Happy Birthday, Harry!

Today is Harry Truman's 124th birthday (born May 8, 1884), so I thought I'd share something from his library site. You can read the log of Truman's trip to the Berlin Conference in 1945. First, a summary of the event:
In the late summer of 1945, President Truman journeyed to Berlin for a conference between the three major allied powers-the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union. The President and his party sailed from the United States to Antwerp, Belgium aboard the U. S. S. Augusta, a heavy cruiser, and traveled by plane and car to Berlin. This particular trip was different than most other trips the President made, as it took place during wartime. While on board the ship, the President witnessed several military exercises, including radar-tracking demonstrations, target practice ships, and the landing of planes on ships at sea. He also participated in an "abandon ship" drill.

While at this conference, Truman met both Josef Stalin and Winston Churchill for the first time. The three leaders and their advisors settled many issues, including the establishment of a Council of Foreign Ministers to further work on the peace treaties, the governing of Germany during occupation by the Allies, German reparations, the methods for handling war criminals, and the admission of the defeated countries to the United Nations, and other topics.

As Truman met with the British and Russians to prepare for peace, preparations were also taking place for the final assault on Japan. Truman received word of the first successful test of the atomic bomb while in Potsdam, and authorized its use against Japan. On his return voyage after the conference, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb over Hiroshima, which gave President Truman great hope that the war would soon be over.

Now you can go check out each day of his trip online. I just picked a random day to share some of the log - July 25:
0920: Admiral Lord Louis Moutbatten (Supreme Commander, Allied Forces in the India-Burma Theatre) called on the President at the Little White House.

1000: General Marshall called on the President.

1035: The Presidend and his party left the Little White House for Cecilienhof where they arrived at 1045. Before the conference was called to order, the President, the Prime Minister, and the Generalissimo posed in the Palace garden for still and motion pictures. Photographers (service and civilian) from all three nations were represented.

1100: The Big Three and other delegates entered the conference room and the ninth meeting of the Berlin Conference was called to order by the President. The meeting adjourned at 1200, at which time the President left to return to the Little White House.

Admiral Leahy, accompanied by Rear Admiral H.A. Flenigan, U.S.N., Captain Vardaman, Colonel Rusk, Lieutenant Elsey, Lieutenant Edelstein, Lieutenant Rigdon, and First Lieutenant Vardaman left Babelsberg this morning for a flight to London. They returned to Babelsberg Thursday afternoon.

2000: Ambassador Murphy, Ambassador Caffery, and General Somervell were dinner guests at the Little White House this evening. Dinner music was played by an eight-piece band from the 278th Army Ground Force band with Staff Sergeant Joe Borrelli conducting. Vocal selections were rendered by Pfc Jules Navarra.

You can go enjoy the rest as well as lots of other documents on the trip.

Poll: Which 20th century American President was the most responsible for starting a war?

The poll has closed for the question, "Which 20th century American President was the most responsible for starting a war?" Thanks to all who participated by voting.

George H.W. Bush was the leading vote getter with 41% for the Persian Gulf War. President Kennedy was second with 29% for the Vietnam War. President Clinton was third with 12% for the Kosovo War. Truman polled 9% for the Korean War and Wilson got 6% for World War One.

I could only place five Presidents on the poll. As such, I left FDR off. I hardly think he started World War Two so I think this was a good choice. I am going to get off the war theme and try a different sort of poll question next.

Who is this?

We haven't played this in awhile...so anyone know who this lovely lady is?

Margaret Truman Dies

Margaret Truman, Harry Truman's daughter, died today. She was 83.

Early Jobs

There was an AP article today that asked the current presidential candidates about their worst jobs. Some of them even had some pretty bad jobs! This got me thinking about Presidential jobs before they were elected. Now you can access a list of major jobs in several locations, but that wasn't what interested me. I wanted to know about the very early jobs they might have had. I found some information in an article on Harry Truman's early jobs in a piece on his World War I service:
He had hopes of going to West Point, but he could not pass the eye test. Because of family financial problems, going to college was not possible. His first job was as a timekeeper on a construction crew for the Santa Fe railroad. He next worked in the mailing room of the Kansas City Star. In 1904 he went to work for the national Bank of Commerce in downtown Kansas City, and in 1906 he was employed by the Union National Bank.

Herbert Hoover had many jobs throughout college and started as a laborer in the Nevada goldfields after finishing his degree:
Hoover worked his way through college in a variety of jobs--as a clerk, delivering newspapers, operating a laundry, and managing special lectures and concerts. During summer recess, he worked on geological surveys in Arkansas and Nevada. He also served as financial manager of the Stanford football team.

After graduating in 1895, Hoover took his first job as a laborer in the goldfields of Nevada. In 1896 he went to San Francisco, where he was hired by a firm of mining engineers. He started as an office boy, but in less than a year he was assistant to the superintendent of one of the company's mines.

President Clinton as King Kong?

It seems every year, crazy leaders of antagonistic countries come to the United Nations and make outrageous speeches. President George W. Bush got hit last year by Venezualean President Hugo Chávez who called him a devil. This year, Iranian President and Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad railed against "selfish and incompetent" powers that have "obedience to Satan." I guess Bush and the USA is somewhat diabolical in his view.

This has all happened before. In 1950, according to the International Times Tribune, Wu Xiuquan, a Chinese representative, denounced the Truman administration effort to promote Taiwan, saying, "This is a preposterous farce, unworthy of refutation, in which Truman makes a mockery of Truman himself."

This same article noted, "Castro, in 1960 managed to insult two future American presidents at the same time. He described John F. Kennedy as 'a millionaire, illiterate and ignorant' and warned delegates against construing the comment as favoring Richard M. Nixon. 'As far as we're concerned,' he said, 'the two of them lack, should I say, political brains.' "

Probably the most entertaining UN babble came from Cuban foreign minister Roberto Robaina in 1996. He said of President Clinton, "We are facing a King Kong escaped from its cage, destroying and smashing without orientation or control."

Clinton as King Kong? Does that make Hillary Clinton Fay Wray?

Just wait until next year. I am sure that some nut who also happens to be a world leader will entertain the world with a rambling speech denouncing the President. And the year after that. And the following year. It does not matter who the president is and what party he or she will come from. The UN just seems to attract nutty anti-American speeches.

Truman and Marx

No, not Karl Marx, but the Marx brothers! Raymond Geselbracht wrote an article on “The Correspondence of Harry Truman with Groucho and Harpo Marx,” in Prologue Magazine.

Harry Truman loved vaudeville theatre from the time he was a teenager. But Truman’s association with the Marx Brothers didn’t stop with theatre shows and it went much deeper than comedy. In the spring of 1945, Groucho Marx sent President Truman a letter:
When Truman became President in the spring of 1945, one of the first problems that came to him was what to do about the survivors of the Holocaust who were living in displaced persons camps in Europe. He had great sympathy with the displaced persons, and he issued a directive in late 1945 intended to allow some of them to immigrate to the United States. Among the many Americans who were concerned about the displaced persons and were following Truman's actions with regard to them was a former vaudevillian whom Truman certainly remembered. On October 8, 1946, Groucho Marx sent Truman a clipping of a Life magazine editorial, "Send Them Here! Europe's Refugees Need a Place to Go and America Needs to Set a World Example." The article claimed that Truman's attempt to help displaced persons to immigrate to the United States had failed. "In God's name[,]" the editorial concluded, "can we go on doing nothing about these DPs?" Groucho asked Truman to consider the article. "I am sure that you are deluged with mail of this sort," he wrote, "but even a president at times can be confused." He added a PS: "Despite all this I propose voting for you in 1948."

Their correspondence, even when Truman was in office, wasn’t completely serious as this letter from Harpo shows:
Harpo contacted Truman a little less than a year after their meeting at the air base. There was much speculation at the time whether Truman would run again in 1952, and Harpo thought he had a good idea. "If you don't run in 1952," he wrote, "how about Margaret? I could swing a lot of votes."9 "I think that is a very important question about 1952," Truman responded, not willing to give anything away regarding this very sensitive matter. "At a later date I will be glad to discuss the matter with you."

The article sums up the friendship:
Truman felt the allure of the Marx Brother's zany view of life from the time he was a young man, and he never forgot or renounced it. His memories of the Marx Brothers' riotously irreverent attitude to authority and to all the people and institutions that embodied it might well have contributed to the remarkable humility that he maintained during all the time he held high office. His youthful encounter with the Marx Brothers certainly encouraged him to recognize, as he always did, that life, among its other mysteries, is fundamentally humorous.

