Harry S. Truman, (born May 8, 1884, Lamar, Mo., U.S.—died Dec. 26, 1972, Kansas City, Mo.), 33rd president of the U.S. (1945–53). He worked at various jobs before serving with distinction in World War I. He became a partner in a Kansas City haberdashery; when the business failed, he entered Democratic Party politics with the help of Thomas Pendergast. He was elected county judge (1922–24), and he later became presiding judge of the county court (1926–34). His reputation for honesty and good management gained him bipartisan support. In the U.S. Senate (1935–45), he led a committee that exposed fraud in defense production. In 1944 he was chosen to replace the incumbent Henry Wallace as the Democratic Party vice presidential nominee, and he won election with Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt. After only 82 days as vice president, he became president on Roosevelt’s death (April 1945). He quickly made final arrangements for the San Francisco charter-writing meeting of the UN, helped arrange Germany’s unconditional surrender on May 8, which ended World War II in Europe, and in July attended the Potsdam Conference. The Pacific war ended officially on September 2, after he ordered atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; his justification was a report that 500,000 U.S. troops would be lost in a conventional invasion of Japan. He announced what would become known as the Truman Doctrine, which entailed aid for Greece and Turkey (1947); established the Central Intelligence Agency; and pressed for passage of the Marshall Plan to aid the economic recovery of western Europe. In the 1948 presidential election he defeated Thomas Dewey despite widespread expectation of his own defeat. On July 26, 1948, Truman issued an executive order banning segregation in the armed forces. He initiated a foreign policy of containment to restrict the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence, pursued his Point Four Program, and initiated the Berlin airlift (see Berlin blockade and airlift) and the NATO pact of 1949. He sent troops under Gen. Douglas MacArthur to fight in the Korean War. Problems of pursuing the war occupied his administration until he retired. Though he was often criticized during his presidency, his reputation grew steadily in later years.
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