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McCullough’s engaging portrayal of Harry Truman depicts a man of integrity, a trait rare in politicians. As president, his simple straightforward approach often led to extreme unpopularity. His inexperience and initial indecisiveness took its toll. But Harry Truman’s best quality as Clark Clifford noted, “was Harry Truman’s capacity to grow.�� Thrust into a job for which he was ill prepared, Truman overcame his shortcomings working through an onslaught of difficult problems to provide genuine leadership and unlike other presidents, maintain his principles while doing it. Even though unappreciated at the time, Truman proved to be a remarkable president.

McCullough covers every aspect of Truman’s life, but here I focus on his presidency and what I found most interesting, Truman’s ability to adapt while keeping his values. Truman’s character was shaped by hard work and hardship early in life. The same is true of LBJ. Both had fathers who failed financially making both highly motivated to succeed. Yet Truman developed morals while LBJ became Machiavellian, a difference which epitomized both their careers.

Truman was the compromise choice for FDR’s VP in 1944, acceptable to North and South, selected primarily on lack of political vulnerabilities rather than consideration of his ability to be president. This is somewhat surprising since FDR’s ill health was well known and Henry Wallace was dumped due to pressure from those who could not picture the extreme liberal Wallace as president. FDR let others pick his running mate in one of his typical political dances even though FDR knew his own health was failing. Even more disturbing, FDR did nothing to prepare Truman to assume the presidency, only meeting with him twice and never discussing anything of substance.

When Truman did take over, he was immediately faced with tough foreign policy issues in which he had absolutely no experience; How to end the war and deal with a postwar world with a communist Russia as a major power. His first test was meeting with Churchill and Stalin at the Potsdam conference as the war was winding down. Here, McCullough, whose affection for Truman shows throughout the book, cuts Truman some slack. He cites how well Truman prepared for his meeting with Churchill and Stalin. Truman prepared by reading background material and consulting with his Washington staff and his new Secretary of State Jimmy Byrnes, a former fellow Senator and ill-considered selection also with limited experience. Truman spent little time with his ambassador to Moscow, Averill Harriman (assisted by Kennan), who knew Stalin and Russian politics well. He also disregarded Churchill’s warnings about Stalin. Thus Truman approached Stalin idealistically thinking, as Roosevelt did before him, that he could deal with Stalin as a person of good faith. Harriman and his staff knew otherwise. Truman was completely fooled by Stalin. He thought well of Stalin and thought Stalin liked him. Stalin later told Khrushchev he thought Truman was “worthless��. Roosevelt and Truman were very different but both greatly overestimated their personal capacity to influence Stalin. Truman as he later admitted was naïve.

Preparation and organization were not hallmarks of Truman’s early presidency. Truman reacted to problems as they came rather than rigorously organizing an agenda. His hurriedly crafted a wide ranging liberal program announced upon his return from Potsdam that was not properly vetted or politically evaluated. His lofty propositions were rejected out of hand. Truman was over his head. He neither selected a competent staff he could work with nor did he master the art of delegation.

In foreign affairs he did not establish long term objectives around which to form a coherent policy. His indecisiveness encouraged the Soviet Union to do as it pleased and lost the respect of the American public. Stalin declared publically in February 1946 that Soviet and Western values were incompatible and another war inevitable. Truman reacted by speaking out of both sides of his mouth. Proponents of a hard line Soviet policy such as Admiral Leahy, Forrestal and Dean Acheson were sure the president agreed with them. Advocates of an accommodative policy such as Henry Wallace and Jimmy Byrnes were sure the President agreed with them.

More telling was his equivocation over Churchill’s famous “Iron Curtain�� speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri March 5, 1946. Truman invited Churchill to give the speech and traveled with him to Westminster, introduced him and supported Churchill’s hard line position in prior private conversation. Then Truman backtracked publically and completely once wide spread media criticism of Churchill’s speech appeared. He even invited Stalin, who he still said he liked, to America to give his own speech which Stalin declined. Just think what would have ensued if Stalin had accepted!

