Book Reviewed: The Trials of Harry S. Truman: The Extraordinary Presidency of an Ordinary Man by Jeffrey Frank

The man of people This book narrates an intensely human side of a man who changed the world during the difficult days in the aftermath of WWII. There are numerous biographies of President Harry Truman in literature, but certainly this stands out well. I very much enjoyed reading the attributes of a man who accomplished so much when few people anticipated that he would accomplish anything significant. Harry Truman was born in Missouri, fought in WWI, married his long-time sweetheart, served as in the U.S. Senate, and became President of the United States. He made many historic decisions in the global history. For example, an urgent plea to Japan to surrender during WWII was rejected. Truman, after consultations with his advisers, ordered atomic bombs dropped on cities devoted to war work, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. Japanese surrender quickly followed. In June 1945 Truman witnessed the signing of the charter of the United Nations. When Russians blockaded the western sectors of Berlin in 1948, Truman created a massive airlift to supply Berliners until the Russians backed down. Meanwhile, he negotiated a military alliance to protect Western nations, then the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was established in 1949. After the onset of the Cold War, Truman oversaw Marshall Plan. When North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, he lobbied for intervention from the United Nations in the Korean War. He also deployed American forces without congressional authorization. He successfully guided the U.S. economy through the postwar economic challenges; the expected postwar depression never happened. In February 1948, the president submitted a civil rights agenda to Congress that proposed creating several federal offices devoted to issues such as voting rights and fair employment practices. This provoked a storm of criticism from southern Democrats in the runup to the national convention, but Truman refused to compromise, saying: "My forebears were Confederates ... but my very stomach turned over when I had learned that N*gro soldiers, just back from overseas, were being dumped out of Army trucks in Mississippi and beaten." Tales of the abuse, violence, and persecution suffered by many African-American veterans upon their return from the war infuriated Truman. But he also expressed criticism of the civil rights movement during the 1960s. In 1960, he stated that the sit-in movement to be part of a Soviet plot. President Truman was known for eccentricity. In the Oval Office he had the famous "The Buck Stops Here" sign on his desk. He was known to drink lot of Bourbon and play poker whenever time permitted him. When Washington Post music critic Paul Hume wrote a critical review of his daughter Margaret Truman’s musical concert, Harry Truman wrote a scathing letter in which he said, “When you write such poppy-cock as was in the back section of the paper you work for it shows conclusively that you're off the beam.” “Someday I hope to meet you. When that happens, you'll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes.” Corruption in the Truman administration became a central campaign issue in the 1952 presidential election.