The 33rd president who framed the Cold War with the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan
On his Oval Office desk sat a sign reading 'The buck stops here,' and from the atomic bomb to MacArthur's dismissal, he lived by it.
Truman was the 33rd president of the United States, who succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt and ordered the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. In March 1947 he declared the Truman Doctrine (that 'it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures') and in April 1948 he signed the Marshall Plan into law, building the institutional framework for Western Europe's reconstruction and the containment of Soviet power. When North Korea invaded the South in 1950, he led the UN military response and later fired General Douglas MacArthur, reasserting civilian control of the military at the cost of his own popularity. Widely reviled at the end of his presidency, Truman was posthumously rehabilitated as a 'near great' president whose Cold War architecture outlasted the Soviet Union.
Career Timeline
- 1884Born in Lamar, Missouri, the son of a farmer and livestock dealer
- 1917–1918WWI: captain commanding an artillery battery in France
- 1935–1945US Senator from Missouri; chaired the Truman Committee on wartime waste
- 1945.01–04Vice President; succeeded to the presidency on Roosevelt's death, April 12
- 1945–195333rd president: atomic bombs, Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, NATO, Korean War
- 1947.03.12Declared the Truman Doctrine, requesting aid for Greece and Turkey
- 1948.04.03Signed the Economic Cooperation Act, launching the Marshall Plan
- 1951.04.11Fired General Douglas MacArthur over Korean War strategy
Related historical events
- 1945.02–08The Yalta and Potsdam ConferencesUS representative at PotsdamOnly three months into the presidency, he faced Stalin at Potsdam, resisted Soviet reparation demands to avoid repeating Versailles, and hinted at the atomic bomb.
- 1945.08The Soviet Entry into the War against JapanUS issuer of the Potsdam DeclarationSucceeded Roosevelt and at Potsdam in July 1945 issued the declaration with Britain and China, excluding the USSR. On July 24 he told Stalin the US had a 'powerful new weapon'; Stalin already knew through Soviet intelligence.
- 1950–1953The Korean WarPresident who intervened and fired MacArthurHe decided to intervene in the Korean War, reviewed the possible use of atomic bombs, and relieved General MacArthur.