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Harry Truman

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1884-1972
US politician

  1. Introduction
  2. Stories
  3. Biographical summary
  4. See also
  5. Further reading
  6. References

1. Introduction

As US vice-president, Harry S Truman became an ‘accidental president’ upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945 and unexpectedly won a second term from 1949. He is known for using nuclear weapons against Japan, launching the Marshall Plan for European post-war reconstruction and opposing Soviet Union expansionism (the ‘Truman doctrine’). Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ speech in Fulton, Missouri, in 1946 helped Truman to counter US isolationism in favour of interventionism, including supporting the formation of NATO and the United Nations’ participation in the Korean war. Truman and Churchill kept in close contact until Churchill’s death in 1965.

2. Stories

  • After being a clerk, farmer, army captain and judge, Truman became a Missouri senator for the Democrats.
  • Truman and Churchill first met at the ‘Big Three’ Potsdam Conference in eastern Germany in 1945.
  • In July 1945, Truman and Churchill gave approval for nuclear attacks on Japan, believing that they would end the war swiftly.
  • The most significant encounter between Truman and Churchill was their joint visit to Fulton, Missouri, in March 1946.
  • Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ speech in Missouri in 1946 became known by many historians as a mark of the beginning of the Cold War.
  • Churchill gave Truman one of his paintings of Marrakech, Morocco, similar to the one that he gave to Roosevelt seven years earlier.
  • Missouri is now the location of memorials to both Truman and Churchill.

After being a clerk, farmer, army captain and judge, Truman became a Missouri senator for the Democrats.

After business school studies, Truman had various clerical jobs then worked on his family’s farm near Kansas City, Missouri. He was a corporal in the National Guard despite being almost blind in one eye, passing his eyesight test on the second attempt by memorising the test card. He served as a field artillery captain in France in World War I, raising the morale of his previously dejected troops. He destroyed a German gun battery that would have killed many American soldiers, but it was outside his approved area and he narrowly escaped a court martial.

After the war Truman became a county court judge in Missouri and then a presiding judge, performing administrative rather than legal functions. His patron was Tom Pendergast, a Missouri political boss who was later jailed for tax evasion. Truman was elected senator for Missouri in 1934 and was sometimes referred to as the ‘senator for Pendergast’.

He established a positive political and media reputation as head of the ‘Truman Committee’* in the early 1940s, greatly reducing the corruption and waste associated with government wartime contracts. This helped to secure him the nomination as vice-president in the 1944 election on a ticket with Franklin D Roosevelt. He became president when Roosevelt died on 12 April 1945.

The ‘S’ in Harry S Truman is his full middle name, not an abbreviation, so technically should not be followed by a full stop. It is taken from the first letter of one of the names of both of his grandparents, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young. His nickname ‘Haberdasher Harry’ refers to a failed retail venture with his wife before his political career. Another nickname resulted from his 1948 presidential campaign when a man shouted out ‘Give ’Em Hell Harry’, which was used by his supporters from then on.

Truman was an accomplished piano player, a keen car owner and driver, and a skilful poker player, with his poker skills helping him in the political arena. He wrote to his wife in July 1945, probably referring to the USA’s newly developed nuclear capability, that Stalin ‘doesn’t know it but I have an ace in the hole and another one showing – so unless he has threes or two pair (and I know he has not) we are sitting all right’.1

* The Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program: a bipartisan congressional committee.

Truman and Churchill first met at the ‘Big Three’ Potsdam Conference in eastern Germany in 1945.

In July 1945, the USA, Soviet Union and UK had a conference in Potsdam (codenamed ‘Terminal’) as a follow-up to the February 1945 Yalta Conference (codenamed ‘Argonaut’), with Truman replacing Roosevelt, and Stalin and Churchill providing continuity. Although the working relationship between the USA and the UK was close, the business proceedings and formalities of the Potsdam conference did not allow Truman and Churchill much opportunity to get to know each other.

Another significant interference was the UK general election which distracted Churchill and resulted in his being replaced by Clement Attlee as prime minister in the middle of proceedings; hence some Potsdam photos feature Churchill and others feature Attlee, although Attlee was there from the beginning at Churchill’s invitation. Churchill was poorly prepared for the conference and his verbal interjections were sometimes erratic and unhelpful.

Germany had surrendered unconditionally on 8 May and the conference was primarily about post-war arrangements. War was still continuing with Japan. On 26 July, the USA, UK and China issued the Potsdam Declaration demanding Japan’s unconditional surrender otherwise it would face ‘prompt and utter destruction’.2

The Soviet Union did not participate in the Declaration as it was neutral towards Japan until declaring war on 8 August 1945. Truman informed Stalin that the USA had a new weapon of unusual destructive force but did not reveal that it was a nuclear bomb. Stalin knew about it anyway, through espionage (see Soviet Spies).

