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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.

This chapter explores the constitutional source of ‘inherent powers’. Firstly it analyzes what is meant by express, implied, and emergency powers. Then it examines closely the 1936 Supreme Court case, Curtiss-Wright, that is most often cited for supporting inherent and extra-constitutional powers for the president. The chapter then moves to discussing the use of inherent powers by President Harry Truman in 1952 to seize steel mills to prosecute the war in Korea, and the reliance on inherent powers by President George W. Bush to accomplish a range of war-related actions. Truman's initiative was repudiated by the Supreme Court in the Youngstown case, but the legal and political limits of Bush's actions are still being played out.

This chapter begins by presenting Estelle James' points of discussion if she were to cowrite a sequel to Averting the Old Age Crisis. Truman Packard then summarizes some of the issues raised in Keeping the Promise of Social Security in Latin America and highlights the most important points for pension policymakers. In particular, this chapter addresses the issues of low coverage and the expected outcome of pension reforms. The World Bank's framework for pension systems and reform is discussed.

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.

In the aftermath of World War II, an array of influential elites launched a wide-ranging effort to recapture the sense of teamwork that had pervaded public discourse during the war. Those engaged in this endeavor included social scientists who worried about threats to national cohesion; intergroup activists who hoped to extend their wartime anti-prejudice campaigns; business and advertising executives determined to derail the rising power of labor and to halt or roll back the New Deal; and officials of the Truman Administration who sought to unify Americans behind their emerging Cold War policies. The motives of these elites differed sharply, as did their definition of the values around which Americans should unite. What they shared was a fear of social unrest or upheaval. This chapter explores their efforts, focusing particularly on the activities of the Advertising Council. The council provided a vital link between numerous groups and conducted campaigns on behalf of both free enterprise and intergroup tolerance.

Although the Korean War was the first limited war the United States fought in the modern period, and although historians now view it as a watershed moment in the growth of the “national security state,” no one has undertaken a systematic analysis of the domestic debates sparked by the war. This chapter first examines the reasons for this gap in the literature. The remainder of the chapter then sets out the book's methodological background: the central individuals and organizations that were engaged in domestic propaganda; how they interacted with the “clubby” yet highly partisan Congress of this era; and the opportunities and difficulties they faced when dealing with a media that, while generally wedded to norms of objective reporting, was a highly complex and diverse entity.

This chapter explores the Truman administration's publicity efforts in the first three weeks of the Korean War. Fearful that this new Cold War crisis might escalate into a far bigger conflict with the Soviet Union, the president and his senior advisers sought to keep the home front cool. They made few public statements. And what they did say was carefully restrained. Without a vigorous lead from the government, however, the Washington press corps and the Republican opposition soon moved to fill the information vacuum. While reporters often resorted to speculation, partisan politicians sought to place their own spin on the crisis, insisting that it was a product of the Democrats' excessively soft posture toward communism in Asia.

As news of battlefield defeats hit home, the administration tried to channel the public debate on how America ought to mobilize in this new, more dangerous phase of the Cold War. The instinct of Truman and his senior advisers was to remain cautious: they were still keen to stop the domestic mood from overheating, lest this result in overpowering demands to escalate the Cold War, perhaps even by launching a preventive strike against the Soviet Union. But, once again, this low‐key public posture provided Republicans with the opportunity to sharpen their political attacks. Some called for more vigorous mobilization efforts. Others pressed for a stronger stance toward communists inside America. With senior officials in the Pentagon also hinting that they favored a tougher Cold War posture, in August and September Truman moved to regain control of the debate.

The massive Chinese intervention in the Korean War in late November 1950 created a new sense of crisis in Washington. Attempting to learn from the mistakes they had made in June, senior officials tried to provide a more forceful lead, reaching out to figures from across the political spectrum in order to foster a new sense of unity. But, initially at least, the administration's public efforts were little short of disastrous. The military situation was partly to blame. With events in Korea so murky, officials were unable to provide a clear sense of the scale of the defeat. In Tokyo, MacArthur soon stepped into the vacuum, issuing a string of statements that suggested a major catastrophe was in the cards. In Washington, Truman compounded matters when he told reporters that the A‐bomb was “under active consideration,” a phrase that suggested Korea was about to escalate in a truly terrifying fashion.

The massive Chinese intervention also led many Americans to question the wisdom of the Korean War: in January 1951, one Gallup poll even found that two‐thirds of the public wanted to withdraw from Korea altogether. Although the administration had successfully defused the broader debate over Cold War mobilization, it had far more trouble explaining why it was necessary for Americans to continue fighting and dying in faraway Korea. In fact, the government's mobilization campaign was part of the problem: in the first months of 1951, senior officials spent so much time trying to win the “great debate” that they said very little about Korea. But even efforts to reach out to the mass public by using emotive letters or the power of Hollywood movies largely backfired.

Truman's decision to fire MacArthur in April 1951 initially threatened to make the domestic situation even worse. Indeed, Republicans hoped to exploit the opportunity to challenge the administration's whole Asian policy, and perhaps even impeach one or two senior officials. Within weeks, however, the MacArthur controversy worked to the administration's benefit. For the first time in months, senior officials engaged in a sustained and coordinated effort to make the case for war. MacArthur was thus outgunned. He was also placed on the defensive, having to rebut the official claim that his vision would result in a disastrous world war. More broadly, crucial figures in Congress, both southern Democrats and internationalist Republicans, rallied behind Truman's position, ending the disastrous prospect that had loomed so large in the winter—the prospect that the broad bipartisan Cold War coalition would soon collapse.

With the start of armistice negotiations in the summer of 1951, the Korean War entered a new phase. This chapter explores how officials formulated an information campaign during months of complex and protracted negotiations. At the armistice site, first at Kaesong then at Panmunjom, the military's public information officials had a difficult time trying to divulge enough material to keep the press happy without undermining the government's negotiating position. In Washington, senior officials faced an even more fraught task in trying to justify their stance on POWs. By 1952, the fate of prisoners was the main sticking point in the talks, mainly because Truman adhered to the principle of voluntary repatriation. Although many PR advisers fretted that Americans would not support the continuation of the war over this one esoteric issue, in the spring of 1952 the administration was able to fashion a remarkably effective public position, which helped generate a degree of support for the war, despite a year of stalemated negotiations.

Initially, Eisenhower's emergence as the Republican nominee for president also helped to sustain a basic consensus behind the war, for Ike was a moderate who was prepared to defend Truman's decision to intervene in Korea. As the campaign progressed, Eisenhower's comments became more critical. But even his decisive promise to voters to “go to Korea” was ambiguous. It was intended to signal that something new had to be done to end the fighting, while leaving Ike free to decide precisely what—and, crucially, while also ensuring that he kept his distance from MacArthur and the Republican right. On becoming president, Eisenhower therefore retained a good deal of freedom. But in terms of public relations, he swiftly made many of the same mistakes that had plagued Truman's early efforts. And only Stalin's death, which in turn led to a thawing of the communist position, revived the armistice negotiations and resulted in an end to this long and costly war.