POTUS 33 - President Harry S. Truman

click to enlarge

Harry Truman did not want to be vice president, and he didn't have to be for long. He was VPOTUS 83 days before FDR died in his fourth term of office.

He hoped to play the piano for a living, but opened a haberdashery with a fellow army buddy that went bust. Harry refused to declare bankruptcy and worked his entire life to pay the debts from the business. He got into politics.

In his bid for re-election in 1948, he was dubbed the loser to Thomas Dewey as newspaper headlines read DEWEY WINS when in fact Truman was the winner. You've seen the famous photograph of Harry holding the 'paper declaring Dewey the winner.

When bad reviews appeared in the press following his daughter Margaret's singing debut in NYC, he threatened to punch the reviewer in the nose.


click to enlarge. This photo with Lauren Bacall got Harry
into hot water with Bess. I can see why.

The President never removed his suit jacket while working in the Oval Office. Harry was not a shirt-sleeve guy.

When Japan refused to surrender in World War II, he made the decision to drop nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two cities devoted to war work. He may have ended the war, but he let the genie out of the bottle, and we've never been able to put the genie back.

In June 1950, when the Communist government of North Korea attacked South Korea, Truman again went to war: "There was no suggestion from anyone that either the United Nations or the United States could back away from it." A brutal struggle ensued as U.N. forces held a line above the old border of South Korea. Truman kept the war a limited one, and avoided engaging either China or Russia.

He retired in early 1953, succeeded by President Eisenhower.
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