for the whole city.
At 523 feet long and 68 feet wide, it was the largest cargo ship ever built on the Pacific Coast, and the first of 147 tankers that would head down the Willamette River and off to war.
Fully loaded, the ship could carry six million gallons of fuel, and by prewar standards it had been built in no time. The keel was laid on July 1, and the hull launched on October 24. Twenty thousand workers watched that day as it slid down the rails and into the river, “her bow still dripping champagne.” Schenectady was declared finished on New Year’s Eve—two and a half months ahead of schedule. The ship, and the shipyard that built it, were just two examples of the miracles of war production taking place across the United States, achievements that would soon help turn the tide on battlefields around the world.
Outside Detroit, Henry Ford had built a giant airplane factory with an assembly line a mile long. The plant would eventually produce thousands of massive four-engine bombers; at its peak, a finished B-24 Liberator rolled off the line at the incredible rate of one every sixty-three minutes. Liberty ships—the cargo vessels that along with fuel tankers like the Schenectady would move the guns and food and planes and millions of tons of equipment across the oceans to the front lines—were being produced in ever greater numbers in shorter amounts of time. Driven by the innovations of shipbuilder Henry J. Kaiser, the first of them took 230 days to build; eventually, the average would drop to just over a month.
To build these cargo ships and tankers, new shipyards were needed, and they began appearing in coastal cities seemingly overnight: Seattle, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Jacksonville. In little more than a year, Kaiser had transformed Swan Island, once home to Portland’s
municipal airport, into a sprawling construction operation with thousands of men and women working shifts around the clock.
One big challenge was getting all those workers to and from their jobs, and finding housing for them when they weren’t working. The first dormitories at the shipyard had opened in November, and nine hundred workers moved into what would eventually be enough space for five thousand. A new ferry system was nearly completed that would shuttle workers to and from the yards.
The Schenectady was the first ship laid down at the new facility, and it was a new kind of ship—instead of being riveted together, the thick
Gradually—incredibly—it became clear that this brand-new, $3 million, 523-footlong steel ship, cleared for sea duty and resting at its mooring in calm waters, had simply, mysteriously, broken in two.
steel plates of these oil tankers (as with the cargo-carrying Liberty ships) were welded—a process that was faster, was less expensive and needed fewer highly skilled workers.
These new techniques were paying off—the Schenectady in late December had finished its sea trials and was declared fit for duty.
On January 10, the shipyard had turned it over to the US Maritime Commission, and at 3:30 p.m. on the 16th, the ship’s new captain, V.P. Marshall, had officially taken charge. He was not on board that evening, though about thirty crewmen were as the ship was being loaded and prepared for her first voyage.
The sound, when it came, at 10:25 p.m., was heard as far as a mile away. Guards at the shipyard felt the ground shake. It sounded like an explosion and, this being wartime, the initial thoughts were of sabotage. An emergency radio call went out that a ship had blown up, and firefighters and police sped to the scene.
What they saw when they got there was the Schenectady, split almost completely down the middle. A ten-foot-wide crack ran across the deck and down the port and starboard sides just behind the deckhouse, as if giant hands had picked up the ship and snapped it in two. The keel had fractured through the bottom plates, but did not break, as the center of the ship jackknifed up out of the water. A faded photo shows Schenectady’s bow and stern settled to the bottom, the center portion up above the waterline with the dark, jagged fissure reflected in the water below.
Though it happened late, the Sunday Oregonian got the news onto the front page the next day, with a banner headline above the masthead: “New Tanker Breaks Apart, Sinks At Swan Island Dock.” No one was injured, the paper said, though later it would emerge that a seaman had broken his ankle in the rush to get off the ship.
By Monday, a few new details emerged,
though already a veil of secrecy had dropped over the investigation. Armed coast guardsmen had sealed off the dock, FBI agents had begun interviewing the crewmen who were aboard, and everyone had been told to keep their mouths shut. Already though, an explosion had been ruled out, reported The Oregonian: definitely not, said the manager of the shipyard—if so, the edges of the giant crack would have blown outward.
But then, if not an explosion, what? There was some speculation initially that a hogback of sand or gravel on the river bottom had built up and forced the ship to split apart. But that was soon ruled out, too. With little new information coming in the following days, the story moved to the inside pages. On Tuesday came news that the FBI, having ruled out sabotage, had withdrawn, and the paper noted dutifully that morale among the shipyard’s employees, now back to work on the many other ships under construction, had not suffered.
Gradually—incredibly—it became clear that this brand-new, $3 million, 523-foot-long steel ship, cleared for sea duty and resting at its mooring in calm waters, had simply, mysteriously, broken in two.