For the Marx Brothers, on the other hand, Truman was the President whose heart was rightly positioned on the refugee issue after World War II and who recognized and supported Israel. Though it is not recorded in the correspondence in the Truman Library's holdings, they must have recognized that Truman felt strongly the need to bring social justice to all Americans and to bring what was best in American life to people all over the world. In any event, Groucho voted for Truman the only time he could, in 1948, and would have voted for him again; one thinks the same is true of Harpo.

Harry Truman: Poker Player

I thought we all needed something a little fun to start off the week!

Raymond Geselbracht, in an article in Prologue, shows us a different view of Harry Truman – as a poker player. He begins his article with this:
When Harry Truman was asked in a televised Person to Person interview in 1955 what he did to relax, he responded, "Well, my only relaxation is to work." This was no doubt almost true, but Truman forgot to mention something he loved to do, something that took a lot of time, demanded close attention, consumed a certain amount of emotional energy, and must have caused him some anxiety from time to time. But it probably couldn't be considered work. Truman forgot to mention that, for relaxation and to enjoy the company of friends, he played poker.

Geselbracht talks about Truman’s poker playing throughout his life, including as President:
Truman's favorite poker venue while he was President was the presidential yacht Williamsburg. "You know I'm almost like a kid; I can hardly wait to start," he wrote to his wife, Bess, as he looked forward to a poker outing on the Williamsburg in the summer of 1946. The President, together with some of his regular poker buddies, and perhaps some special guests too, would typically board ship on Friday afternoon and sail on the Potomac River until Sunday afternoon. Truman liked an eight-handed game best. His cronies joined him around the table. Fred Vinson, secretary of the treasury and later chief justice of the United States, was his favorite poker companion. Other regulars included Clinton Anderson, secretary of agriculture and later a senator; Stuart Symington, a Missourian who served Truman in several positions, including secretary of the air force; and longtime friend Harry Vaughan, now Truman's military aide. Future President Lyndon Johnson sometimes joined these games too, his attention focused more on the political talk than on the cards. Truman's young naval aide and later special counsel Clark Clifford organized the games. Clifford had replaced a naval aide who told the President that he didn't drink and didn't play cards. Truman listened to this with interest and very quickly found the man a good job somewhere else. He liked Clifford better; his new naval aide did drink and play cards, the latter so skillfully that he usually won a little money.

He goes on to talk about some of Truman’s poker buddies – including Winston Churchill. He ends with these thoughts on Truman’s poker playing:
Truman loved poker for some of the same reasons that he loved politics. There was a vitality in the game that let him share in the lives of people he liked and see them as they really were, underneath whatever formalities they usually had to adopt when they dealt with a judge, senator, President, or former President. Poker also gave him a chance to make his friends happy in some small ways, which was very important to him. "I've tried all my life," he wrote to Bess in 1937, "to be thoughtful and to make every person I come in contact with happier for having seen me." There's no record of anyone ever leaving a poker game with Harry Truman feeling unhappy.

Two Presidential Articles from Newsweek

The February 12, 2007 issue of Newsweek has two articles relating to the American Presidency. These are:

1. Inside Bush's Fixation With Harry Truman - The authors are Holly Bailey, Richard Wolffe and Evan Thomas. The write, "Many presidents find solace in comparing themselves to their predecessors, the only people who could truly understand the job at hand. Truman is a favorite, particularly for presidents with low poll numbers. By 1952, the last year of his presidency, Truman's approval rating sank as low as 22 percent, about 10 points lower than Bush's. David McCullough, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Truman tells NEWSWEEK that, faced with an uphill re-election fight in 1992, George H.W. Bush invited McCullough to the White House to talk about how Truman had beaten the odds in the 1948 campaign (unlike Truman, Bush lost his re-election bid). The two Roosevelts and Lincoln, of course, are popular role models. Bill Clinton, who spent many hours in office fretting over his legacy, lamented that he might not rank highly because he lacked the opportunity to be a war president —perhaps overlooking in his meditations the impact of the Lewinsky scandal."

2. Happy Birthday, Abe: The Lincoln Bedroom is restored to its 19th-century glory - Author Michael Beschloss wrote, "A hundred and ninety-eight years after Abraham Lincoln's birth, the White House's Lincoln Bedroom finally looks like a room the great man would recognize." A photo gallery showing off the new look is available as well.

Happy reading!

Harry Truman’s Schoolroom Days

Independence High School class of 1901.

Truman is third from the left in the top row.

A Boy Who Would Be President: Harry Truman at School, 1892-1901 is an article in Prologue that discusses Harry Truman’s schoolroom days. This article centers around some new documents that were uncovered:
…two ledgers that record his attendance and his grades at Noland School for the first and second grade - and two of his high school English theme books were recently made available for research by members of Truman's family.

We learn interesting facts about Truman’s early school life from these resources:

• The 1892–1893 school year, Harry's first-grade year, began on September 13. For some reason Harry's mother, Martha Ellen Truman, didn't send him to school until October 17….After starting school five weeks late, he didn't miss a day for the rest of the year, and he was never tardy.
• In the first term, Miss Ewin gave Harry the highest possible grades in every subject. They were a little lower in the second term, but still among the highest given in the class, and they rose to near perfect in the third term. Miss Ewin gave him the highest possible grades in the third term in spelling, reading, language, and numbers.

The article discusses Truman’s claim to have skipped third grade and if this made sense with the one report card from that time frame we have left, which doesn’t back up his story. The article uses evidence from Bess Wallace’s records to help discern what could have happened (I'm making you go read that section...did I whet your curiosity enough?)

The author then goes on to look at the two high school essay books, which he compares to Charlie Ross' (Charlie was Truman's White House press secretary among other literary accomplishments) to help see Truman's writing abilities:

• The eighth-grade book…reminds one why Harry once wrote to Bess that "the English language so far as spelling goes was created by Satan I am sure."
• [T]here's something almost objectionable in Harry's essays. Perhaps they're not always sufficiently deferential to some spirit of the age; there's too much opinion in them, too much Harry. If Charlie is mindful of his readers and their values and their expectations of him, Harry seems to want only to tell everyone very plainly how he feels about things.

The author wraps up with this statement:
All the most important policy initiatives of Truman's presidency had their origins in some important way in the fundamental personal makeup that we call his character; and this essential character of Harry S. Truman's was to some degree formed by, and to a much greater degree evident during—even if only in the brief but bright glimpses the limited documentation allows—his nine years as a schoolboy in Independence, Missouri, from 1892 to 1901.

This article offers much more in depth information than I provided here, so take some time and explore it!

Why Did Truman Really Fire MacArthur?

We've all heard stories about Truman firing MacArthur. What really happened? Well, it turns out to be much more pragmatic than the stories....so here's the boring truth!

From an article by Bruce Cumings on the Korean War:

The US came closest to using atomic weapons in April 1951, when Truman removed MacArthur. Although much related to this episode is still classified, it is now clear that Truman did not remove MacArthur simply because of his repeated insubordination, but because he wanted a reliable commander on the scene should Washington decide to use nuclear weapons; Truman traded MacArthur for his atomic policies.

From the Truman Library:

In 1951, President Truman and his advisors were preparing to engage North Korea and China in peace negotiations, in an attempt to resolve the ongoing conflict. General Douglas MacArthur, the commander of the U.N. forces in Korea, issued an unauthorized statement containing a veiled threat to expand the war into China if the Communist side refused to come to terms. When MacArthur continued to support an expansion of the war, communicating directly with a like-minded Republican congressman, Truman, with the backing of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the Secretaries of State and Defense, felt they had no alternative but to replace MacArthur with a military commander who would act in concert with the administration’s foreign policy.

From PBS, you can visit the primary documents on this topics as well.

Renovation of the White House by the Truman Administration

When President Truman moved into the White House, he noticed that the building was in serious trouble. In 1948 engineers confirmed that the White House was in dire straits. According to the Truman Library, many people said the White House was “standing only from the force of habit.” The Trumans were moved across the street and the White House was completely renovated. Abbie Rowe was the official photographer of the White House renovation and provided a complete photographic documentation of the entire process.

The Truman remodel was a major undertaking that encompassed the entire structure of the building. Here is what the Truman Library writes about this renovation:
It was an engineering marvel. In December 1949 crews began dismantling interior rooms, saving much of the wood trim, doors, hardware, and other visible details for possible future use. At the same time other crews poured 126 new reinforced concrete support columns to a depth of 25 feet to provide solid support for the exterior walls. This would eventually provide space for two new sub-basement levels beneath the White House. By March 1950 the wholesale demolition of the interior was well underway, leaving only a web of temporary steel supports to hold the exterior walls in place. By autumn, the White House was just a cavernous hollow space, 165 feet long, 85 feet wide, and 70 to 80 feet high.

Men inspecting steel supports for under the oval office (can you believe that’s the White House?)

The final product that the Trumans returned to was a White House that looked much the same, but was completely refurbished.
On the evening of March 27, 1952, in a small ceremony at the entrance door, President Truman received a gold key to the newly-renovated White House. After spending more than three years living in the smaller quarters of the Blair House a block to the North, the first family returned to the mansion for their first night back in residence. It was both the same home they had left three years earlier and a new and larger home as well. Its original 48 rooms had expanded to 54, not including two entirely new sub-basement levels containing service areas and other support facilities. Where once the White House had nearly collapsed from its structural deficiencies, now 660 tons of steel strengthened the new concrete inner walls and floors. Although retaining much of its historical appearance, the interior of the house now sparkled with new paint, wall coverings, parquet flooring and tile. At a cost of $5.7 million, the White House had been rebuilt to serve the needs of the modern Presidency while retaining the symbolism as the historic home of the President.

Renovated Green Room

You can see all the Abbie Rowe pictures for a complete documentation of the Truman renovation at the Truman Library website.

Choose a Scandal, Any Scandal

It seems that every president has been touched by scandal in some way either through actions of their own, the action of their family members , or through the action of their associates. We’ve suffered through the sexual misconduct of Clinton, paid attention to the car wreck that was Jimmy Carter’s relatives (Who can forget Billy Beer?), watched Oliver North take the fall for Iran-Contra, and we listened as Deep Throat, Woodward, and Bernstein opened our eyes to Watergate.

President Eisenhower, war hero that he was, suffered through the loss of his chief-of-staff, Sherman Adams, because of an Oriental rug and vicuna coat. Adams was a very hands on, everything comes through me type of man. Eisenhower’s rivals, as well as anyone else who daily made contact with Adams, clucked with glee as Adams was brought down in the court of public opinion.

The problem began when one of Adams’ acquaintances, Bernard Goldfine, was being investigated by the Federal Trade Commission. In 1958, Adams improperly called to check on the investigation from the White House. Later Goldfine would not answer questions about his relationship with Adams. It was revealed that Adams was in the possession of an Oriental carpet and vicuna coat that Goldfine supposedly gave to him. Things simply did not look proper. Adams was forced to resign and he retired form political office.

Harry Truman’s critics have always cited his rise to political power at the hands of Missouri’s political machine, Tom Pendergast. This allegation would seem to be true by a simple examination of the evidence. However, there is just as much evidence to show Truman would defy Pendergast when he felt it was the right thing to do.

Truman was in the U.S. Sentate during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s attempt to increase the number of justices for the Supreme Court from nine to fifteen. Instead of calling Truman directly, FDR contacted Pendergast in order to have “his man” vote the way FDR wished. When Truman heard about FDR’s phone call he cast his vote against FDR’s plan.

Pendergast eventually served time for fraud and tax evasion. Suprisingly Truman boldly attended Pendergast’s funeral even though it had only been a few days since Truman had been sworn in as vice president.

Learn about other presidential scandals here and here.

Polls and Presidents

Well, I tried to post this earlier, but blogger was not happy with me...hopefully it will actually appear this time!

(from the article site)

Alan Dowd’s article Polls and Presidents was an interesting comparison of Presidents George W. Bush and Harry Truman. Both presidents chose (is choosing) to fight unpopular wars – Bush in Iraq and Truman in Korea. Neither one had (has) a strong popular support. Whatever your opinion of the war in Iraq is, I think this is an interesting article to read to consider current opinion and long term presidential decisions. Unpopular decisions are not necessarily bad decisions – that’s one of the reasons why being President is definitely not an easy job. I think that is one of the reasons why many past presidents can be reevaluated more fairly 50 years after leaving office – we’ve had time to see what their actions actually did as well as to overcome the basic “gut” reaction. An interesting assignment for students could be to compare the popular opinion of various presidents as well as the long-term evaluation of their careers. President Lincoln certainly got his share of bad press!

Dowd closes this thought:

This is not to say that Bush is destined for a Trumanesque legacy, of course; but neither is he doomed to failure. Tomorrow's historians — not today's polls or pundits — will render the final verdict.

Definitely makes you wonder what the history books will say about this war and president in 50 years.

"Dewey Defeats Truman"

"Dewey Defeats Truman." Lewis Kramer has this short article on The Story Behind "Dewey Defeats Truman."

In the current media saturated world, polling is everywhere. Upsets do occur but most of the time we have a good idea who is going to win an election. With constant polling (and gerrymandered districts), there is little suspense.

The Presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 of course did not follow this. The polls showed no clear majority. Further, the USA has 51 distinct Presidential electoral districts all of which are nearly impossible to draw electoral lines around to play politics which benefit one party only.

The article noted the 1948 election and Chicag Daily Tribune, "There were many factors involved in producing this error edition. Returns were coming in slow and they were running out of time before the printing deadline. The staff, based on early returns, 'felt' Dewey would win. In addition, many of the regular Chicago Daily Tribune staff were out on strike so inexperienced people were setting the type. They did the front page, and portions of a few others, on a typewriter. Rather than erasing typos or incorrect numbers, they simply "x"ed them out with the 'x' key on the typewriter. In the far right hand column, there are even 5 lines of type upside down! All issues went out this way. "

I have to guess that in the future, despite any advances in polling, Presidential elections are going to be harder to predict. Calling people up is harder and harder to do. Many voters use cell phones or internet phones and it is difficult to find a number to call. How do you randomly get a phone number of someone using an Internet phone service provider who has no land line? The polling firms claim they are finding techiques to update their methods.

However, I am skeptical. And is this a bad thing? The media should learn constraint and stop making potentially inaccurate predictions. And does it really hurt anyone to have to go to bed without knowing the election results until morning?

The Inaugural Address of Harry S. Truman failed to mention this event. Truman was amused by the whole affair anyway. He won and that was what counted. Regardless, the whole affair provided a good lesson on how not to place an overabundance of trust in the media.

Great Romances - The Trumans

Great Romances - The Trumans. I know I am a few days late for Valentine's Day but I enjoyed reading this and thought I would highlight it anyway.

This is a nice article on the relationship between President Truma and his wife Bess. It started in Sunday School at the age of six...

From the site:

He first saw her in Sunday school when he was six years old and she was just five. "She had golden curls and beautiful blue eyes," he recalled. They graduated from high school together in 1901, but went their separate ways -- he moved to Kansas City and she to Colorado for a year -- until becoming reacquainted nine years later. It was then that Truman, who once wrote of Bess, "I thought she was the most beautiful and the sweetest person on earth," began his first and longest campaign -- to win the heart of Bess Wallace.

Bess lived in her family home in Independence, Missouri. Harry was a hard-working farmer from Grandview, twenty miles away. So he courted her, in part, by mail. Their correspondence would continue for nearly fifty years -- an exciting ride through nine years of courtship, fifty-three years of marriage, family, career changes, and political fortunes that thrust them to the very center of the world stage. More than 1300 letters from Harry to Bess Truman survive in the Truman Library collections.

Sadly, most of her letters to him have been lost to history. After showering Bess with attention and letters for more than a year, Harry proposed to her in 1911, but she turned him down. He persisted, and eventually she fell in love with him. He had a standing invitation to dinner at the Wallace home on Sundays, often sleeping across the street, afterwards, on the floor of his cousins' house because travel between Grandview and Independence was arduous. To win her favor -- she was from a wealthy family -- and better his prospects, he entered into a series of business ventures -- mining, drilling for oil, and other speculations -- most ending in disappointment. Although he also served as Grandview postmaster and as a county road overseer, his future remained uncertain

US History:Truman and Cold War

US History:Truman and Cold War. This is a chapter on Truman, the end of World War Two, and the beginnings of the Cold War from Wikibooks. This project is described, "Wikibooks is a collection of open content textbooks, manuals, and other texts, with supporting book-based texts that are being collaboratively written. This site is a wiki, meaning that anyone, including you, can edit any book module right now by clicking on the edit this page link that appears in every Wikibooks module. "

From the site:

World War II upset the balance of power by reducing the influence of France and the United Kingdom. The United States and the Soviet Union became the World's only remaining superpowers, and their relations were not exactly friendly. The two nations never actually engaged in military conflict, so the hostilities became known as the Cold War.

