Truman Administration

7 Key excerpts on "Truman Administration"

• 

  eBook - PDF

  American Presidential Statecraft

  From Isolationism to Internationalism

  • Ronald E. Powaski(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  It was characterized by the willingness of the United States to apply its economic, political, and military power in the defense of non-communist regimes, first in Europe, then in the Middle East, and afterward in East Asia and Latin America. As a consequence, the spread of communism was largely contained to the limits it had reached in 1950. But the price the United States and its allies would paid in lives and treasure in containing communism over the subsequent four decades of the Cold War proved to be very costly indeed. Nevertheless, it is primarily on the basis of Truman’s containment strategy, and the policies and institutions that he established to implement it, that his reputation as a great statesman rests. FOR FURTHER READING There is an abundance of Truman biographies. Among the best is Alonzo L. Hamby’s Man of the People: The Life of Harry S. Truman (1995), which demythologizes Truman, noting his achievements but also por- traying his shortcomings as well. The most popular of the biographies HARRY S. TRUMAN, JAMES BYRNES, AND HENRY WALLACE: THE US RESPONSE... 252 is David McCullough’s Truman (1992), which while very readable, is short on analysis. For an excellent overview and assessment of the major Truman biographies that have appeared since late in his presidency, see Sean J. Savage’s “Truman in Historical, Popular, and Political Memory,” in Daniel S. Margolies, ed., A Companion to Harry S. Truman (2012), 9–25. For Truman’s account of his presidency, see his Memoirs, Vol. 1: Year of Decisions. (1955) and Vol. 2: Years of Trial and Hope (1956). It should be read with more than the usual care regarding facts, dates, and interpretations.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  US Foreign Policy and Democracy Promotion

  From Theodore Roosevelt to Barack Obama

  • Michael Cox, Timothy J. Lynch, Nicolas Bouchet, Michael Cox, Timothy J. Lynch, Nicolas Bouchet(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  8 Certainly, Truman had a strong belief that American history was the story of the advance and defence of liberty, as conceived by the founding fathers. He seems to have had an uncritically Whig understanding of that history. To Truman, freedom was vested in the republican system of Thomas Jefferson and the Hamiltonian economic system of liberal capitalism that had accompanied it. His reading of American history underpinned his sense of what democracy was, and how it was linked to a particular economic system, which was therefore a vital prerequisite for its achievement. The events of the 1930s and the Second World War gave a clear indication of the major barriers to this: totalitarian dictatorship linked to autarkic or state-monopolized economies. This binary was to define his approach to the issues of freedom and unfreedom during his presidency.

  Truman, democracy and anti-communism

  To understand the administration’s goals, and the ways in which they conflicted and hamstrung the attempt to spread democracy and development, it is necessary to track back to the early years of Truman’s presidency. It is a period that has been the subject of divergent interpretations. Truman was responsible for the establishment of a series of landmark statements and institutions that shaped American foreign policy up to at least the end of the Cold War, and arguably beyond. Depending often on the ideological perspectives brought to the question, Truman is either lauded for his timely and appropriate responses to the threat of Joseph Stalin’s totalitarian expansionism, or else castigated for aggressive policies and posturing that initiated the Cold War, led the United States into interventionism in the name of the containment of communism and created the institutions of American imperial overreach and repressive domestic anti-communism. Close examination of the Truman presidency presents a more complex picture than this overdrawn dichotomy, and in particular reveals a defining ambivalence in Truman’s attitudes. This derived from two of his fundamental principles that, when operationalized in the post-Second World War context, produced a foreign policy that at its heart enshrined contradictory impulses.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Political Warfare against the Kremlin

