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On August 6, 1945, a plane
called the Enola Gay
dropped an atomic bomb
on the city of Hiroshima.
Instantly, 70,000 Japanese
citizens were vaporized.
In the months and years
that followed, an
additional 100,000
perished from burns and
radiation sickness.
This map shows the range
of the destruction
caused by the atomic
bomb dropped over
Hiroshima. Exploding
directly over a city of
320,000, the bomb
vaporized over 70,000
people instantly and
caused fires over two
miles away.
A "mushroom" cloud rises
over the city of Nagasaki on
August 9, 1945, following
the detonation of "Fat Man."
The second atomic weapon
used against Japan, this
single bomb resulted in the
deaths of 80,000 Japanese
citizens.
Two days later, the Soviet Union
declared war on Japan. On August 9,
a second atomic bomb was dropped
on Nagasaki, where 80,000 Japanese
people perished.
On August 14, 1945, the Japansese
surrendered.

When Japan surrendered
to the Allies at the end of
the long summer of 1945,
Americans were ecstatic.
Ticker tape parades were
staged in nearly every
town to welcome
America's returning
heroes.
Unfortunately, the euphoria could not last
long. Although the Soviet Union and the
United States were allied in their struggle
against Hitler's Germany, Americans
distrusted Josef Stalin's Communist
government and abhorred his takeover of
Eastern European countries immediately
after the war. More Soviet citizens were
killed in World War II than any other nation,
and Josef Stalin was determined to receive
compensation for damages and guarantees
that such a slaughter could never again
plague the Soviet people.



In 1946, 330 babies were being born every hour. The
Baby Boom has begun.
The term "baby boom" most often refers to the
dramatic post-World War II baby boom (1946-1964).
There are an estimated 78.3 million Americans who
were born during this demographic boom in births.
The term is a general demographic one and is also
applicable to other similar population expansions.
Post-World War II baby boom - Years of duration
vary, depending on the source ( 1943-1960, or 19461964).
For its part, the United States
was unwilling to sit idle while
another form of totalitarianism
spread westward from
Moscow. One war
immediately started another
— the Cold War.
The Cold War lasted about 45
years. There were no direct
military campaigns between the
two main antagonists, the United
States and the Soviet Union. Yet
billions of dollars and millions of
lives were lost in the fight.
No single foreign policy issue mattered more to
the United States for the next 50 years as much
as the Cold War. President Truman set the
direction for the next eight presidents with the
announcement of the containment policy.
Crises in Berlin, China, and Korea forced
Truman to back his words with actions. The
Cold War kept defense industries humming
and ultimately proved the limits of American
power in Vietnam. Democracy was tested
with outbreaks of Communist witch hunts.
The long-term causes of the Cold
War are clear. Western
democracies had always been
hostile to the idea of a communist
state. The United States had
refused recognition to the USSR
for 16 years after the Bolshevik
takeover.
Domestic fears of communism erupted
in a Red Scare in America in the
early Twenties. American business
leaders had long feared the
consequences of a politically driven
workers' organization. World War II
provided short-term causes as well.
There was hostility on the Soviet side as well.
Twenty million Russian citizens perished
during World War II. Stalin was enraged that
the Americans and British had waited so long
to open a front in France. This would have
relieved pressure on the Soviet Union from
the attacking Germans. Further, The United
States terminated Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet
Union before the war was complete. Finally,
the Soviet Union believed in communism.
Stalin made promises during the war about the
freedom of eastern Europe on which he
blatantly reneged. At the Yalta Conference,
the USSR pledged to enter the war against
Japan no later than three months after the
conclusion of the European war. In return, the
United States awarded the Soviets territorial
concessions from Japan and special rights in
Chinese Manchuria.
When the Soviet Union entered the war between
the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the
United States no longer needed their aid, but
Stalin was there to collect on Western
promises. All these factors contributed to a
climate of mistrust that heightened tensions at
the outbreak of the Cold War.
At Potsdam, the Allies agreed on the postwar
outcome for Nazi Germany. After territorial
adjustments, Germany was divided into four
occupation zones with the United States,
Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union
each administering one. Germany was to be
democratized and de-Nazified. Once the Nazi
leaders were arrested and war crimes trials
began, a date would be agreed upon for the
election of a new German government and the
withdrawal of Allied troops.
This process was executed in the zones held by
the western Allies. In the eastern Soviet
occupation zone, a puppet communist regime
was elected. There was no promise of
repatriation with the west. Soon such
governments, aided by the Soviet Red Army
came to power all across eastern Europe.
Stalin was determined to create a buffer zone
to prevent any future invasion of the Russian
heartland.
Winston Churchill
remarked in 1946
that an "iron
curtain had
descended across
the continent.“
The Big Three of Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin
had devoted hours of dialogue to the nature of
a United Nations. After agreeing on the
general principles at the Dumbarton Oaks and
Yalta Conferences, delegates from around the
world met in San Francisco to write a charter.
With the nation still mourning the recent
death of Franklin Roosevelt, his wife Eleanor
addressed the delegates. Despite considerable
enmity and conflicts of interest among the
attending nations, a charter was ultimately
approved by unanimous consent.
Despite the ideological animosity spawned by
the Cold War, a new spirit of globalism was
born after WWII. It was based, in part, on the
widespread recognition of the failures of
isolationism. The incarnation of this global
sprit came to life with the establishment of the
United Nations in 1945 with its headquarters
in New York City.
World leaders met at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington,
D.C., in August 1944 to formulate plans for a new
organization to promote international cooperation.
The general principles established there provided the
foundation for the United Nations charter.
When the Red Army marched on
Germany, it quickly absorbed the
nearby nations Estonia, Latvia,
and Lithuania into the Soviet
Union. Soon communist forces
dominated the governments of
Romania and Bulgaria.
By the fall of 1945, it was clear that the
Soviet-backed Lublin regime had
complete control of Poland, violating the
Yalta promise of free and unfettered
elections there. It was only a matter of
time before Hungary and
Czechoslovakia fell into the Soviet orbit.
Yugoslavia had an independent
communist leader named Tito.
And now Stalin was ordering the creation of a
communist puppet regime in the Soviet sector
of occupied Germany. How many dominoes
would fall? United States diplomats saw a
continent ravaged by war looking for strong
leadership and aid of any sort, providing a
climate ripe for revolution. Would the Soviets
get all of Germany? Or Italy and France?
President Truman was determined to reverse
this trend.
Greece and Turkey were the first nations
spiraling into crisis that had not been directly
occupied by the Soviet Army. Both countries
were on the verge of being taken over by
Soviet-backed guerrilla movements. Truman
decided to draw a line in the sand. In March
1947, he asked Congress to appropriate $400
million to send to these two nations in the
form of military and economic assistance.
Within two years the communist threat had
passed, and both nations were comfortably in
the western sphere of influence.
A mid-level diplomat in the State
Department named George Kennan
proposed the policy of containment.
Since the American people were weary
from war and had no desire to send
United States troops into Eastern Europe,
rolling back the gains of the Red Army
would have been impossible.
But in places where communism threatened to
expand, American aid might prevent a
takeover. By vigorously pursuing this policy,
the United States might be able to contain
communism within its current borders. The
policy became known as the Truman Doctrine,
as the President outlined these intentions with
his request for monetary aid for Greece and
Turkey.
Truman stated the Doctrine: it would be "the policy
of the United States to support free peoples who
are resisting attempted subjugation by armed
minorities or by outside pressures." Truman
reasoned, because these "totalitarian regimes"
coerced "free peoples," they represented a threat
to international peace and the national security of
the United States. Truman made the plea amid
the crisis of the Greek Civil War (1946–1949). He
argued that if Greece and Turkey did not receive
the aid that they urgently needed, they would
inevitably fall to communism with grave
consequences throughout the region.
The policy won the support of Congress and
involved sending $400 million in American
money, but no military forces, to the region. The
effect was to end the Communist threat, and in
1952 both countries joined NATO, a military
alliance that guaranteed their protection.[2]
The Doctrine shifted American foreign policy
toward the Soviet Union from détente
(friendship) to, as George F. Kennan phrased it, a
policy of containment of Soviet expansion.
Historians often use it to mark the starting date of
the Cold War.
In the aftermath of WWII, Western Europe lay
devastated. The war had ruined crop fields and
destroyed infrastructure, leaving most of Europe
in dire need. On June 5, 1947, Secretary of State
George Marshall announced the European
Recovery Program. To avoid antagonizing the
Soviet Union, Marshall announced that the
purpose of sending aid to Western Europe was
completely humanitarian, and even offered aid to
the communist states in the east. Congress
approved Truman's request of $17 billion over
four years to be sent to Great Britain, France,
West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and
Belgium.
The Marshall Plan created an economic miracle
in Western Europe. By the target date of the
program four years later, Western European
industries were producing twice as much as
they had been the year before war broke out.
Some Americans grumbled about the costs,
but the nation spent more on liquor during the
years of the Marshall Plan than they sent
overseas to Europe. The aid also produced
record levels of trade with American firms,
fueling a postwar economic boom in the
United States.
Berlin, Germany's wartime capital was the prickliest of
all issues that separated the United States and Soviet
Union during the late 1940s. The city was divided
into four zones of occupation like the rest of
Germany.
However, the entire city lay within the Soviet
zone of occupation. Once the nation of East
Germany was established, the Allied sections
of the capital known as West Berlin became an
island of democracy and capitalism behind the
Iron Curtain.
The Soviets decided to seal all land routes going
into West Berlin. Stalin gambled that the
Western powers were not willing to risk
another war to protect half of Berlin. The Allies
were tired, and their populations were unlikely
to support a new war. A withdrawal by the
United States would eliminate this democratic
enclave in the Soviet zone.
Truman was faced with tough choices. Relinquishing
Berlin to the Soviets would seriously undermine the
new doctrine of containment. Any negotiated
settlement would suggest that the USSR could
engineer a crisis at any time to exact concessions. If
Berlin were compromised, the whole of West
Germany might question the American commitment
to German democracy.
To Harry Truman, there was
no question. "We are going
to stay, period, " he
declared. Together, with
Britain, the United States
began moving massive
amounts of food and
supplies into West Berlin by
the only path still open —
the air.
Truman had thrown the
gauntlet at Stalin's feet. The
USSR had to now choose
between war and peace. He
refused to give the order to
shoot down the American
planes. Over the next eleven
months, British and
American planes flew over
4000 tons of supplies into
West Berlin. As the
American public cheered
"Operation Vittles,"
Stalin began to look bad in the eyes of the world. He
was clearly willing to use innocent civilians as pawns
to quench his expansionist thirst. In May 1949, the
Soviets ended the blockade. The United States and
Britain had flown over 250,000-supply missions.
Stalin miscalculated when he
estimated
the strength of western unity.
To cement the cooperation that the western
allies had shown during the war and
immediate postwar years, the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization was created in April 1949.
The pact operated on the basis of collective
security. If any one of the member states were
attacked, all would retaliate together. The
original NATO included Britain, France, Italy,
the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Iceland,
Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, and
NATO was the very sort of permanent alliance George
Washington warned against in his Farewell Address,
and represented the first such agreement since the
Franco-American Alliance that helped secure victory
in the American Revolution.
The United States formally shed its isolationist past and
thrust itself forward as a determined superpower
fighting its new rival.
The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between
the Kuomintang (KMT or Chinese Nationalist Party),
the governing party of the Republic of China and the
Communist Party of China (CPC). The war began in
April 1927, amidst the Northern Expedition. The war
represented an ideological split between the
Western-supported Nationalist KMT, and the Sovietsupported Communist CPC. In mainland China
today, the war is more commonly known as the War
of Liberation.
The civil war continued
intermittently until the
Second World War
interrupted it, resulting
in the two parties
forming a Second
United Front. Japan's
campaign was defeated
in 1945, marking the
end of World War II,
and China's full-scale
civil war resumed in
1946..
Chiang
Kai-shek
Mao
Zedong
From left to right: US diplomat Patrick J.
