Harry S. Truman

By: James N. Giglio

Narrated by: Sean Runnette

Harry S. Truman, a farmer and soldier from Missouri and a latecomer to politics, was thrust unexpectedly into the presidency when President Roo­sevelt died in office with World War II raging in Europe. Truman was a plain-speaking, decisive, and sometimes impulsive leader who dropped the atomic bomb to end the war; waged war against North Korea to stop the spread of communism; and tried to seize America’s steel mills to sup­port troops abroad. This last action led the Supreme Court to issue a sting­ing rebuke of the president in the landmark Steel Seizure Case. Although Truman left office after the 1952 elections a frustrated and unpopular president, many scholars today give him high marks for his strong leader­ship and integrity at a difficult time in American history.

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