  US and British Propaganda Policy at the Beginning of the Cold War

  • Lowell H. Schwartz(Author)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  96 4 American Cold War Propaganda Policy during the Truman Administration At 7:00 p.m., on the night of August 14, 1945, US President Harry Truman announced to a group of reporters gathered around his desk that Japan had agreed to unconditional surrender. This announcement set off a wild celebration in Washington with almost half a million people filling the streets. Crowds gathered around the White House chanting “We want Truman!” Truman and his wife appeared on the front lawn of the White House, with Truman saying to the crowd, “This is great day, the day we’ve been waiting for. This is the day for free governments in the world. This is the day that fascism and police government ceases in the world.” 1 Lost among the celebration were concerns about a Europe in ruin and the United States’ faltering partnership with a Soviet regime firmly in control of much of Central and Eastern Europe. It was in this spirit of wartime celebra- tion that on August 31, 1945, President Truman signed an executive order abolishing the Office of War Information (OWI), the agency responsible for informing both Americans and foreigners about the American war during the Second World War. 2 This was the beginning of a complex journey for American propaganda efforts, which resulted in very different propaganda strategy and policy than those pursued by Britain. Three distinct stages of American propaganda policy during the Truman Administration can be identified. The first stage occurred in the immedi- ate aftermath of the Second World War with a series of decisions that to a large extent dismantled the United States’ overt and covert psychological warfare capabilities. During this period, debate about US propaganda policy focused on whether it was appropriate for the US government to undertake any activities at all to directly influence world opinion.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  America, Scandinavia, and the Cold War 1945–1949

  • Geir Lundestad(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Columbia University Press

    (Publisher)

  24 An even more moderate version is presented by Lloyd Gardner and Walter LaFeber. They both certainly play down the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan as turning points and argue that the preconditions for action had been set well before the spring of 1947. The assumptions on which American policies rested were the depression of the thirties, World War II, and a near half-century of distrust of Soviet Communism. In Gardner's phrase, the world view of the American political leadership was based on their night-mare-like memories of the depression, their newfound eco-nomic power, and the reality of a profound challenge seem-ingly centered in the Soviet Union. 25 The fact that the preconditions for action had been set does not, however, American Foreign Policy, 1945-1947 13 mean that the action itself had unfolded. Both Gardner and LaFeber, therefore, see this period as more of a developing process than Kolko and Alperovitz do. Revisionists all agree that the United States used various levers to further its foreign policy objectives. While there is fairly general agreement on the way in which eco-nomic instruments were brought to bear on the Soviet Union by the Truman Administration, all possible nuances can be found in revisionist views on the role the atomic bomb played in American diplomacy at the end of World War II. 26 How do postrevisionists deal with the problem of the degree of activity shown by the United States in the 1945 to 1947 period? A rough conclusion is that again they adopt some kind of middle position between revisionists and tradi-tionalists, although this position may vary considerably in its details from historian to historian. With John Lewis Gaddis it is difficult to find any single one decisive point, be it the Truman Doctrine or the transi-tion from Roosevelt to Truman. The emphasis on gradual change found both with moderate traditionalists and moder-ate revisionists is even more pronounced with Gaddis.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Economics and World Power

  An Assessment of American Diplomacy Since 1789

  • William H. Becker, Samuel F. Wells, William H. Becker, Samuel F. Wells(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Columbia University Press

    (Publisher)

  The Truman Administration achieved most of its objectives in foreign economic policy. It helped create an interdependent world order which bound together most of the major industrial economies, sustained American prosperity, and nurtured the growth of free enterprise and democracy based on the American model. In doing so, it also laid the economic foundations for American security. THE EISENHOWER ADMINISTRATION: NEW LOOK, OLD POLICY Newly inaugurated Presidents often enter the White House with great confidence in their ability to effect far-reaching change and 358 Robert A. Pollard and Samuel F. Wells, Jr. reform in national policies, only to find after a short period in office that the weight of precedent and limitations upon presiden-tial power overwhelm their firmest resolve. Dwight D. Eisen-hower was no exception. As the Republican candidate for Presi-dent in 1952, he had pledged to cut foreign (especially economic) aid and to rely more heavily upon private, as opposed to govern-mental, instruments of American economic power. Yet within two years of entering office, Eisenhower emerged as the foremost champion within his administration of the multilateralist institu-tions initiated by his predecessor. Eisenhower's foreign economic policies diverged far less from those of the Truman years than Republican rhetoric had suggested. Like Truman, Eisenhower believed that American na-tional security depended upon a healthy domestic economy and that high defense spending hurt the economy by generating less real growth than an equivalent amount of private sector expendi-ture would create. Both Presidents also feared the consequences of sustained deficit spending, but believed that unbalanced bud-gets could be justified by national emergencies or recessions. Yet they differed over whether the country faced a serious emergency in the early 1950s.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  A Companion to Harry S. Truman

