That afternoon, Truman stood on a platform watching dignitaries roll by in cars in the traditional inaugural parade, smiling and waving at each of them. When Strom Thurmond’s car cruised by, Truman suddenly stopped waving and turned his back on the South Carolina governor. Thurmond would later recall that Truman’s voice was picked up by a microphone. According to Thurmond, Truman told the new VP, Alben Barkley, “Don’t you wave to the S.O.B.”
Truman’s first major appearance after the election was his first speech as an elected president: the 1949 State of the Union address. In speechwriting meetings before the event, Truman explained that he was going to double down on the same liberal policies that had turned the country against him when he released his 21-Point Program to Congress in September of 1945. He would fight for universal military training, a higher minimum wage, investment in education programs, wider Social Security coverage, and a healthcare system that would “enable every American to afford good medical care.” He would also begin his fight to repeal the Taft-Hartley Act. Advisers asked him if he was going too far, too fast. This was what the people had voted for, Truman said, and this was what they were going to get.
In his speech on January 5, 1949, Truman packaged his policies—echoes of the New Deal era—as the “Fair Deal.” The reaction was mixed, running from outright approval to stiff dissension. And so began the tug-of-war of the Democratic process, all over again.
Truman had won four more years, but they promised to be years that would put decisions on the president’s desk of incalculable risk, with stakes that could not be measured. Dangers lurked in all directions, and the existence of the human race was at stake. Americans could only hope that they had made the right choice on November 2. The CBS radio man Edward R. Murrow finished his election-result broadcast in 1948 by saying: “He [the president] . . . is beset by massive problems. I do not know whether the next four years will reveal him to be a great President. But they had better.”
Acknowledgments
On any number of nights during the writing and editing of this book, I awoke at 2 a.m. in a cold sweat, wondering how I was going to finish this thing, what critics might think of it, what minute fact I might get wrong, or which of the thousands of sentences was not perfectly constructed. And finally: how I could ever thank all the people who helped me, in ways maybe they don’t even know.
This is my fourth book with the same publisher and agent. Thank you to all the team at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, particularly my editors Bruce Nichols, Ivy Givens, and Jennifer Freilach. My agent Scott Waxman of the Waxman Literary Agency has been my teammate now for over ten years and I am so blessed to call him my friend. Megan Wilson at HMH is a superstar and so too is Melissa Dobson, who copyedited this book. Endless thank-yous to all of you!
I would like to thank the archivists at the Harry S. Truman Library & Museum in Independence, Missouri; at the University of Rochester library’s Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation division; and at Columbia University’s Oral History Archives. The work that archivists do is imperative to preserving and understanding our nation’s history, and the fact that all these archives exist and that people can have access to them is a testament to the freedom that is at the root of our democracy.
A special thank-you goes to Lisa Sullivan and all of the team at the Truman Library Institute, from which I received a research grant. (At no time did anyone from the institute ask to see any part of my manuscript before it was published.) Particular gratitude goes to Professor Jon Taylor at the University of Central Missouri for his careful read of this manuscript.
The Baime family is a true team. We tackle the challenges of life together. Thank you to my wife, Michelle. Since the day I met you on July 19, 2000, my every day has been better, brighter, and more fulfilling. My kids, Clay and Audrey, I am proud to say, are now Truman experts. I love you both more than I ever thought possible. Keep playing guitars, clarinets, and pianos; keep skiing moguls; keep earning As; and most importantly, keep being you. Thank you to my parents, David and Denise, for so many things, not least of all reading drafts of various chapters of this book. You would have made great editors.
I would also like to thank the rest of my family, for whom I can never repay for all their love and kindness through the years: Abby Baime, Susan Baime, my Aunt Karen and Uncle Ken Segal, the late Bill Green and the late Mildred Leventhal, my “outlaws” Connie and the late Bill Burdick, Jack and Margo Ezell, my many wonderful cousins of the Crystal/Sabel/Segal clan, Peter and the late Ellen Segal, and the late Ken and Edna Wheeldon.
To paraphrase Geoffrey Chaucer, go little book!
Notes
Harry Truman once wrote, “It is my opinion that the only accurate source of information on which to make a proper historical assessment of the performances of past Presidents is in the presidential files.” For this reason, for this book (and for my previous book, The Accidental President), I spent four weeks collecting material at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library & Museum in Independence, Missouri. I also spent a week at the University of Rochester, researching the Thomas Dewey papers, and some time at Columbia University’s library archives, researching the oral histories of members of the 1948 Progressive Party.
During the last ten-plus years, the process of historical research has changed, for the better. Today, vast amounts of