Hurley, Chiang Ching-kuo, Chiang Kaishek, Chang Ch'ün, Wang Shi Jie (王世杰),
Mao Zedong
After a further four years, 1950 saw a cessation of major
military hostilities—with the newly founded People's
Republic of China controlling mainland China
(including Hainan Island), and the Republic of
China's jurisdiction being restricted to Taiwan,
Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and several outlying
Fujianese islands. To this day, since no armistice or
peace treaty has ever been signed, there is
controversy as to whether the Civil War has legally
ended.
On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's
Republic of China with its capital at Beiping, which was
renamed Beijing. Chiang Kai-shek and approximately 2
million Nationalist Chinese retreated from mainland
China to the island of Taiwan. There remained only
isolated pockets of resistance, notably in Sichuan (ending
soon after the fall of Chengdu on December 10, 1949) and
in the far south.
A PRC attempt to take the ROC controlled island of
Kinmen was thwarted in the Battle of Kuningtou
halting the PLA advance towards Taiwan. In
December 1949, Chiang proclaimed Taipei, Taiwan,
the temporary capital of the Republic of China and
continued to assert his government as
the sole legitimate authority in China.
The Communists' other amphibious operations of 1950
were more successful: they led to the Communist
conquest of Hainan Island in April 1950, capture of
Wanshan Islands off the Guangdong coast (May–
August 1950) and of Zhoushan Island off Zhejiang
(May 1950).
Containment had not gone so well in Asia. When the
Soviet Union entered the war against Japan, they
sent troops into Japanese-occupied Korea. As
American troops established a presence in the
southern part of the Korean peninsula, the Soviets
began cutting roads and communications at the 38th
parallel. Two separate governments were emerging,
as Korea began to resemble the divided Germany.
Upon the recommendation of the UN, elections were
scheduled, but the North refused to participate. The
South elected Syngman Rhee as president, but the
Soviet-backed North was ruled by Kim Il Sung.
When the United States withdrew its forces from the
peninsula, trouble began.
Northern Korean armed
forces crossed the 38th
parallel on June 25, 1950. It
took only two days for
President Truman to commit
the United States military to
the defense of southern
Korea. Truman hoped to
build a broad coalition
against the aggressors from
the North by enlisting support
from the United Nations.
Of course, the Soviet Union could veto any proposed
action by the Security Council, but this time, the
Americans were in luck. The Soviets were boycotting
the Security Council for refusing to admit Red China
into the United Nations. As a result, the Council
voted unanimously to "repel the armed attack" of
North Korea. Many countries sent troops to defend
the South, but forces beyond those of the United
States and South Korea were nominal.
The commander of the UN forces
was none other than Douglas
MacArthur. He had an uphill
battle to fight, as the North had
overrun the entire peninsula with
the exception of the small Pusan
Perimeter in the South. MacArthur
ordered an amphibious assault at
Inchon on the western side of the
peninsula on September 15.
Caught by surprise, the communistbacked northern forces reeled in
retreat. American led-forces from
Inchon and the Pusan Perimeter
quickly pushed the northern
troops to the 38th Parallel — and
kept going. The United States saw
an opportunity to create a
complete indivisible democratic
Korea and pushed the northern
army up to the Yalu River, which
borders China.
With anticommunism on the rise at home, Truman
relished the idea of reuniting Korea. His hopes were
dashed on November 27, when over 400,000 Chinese
soldiers flooded across the Yalu River. In 1949, Mao
Tse-tung had established a communist dictatorship
in China, the world's most populous nation. The
Chinese now sought to aide the communists in
northern Korea.
In no time, American troops were once again forced
below the 38th Parallel. General MacArthur wanted
to escalate the war. He sought to bomb the Chinese
mainland and blockade their coast.
Truman disagreed. He feared escalation of the conflict
could lead to World War III, especially if the now
nuclear-armed Soviet Union lent assistance to China.
Disgruntled, MacArthur took his case directly to the
American people by openly criticizing Truman's
approach. Truman promptly fired him for
insubordination.
The Battle of Chosin Reservoir, also known as
the Chosin Reservoir Campaign or the
Changjin Lake Campaign (simplified Chinese:
长津湖战役; pinyin: Cháng Jīn Hū Zhàn Yì),
was a decisive battle in the Korean War.