The public perception of the president as weak and befuddled weighed in domestic matters as well. In trying to resolve the 1946 railroad strike, one of many after the war, the president worked out a reasonable compromise. Truman’s top assistant, John Steelman, telling labor leaders they had to agree to a fair offer from the President of the United States, was told by them that nobody listened to this President. Ineffective in negotiations Truman decided to draft the strikers into the army. Told he was exceeding his constitutional limits, Truman responded that he wasn’t interested in philosophy. Think of a president saying that today! While the Senate voted down his proposed law, his speech to Congress was forceful and popular with the public. But this was followed by embarrassing disarray as Henry Wallace, Truman’s Secretary of Commerce, spoke out in direct contradiction of Truman’s Soviet policy. After more waffling and again looking weak, Truman finally fired Wallace, but the perception of his presidency was again one of incompetence. By the fall of 1946, his approval rating was 32%. A year earlier it had been 82%.

Truman’s fortunes ticked up in 1947 with the appointment of George Marshall as Secretary of State. Marshall was everything Truman hadn’t been: organized, a great delegator, a good judge of men. Marshall was also a team player something the man he replaced, Jimmy Byrnes was not. Marshall was respected and his choice reflected well on Truman. He was someone who Truman could work with and who would help him. Having also made Clark Clifford White House Counsel in 1946, with State Department Undersecretary Dean Acheson playing a more prominent role, the ascendance of George Kennan’s influence, Averill Harriman, Charles Bohlen and George Elsey staying on, Truman was finally assembling a talented team.

March 1947 marked a turning point when The Truman Doctrine advocating containment of Soviet expansion was presented to Congress and aid for Greece and Turkey requested. The Truman Doctrine was based partly on George Kennan’s famous “Long Telegram�� and the internal Clifford-Elsey Report. Finally a coherent policy of how to deal with the Soviet Union was being promulgated. This was followed by formulation of the Marshall Plan which recognized America’s interest in Europe’s economic success. The National Security Act followed in July establishing the CIA, the National Security Council, and the unification of the services under the Secretary of Defense. Truman was leading with huge masterful strokes choreographed by his recently formed and exceedingly loyal staff.

Just as he grew in his ability to craft foreign policy, so he grew in terms of Civil Rights. Coming in with a Southern heritage, in office he realized his country needed to change. He was the first president to address the NAACP. He put forward Civil Rights legislation to abolish the poll tax, outlaw lynching and support equal rights when such a stand in 1948 was unpopular with most voters. Later he issued an executive order to end discrimination in the armed forces and the civil service.

He handled the issue of the partition of Palestine and recognition of Israel reasonably well, given a heatedly divided staff. Truman hesitated; looking wobbly again, but in the end came through. His Secretary of State, the extremely popular General Marshall, was adamantly opposed, but with deference and patience, Truman was able to get him to acquiesce and the US became the first nation to recognize Israel. This was also politically expedient. Truman’s response to the Soviet blockade of Berlin was smart and effective. The blockade could have easily led to capitulation or conversely war. Truman threaded the needle with his long term airlift which his advisors told him wouldn’t work.

Truman’s 1948 campaign is the signature event in his career, his fortitude overcoming all odds, his persistence proving the naysayers wrong. It is unusual in national politics to see one person so right in his course, so confident in his decisions, when virtually every pundit, every poll was against him. Dewey helped, overconfident and not personable, running a lackluster campaign. Truman knew how to take advantage and he did it by standing for the things he really believed in. His authenticity connected with the American people.

Truman’s second term brought no respite. Only restraint and persistence saw him through. Russia acquiring the atomic bomb, the decision to develop the H-bomb, the Klaus Fuchs atomic secrets spy scandal, Joe McCarthy’s lists of “communist infiltrators��, North Korea’s invasion of South Korea and last but far from least Douglas MacArthur’s public defiance. As Truman related in retrospect, he was probably too patient with MacArthur. He and the country would have been better off if he had fired MacArthur months earlier. Truman deserves kudos for leadership. Firing MacArthur was extremely unpopular and Truman accepted the heat. He wasn’t devious, no FDR shell games. He fired MacArthur straight out knowing the firestorm of protest that awaited him.

Truman left office unloved and unwanted (22% approval, Nixon had 24% when he left office) by a public lost in McCarthyism and the tail fins growing on their cars. Only time would reveal his true legacy. Cast in a role he never envisioned, he got off to a shaky start, but in the end he held his own in the most demanding times in the most demanding job in the world even if the public did not appreciate it. And he did it the right way, without resorting to deceit, backhand deals and quid pro quos. He guided America through many complex and dangerous challenges. We in America were very fortunate to have him as our president. Truman was a great leader and McCullough’s book is a great testament to his accomplishments.