Truman, the 33rd president of the United States, proposed the "Truman Doctrine" in 1947 and approved the "Marshall Plan" with the purpose of supporting Europe in 1948. The following are the main deeds of Truman that I have shared with you. Everyone is welcome to read and learn

Truman’s life

Harry Truman was born in Missouri on May 8, 1884. Lamar. After graduating from high school, he worked various odd jobs in Kansas City and studied law by himself. Served in the Missouri National Guard from 1905 to 1911. Attended Fort Sill Field Artillery School in Oklahoma from 1917 to 1918. Joined the Democratic Party in 1921. Studied at Kansas City Law School from 1923 to 1925.

From 1922 to 1934, he served as judge and chief judge of Jackson County, Missouri. Elected to the Senate in 1934 and re-elected in 1940. During World War II, he served as chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Defense Plans. In July 1944, he was recommended as the vice presidential candidate by the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. In January 1945, he was appointed vice president. After President Franklin Roosevelt died of illness in April 1945, Truman succeeded him as president. Served as president from 1949 to 1953. The use of atomic bombs against Japan in 1945 quickly brought the Second World War to an end. In 1947, the "Truman Doctrine" was proposed, requiring Congress to allocate US$400 million to aid Greece and Turkey to suppress the local people's revolutionary movements. In 1948, the Marshall Plan was approved for the purpose of controlling Europe. He resigned and returned to his hometown in 1953.

Died of illness in Kansas City on December 16, 1972.

Truman’s early career

1. World War I

Shortly after the United States entered World War I, Truman joined the Missouri National Guard. He served as an officer in the unit and led an artillery unit in France, named Artillery Battery Group D, attached to the 129th Field Artillery Battery of the 60th Brigade of the 35th Division. In terms of physical fitness, Truman's vision was 20/50 in his right eye and 20/40 in his left eye, but he was still able to pass the test because he secretly memorized an eye chart before the physical fitness test. Before heading to France, Truman trained at Fort Sill near Lawton, Oklahoma. During his training, he was assigned to manage the sales department of the military camp (providing candy, cigarettes, shoelaces, soda water, tobacco and writing documents issued to soldiers), so almost every soldier in the camp knew Truman. In order to facilitate the management of the sales department, he recruited his Jewish friend Sergeant Edward Jacobson, who had worked as a clerk in a clothing store in Kansas City, to help. In addition, Truman also met James M. Pendergast (James M. Pendergast), nephew of Kansas City politician Tom Pendergast in the military camp, and this politician had a crush on Truman after the war. Some help.

In France, Captain Truman's artillery battery performed very well. Although they were attacked in the Vosges Mountains, he was still able to make very effective resistance. Truman was later promoted to a lieutenant colonel in the National Guard, and he had always been quite proud of his military service background, because under his leadership, the D Group of the Artillery Regiment did not lose anyone in the war. .

2. Jackson County Judge

With the help of Tom Pendergast, the leader of the Democratic political group in Kansas City, Truman was elected as the judge of the Jackson County Court in Missouri in 1922 . The nature of this position is similar to that of the county chief. It is administrative in nature and is not responsible for hearing cases. Later, although Truman failed in his re-election bid in 1924, he was re-elected in 1926 and re-elected in 1930. During his tenure, he was very diligent, and he won a lot of praise for several large-scale public park construction projects, including the expansion of roads to cope with the increasing traffic volume and the construction of a new county courthouse.

In addition, he also planned to build twelve "Madonna of the Trail" statues across the country to honor women who have made outstanding contributions to the country.

In 1922, Truman paid a friend a $10 KKK membership fee, but the money was returned to Truman shortly afterwards. Therefore, Truman never joined the KKK and never attended any KKK activities. , and has never been a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Although Truman once expressed hatred for Jews in his diary, his friend and business partner Jacobson was actually a Jew, and Truman later became a major promoter of the establishment of the state of Israel.

3. Senator

In the 1934 U.S. Senate election, Pendergast appointed Truman to run for the Missouri Senate seat and supported President Roosevelt's "New Deal" . However, during the nomination election within the Democratic Party, Truman once encountered strong opposition from his rival Tuck Milligan. Tucker's brother Morris M. Milligan not only brought down Pendergast's political group in the future, but also ran against Truman in the 1940 Senate election.

