Search Results

Although Harry Truman embraced the idea of a ’nuclear revolution’, he also remained convinced that, despite this revolution, other environmental factors still held force – namely, international anarchy, aggression, and the need to defend against aggression. In short, there was a clash within Truman's mind between the imperatives of the nuclear age and of the anarchic international system within which the nuclear revolution evolved. While hoping that an international control system could eliminate the prospect of nuclear war and foster the peaceful use of the atom, he was also ready and willing to rely on US lead in the field of nuclear energy to contain the horrors inherent in nuclear war. Having defined the Soviet Union as a non‐cooperative partner and as a threat, Truman accepted the need for American nuclear superiority in order to deter Soviet aggression and prevent nuclear war.

This chapter examines President Harry S. Truman's commitment of the National Democratic Party to the cause of racial equality and the responses to them by Deep South authoritarian enclaves. It first provides an overview of the central state, national party, and southern enclaves during the period 1932–1946 before discussing the causes and consequences of the revolt by the States' Rights Party (SRP), also known as the Dixiecrats. It then considers southern enclaves' growing unease with the national party through the 1930s and 1940s, along with the experiences of South Carolina, Mississippi, and Georgia. It shows that the Truman shock and responses to it varied within the Deep South depending on different configurations of intraparty conflict and party–state institutions.

Truman introduced the idea of Point Four during his 1949 inaugural address, because he was convinced that America’s future depended upon the development of the underdeveloped world and he was certain that that development could not happen without U.S. assistance. Poor nations anywhere threatened America’s influence everywhere, he insisted, so they needed to become not-poor. Growth theory economics argued that any nation could become developed if it adopted the right policies and had the right opportunities. The United States was going to help ensure that its allies got both and, in the process, that its allies became strong and stable. When the Korean War erupted, American aid rapidly expanded, with economic, technical, and military aid wrapped up together under the aegis of the new Mutual Security Program, which would last throughout the 1950s. By the time Truman left office, foreign aid had become an accepted tool of foreign policy.

In 1949, the U.S. House of Representatives opened hearings H.R. 5615, the “International Technical Cooperation Act of 1949.” While discussing the specific act, which had grown out of Truman’s inaugural address earlier that year, the Congressmen discussed the much larger question of the value of using economic and technical assistance as foreign policy tools. In the end, they voted for foreign aid and established the Point Four Program. Using Ethiopia as a test case, this book explores the consequences of that decision.

Relegated to a largely ceremonial role when he first arrived at the White House, Clark Clifford succeeded in parlaying proximity to power into an actual position of power. When President Harry S. Truman was confronted with his first major crisis, the labor wars of 1946, Clifford's wise counsel enabled the president not only to weather the storm but also to emerge a stronger leader. Clifford helped Truman sidestep a political disaster brought on by a wayward cabinet member whom Truman had usurped as vice president and who believed that by rights the presidency should have been his. A master at synthesizing the ideas of others, Clifford served as a conduit for getting policy proposals to the president while burnishing his own reputation. Initially relegated to what he called the role of a “potted palm,” Clifford soon ascended to a position commensurate with his talent and ambition: special counsel to the president.

The fourth chapter considers how and why the Department of Justice chose to intervene on the NAACP’s behalf in the cases. It explores the overlapping political pressures influencing President Harry S. Truman’s administration and the growth of a newly strengthened partnership between the NAACP and the federal government in the nation’s courts. The chapter then examines the presentation of the cases before Supreme Court and the substance of Chief Justice Fred Vinson’s opinions in favor of the NAACP’s clients in Shelley v. Kraemer and Hurd v. Hodge. Finally, the chapter assesses some of the popular reactions to the outcome of the cases and what black communities hoped the victory would signal in the years ahead.

This chapter examines the development of nuclear weapons during World War II and early efforts to control their spread. It opens with a warning from physicist James Franck to President Harry S. Truman in September 1945 that “the idea that there exists a secret formula [for the atomic bomb] which can be guarded in its entirety” should be dismissed “as too stupid even for the movies and the funny papers.” The chapter notes that the president ignored this warning and soon pledged publicly that the United States would hold its atomic monopoly as “a sacred trust” until “world cooperation for peace” achieved “a state of perfection.” It notes that political and military leaders dismissed such physicists as starry-eyed idealists, but events soon exposed policymakers as the deluded ones.

In November 1947, Clark Clifford presented President Harry S. Truman with a memorandum entitled “The Politics of 1948,” a 43-page study that outlined a strategy for the 1948 presidential race. Truman was still considered a caretaker president, and his defeat by a then-unidentified Republican challenger seemed to be a foregone conclusion. Truman, however, would eventually score the greatest political upset of the twentieth century when he defeated Thomas Dewey in November 1948. The Clifford memorandum was incredibly prescient, accurately predicting that Dewey would be the Republican candidate and that Henry Wallace would run as a third-party candidate. In some cases it badly missed the mark, failing to foresee the southern backlash against Truman's civil rights policies. In addition, it is debatable how much the memo influenced Truman, whose political instincts were fairly acute; but in one respect its influence was without question: it bestowed remarkable benefits on its author.