Shortly after the People's Republic of China
entered the conflict, the People's Volunteer
Army 9th Army infiltrated the northeastern
part of North Korea and surprised the US X
Corps at the Chosin Reservoir area.
A brutal seventeen day battle in freezing weather soon
followed. In the period between 27 November and 13
December 1950, 30,000 United Nations (UN) troops
(nicknamed "The Chosin Few") under the command
of Major General Edward Almond were encircled by
approximately 60,000 Chinese troops under the
command of Song Shi-Lun. Although Chinese troops
managed to surround and outnumber the UN forces,
the UN forces broke out of the encirclement while
inflicting crippling losses on the Chinese. The
evacuation of the X Corps from the port of Hungnam
marked the complete withdrawal of UN troops from
North Korea.
Meanwhile, the war evolved into a stalemate,
with the front line corresponding more or less
to the 38th Parallel. Ceasefire negotiations
dragged on for two more years, beyond
Truman's Presidency. Finally, on July 27, 1953,
an armistice was signed at Panmunjom. North
Korea remained a communist dictatorship, and
South Korea remained under the control of
Syngman Rhee, a military strong man. Over
53,000 Americans were killed in the conflict.
The end of World War II brought a series of
challenges to Harry Truman. The entire
economy had to be converted from a wartime
economy to a consumer economy. Strikes that
had been delayed during the war erupted with
a frenzy across America. Inflation threatened as
millions of Americans planned to spend wealth
they had not enjoyed since 1929. As the soldiers
returned home, they wanted their old jobs
back, creating a huge labor surplus. Truman,
distracted by new threats overseas, was faced
with additional crises at home.
To provide relief for the veterans of World War II,
and to diminish the labor surplus, Congress
passed the Serviceman's Readjustment Act of
1944. Known as the GI Bill of Rights, this law
granted government loans to veterans who
wished to start a new business or build a home.
It also provided money for veterans to attend
school or college. Thousands took advantage,
and Americans enjoyed the double bonus of
relieving unemployment and investing in a
more educated workforce.
Although Truman maintained wartime price
controls for over a year after the war, he was
pressured to end them by the Republican
Congress in 1947. Inflation skyrocketed and
workers immediately demanded pay increases.
Strikes soon spread across America involving
millions of American workers.
Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act, which
allowed the President to declare a "cooling-off"
period if a strike were to erupt. Union leaders
became liable for damages in lawsuits and
were required to sign noncommunist oaths.
The ability of unions to contribute to political
campaigns was limited. Truman vetoed this
measure, but it was passed by the Congress
nonetheless.
Serious issues remained. Now that nuclear power
was a reality, who would control the
fissionable materials? In August 1946, Truman
signed the Atomic Energy Act, which gave the
government a monopoly over all nuclear
material. Five civilians would head the Atomic
Energy Commission. They directed the
peaceful uses of the atom. The President was
vested with exclusive authority to launch a
nuclear strike. The military was also
reorganized.
The War Department was eliminated and a new
Defense Department was created. The
Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force
were subordinate to the new Secretary of
Defense. The National Security Council was
created to coordinate the Departments of State
and Defense. Finally, a Central Intelligence
Agency was established to monitor espionage
activities around the globe.
In 1948, Harry Truman faced reelection. Almost
every political spin-doctor in the nation
predicted a victory by the Republican
Governor of New York, Thomas Dewey. The
Democratic Party was split three ways. In
addition to Truman, Henry Wallace
represented the liberal wing on the Progressive
Party ticket. J. Strom Thurmond ran as a
"Dixiecrat" Southern candidate who thought
Truman too liberal on civil rights.
Truman ran a whistle-stop train campaign across
the land, hoping to win by holding onto the
Solid South and retaining the support of
organized labor. He also became the first
candidate to campaign openly for the African
American vote.
Against everyone's predictions but his own,
Truman prevailed on election day. He had
hoped to enact a socially expansive Fair Deal,
much along the lines of the New Deal of FDR,
but conservative Democrats and Republicans in
the Congress blocked most of his initiatives.
Of the Presidency Truman wrote, "The President
— whoever he is — has to decide. He can't pass
the buck to anybody. No one else can do the
deciding for him. That's his job."
Harry Truman kept this sign on his desk to make it
known that he would not be "passing the buck" on to
anyone else.
