President Harry S. Truman, the guy who vigorously tried to
opt out of being Franklin Roosevelt's Vice President, has been getting some
play this week. My memory bank suffered
an overload.
Sen. Ted Kennedy, in his endorsement of Barack Obama,
recalled how Truman advised his brother not to run for President in 1960,
thinking he was too young and inexperienced.
"Be patient," he was rumored to have told him.
A day later, Truman's daughter, Margaret Truman Daniel,
passed away unexpectedly at age 83.
Somehow I found it impossible to imagine Margaret Truman at 83. For me, she was still that 26 year old
artist, the apple of her father's eye.
I was a died-in-the-wool Republican in the Truman years,
albeit a grade school student ready to pick a fight with anyone who defended
the beleaguered President. It took a few
years before I began to appreciate his grit and guts, whereupon he moved up on
my list of greats that included the likes of Abraham Lincoln and, more
recently, Ronald Reagan, believe it or not.
With a couple of exceptions, the list is strangely absent of names of other
Presidents before and since.
Truman, to me, was the ultimate reluctant servant. His salty tongue was notorious. The heartland of America condemned him for having an
occasional (or regular) cocktail and for punctuating his rhetoric with a
four-letter word or two when he wanted to make the meaning clear. When he was on the road, he is said to have
written to his mother every day. His
wife, Bess Wallace Truman, is reported to have endured his mother quietly and
graciously.
Why the Christian Right, known as "Fundy's" in those days,
condemned Truman for his proclivities is a mystery. He met his wife Bess at age 6 in the
Presbyterian Church where he attended Sunday School. They were married at Trinity Episcopal Church
in 1919.
When I think of Harry Truman, the Big-Three conference at Potsdam, Germany,
July 16 - August 2, 1945, looms large.
On July 24, Winston Churchill was informed that he had lost his election
and had to head home. Stalin tried to
enter the war in the Pacific but found no receptive ear with Truman, who
bluffed him with no mention of the horrific weapon that would be unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
on August 6, 1945. Guts football, one
might say.
The Marshall plan to rebuild Western Europe was a prophetic stroke of historical
genius and likely paved the way for the European Union. The low point in Truman's tenure was his
firing for insubordination of Gen. Douglass MacArthur who chafed at being
halted at the 38th parallel during the Korean Conflict and thus
being denied the pleasure of pressing on into China. The Truman haters, who were legion, were
oblivious to the reality that none of MacArthur's plans stood any chance of
success. MacArthur came home to a
massive ticker tape parade in New
York, while a grateful nation awaited a presidential
announcement that never materialized.
The standing joke about Truman had him riding in an airplane. He tells his aide, "Why don't you throw out
some dollar bills and make some of the people happy?" His aide replies, "Why don't you throw
yourself out and make all the people
happy?"
On May 14, 1948, President Truman announced the recognition
by the United States of the
State of Israel, consistent with UN Resolution 181, dividing the region into
three entities: a Jewish state, an Arab state and an international zone around Jerusalem. This was a bold stroke that brought on the
Arab/Israeli conflict the next day that rages to this day. Nevertheless, the right of the Jewish people
to a homeland can be traced in large part to the unilateral endorsement by the
President of the United
States.
The confrontation that has stood the test of time, however,
was Truman's reaction to a bad review of Margaret's singing by The Washington Post music critic, Paul
Hume. Incensed, Truman wrote a letter
over the protest of his staff that said, among other things, "I have just read
your lousy review . . . I have never met you, but if I do, you'll need a new
nose."[1] Hume promptly released it to the press, to
the howls of a jeering public. His mail
later ran 4x1 in support of his reaction.
Nostalgia runs wild this week in the seeming vapidity of our
current Presidential wannabees. But
then, who would have given Harry Truman a chance for greatness?
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/us/30cnd-daniel.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print
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