  • Daniel S. Margolies(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  Despite the importance of foreign economic policy, the historiographical record for Truman's presidency is uneven. There is one monograph dedicated to a comprehensive examination of foreign economic policy for the Truman Administration: the postrevisionist analysis of Robert Pollard (1985) who defines Truman's foreign economic policy as internationalist, ad hoc, and geopolitical. There are in-depth studies of specific moments or issues, such as the Marshall Plan and international trade, which are usually set in the context of national security or analyzed through an ideological lens. Dimensions of foreign economic policy, such as agriculture, that were not clearly associated with a larger strategic goal have received considerably less attention. Timing is one reason why scholars have not examined Truman's record on foreign economic policy thoroughly or evenly. When Truman became president in the spring of 1945, he inherited Roosevelt's foreign economic policies. Historical works typically treat subjects such as Bretton Woods and Lend-Lease as part of Roosevelt's foreign policy legacy even though Truman was active in their final stages. Another reason for the fragmented coverage is that Truman's presidency spanned three distinct but overlapping stages: the end of World War II, the period of recovery and reconstruction from the war, and the start of the Cold War. The dominant Cold War narrative tilts historical interests to the third stage or superimposes a Cold War narrative over the two earlier and distinct stages. The result is that the historical coverage on Truman's foreign economic policy is like mining: there are veins of varying size and quality that can be extracted, the occasional mother lode, and much unexplored rockface.

  The End of World War II

  When Harry Truman became president, the end of the war was in sight but the return of peace was not something that could be taken for granted. There was a far-reaching view that peace had to be built, nurtured, and sustained. There was also a widespread conviction that the origins of this conflict lay in the economic turmoil of the 1930s. To restore peace, one had to foster global conditions of prosperity and offset conditions of economic volatility and decline. Truman's understanding of the global economy was not particularly well developed. But he did understand how daily economic pressures strained the lives of ordinary Americans. As a small farmer in Kansas, he knew firsthand the unpredictability that farmers confront, at the mercy of the weather which affected the relationship between supply and demand, sending prices soaring one year and plummeting the next. He and his business partner lost their shirts when their haberdashery closed during the Depression. Truman and his wife struggled to own a home, eventually moving into the Wallace family home in Independence. When he began to serve in local and later national politics, he gained experience in domestic economic problems, ranging from petty corruption to the power exercised by big business. By the time he became president, he had strong ideas about government spending. As Hogan (1998) has explained, Truman was committed to a balanced budget which “affirmed America's historic identity as a nation of righteous and self-reliant producers” (pp. 69, 85). Truman also had strong ideas about economic justice. He tried to balance a reduction in military spending with increased fiscal resources for social welfare programs. As Randall Bennett Woods (1990) put it, Truman combined “fiscal orthodoxy with social justice” (pp. 263, 310).

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Long Wars and the Constitution

  • Stephen M. Griffin(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Harvard University Press

    (Publisher)

  • 2 Truman and the Post-1945 Constitutional Order T HE BEGINNING of the Cold War was a watershed for U.S. foreign pol-icy. This is the period running roughly from Stalin’s speech in February 1946, appearing to promise a conflict with capitalism, to President Tru-man’s 1950 decision to intervene in Korea and massively expand the armed forces. 1 As summarized by historian George Herring, “the Tru-man administration in the short space of seven years carried out a veri-table revolution in U.S. foreign policy. It altered the assumptions behind national security policies, launched a wide range of global programs and commitments, and built new institutions to manage the nation’s bur-geoning international activities.” 2 This period has been extensively studied by historians, but there has been an absence, especially in general accounts, of assessment of the constitutional significance of epochal events such as the Truman Doctrine, the formation of NATO, and the Korea decision. 3 At the same time, historians have shown that officials were aware that the nature of the constitutional order was changing. 4 According to Michael Hogan’s insightful account, there was an unceasing debate, centered on fears of a coming “garrison state,” over the effect the new global responsibilities of the United States would have on American government and society. 5 How would the coming “long war” affect the Constitution? In this chapter, I will describe how political elites convinced them-selves, the government, and the public that the pre–Pearl Harbor con-stitutional order was inadequate to the challenging circumstances that the U.S. faced in the Cold War. From the point of view of the executive branch, questions of war powers had to be subordinated to the larger Truman and the Post-1945 Constitutional Order 53 objectives of that policy.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book