Throughout his presidency, Truman had to deal
with accusations that the federal government
was harboring Soviet spies at the highest level.
Testimony in Congress on this issue garnered
national attention, and thousands of people
were fired as security risks. An optimistic,
patriotic man, Truman was dubious about
reports of potential Communist or Soviet
penetration of the U.S. government, and his oftquoted response was to dismiss the allegations
as a "red herring."
In August 1948, Whittaker Chambers, a former
spy for the Soviets and a senior editor at Time
magazine, testified before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC) and
presented a list of what he said were members
of an underground communist network
working within the United States government
in the 1930s. One was Alger Hiss, a senior State
Department official. Hiss denied the
accusations.
Chambers' revelations led to a crisis in American
political culture, as Hiss was convicted of
perjury, in a controversial trial. On February 9,
1950, Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy
accused the State Department of having
communists on the payroll, and specifically
claimed that Secretary of State Dean Acheson
knew of, and was protecting, 205 communists
within the State Department.At issue was
whether Truman had removed all the
subversive agents that had entered the
government during the Roosevelt years.
McCarthy insisted that he had not.
By spotlighting this issue and attacking Truman's
administration, McCarthy quickly established
himself as a national figure, and his explosive
allegations dominated the headlines. His
claims were short on confirmable details, but
they nevertheless transfixed a nation struggling
to come to grips with frightening new realities:
the Soviet Union's nuclear explosion, the loss of
U.S. atom bomb secrets, the fall of China to
communism, and new revelations of Soviet
intelligence penetration of other U.S. agencies,
including the Treasury Department.
Truman, a pragmatic man who had made allowances for
the likes of Tom Pendergast and Stalin, quickly
developed an unshakable loathing of Joseph McCarthy.
He counterattacked, saying that "Americanism" itself was
under attack by elements "who are loudly proclaiming
that they are its chief defenders. ... They are trying to
create fear and suspicion among us by the use of slander,
unproved accusations and just plain lies. ... They are
trying to get us to believe that our Government is riddled
with communism and corruption. ... These
slandermongers are trying to get us so hysterical that no
one will stand up to them for fear of being called a
communist. Now this is an old communist trick in
reverse. ... That is not fair play. That is not Americanism."
Nevertheless Truman was never able to shake his image
among the public of being unable to purge his
government of subversive influences.
United States' involvement in Indochina widened during
the Truman administration. On V-J Day 1945,
Vietnamese Communist leader Ho Chi Minh declared
independence from France, but the U.S. announced its
support of restoring French power. In 1950, Ho again
declared Vietnamese independence, which was
recognized by Communist China and the Soviet Union.
Ho controlled a remote territory along the Chinese
border, while France controlled the remainder. Truman's
"containment policy" called for opposition to Communist
expansion, and led the U.S. to continue to recognize
French rule, support the French client government, and
increase aid to Vietnam. However, a basic dispute
emerged: the Americans wanted a strong and
independent Vietnam, while the French cared little about
containing China but instead wanted to suppress local
nationalism and integrate Indochina into the French
Union.
In 1948 Truman ordered a controversial addition to the
exterior of the White House: a second-floor balcony in
the south portico that came to be known as the "Truman
Balcony." The addition was unpopular.
Not long afterwards, engineering experts concluded that the
building, much of it over 130 years old, was in a
dangerously dilapidated condition. That August, a
section of floor collapsed and Truman's own bedroom
and bathroom were closed as unsafe. No public
announcement about the serious structural problems of
the White House was made until after the 1948 election
had been won, by which time Truman had been
informed that his new balcony was the only part of the
building that was sound.
The Truman family moved into nearby Blair House; as
the newer West Wing, including the Oval Office,
remained open, Truman found himself walking to
work across the street each morning and afternoon.
In due course the decision was made to demolish
and rebuild the whole interior of the main White
House, as well as excavating new basement levels
and underpinning the foundations. The famous
exterior of the structure, however, was buttressed
and retained while the renovations proceeded inside.
The work lasted from December 1949 until March
1952.
