What sort of statesman?
Harry S Truman became President of the United States on 12 April 1945, amidst profound concern about his capacity for national or world leadership. He was untutored in foreign affairs, and knew nothing about the complex diplomacy of his predecessor, Franklin D Roosevelt. At the same time the expedient Anglo-American-Soviet alliance - formed in opposition to Nazi Germany during World War Two - was growing strained over Russian actions in eastern Europe, and over Allied policy differences towards a soon-to-be defeated Germany.
'...growing acclaim for his policies has overlooked the way in which his parochial ... outlook infused his policy-making...'
After seven years in office, in his last year in the White House, Republicans would charge that Truman's administration had surrendered 15 countries and 500 million people to Communism, and sent 20,000 Americans to their deaths in Korea. But the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, would tell the US President that on the contrary it was he, more than anyone else, who had 'saved western civilisation' from Soviet aggression. And Truman's biographers, such as the prominent Labour MP Roy Jenkins, subsequently hailed him as a provincial politician who became a 'world statesman', and credited his administration with forging the containment policy that ultimately brought the demise of the Soviet Union and Communism.
Undoubtedly, Truman profoundly shaped US foreign policy during 1945-53, and had great success regarding postwar reconstruction in Europe and Japan. But growing acclaim for his policies has overlooked the way in which his parochial and nationalist outlook infused his policy-making, intensified Soviet-American conflict and division in Europe, and led to tragic interventions in Asian civil wars that made America's Cold War 'victory' exceedingly costly.
Published: 2006-06-26
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