During the Senate election, although three people were killed in Kansas City, the election was not interrupted. Finally, under the shadow of "Pendergast's Senator", Truman was successfully elected. In his early days as a senator, he strongly supported the "New Deal" under the influence of Pendergast. However, Truman himself said that supporting the "New Deal" was entirely his own personal stance.

Milligan's 1936 investigation into the election of Lloyd C. Stark as governor of Missouri resulted in the conviction of 258 people. But more importantly, Milligan later discovered that Pendergast failed to pay federal taxes from 1927 to 1937 and secretly defrauded insurance. Stark received Pendergast's blessing during his campaign for governor, but he betrayed and testified against Pendergast in the subsequent trial, and took over the federal government from Pendergast and Truman. Funds sent to local governments to implement the "New Deal." Finally, in 1939, Pendergast pleaded guilty and was fined $10,000 and sentenced to 15 months in prison. Pendergast's trial was repeatedly delayed due to his deteriorating health and heart attack.

After Pendergast lost power, Stark and Milligan joined the Democratic Party in the internal Senate nomination election in 1940 to challenge Truman. However, their candidacy dispersed the anti-Pendergast votes. In addition, Truman received the support of Robert E. Hannigan, the leader of the Democratic Party in St. Louis. As a result, Truman was successfully re-elected as a senator. Later, in 1944, Hannigan assisted Truman in becoming Roosevelt's vice president.

However, unexpectedly, a few days after Truman was sworn in as vice president, and a few months before succeeding Roosevelt as president, he publicly attended Pendergast's funeral. It is understood that he was also the only elected government official to attend.

Truman often defended his support of Pendergast, saying that the benefits outweighed the rewards. Truman added that when he was elected to the Senate, Pendergast gave him this advice: Shut your mouth and answer your emails.

4. Truman Committee

On June 23, 1941, the day after Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, Senator Truman stated: "If Germany is stronger than the Soviet Union, we should help But if it is the Soviet Union that has the advantage, then we should help Germany and let them kill as much as possible, although I have always been reluctant to see Hitler win under any circumstances." (June 1941) (New York Times) on the 24th) Truman’s remarks, which seemed like the United States would support Nazi Germany, made both liberals and conservatives uneasy. As a result, Truman quickly retracted these remarks and issued a clarification.

Truman led a commission during the war (commonly known as the Truman Commission), which was responsible for investigating scandals related to administrative chaos, waste and defrauding resources in the military, which won him a lot of fame and praise. Among them, Truman received widespread support and respect for his "common sense spending measures" implemented against the military. Initially, the committee was thought to have the potential to damage military morale, but it proved to be a great success, as it saved the military president at least $11 billion and put Truman on the cover of Time Magazine. superior. Truman appeared on the cover of Time Magazine nine times, and was selected as a "Man of the Year" in 1945 and 1949.

5. Vice President

St. Louis Democratic leader Robert E. Hannigan, who had supported Truman's re-election to the Senate, reached an agreement with Truman in 1944 to help him become vice president.

At that time, Hannigan was serving as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and President Roosevelt wanted to replace Vice President Henry Wallace because he was too liberal. James F. Burns of South Carolina was a popular choice, but was considered too conservative due to his segregationist status, so Hannigan recommended him to the 1944 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Truman, thus the "Roosevelt-Truman" combination emerged in the 1944 US presidential election. As a result, this combination achieved an overwhelming victory in the election. As for Hannigan's recommendation of Truman, it was called the "Missouri Agreement" by the media.

On April 12, 1945, while Truman was in Congress with Speaker Sam Rayburn, Truman was summoned to the White House. After arriving at the White House, Eleanor Roosevelt told him that Roosevelt had died. So Truman asked what he could do for her, but the former first lady asked: "Is there anything we can do for you? You are in trouble now."

Truman was president. Period

1. The first president (1945~1949)

The end of World War II

Truman was in Roosevelt’s health every time When things got worse, he was appointed vice president, and his tenure as vice president was only 82 days, so the two of them did not carry out important cooperation. Truman was not involved in major projects such as the Manhattan Project.