Solving that mystery carried an urgency and importance far greater than a sailor’s broken
ankle or the damage to this single ship. Because the Liberty ships and tankers like Schenectady were a vital element of Allied strategy in one of the most desperate and deadly fronts of the war. With Adolf Hitler in control of much of Europe, Great Britain and the Soviet Union depended for their survival on supplies that came by ship from across the Atlantic. And by early 1943, those ships also carried to Britain the troops, weapons, food and supplies that would, eventually, build up armies large and strong enough for the invasion of Europe. Challenging this massive supply effort were the German U-boats—the deadly submarines that throughout the war sent thousands of ships to the bottom of the Atlantic and prevented millions of tons of those goods from reaching their destinations. Both sides were in a race: the Allies to build more merchant ships and develop weapons and strategies to protect them from attack, the Germans to evade those defenses and sink more ships than the Allies could build. The stakes were deadly—during the war, the Battle of the Atlantic claimed more than one hundred thousand lives.
If the Liberty ships and tankers were flawed— if something was wrong with the design or the materials or the new techniques being used to build and launch them in numbers that before the war would have seemed impossible— the ramifications for the battle and for the outcome of the war were huge. Within days of the Schenectady’s breakup, a full investigation was underway, and Rear Admiral Howard Vickery, vice chairman of the US Maritime Commission, had arrived in Portland to take charge. But it would be weeks before the mystery was solved, and the answers would come not from the shipyard in Oregon, but from a congressional hearing room thousands of miles away in Washington, DC.
Access to Programs You May Have Missed
Featuring A.J. Baime | Presented November 2, 2023
On the 75th anniversary of the 1948 presidential election, author A.J. Baime shares one of the greatest election stories of all times. America was a fractured country. Racism was rampant, foreign relations were fraught, and political parties were more divided than ever. Americans were certain that President Harry S. Truman’s political career was over. Not only did Truman win the election, he succeeded in guiding his country forward at a critical time with high stakes and haunting parallels to the modern day.
Featuring Matthew Algeo | Presented November 14, 2023
In most ways, Harry Truman and Pablo Picasso couldn’t have been more different. Picasso was a communist, and probably the only thing Harry Truman hated more than communists was modern art. Picasso was an indifferent father, a womanizer, and a millionaire. Truman was utterly devoted to his family and, despite his fame, far from a wealthy man. How did they come to be shaking hands in front of Picasso’s studio in the south of France? A rigorous history with a heartwarming center, When Harry Met Pablo intertwines the biographies of Truman and Picasso, the history of modern art, and twentieth-century American politics.
Featuring Christopher C. Gorham | Presented March 28, 2024
In The Confidante, Christopher C. Gorham shares the little-known story of Anna Marie Rosenberg, a Hungarian Jewish immigrant who defied all expectations to become “far and away the most important woman in the American government, and perhaps the most important official female in the world” (LIFE magazine). Serving as FDR’s special envoy to Europe during WWII, Rosenberg ventured where the president couldn’t, standing among the first Allied women to enter a liberated concentration camp and exploring Hitler’s mountain retreat, the Eagle’s Nest. Instrumental in shaping the G.I. Bill of Rights and the Manhattan Project, she broke barriers in 1950 when President Truman appointed her as the assistant secretary of defense—the highest position ever held by a woman in the U.S. military. Remarkably, her story has remained largely forgotten until now.
Watch these and other programs on our YouTube channel.
JANUARY 5
In his State of the Union address, Truman proposes a “fair deal” for all Americans, saying, “The strength of our Nation must continue to be used in the interest of all our people rather than a privileged few.”
JANUARY 20
George C. Marshall (right) resigns as Secretary of State. Dean Acheson succeeds him on January 21.
JANUARY 20
ABOVE: The Fahy Committee
JANUARY 12
The Fahy Committee convenes to begin the work of carrying out Truman’s executive order to integrate the U.S. Armed Forces.
Truman is inaugurated for a second term and calls for a “bold new program” to share American expertise in fields like agriculture, industry, and health with nations not aligned with NATO or the Soviets. The policy becomes known as the Point Four Program.
MARCH 25
Upon learning that the White House is uninhabitable, President Truman appeals to the President of the Senate and to the Speaker of the House to establish a Commission on the Renovation of the White House.
ABOVE: White House restoration
LEFT: Truman is sworn in as president on January 20, 1949. It is the first openly integrated presidential inauguration. Scan the QR code to learn more about this day in history.
APRIL 4
The U.S., Canada and U.K., along with nine European nations, pledge mutual defense assistance. Today, NATO, whose 32 member states represent nearly one billion people, is the largest and most powerful military alliance in human history.
MAY 11
Israel is admitted to the United Nations, one year after President Truman recognized its statehood.
COMMEMORATING THE 75TH ANNIVERSARIES OF TRUMAN’S PRESIDENCY AND DECISIVE LEADERSHIP
MAY 12
The Soviet Union lifts the Berlin Blockade.
JUNE 16
During a press conference, Truman is asked about the HUAC:
JUNE 14
Albert II, a rhesus monkey, becomes the first primate to enter space, on a U.S. V2 rocket. Developed by Nazi Germany in WWII, the V2 rocket program launches the space age.
“Mr. President, the House UnAmerican Activities Committee has requested a number of educational institutions to turn in lists of schoolbooks, and a California university has asked for an oath for all its faculty members. Do you see any threat to educational freedom in this general trend?
THE PRESIDENT: “I think that question is pretty well answered in a cartoon in the Washington Post this morning. Look at that cartoon; it will entertain you.”
The cartoon depicts two members of the HUAC surveying a huge pile of textbooks; one member says, “Okay, now to find somebody that can read.”
JULY 15
Truman signs the American Housing Act of 1949. Part of Truman’s Fair Deal, it was a landmark, sweeping expansion of the federal role in mortgage insurance and issuance and the construction of public housing.
SEPTEMBER 23
President Truman reveals that the Soviet Union exploded an atomic bomb on August 29, years ahead of what was then thought possible by most U.S. officials and scientists.
ABOVE:
Truman signs the 1949 Housing Act.
AUGUST 10
Truman signs the National Security Act Amendments of 1949, establishing a unified Department of Defense.
AUGUST 24
The North Atlantic Treaty comes into force, officially establishing NATO.
OCTOBER 24
At the cornerstone ceremony for the United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan, Truman says, “We have come together today to lay the cornerstone of the permanent headquarters of the United Nations. These are the most important buildings in the world, for they are the center of man’s hope for peace and a better life.”
OCTOBER 26
President Truman signs into law changes in the Fair Labor Standards Act, raising the minimum wage from 40 cents per hour to 75 cents per hour. This 87.5% increase set an alltime record and was a significant step toward improving workers’ economic well-being.
OCTOBER 1
People’s Republic of China is officially proclaimed; the Soviet Union recognizes the communist nation the following day. The U.S. won’t recognize the nation until January 1, 1979. Chinese nationalists begin moving to Taiwan.
Seventy-five years ago, on April 4, 1949, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and nine other European states signed the treaty that created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
The North Atlantic alliance created a military and political complement to the Marshall Plan for European economic recovery by establishing a mutual defense pact against possible aggression from the Soviet Union. President Truman declined the opportunity to sign the treaty on April 4, 1949, offering the historic moment to his Secretary of State, Dean Acheson. Truman did, however, address the assembled body. This installment of “A Word from Harry” highlights excerpts from that 29-minute speech.
“ This treaty … is a simple document, but if it had existed in 1914 and in 1939, supported by the nations who are represented here today, I believe it would have prevented the acts of aggression which led to two world wars.”
— President Harry S. Truman on the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty
April 4, 1949
Your Excellencies, and fellow citizens:
On this historic occasion, I am happy to welcome the foreign ministers of the countries which, together with the United States, form the North Atlantic community of nations.
The purpose of this meeting is to take the first step toward putting into effect an international agreement to safeguard the peace and prosperity of this community of nations. …
This treaty is a simple document. The nations which sign it agree to abide by the peaceful principles of the United Nations, to maintain friendly relations and economic cooperation with one another, to consult together whenever the territory or independence of any of them is threatened, and to come to the aid of any one of them who may be attacked.
It is a simple document, but if it had existed in 1914 and in 1939, supported by the nations who are represented here today, I believe it would have prevented the acts of aggression which led to two world wars.
The nations represented here have known the tragedy of those two wars. As a result, many of us took part in the founding of the United Nations. Each member of the United Nations is under a solemn obligation to maintain international peace and security. Each is bound to settle international disputes by peaceful means, to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territory or independence of any country, and to support the United Nations in any action it takes to preserve the peace.
That solemn pledge—that abiding obligation—we reaffirm here today. …
In this pact, we hope to create a shield against aggression and the fear of aggression—a bulwark which will permit us to get on with the real business of government and society, the business of achieving a fuller and happier life for all our citizens….
For us, war is not inevitable. We do not believe that there are blind tides of history which sweep men one way or another. In our own time we have seen brave men overcome obstacles that seemed insurmountable and forces that seemed overwhelming.
Men with courage and vision can still determine their own destiny. They can choose slavery or freedom—war or peace.
I have no doubt which they will choose. The treaty we are signing here today is evidence of the path they will follow.
If there is anything certain today, if there is anything inevitable in the future, it is the will of the people of the world for freedom and for peace.
— President Harry S. Truman
LISTEN TO THE HISTORIC SOUND RECORDING
Open Daily – Monday-Saturday 9-5; Sunday 12-5 $12 General Admission; Members free Museum Store: Member discounts; no admission charge Plan your visit at TrumanLibraryInstitute.org