The declaration was Churchill’s last international act in his first term as prime minister. The conference was adjourned for him to attend the election announcement on the day of the declaration. It was a landslide victory for Labour. Churchill resigned that evening and did not return to Potsdam. Shocked by being ousted by the British public and by the loss of his high-adrenaline routine, he told his doctor Lord Moran, ‘I can’t school myself to do nothing for the rest of my life. It would have been better to have been killed in an aeroplane, or to have died like Roosevelt.’3 His outlook recovered during a painting holiday in Italy in September.

In July 1945, Truman and Churchill gave approval for nuclear attacks on Japan, believing that they would end the war swiftly.

Although Attlee was prime minister at the time of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings, the UK’s agreement to proceed was given on 4 July 1945, three weeks before Churchill’s resignation. Joint US-UK agreement for the use of nuclear weapons was required by the Quebec Agreement of August 1943, signed by Roosevelt and Churchill. The US order for the bombings was given on 25 July, the day before the Potsdam Declaration and Churchill’s resignation. The attacks were to take place after 3 August 1945, giving time for the order to be rescinded if Japan surrendered.

Truman’s diary entry on the day of the attack order refers to the nuclear bomb as ‘the most terrible thing ever discovered, but it can be made the most useful’.4 Lord Moran wrote that two days earlier Churchill had said, ‘It is the Second Coming. The secret has been wrested from nature. […] It gives the Americans the power to mould the world. It may displace fuel; a fragment gives 800 horse-power. If the Russians had got it, it would have been the end of civilization. […] It has just come in time to save the world.’5

‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Man’ were dropped on 6 and 9 August. A pre-prepared statement by Churchill was issued with a preface by Attlee on 6 August. The Soviet Union declared war on Japan on 9 August, and Japan surrendered on 15 August. Truman ordered a halt to nuclear bombing on 10 August after receiving reports and photos of the effects on Hiroshima. Even if he had any private qualms, he never expressed any doubts about his decision publicly.

In 1953, for example, he told the chairman of Hiroshima City Council that the swift end to the war had saved half a million American and Japanese lives and a million from being maimed for life. He drew attention to the USA ‘being shot in the back’ at Pearl Harbour, ‘without provocation, without warning and without a declaration of war’.6 Estimates of the nuclear attack casualties range from 130,000 to 225,000 deaths within four months and an unknown number of subsequent deaths and illnesses.

The most significant encounter between Truman and Churchill was their joint visit to Fulton, Missouri, in March 1946.

One of Truman’s closest advisors, Major General Harry Vaughan, was a graduate of the then little-known Westminster College in rural Fulton, Missouri. In October 1945, the college president gave an invitation to Churchill to deliver an address at the college. He sent it via Vaughan, who arranged for Truman to add a handwritten postscript: ‘This is a wonderful school in my home state. Hope you can do it. I’ll introduce you.’7

Although Churchill was out of office, Truman realised that he still had important influence and wanted to get to know him better. Churchill anticipated the significant impact of a speech in America introduced by the US president, and wanted to establish a good relationship with him, so accepted.

They travelled from Washington DC to Missouri by train in the presidential carriage Ferdinand Magellan and were quickly on first name terms. Churchill mentioned that he had read in the papers that Truman was a keen poker player, adding that he had learned how to play during the Boer War. They arranged a game including some Truman staff and after an hour and a half Churchill took a comfort break. Truman said, ‘Men, Mr. Churchill has lost $850 [equivalent to US$11,500 today or £8,000]. Now, remember, he is our guest.’ One of them protested: ‘Which do you want us to do, play poker or carry this fellow along?’ Truman replied, ‘Boys, I want Mr. Churchill to have a good time’,8 so he was allowed some wins and ended the evening US$80 down (US$1100 or £770).

Churchill had consulted Truman’s administration about some of the speech and showed Truman the final version on the train. Truman said it was ‘admirable and would do nothing but good, though it would make a stir’,9 which indeed it did (see below). Churchill emphasised in the speech that he was speaking in his personal capacity, and Truman distanced himself deliberately from its content in the immediate aftermath. It did, however, help to shape US and international opinion in a way that allowed Truman to further his foreign interventions, overriding some US isolationist tendencies.

Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ speech in Missouri in 1946 became known by many historians as a mark of the beginning of the Cold War.

Churchill refused to disclose to the press what he was going to talk about in Missouri, which generated much anticipation. Entitled ‘Sinews of Peace’, it has become known as the ‘Iron Curtain’ speech: ‘From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent’.10 The term ‘iron curtain‘ was not Churchill’s, having been in existence since before 1900.

