Harry S. Truman

Limelight: President Truman presents the Medal for Merit to David K. Niles, 20 August 1947.

Mystery Man of the White House

David K. Niles worked in the shadows of US presidents. He also helped save their administrations.

Attlee and Truman

Jerry Brookshire shows that the ‘special relationship’ in 1945-51 was in safe, and curiously similar, hands.

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The Development of the Hydrogen Bomb

On January 31st, 1950, Truman announced that he had directed the Atomic Agency Commission 'to continue with its work on all forms of atomic energy weapons, including the so-called hydrogen or super-bomb'.

Truman and the Bomb

Alonzo Hamby considers Harry Truman's First World War experiences and explores the dilemmas that influenced his decision to drop atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In office April 1945 - January 1953

Democratic senator for Missouri from 1935, he became vice-president in 1944 and took over the presidency on Franklin D. Roosevelt's sudden death in April 1945. Truman authorized the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan. Forced to accept Soviet dominance in eastern Europe after World War II, he took the USA into the Cold War, announcing the Truman Doctrine (1947), ordering Marshall Aid (1947), joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and entering the Korean War (1950). His attempts to introduce liberal 'Fair Deal' legislation at home were frustrated by Congress. Victorious at the 1948 election, he retired in 1953.