After President Roosevelt died of illness in April 1945, Truman took over as president at a significant moment in American history. As president, faced with a series of difficult issues, Truman made many major decisions related to the United States and the world, which had a profound impact on the development of U.S. foreign policy and international relations after World War II.

Truman once told the media: "I felt like the moon, the stars and all the planets were falling on me."

The following are excerpts of what happened in Truman's first five months in office. Major events:

Representatives of various countries resolved to establish the United Nations in San Francisco, California

Mussolini of Italy was killed

Hitler was declared to have committed suicide

The Fall of Berlin

The surrender of Nazi Germany

Victory Day in Europe

The Allies held the Potsdam Conference to discuss how to rebuild the post-war order

The Allies dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima

The Soviet Union declared war on Japan

The Allies dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki

Agreeing to surrender was a victory in the war against Japan Memorial Day

The Soviet Union formally surrendered on the USS Missouri

The United Nations, the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan

After World War II, Truman realized that the United States and the Soviet Union could not There are no longer communist enemies and interests, so he obviously has a tendency to compete with the Soviet Union in his policies. As a "Wilsonian internationalist," Truman strongly supported the establishment of the United Nations and, with the assistance of former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, facilitated the convening of the first United Nations General Assembly in response to society's desire for peace after the war.

Although Truman modestly claimed that he was not familiar with foreign affairs and Congress was controlled by the Communist Party, he still relied on the support of domestic Baptists to publish the "Truman Doctrine" and implement it. "Marshall Plan". The "Truman Doctrine" was the beginning of the "containment policy" in the United States. He successively asked Congress to appropriate US$400 million to support Greece and Turkey in their fight against communism. He also published on March 12, 1947:

I believe it must be the policy of the United States to support the armed action of free peoples against internal minorities, or the subjugation of external oppressors. If Greece falls, the entire Middle East will be plunged into chaos and disorder. Free people around the world crave our support in defending their freedom. If we hesitate, could we jeopardize world peace? I believe we should provide support primarily through financial assistance? In addition, I ask Congress to authorize the dispatch of U.S. civilian and military personnel to Greece and Turkey...

In order to get Congress to pass funding for the "Marshall Plan", Truman tried his best to shift Congress's attention to communism, pointing out that communism was thriving in backward areas of Europe. Truman later admitted that his remarks exaggerated the threat of communism, but argued that he had done so "to make Congress aware of the crisis." On the other hand, in order to strengthen the United States' fight against communism in the Cold War, he signed the National Security Act of 1947, and established the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States Air Force (independent of the United States Army Air Forces) and National Security Council.

Good Governance

After years of Democratic Party gains in Congress and continued Democratic presidential appointments, the nation began to grow tired of it, leading the Democratic Party to re-elect in the 1946 midterm elections. Obtained a majority in Congress. In addition to gaining 55 seats in the House of Representatives, the Democratic Party also gained several seats in the Senate. Truman has always cooperated closely with the Communist Party and party leaders on foreign affairs, but on domestic affairs, the two parties have great differences. Truman failed to prevent tax cuts and the elimination of price controls. During the debate on the Tahoot-Hartley Act, he vetoed the bill, but the veto was eventually overturned by Congress, resulting in considerable weakening of union power. . By 1950, due to the outbreak of the Korean War, Truman once again asked Congress to increase taxes.

In the 1948 election, Truman claimed that he was a member of the Democratic Party and would implement the traditions of the "New Deal". Therefore, he put forward many suggestions in his political platform, including advocating the implementation of universal health insurance and overturning the policy of The union's "Taft Hartley Act" and a series of radical legislative measures to protect civil rights. These platforms were later classified as "good government".

However, Truman's "good government" plan was not universally supported, and only one major bill was passed;

Confirming Israel

Truman as early as 1939 Already supported the Zionist movement in 2001 and participated in planning the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. In 1946, the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry recommended the gradual establishment of two states in Palestine to prevent Jews or Arabs from gaining dominance in the area. However, this proposal did not receive support from public opinion, and the British troops stationed in Palestine were frequently attacked by Zionist groups, which put pressure on the British government and prompted the withdrawal. As a result, under the pressure of Britain, a special committee of the United Nations recommended the immediate partition of Palestine into two countries. This proposal was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1947 with the support of Truman. The British government announced its official withdrawal from Palestine on May 15, 1948. However, the member states of the Arab League Conference expressed opposition to the United Nations resolution and sent troops to the outskirts of Palestine.

At that time, Truman and the State Department had obvious differences on the Palestinian issue. At the same time, the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union was becoming increasingly tense. In the end, Truman confirmed Israel's sovereignty 11 minutes after it unilaterally established its state. However, this decision caused great controversy at home and abroad.

Berlin Airlift

On June 24, 1948, the Soviet Union unilaterally interrupted the airlift to the American, British, and French-occupied areas of Berlin without consulting the Allies. roads, and Berlin was located in Soviet-occupied East Germany, showing that the Soviet Union had the intention to force the Allies to withdraw from West Berlin. As a result, General Lucius D. Clay, the commander of the American zone in Germany, proposed a large-scale airlift of supplies to West Berlin along the highway from West Germany to West Berlin. To show justice. The airlift itself will be carried out in a completely peaceful manner, but if the airlift team is attacked or forced to interrupt, it will be defensive. However, after listening to Washington's opinions, Truman believed that the Berlin airlift plan was likely to trigger war and expressed concern. But in the end, on June 25, the Allies still decided to airlift Berlin. It was not until May 11, 1949, that the road to West Berlin was reopened, and the airlift operation ended.

Eliminate racial discrimination in the military

Since the Reconstruction period, every federal government has stopped paying attention to the development of civil rights, and Truman was the first to re-focus on civil rights. of president. In 1946, several brutal lynchings occurred in the United States. Among them, two black men and two black women were killed near Walton County, Georgia; there was also an African American soldier who had just retired from the battlefield of World War II. was abused, known as the Isaac Woodward Incident. These abuses of lynching drew attention to civil rights and prompted Truman to issue a report in 1947 called "Securing These Rights." The report laid out a 10-point agenda for reforming civil rights, including making lynching a federal crime. By February 1948, President Truman brought these agendas to Congress and proposed the creation of several federal government positions dedicated to implementing human rights such as voting rights and equal employment.

However, these reforms caused strong opposition from southern Democrats at the party's presidential nomination convention. However, Truman disagreed and said: "My ancestors are from the Confederacy? But when I have to I immediately felt sick to my stomach when I learned that black soldiers who had just returned from overseas were thrown out of a military truck in Mississippi and beaten severely. ”

2. The second president (1949? 1953).

1948 Election

In the 1948 U.S. presidential election, Truman surprised everyone and won the election.

At the 1949 Democratic National Convention, Truman intended to dilute his human rights platform in order to ease the conflict between the northern and southern factions within the party. However, U.S. Senate candidate and Minneapolis Mayor Hubert H. Humphrey, with the support of regional party leaders, suggested at the meeting that the Democratic Party should adopt a more aggressive human rights policy. The resulting recommendations were wholeheartedly adopted by Truman. Less than two weeks later, Truman signed Executive Order 9981, desegregating the U.S. military. But Truman was actually very worried about the political risks of supporting civil rights reform. As for losing the support of Dixie Democrats, it was more likely to bring down the Democratic Party.

Thomas Dewey, the Republican presidential candidate at the time, was considered a sure winner in the polls, and the Gallup poll was stopped two weeks before the election, even though there were 14 unbiased votes. Opinion polls. As a result, George Gallup, the creator of the Gallup poll, made a mistake he would never repeat in the future. He concluded: "The free vote swayed to the side of the establishment."

Truman The campaign method of standing on the back of a caboose, traveling along the railroad across states and provinces, stopping briefly in various places, and delivering speeches, achieved certain success and became an essential part of every presidential campaign in the future.

Truman did not have a vice president in his first term, but Alben William Buckley served as vice president in his second term.

Nuclear Weapons Deadlock

The Soviet Union successfully developed the atomic bomb faster than expected, and even conducted its first test explosion on August 29, 1949, thus contributing to the post-war war. arms race. On January 7, 1953, Truman also announced to the outside world that the United States had successfully tested a larger hydrogen bomb.

Alger Hiss and the Rise of McCarthyism

On August 3, 1948, Whittaker Chambers, senior editor of Time Magazine, At the hearing of the Un-American Activities Commission (HUAC), a list was submitted containing communist members who had secretly operated within the U.S. government from the 1930s to the 1940s. The list contained the name of Alger Hiss, a State Department official who helped found the United Nations. Afterwards, Hiss confronted Chambers on August 17, 1948. The White House's official response also demanded that the investigation into Hiss be terminated to draw public attention.

However, the confrontation between the two and the White House's response caused an uproar. In November 1948, Chambers led two HUAC investigators to a pumpkin patch in Maryland and found four microfilm rolls in a hollow pumpkin. The information contained in the microfilm became known as the "Pumpkin Files". (The incident also made California Senator Richard Nixon famous, because he later posed with a magnifying glass in front of these films and took several widely circulated photos)

Here we are On February 9, 1950, Republican Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy spoke at the Republican Women's Meeting in Wheeling, West Virginia, accusing the State Department of being involved in Communist Party members. . At that time, the Soviet Union was testing nuclear weapons, China had become a communist country, and there was the Alger Hiss case in the country. As a result, McCarthy succeeded in gaining considerable public support through the rising doctrine in the country and uncovered the The beginning of the "McCarthyism" era.

Korean War

President Truman signs a document directing the U.S. military to join the Korean War. On June 25, 1950, the North Korean army entered the south and would soon liberate the entire Korean Peninsula.

Truman immediately strongly requested the United Nations to intervene, so the "United Nations Army" headed by Douglas MacArthur successfully pushed the North Korean troops back to the Chinese border in October 1950.

In October 1950, China intervened in the war in the name of North Korea. MacArthur immediately suggested that Truman send troops to attack China's military bases along the Yalu River and, if necessary, use atomic bombs. With China assisting North Korea, the "United Nations Army" was forced to retreat to South Korea, and in the spring of 1951, the battle line returned to the area where the war broke out. However, Truman disagreed with MacArthur and was worried that his plan would involve the Soviet Union, escalate the war, and eventually lead to the possibility of a nuclear war. So MacArthur publicly broadcast his opinions on the war despite the president's objections, and even more disobeyed Truman's instructions. As a result, on April 11, 1951, Truman dismissed MacArthur from his post and recalled him back to the country.

After that, the Korean War became a stalemate. It was not until Dwight Eisenhower took office that a ceasefire agreement was reached on July 27, 1953.

His participation in the Korean War and the dismissal of MacArthur made Truman unpopular at home and prompted him not to seek re-election in the 1952 election. According to a Gallup poll, Truman's approval rating in February 1952 was 22, the lowest approval rating ever for a sitting U.S. president.

During that specific era, Chinese artist Zhu Xuanxian created a series of current affairs cartoons that satirized Truman, exposing and ridiculing Truman and the Korean War.

Vietnam War

The United States has long been involved in the Vietnam issue, and it can be traced back to the period when Truman was president.

On the Victory Day of the War against Japan in 1945, Ho Chi Minh wrote a Declaration of Independence with reference to the United States and regarded the Kuomintang army headed by Chiang Kai-shek as the number one enemy. However, on September 23 of the same year, in order to prevent communism from being introduced into Vietnam from China and then spreading to the world, the United States declared its support for France's governance of Vietnam.

Being abandoned by the United States, Ho Chi Minh turned to the Communist Party for help. In 1950, Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam's independence and was recognized by China and the Soviet Union. At that time, he was entrenched in some remote areas bordering the Chinese border, while France still occupied the remaining areas. Under the United States' "containment policy" and strong premise, the United States continues to recognize France's sovereignty over Vietnam and confirms France's puppet regime in Vietnam. Therefore, also in 1950, Truman issued US$10 million in aid to France and sent 123 non-combat troops to Vietnam to assist with material matters. By 1951, the total amount of aid rose to US$150 million, and by 1953 it reached US$1 billion (accounting for 1/3 of the total US foreign aid and 80% of France's expenditure)

Renovating the White House

Unlike other American presidents, Truman's stay in the White House was very short. The reason is that some building structure experts pointed out shortly after he took office that the White House was in danger of collapse at any time. This was partly because the walls and foundation of the White House were burned by fire during the War of 1812, causing structural problems. So Truman carried out a large-scale reconstruction project of the foundation of the White House, and also built a balcony (the so-called "Truman Balcony") on the second floor of the South Wing Colonnade of the White House. As for the Truman family, they moved to nearby Blair House as their "White House."