He declared that ‘I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines.’ He said that he had observed during World War II that ‘there is nothing [the Soviets] admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness, especially military weakness’.11

The solution he proposed was much closer cooperation (a ‘special relationship’)12 between the USA and the British Commonwealth and Empire within the context of a strengthened United Nations. He rejected the notion of a precarious balance of power in favour of an ‘overwhelming assurance of security’,13 including the United Nations developing its own armed forces.

Although most US politicians and newspapers agreed with Churchill about the dangers of Soviet expansionism, many were opposed to the very concept of empire, and were suspicious about Churchill’s motives. Truman’s presence at the speech was questioned, but government officials said that this was not an endorsement and (disingenuously) that the content was not known about beforehand.

The speech helped to prepare the ground for the ‘Truman doctrine’: opposition to the Soviet Union’s growth of influence during the Cold War. In 1947, Truman secured approval from Congress for support of his policy, beginning with military and economic aid to Greece. The Marshall Plan provided funding from 1948 for post-World War II reconstruction of Europe, partly to bolster it against the spread of communism. In 1949, the USA was a co-founder of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (‘NATO’), an intergovernmental military alliance between twelve founding states, based on collective defence in case of attack by the Soviet Union. The US was the main Western country to provide troops for the United Nations’ support of South Korea against communist North Korea in the early 1950s.

Churchill gave Truman one of his paintings of Marrakech, Morocco, similar to the one that he gave to Roosevelt seven years earlier.

In 1951, Truman’s daughter Margaret had lunch with Churchill at 10 Downing Street, who gave her a painting (Marrakech, c.1948) to take back to her father. In an accompanying note, he wrote that the picture was ‘about as presentable as anything I can produce’. Truman responded, ‘I can’t find words adequate to express my appreciation of the beautiful picture of the Atlas Mountains, painted by you. I shall treasure the picture as long as I live and it will be one of the most valued possessions I will be able to leave to Margaret [Truman’s daughter] when I pass on.’14

He displayed it in his living room and Margaret inherited it in 1972. She put it up for auction by Sotheby’s in London in December 2007, two months before her death, for financial reasons. It sold for £468,500 (equivalent to £655,000 today).

Churchill’s gifts of scenes from Morocco, one of his favourite painting locations, showed the importance that he attached to the ‘special relationship’ with the USA. He also gave The Valley of the Ourika and the Atlas Mountains (1948) to President Dwight Eisenhower and View of Tinherir (1951) to General George Marshall, former US secretary of state, after whom the Marshall Plan was named.

Churchill was part of the inspiration for Eisenhower to take up painting after World War II. ‘Ike’ tended to paint indoors, using photos, not least because if the weather was good enough he would play golf. He helped to arrange a 1958 exhibition of Churchill’s paintings in the USA, which turned into a world tour. Both had arrangements with Hallmark cards: Churchill was paid for the reproduction of some of his paintings, and Hallmark produced White House Christmas cards for Eisenhower using his artwork.  

Churchill was also an inspiration for US presidents John F. Kennedy (‘JFK’) and George W. Bush taking up painting. Jackie Kennedy knew about Churchill’s hobby and gave JFK a painting set for Christmas in 1953. Bush started painting in 2012 after reading Churchill’s Painting as a Pastime (1948). A 2019 exhibition in the USA featured paintings by Churchill, Eisenhower, JFK and Bush.

Missouri is now the location of memorials to both Truman and Churchill.

Truman retired to his childhood town of Independence, Missouri (now a satellite of Kansas City), where he became fully involved in the development of the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum, including training staff and answering telephones. He died in a Kansas City hospital from multiple organ complications in 1972, aged 88, and was buried in a small Baptist and masonic ceremony in the library courtyard. A larger memorial service was held a week later in Washington National Cathedral.

Truman met his wife Bess in Independence when they were children but she did not accept his marriage proposals until she was 34 years old (Harry was 35). She much preferred her home town to Washington and her highly reticent style differed considerably from that of her predecessor, Eleanor Roosevelt. She was buried beside him ten years later, having lived to age 97, the USA’s oldest former first lady.

The Trumans’ only child Margaret was a soprano, journalist and author, writing crime novels and biographies of her parents. She married Clifton Daniel, managing editor of the New York Times, and had four sons. She died in 2008 and is buried in the Harry S. Truman Library courtyard with her husband.