Clark Clifford's new office was only four blocks from the White House. Clifford took on but one partner, Edward H. Miller, a lawyer from the Justice Department whom Clifford knew from St. Louis. Although he was an avowed liberal and a former adviser to Harry S. Truman, Clifford diligently worked to transform himself into someone that corporate America could be comfortable with. On November 15, 1949, a week before news of his departure was leaked to the press, Clifford gave a speech before the annual dinner of the Grocery Manufacturers Association. The speech, entitled “Business and the Government's Program,” stressed his conception of a symbiotic partnership between business and government. Much of the speech involved a defense and explanation of the Fair Deal as well as the Truman administration's foreign policy, but Clifford likely viewed the speech as an opportunity to present himself as an ally to the business community.

Clark Clifford and James Forrestal met and decided to prepare a memorandum for Harry S. Truman, which, as they put it, “would outline the central question of which of the two systems in moral contention would survive.” Clifford's concern was that with the Democrats controlling the White House and the Republicans Congress, the usual partisan bickering would prevent the government from adopting a bipartisan strategy to deal with the threat of communism. The product of their discussion was a memorandum that was drafted by Forrestal aide Marx Leva and sent to Clifford. The memorandum warned that the country cannot afford the deceptive luxury of waging defensive warfare. As in the war of 1941–45, their victory and survival depended on how and where they attacked. The stridency of the warning, combined with Forrestal's reputation as an ideologically passionate cold warrior, suggests that the Leva memorandum was much more a product of Forrestal than a collaborative effort.

Clark Clifford's memoirs begin with his May 1948 showdown with George Marshall over the question of whether Harry S. Truman should grant recognition to the soon-to-be-declared State of Israel. Clifford tells the story with dramatic flair, almost in David and Goliath terms, pointing out that Truman regarded Marshall as “the greatest living American.” The implication is that Clifford's stature paled in comparison to Marshall's. While it is true that Marshall was a war hero revered by Truman, and indeed the nation, Clifford's influence with Truman was at least equal to, if not greater than, Marshall's. According to Clifford's account, Truman and Marshall were on a “collision course over Mideast policy,” which threatened the viability of the administration, not to mention Truman's reelection bid. The Jewish vote was not numerically significant—Jews made up only four percent of the electorate—but it was concentrated in a few key states, particularly New York.

This chapter examines how the people of Kansas retreated into a quiet centrist conservatism that was relatively more bipartisan and apolitical than would have been expected, especially in a state with such a long Republican history. The conservatism of the period included rare hints of the more aggressive political and religious movements that were to brand the region as part of the red state Middle West in later decades. The chapter first considers the increasing feeling of political isolation in Kansas that was evident by the end of Franklin D. Roosevelt's second term. It then looks at the rise of Harry S. Truman as U.S. president after Roosevelt's death on April 12, 1945, along with Kansans' renewed emphasis on homes, hometowns, and hometown religion as the essential ingredients of Middle West life. It also discusses the religious situation in Kansas during the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

This chapter focuses on Harry S Truman, who became president at a time when the world was consumed by war. Truman's decisive and tough character, however, portrayed him as “a supremely tough, decisive leader” who, from the start, was completely in control of his entire administration. Despite his initial determination to continue Roosevelt's policies, Truman soon realized that “there could be no Truman administration unless he had his own people in office.” He therefore acted swiftly to assemble his own White House staff. Six months into his presidency, only three of the ten cabinet members Truman had inherited from FDR remained. When cabinet members did not execute the law in accordance with his wishes, Truman did not hesitate to remove them or force them to resign.

Clark Clifford believed that the Cold War began on September 24, 1946, the day he presented a report. In Clifford's opinion, the Clifford–Elsey report, as it has come to be known, “contained the seeds of the Marshall Plan, the seeds of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the basic principles upon which the President relied for the Truman Doctrine.” Most historians credit George Elsey as the primary author, despite Clifford's boasts that he wrote it. Perhaps more significant is that to the extent that it was important and influential, it was due to Elsey's conviction and sheer tenacity. Harry S. Truman had a very limited assignment in mind when he requested the report, and that is likely the reason he gave the assignment to Clifford. Elsey convinced Clifford, who in turn convinced Truman, that a more comprehensive study was needed.

This chapter focuses on the financing of the Korean War and its within-case variation. Korean War finance can be divided into two periods, from June 1950 to mid-1951 and from mid-1951 to the end of the war. During the first period, both the fear of inflation and support for the war effort were high. As a result, the Revenue Act of 1950, eliminating an excise tax reduction and increasing both corporate and individual income taxes, and the Excess Profit Tax Law of 1950 were swiftly signed into law. During the second period of Korean War finance, however, the political-economic landscape changed, and President Truman was only able to get half of what he requested in terms of revenue, as reflected in the Revenue Act of 1951.

This chapter tells the story of Perle Mesta, US minister to Luxembourg (1949–1953). A wealthy widow, Mesta was a political fundraiser, businesswoman, and National Woman’s Party activist before becoming Washington, DC’s leading society hostess after World War II. She was close to President Harry S. Truman, who, lobbied by India Edwards, sent her to Luxembourg as a reward for her important work for his 1948 campaign. Her appointment became the butt of jokes and inspired the hit musical comedy Call Me Madam, but she performed fairly well considering her limitations and the sometimes fierce hostility she faced from career diplomats. She applied her party-giving instincts to her post, reaching out to average Luxembourgers and becoming a major celebrity to them. Official Luxembourg was ambivalent, finding it difficult to take her seriously and yet enjoying the attention, top-level access, and enhanced international status that her appointment provided.