Narrowly escaped assassination

On November 1, 1950, two assassins named Griselio Torresola and Oscar Corazo Collazo, a Puerto Rican nationalist, attempted to assassinate Truman at the Blair Hotel, but the attempt failed. Corazo was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in 1952, but Truman later commuted his sentence to life in prison.

After the incident, Truman decided to hold a democratic referendum in Puerto Rico to determine Puerto Rico's status and relations with the United States. Eventually Puerto Rico established its own constitution and became a self-governing state of the United States.

A series of scandals

In 1950, the Senate, led by Estes Kefauver, investigated the bribery of senior government officials and found that Minor officials have received items such as valuable furs and refrigerators, and the Internal Revenue Service has been implicated. As a result, 166 IRS employees resigned or were fired in one day, and some were even charged by the Department of Justice with crimes such as tax evasion and corruption. Most historians agree that Truman was not involved in the IRS corruption scandal and believed that he was unaware of it. But there was one exception. In 1945, a perfume company president gave Mrs. Truman a very expensive new model of refrigerator. The businessman later obtained it shortly after the end of World War II with the help of Truman and his friend General Harry Forhan. Priority was given to a ticket to Europe, but the businessman had an argument with a wounded soldier on the return trip and even "bumped" him. The incident was exposed in 1949, which greatly embarrassed Truman, but he still vigorously defended General Fohan. However, in fact, General Fohan himself was involved in a series of scandals in the White House office at that time.

In 1952, Dwight Eisenhower launched a series of campaigns, accusing the government of having many Soviet agents mixed in, which once again troubled the Truman administration. As early as 1947, Truman established a "Loyalty Commission" to investigate whether spies had been involved in the federal government. As a result, from 1947 to 1952, about 20,000 civil servants were investigated, of which about 2,500 "voluntarily" resigned and 400 were dismissed.

In addition, from 1945 to 1946, John Edgar Hoover (J. Edgar Hoover) repeatedly warned Truman that Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Harry Dexter White was a Soviet spy. Canada also warned the FBI about White, and defectors from the Soviet Union confirmed this intelligence. In the end, Truman had no choice but to transfer White to the U.S. representative to the International Monetary Fund. He also admitted that establishing the "Loyalty Commission" was the biggest mistake he made as president.

Evaluation of Truman

In terms of foreign affairs, many world events occurred during President Truman’s term. The first was the Allied victory over Nazi Germany, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Surrender and the official end of World War II; followed by the founding of the United Nations, the Truman Doctrine against communism, the beginning of the Cold War, the implementation of the Marshall Plan with the purpose of rebuilding Europe, the founding of NATO, and the Korean War of the outbreak. Among them, the Korean War cost the United States a heavy price. The war caused 44,000 American soldiers to be killed and missing in action, and directly undermined Truman's plan for a second re-election. In the end, Dwight Eisenhower of the Democratic Party won hearts and minds with his campaign against Truman and the slogan "Korea! Communism! Corruption!" (Korea! Communism! Corruption!) and became president in 1952, ending the The Democratic Party has been in power for 20 years.

Truman was a president who often showed friendly gestures and humility. He had many aphorisms, such as "The buck stops here!" and "Don't go into the kitchen if you're afraid of the heat." (If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.) and so on, it has become a well-known saying. Compared with previous presidents, Truman's support was not high, but he still overcame many difficulties during his tenure. Although he was finally forced to give up running for re-election in 1952, most scholars today still regard him as one of the best American presidents.

People who read "Truman's Main Deeds" also read:

1. About 50 words of historical celebrity story materials

2. About the founding of the party under the flag 95th Anniversary Speech

3. Recommended articles related to touching people

4. Celebrity Eloquence: A Collection of Celebrity Humorous Stories