In response to a labor/management impasse
arising from bitter disagreements over wage
and price controls, Truman instructed his
Secretary of Commerce, Charles W. Sawyer, to
take control of a number of the nation's steel
mills in April 1952. Truman cited his authority
as Commander in Chief and the need to
maintain an uninterrupted supply of steel for
munitions to be used in the war in Korea.
The Supreme Court found Truman's actions
unconstitutional, however, and reversed the order
in a major separation-of-powers decision,
Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer. The 6–3
decision, which held that Truman's assertion of
authority was too vague and was not rooted in any
legislative action by Congress, was delivered by a
Court composed entirely of Justices appointed by
either Truman or Roosevelt. The high court's
reversal of Truman's order was one of the notable
defeats of his presidency. After coal miners went
on strike in the spring of 1946, Truman threatened
to draft the miners into the Army if they did not
return to work, or use members of the Army to
replace the workers.
In 1950, the Senate, led by Estes Kefauver, investigated
numerous charges of corruption among senior
Administration officials, some of whom received fur
coats and deep freezers for favors. The Internal
Revenue Service (IRS) was involved. In 1950, 166 IRS
employees either resigned or were fired, and many
were facing indictments from the Department of
Justice on a variety of tax-fixing and bribery charges,
including the assistant attorney general in charge of
the Tax Division.
When Attorney General Howard McGrath fired the special
prosecutor for being too zealous, Truman fired McGrath.
Historians agree that Truman himself was innocent and
unaware—with one exception. In 1945, Mrs. Truman
received a new, expensive, hard-to-get deep freezer. The
businessman who provided the gift was the president of
a perfume company and, thanks to Truman's aide and
confidante General Harry Vaughan, received priority to
fly to Europe days after the war ended, where he bought
new perfumes. On the way back he "bumped" a
wounded veteran from a flight back to the US. Disclosure
of the episode in 1949 humiliated Truman. The President
responded by vigorously defending Vaughan, an old
friend with an office in the White House itself. Vaughan
was eventually connected to multiple influence-peddling
scandals.
Charges that Soviet agents had infiltrated the government
bedeviled the Truman Administration and became a
major campaign issue for Eisenhower in 1952. In 1947,
Truman issued Executive Order 9835 to set up loyalty
boards to investigate espionage among federal
employees.Between 1947 and 1952, "about 20,000
government employees were investigated, some 2500
resigned 'voluntarily,' and 400 were fired." He did,
however, strongly oppose mandatory loyalty oaths for
governmental employees, a stance that led to charges
that his Administration was soft on Communism. In
1953, Senator Joseph McCarthy and Attorney General
Herbert Brownell, Jr. claimed that Truman had known
Harry Dexter White was a Soviet spy when Truman
appointed him to the International Monetary Fund.
A 1947 report by the Truman administration titled To
Secure These Rights presented a detailed ten-point
agenda of civil rights reforms. In February 1948, the
president submitted a civil rights agenda to Congress
that proposed creating several federal offices devoted to
issues such as voting rights and fair employment
practices. This provoked a storm of criticism from
Southern Democrats in the run up to the national
nominating convention, but Truman refused to
compromise, saying: "My forebears were Confederates. . .
. But my very stomach turned over when I had learned
that Negro soldiers, just back from overseas, were being
dumped out of Army trucks in Mississippi and beaten."
In retirement however, Truman was less progressive on
the issue
Instead of addressing civil rights on a case by case need,
Truman wanted to address civil rights on a national
level. Truman made three executive orders that
eventually became a structure for future civil rights
legislation. The first executive order, Executive Order
9981 in 1948, is generally understood to be the act that
desegregated the armed services. This was a milestone
on a long road to desegregation of the Armed Forces.
After several years of planning, recommendations and
revisions between Truman, the Committee on Equality of
Treatment and Opportunity and the various branches of
the military, Army units became racially integrated. This
process was also helped by the pressure of manpower
shortages during the Korean War, as replacements to
previously segregated units could now be of any race.
The second, also in 1948, made it illegal to discriminate
against persons applying for civil service positions
based on race. The third executive order, in 1951,
established Committee on Government Contract
Compliance (CGCC). This committee ensured that
defense contractors to the armed forces could not
discriminate against a person on account of race.