The Soviet Union believed that its control of Eastern Europe was vital to its security. As agreed at the Yalta Conference, the World War II Allies divided Germany into four zones, giving one zone each to the United Kingdom, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union's zone, known as East Germany, was immediately transformed into a Communist state, while the other three zones, West Germany, were not. The city of Berlin, which was surrounded by East Germany, was divided in two parts, between the East and West Germany.

Machiavelli and Leadership: Is it Applicable in Libraries?

Machiavelli and Leadership: Is it Applicable in Libraries? This is a bit off topic but in this paper I do write about President Truman. In particular, I am using an example of his actions to illustrate the Machiavellian concept of "entering into evil."

From the site:

Perhaps the most powerful theme that Machiavelli postulates is the concept of entering into evil. In fact, it can be argued that it is the cusp of Machiavellian though set forth in The Prince. It also is an idea fraught with moral peril, which frightens off many from Machiavelli’s message. At times, a leader must commit evil acts for the common good. Further, failing to do this will actually result in a greater evil.

This is a controversial idea. It is one that many today and in the past could not accept. Machiavelli recognized this and thought it was why it was difficult to find good leaders. Ledeen (1999) wrote in summary, “The problem is to find a suitable leader, a good man willing to enter into evil to accomplish good ends. Such men are in short supply; good men shy from evil, and evil men are not interested in good ends” (p. 178).

A good modern example of entering into evil is the case of President Harry Truman and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Truman knew that dropping the atomic bomb on these cities would kill hundreds of thousands of non-combatants including children. Based on the heavy causalities on Iwo Jima and Okinawa (coupled with Kamikaze planes), he also knew that a continuation of the war with an invasion of Japan would cost an estimated one million allied causalities plus countless more Japanese. With this in mind, Truman entered into evil and ordered the bombs to be dropped. By doing so, he created a greater good as Japan surrendered and the Second World War ended.

Machiavelli also believed that once evil is entered into, the leader must exit it as quickly as possible. As noted before, leaders are to be moral and virtuous figures. They must only enter into evil when necessary to advance the greater good and then leave evil behind. President Truman did this as well. He promptly sat about the task of rebuilding Japan, feeding starving children, and reconstructing the Japanese government into a peaceful democracy.

Project WhistleStop: Harry S Truman

Project WhistleStop: Harry S Truman. Features photographs, documents, letters, political cartoons, and other original source material from the Harry S Truman Presidential Library. Includes a special section for primary kids.

From the site:

In 1948, Harry Truman chose to run for a second term as president.

"If I had heeded the desire of my family, I would have made plans to leave the White House at the end of my first term. I took no steps and made no moves at any time to discourage anyone from seeking nomination to succeed me. From a personal standpoint , I had no desire, just as I had none in 1944, to undertake a national political campaign merely for the sake of gratifying private ambitions. I had already been President of the United States for more than three and a half years."

"The compelling motive in my decision to run for the presidency in 1948 was the same as it had been in 1944. There was still 'unfinished business'."

Harry Truman began a 30,000-mile whirlwind tour of the United States to get his message to the people.

History of Greece

History of Greece. This article looks at the history of modern Greece. It includes information on how President Truman helped Greece after World War Two.

From the site:

After the German withdrawal, the principal Greek resistance movement, which was controlled by the communists, refused to disarm. A banned demonstration by resistance forces in Athens in December 1944 ended in battles with Greek Government and British forces. Continuing tensions led to the outbreak of full-fledged civil war in 1946. First the United Kingdom and later the U.S. gave extensive military and economic aid to the Greek government. In 1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall implemented the Marshall Plan under President Truman, which focused on the economic recovery and the rebuilding of Europe. The U.S. contributed millions of dollars to rebuilding Greece in terms of buildings, agriculture, and industry.