Fulton, Missouri, is 145 miles (235 km) east of Independence. Having been put on the international map by Churchill, Westminster College took him to heart. In 1961 it began fundraising for a Churchill memorial and in 1964 bought the ruins of the church of St Mary, Aldermanbury, in the City of London, shipping the stones to Fulton. St Mary was designed by Sir Christopher Wren but was destroyed by fire during the Blitz in 1940, leaving only the walls. At Fulton, Wren’s original design was used to reconstruct the building, which incorporates the National Churchill Museum with over 10,000 objects and extensive archives. President Truman participated in the inauguration ceremony. Outside is a Cold War memorial called Breakthrough (1990) which is a sculpture by Edwina Sandys, Churchill’s granddaughter, using eight sections of the destroyed Berlin Wall.

3. Biographical summary

OccupationStore owner, judge, politician, US president
CountryUSA
CareerClerical jobs (1902-06). Corporal, National Guard (1905-11). Farming and business ventures (1906-17). Captain, field artillery, World War I (1917-19). Haberdashery store owner with wife Bess (1919-21). Army reservist with various ranks from major to colonel (1920-53). Presiding judge of Jackson County, Missouri (1927-35). Missouri senator (1935-45). US vice-president (1945). US president (1945-53).
Born1884 in Lamar, Barton county, Missouri (10 years younger than Churchill)
FatherJohn Truman (1851-1914), farmer
MotherMartha Young (1852-1947); saw 2 years of her son’s presidency
SiblingsSecond of four children:
1. Unnamed baby boy (1882); died one day old
2. Harry S (1884-1972)
3. J. Vivian (1886–1965) (son), government administrator
4. Mary (1889–1978), pianist and schoolteacher
EducationHigh school, Independence, Missouri; Spalding’s Commercial College, a business school in Kansas City (incomplete); Kansas City Law School (incomplete)
SpouseElizabeth ‘Bess’ Wallace (1885-1982), m. 1919 until his death in 1972; attended same school in Independence, Missouri; Harry proposed to her in 1911 but was turned down
Relationships 
Children1. Margaret (1924-2008), singer, actress, writer; married Clifton Daniel, managing editor of the New York Times; m. 1956 to his death in 2000; four sons
Died1972 in Kansas City, Missouri, aged 88 (seven years after Churchill)
BuriedCourtyard of Harry S. Truman Library and Museum, Independence, Missouri
Chartwell 
Other Club–
NicknameHaberdasher Harry; Give ‘Em Hell Harry
Height5’9” (1.75m)

4. See also

Other leaders from the ‘Big Three’ Allies

Nuclear weapons

Other Cold War leaders

Other US Democrats

Churchill controversies

  • Bombing (nuclear)
  • Imperialism

5. Further reading

Harry Truman

  • Baime, A.J., The Accidental President (Random House, 2018)
  • Ferrell, Robert H., Harry S. Truman: A Life (University of Missouri Press, 2013)
  • McCullough, David, Truman (Simon & Schuster, 2003)
  • Truman, Margaret, Harry Truman (New Word City, 2015) (by Truman’s daughter; first published in 1972)

Truman and Churchill

Truman and the ‘Big Three’

  • Dobbs, Michael, Six Months in 1945: FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman – from World War to Cold War (Random House, 2012)
  • Mee Jr, Charles L., The Deal: Churchill, Truman, and Stalin Remake the World (New Word City, 2014)

Nuclear weapons

Churchill paintings given to US leaders

Miscellaneous

  • Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi, Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009)
  • Neiberg, Michael, Potsdam: The End of World War II and the Remaking of Europe (Basic Books, 2015)
  • Truman, Margaret, Bess Truman (New Word City, 2014) (by Truman’s daughter; first published in 1986)

6. References

1. Harry S. Truman, Dear Bess: The Letters from Harry to Bess Truman, 1910-1959, ed. by Robert H. Ferrell (University of Missouri Press, 1998), p. 522.

2. Encyclopaedia Britannica, ‘Potsdam Declaration’, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2019.

3. Charles M.W. Moran, Winston Churchill: The Struggle for Survival, 1940-1965 (Constable, 1966), p. 314.

4. Harry S. Truman, Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman, ed. by Robert H. Ferrell (University of Missouri Press, 1997), p. 56.

5. Moran, p. 305.

6. Harry S. Truman, ‘Press Release on the Resolution Passed by the Hiroshima City Council’, Nuclear Files, 1958.

7. F. McCluer, ‘CHUR 2/230B/349-350’, Churchill Archive, 1945.

8. Clark Clifford and Richard C. Holbrooke, Counsel to the President: A Memoir (Random House, 1991), p. 103.

9. Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: Volume 8: Never Despair, 1945–1965 (Random House, 1988), p. 197.

10. Gilbert, p. 200.

11. Gilbert, p. 202.

12. Winston S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897-1963: Volume 7: 1943-1949, ed. by Robert Rhodes James (Chelsea House Publishers, 1974), p. 7289.

13. Gilbert, p. 203.

14. Gilbert, p. 615.