Still, much of the effort required traditional research and old-fashioned gumshoe reporting, including filing Freedom of Information Act requests for FBI files and hunting through dozens of boxes of documents in library archives. The original papers of Clark Clifford, George Elsey, Margaret Truman, Howard McGrath, William Boyle, and so many others; intelligence files from the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency; State Department files; these documents provided the critical elements of detail and color necessary to put a book like this together.
Additionally, I used the memoirs and diaries of people who lived these experiences as firsthand accounts. The diaries of Defense Secretary James Forrestal, Senator Arthur Vandenberg, Henry Wallace, and David Lilienthal . . . the published papers of Robert Taft and General Lucius Clay . . . the memoirs of Clark Clifford, Joe Martin, Thomas Dewey, Richard Nixon, Margaret Truman, and Harry Truman . . . all of these sources proved crucial in my attempt to make the reader feel like he or she was in the room during these historic events and historic days.
The following books also proved vital: American Dreamer: A Life of Henry A. Wallace, by John C. Culver and John Hyde; Thomas E. Dewey and His Times, by Richard Norton Smith; Strom: The Complicated Personal and Political Life of Strom Thurmond, by Jack Bass and Marilyn W. Thompson; and Truman, by David McCullough. Additionally, Inside the Democratic Party, by Jack Redding; Out of the Jaws of Victory, by Jules Abels; and Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945–1948, by Robert J. Donovan, were helpful in laying the groundwork.
Introduction
“the most colorful and astonishing”: Robert J. Donovan, Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945–1948 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1996), p. 395.
“a gigantic comedy”: Jules Abels, Out of the Jaws of Victory: The Astounding Election of 1948 (New York: Henry Holt, 1959), p. viii.
“the wildest campaign”: Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman (New York: Morrow, 1973), p. 1.
“the Kremlin will sponsor”: Memorandum to Thomas Dewey dated November 15, 1947, Thomas E. Dewey Papers, Series 2, Box 28, Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester.
“The fate of the nation and”: “Where Politics Should End,” New York Times, August 20, 1948.
“The history of the”: Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, vol. 1, 1945: Year of Decisions (New York: Konecky & Konecky, 1955), p. 120.
1. “Whither Harry S. Truman?”
“All in”: “Truman Is at Conference,” Hartford Courant, August 15, 1945.
“I have received this afternoon”: President’s News Conference, August 14, 1945, Public Papers, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/public-papers/100/presidents-news-conference.
“That is all”: Ibid.
“We want Harry!”: “Truman Replies to Shouts of Crowd,” Christian Science Monitor, August 15, 1945.
“That was Harry”: David McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. 462.
“I told her”: Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, vol. 1, Year of Decisions, p. 438.
“[Truman] was on the White House”: “Truman Leads Cheering Throngs in Capitol’s Wildest Celebration,” Atlanta Constitution, August 15, 1945.
“This is a great day”: “Peace at Last: Truman Accepts Jap Unconditional Surrender,” Boston Daily Globe, August 15, 1945.
“We are faced with the greatest”: “Peace Victory: Japs Accept Allied Terms,” Los Angeles Times, August 15, 1945.
“Everyone seemed to feel”: Diary entry of Henry A. Wallace, August 7, 1945, in Wallace, The Price of Vision: The Diary of Henry Wallace, 1942–1946, edited by John M. Blum (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973), p. 471.
“we appear to be treating”: Harry S. Truman to General Dwight Eisenhower (memorandum enclosing the Harrison Report), September 29, 1945, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://www.ushmm.org/exhibition/displaced-persons/resourc2.htm.
“Secular history offers few”: Edward R. Murrow, In Search of Light: The Broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow, 1938–1961 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967), p. 102.
“Whither Harry S. Truman?”: “Right, Left? Truman Still Not Labeled,” Washington Post, September 9, 1945.
“The President’s task was”: Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (New York: W. W. Norton, 1969), p. 730.
“the foundation of my administration”: Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 482.
“Sam, one of the things”: Ibid., pp. 482–83.
“a combination of a first”: Ibid., p. 482.
“The Congress reconvenes”: “Special Message to the Congress Presenting a 21-Point Program for the Reconversion Period,” September 6, 1945, Public Papers, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/public-papers/128/special-message-congress-presenting-21-point-program-reconversion-period.
“The development of atomic energy”: Ibid.
“The President has to look”: Steve Neal, ed., HST: Memories of the Truman Years (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2003), p. 2.
“Not even President Roosevelt”: Cabell Phillips, The Truman Presidency: The History of a Triumphant Succession (London: Collier-Macmillan, 1966), p. 105.
“the most far-reaching collection”: Ibid.
“This begins the campaign of 1946”: Ibid.
2. “The Buck Stops Here!”
“[Truman] said . . . he was liable”: Diary entry of Eben Ayers, September 21, 1945, in Eben A. Ayers, Truman in the White House: The Diary of Eben A. Ayers (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991), p. 83.
“a declaration of war against”: Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 487.
“Everybody wants something”: Harry S. Truman to Martha Ellen and Mary Jane Truman, September 22, 1945, Papers of Harry S. Truman Pertaining to Family, Business, and Personal Affairs, Box 19, Truman archives.
“a future war with Soviet”: Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (New York: Vintage, 1995), p. 139.
“The atomic bomb, and the”: “Cabinet Meeting Minutes, September 21, 1945,” Personal Papers, Matthew J. Connelly Papers, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/personal-papers/notes-cabinet-meetings-i-1945-1946/september-21-1945.
“We do not have a secret”:
