Word: trumans
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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When confronted by the great issues Harry Truman never flinched. The one that has brought him the heaviest criticism was the decision to drop the atomic bomb. As was his practice, Truman listened to both sides of the argument, thought, and then decided. Later he recalled: "We faced half a million casualties trying to take Japan by land. It was either that or the atom bomb, and I didn't hesitate a minute, and I've never lost any sleep over it since...
...wake of World War II, Truman enjoyed a brief honeymoon with the public. Then troubles came. Abroad, the Communists were pressing hard, backing an armed insurrection in Greece and threatening Turkey. In 1947, the hard-pressed British declared that they could no longer defend the borders of freedom in the eastern Mediterranean. Remote as such places then seemed to U.S. interests, the President proclaimed the Truman Doctrine: the U.S. would aid free countries threatened by Communist aggression...
Only months later, Truman initiated Secretary of State George Marshall's plan for the economic revival of Europe. Along with the largely military Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan probably staved off imminent revolution in some countries and provided Western Europe with the means to rebuild its cities and industries...
...home, Truman was less successful. He was heavily beset by postwar shortages, inflation, strikes and the mink-coat, deep-freezer hanky-panky of a few subordinates. In responding, Truman characteristically attacked rather than turned defensive. When the railroad workers struck, he threatened to seize the railroads. In early 1948, his popularity was at a low ebb. Panicky party strategists declared that if the Democrats did not appease the South, the party would vanish. Some seriously suggested that Truman should resign. Truman responded by proposing an elaborate series of civil rights measures that only further antagonized the South...
...Democratic Convention in Philadelphia kept him waiting until nearly 2 a.m. on a sweltering night in July 1948 before reluctantly nominating him for a full term. Harry Truman walked in, wearing an ice-cream suit that only a haberdasher from Missouri would choose for the occasion-and brought the dispirited convention cheering to its feet. He announced that he was calling a "Turnip Day" session of what he had labeled the "do-nothing" 80th Congress to give it a chance to enact its own Republican program...