George Rebane
Old Harry got more than he bargained for in April 1945 when they handed him the schnitzel, told him FDR had died, and that he had the watch now. The Allies in Europe were closing in on Berlin, and Okinawa - one of the greatest battles of the war - was starting in the Pacific, and no one at home really paid any attention. This ex-artillery officer from WW1 had no idea what he was getting into because, since they were sworn in three months before, FDR had used him mostly as stand-in for a potted plant in the old Executive Office building.
A correspondent sent me some Harry Truman vignettes that brought back my own memories of that Democrat president when I was much younger. Reflecting on it now, I believe he was the only Democrat president in modern times worth his office, right-hand-of-God FDR included. But then, you probably knew that.
“It doesn't matter how big a ranch ya' own, or how many cows ya' brand, the size of your funeral is still gonna to depend on the weather.” HST
Now Harry didn’t have it easy sailing during either of his terms. The biggest battles – as big or bigger than the Normandy landings - of the Pacific were still to be fought, the Soviet Union wanted to keep everything the Red Army walked on and then some, and one day in May someone came into the Oval Office and told him about something called the Manhattan Project. He did decide to use the new atom bomb, thereby sacrificing less than 200,000 lives to bring Japan to its knees and save untold millions of lives that would have been lost invading the home islands. Tough choices.
After the war ended it was Harry who had to stare down the Soviets and set the course of the free world to contain the stated (and partially achieved) goals of international communism, this so that we wouldn’t all be now bilingual and have our official documents printed in the Cyrillic alphabet. Thanks to that start, we won the ensuing Cold War by having the USSR collapse peacefully while converting the Red Chinese into greedy capitalists. If you claim that we might still have to learn Arabic or Spanish, you’re picking nits – Harry’s gone, he died in 1972.
When I was a ten-year-old kid in 1950, Harry had run into a passle of problems on the domestic front with corruption in his administration and communists in the government. Just to make sure that he didn’t have too much free time, the North Koreans decided to liberate South Korea and we were at war again – actually, make that a 55,000 killed ‘police action’. Harry also ran into more bad luck when he had to fire the new popular Emperor of Japan, Douglas MacArthur. Harry’s own popularity ratings went from record highs to record lows – records that have only now been broken by Bush2. In those days all of us little smart alecks knew that LSMFT on the bottom of Lucky Strike packs really meant ‘Lord Save Me From Truman’. The bigger kids and GIs claimed it stood for ‘Loose Straps Mean Floppy Breasts’ (this is a family blog).
Anyway, Ike decided being a college president was not his game and opted for a real promotion to Commander-in-Chief. Harry was done with politics and wanted to go back to Missouri with Bess. Ike was elected, went to Korea, and stopped the shooting (technically the war is still going on). Harry picked up his ‘The Buck Stops Here’ sign and headed west. And ever since then the buck has somehow managed to avoid the Oval Office and is still seen slippin’ and a’slidin’, duckin’ and a’weavin’ all around Washington.
When President Truman retired from office in 1952, his income was substantially that of a U.S. Army pension, reported to have been $13,507.72 a year. Congress, noting that he was paying for his stamps and personally licking them, granted him an "allowance" and, later, a retroactive pension of $25,000 per year.
But keen-eyed and level-headed people in business knew that Harry had successfully handled the biggest domestic and international problems that had ever beset the Presidency. They agreed with some of the early historians in the 50s that this recently retired President cum cannon-cocker would go down as one of the country’s greatest leaders. (The student foggy on the details would do well to review Harry’s Wikipedia entry.) Everyone wanted a piece of him after he left office.
When offered corporate positions at large salaries, he declined, stating, "You don't want me. You want the office of the president, and that doesn't belong to me. It belongs to the American people and it's not for sale."
As the years passed Harry was seen walking quietly on the streets of Independence, Missouri. There were some comic episodes as the family still tried to promote the career of their homely looking and mildly talented daughter. But Harry’s fame was growing as more and more people looked at his leadership record during years that saw post-war recessions, starting of the UN, putting millions of returning military people back to work, Mao on the Long March to change the shape of Asia, the Marshall Plan and rebuilding Europe and Japan, 1948 Berlin crisis and “an Iron Curtain has fallen”, and, of course, Korea. No one has kept so many important balls in the air without dropping a single one, and the son-of-gun even played the piano.
Even later, on May 6, 1971, when Congress was preparing to award him the Medal of Honor on his 87th birthday, he refused to accept it, writing, "I don't consider that I have done anything which should be the reason for any award, Congressional or otherwise."
Since then the Office of the President has become a gateway to riches and glory. And one may argue with a straight face, that some now look at it as a stepping stone to higher office in a new world order. Old Harry didn’t see it that way. He reached the top, did his job, and then quietly and graciously stepped aside.
We now see that other past presidents, have found a new level of success in cashing in on the presidency, resulting in untold wealth. Today, many in Congress also have found a way to become quite wealthy while enjoying the fruits of their offices. Political offices are now for sale. Was good old Harry Truman correct when he observed, "My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference. I, for one, believe the piano player job to be much more honorable than current politicians." Imagine what he'd think of today’s politicians....
We miss you Harry.
George, what a great post! Just this last week Ellen and i were reviewing what we could remember about Harry Truman when we were growing up. Ellen remembered her family gather around the radio to hear Harry speak to the nation. Since my three uncles were engaged in WWII combat and my Dad was training pilots to fly B-26s in Texas, there was great hope in the family that Harry was going to win the war and bring the troops home. i remember when Truman fired Douglas MacArthur. At the time I could not understand why, but in conversations with Ellen's father, Dr. Hollingshead it was clear that MacArther had a mental problem that allowed his ego to go unchecked. More on AF 1st Lt. Hollingshead's encounter with MacArther in the Pentagon over a glass of wine some time.
Posted by: Russ Steele | 30 October 2008 at 05:35 AM