TRUMAN'S RECORD
MERRIAM, ALAN P.
Truman's Record THE TRUMAN PRESIDENCY: THE HISTORY OF A TRIUMPHANT SUCCESSION, by Cabell Phillips. Macmillan. 463 pp. $8.95. Reviewed by Bart Bernstein TOURIN G Harry Truman's years in...
...In many ways the Truman Doctrine was the first example of American counter-insurgency...
...Though P.M.S...
...The sections on early postwar politics and the campaign of 1948 are vigorous and effective...
...Blackett, William Appleman Williams, J.P...
...Truman could not halt the conservative alliance which thwarted many of his efforts...
...Truman's case, concludes his admirer, "the answer is an emphatic Yes...
...Had Enough...
...Nor can these Americans approve of the careless rhetoric of those years which falsely divided the world into "free" and "unfree," or of the alliances in the name of freedom with the enemies of freedom...
...Truman's foreign policy contributed to the political climate in which Senator Joseph McCarthy could flourish...
...In view of President Truman's reluctance to do battle, Phillips' appraisal—that Mr...
...Or consider the author's treatment of the Greek civil war...
...In domestic affairs the President was awkward and unsuccessful, and frequently his subordinates undercut his programs...
...In many ways this official "witchhunting" and the militant rhetoric of Mr...
...that a Twentieth Century Fund report concluded that many of the guerrillas were not Communists but had fled to the hills because of government-directed repression and terrorism...
...Or, to cite just one more of many items of unsettling evidence: Secretary of War Henry Stimson confided that Byrnes was going to the London conference with the Soviets "and wished to have the implied threat of the bomb in his pocket...
...Morray, and D.F...
...Throughout the book the conventional wisdom on foreign policy shapes judgments...
...In Mr...
...Praising Mr...
...Unfortunately, he neglects another defect: it confused security with loyalty...
...In Mr...
...But for those who condemn the use of nuclear weapons or regard the Administration's early foreign policy as more aggressive than innocent, there is a different and less pleasant answer...
...Had Phillips gone beyond interviews with policy-makers (among them, Dean Acheson and W. Averell Harriman) to other available sources, he might at least have expressed some doubts about American innocence in 1945 and 1946...
...Right on all the big things, wrong on all the little ones," was the way Sam Rayburn characterized his friend...
...This conventional judgment is based on the popular myth that an idealistic and innocent America reluctantly accepted the responsibility as leader of the free world about 1947 after the Soviet Union shattered the illusions of peace and cooperation with the West...
...In embarking upon the first substantial volume on the Truman Administration, Phillips, perhaps because he was content with conventional assessments, has ventured where more cautious men have been reluctant to enter...
...Truman's strength and wisdom, Phillips concludes that the Chief Executive met the Soviet threat with "bold, imaginative, and durable counter-measures...
...It would not be an exaggeration to assert that Soviet-American relations in 1946 cannot be understood without exploring the dispute on control of the bomb...
...Though his judgments on foreign policy uncritically reaffirm cherished myths, the discussion of domestic politics (less than half the book) is stronger...
...Fleming have punctured this myth, Phillips indicates no awareness of their arguments, no concern about their evidence, no doubts...
...Unfairly accused of harboring Communists and unjustly blamed for the loss of China, the President was a discredited man...
...Despite the urgings of some advisers, the Chief Executive would not take up the cudgels...
...Reviewed by Bart Bernstein TOURIN G Harry Truman's years in the White House, such sour jibes as "To err is Truman" expressed the disappointment of many with their President...
...Leo Szilard, nuclear physicist and opponent of the bomb's use, discussed an interview before Potsdam with Byrnes: The Secretary "did not argue that it was necessary to use the bomb against the cities of Japan to win the war . . . [His view was] that our possessing and demonstrating the bomb would make Russia more manageable in Europe...
...Nor, apparently, has he read Gar Alperowitz's Atomic Diplomacy (1965) which contends that Mr...
...he did not even move boldly to halt the raids on the fear-torn State Department...
...The condition of the Truman Administration," wrote Walter Lippmann in 1946, "is a grave problem for the nation...
...Truman's "greatest contribution to the Presidency was that he refused to let Presidential initiative be eroded by Congressional encroachment"—is questionable...
...Surveying the wreckage after the debacle at the polls, Senator J . William Fulbright advised the President to resign...
...Instead of accepting official explanations of the conditions in Greece which required the Truman Doctrine of March, 1947, Phillips might have examined and reported other evidence: that the earlier elections, from which the Communists and others had withdrawn, were judged undemocratic by responsible British papers...
...In a poll evaluating the Chief Executives, prominent historians and political scientists placed him in the category of "near great," along with Theodore Roosevelt, and some even ranked him with the "great...
...Truman's last years in office his popularity dropped, his prestige waned, his power collapsed...
...Struggling with a Congress which had become increasingly independent of the executive during Franklin D. Roosevelt's last years, Mr...
...He condemns the program for creating dubious standards for judgment and for denying its victims the right to know their accuser...
...As in later cases, it sought to justify the support of right-wing leaders, of official terrorism, and of corruption...
...Truman's unwillingness to oppose McCarthy vigorously...
...The results are serious omissions, troubling misunderstandings, and unquestioning acceptance by the author of his self-limited sources...
...The Doctrine, which draws Phillips' admiration, was a commitment to defend freedom throughout the world, but in practice it meant something far less honorable...
...Truman and clutched anxiously at the hope of running General Dwight D. Eisenhower...
...While lashing this demagogue and criticizing politicians of both parties for not condemning him, Phillips overlooks the President's responsibility for preparing the way for the terrible Senator, and he never mentions Mr...
...Truman's Record THE TRUMAN PRESIDENCY: THE HISTORY OF A TRIUMPHANT SUCCESSION, by Cabell Phillips...
...Vote Republican," was the GOP slogan that autumn...
...And they were not adequately defended by the man in the White House...
...This evaluation, shared by Cabell Phillips, longtime Washington correspondent for The New York Times, molds his study of the Truman Presidency and determines his focus on foreign policy...
...Truman, almost immediately after entering the White House, reversed Roosevelt's policy of cooperation with Russia, and that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was primarily intended to force Soviet withdrawal from Eastern Europe and to terminate the war before the Russian Army entered Manchuria...
...While he continued in the Fair Deal the aspirations of the New Deal, his legislative accomplishments were few, and some even doubted his commitment to the liberalism he sporadically endorsed...
...Despite the voters' harsh judgments, Americans, as memories of the postwar strikes and deep freezes have faded, have come increasingly to respect the plucky man who rose from dirt farmer to President...
...By neglecting Mr...
...Unfortunately, however, there are only a few paragraphs on civil rights and a number of curious omissions—the Brannan Plan, the steel seizure of 1952, and the national health insurance program, perhaps Truman's boldest reform proposal...
...Perhaps the final blow was Adlai Stevenson's campaign technique of dissociating his candidacy from Mr...
...To measure Presidential greatness, the author offers a standard: "Did he actively use the potentialities of his position to advance the national interest...
...While even critics of the Cold War may applaud the Marshall Plan and Point Four and endorse intervention in Korea, they consider much of Mr...
...Truman's flip-flops on international control and never mentioning the Baruch Plan which, a government adviser later admitted, American officials had expected the Soviets to reject, Phillips overlooks decisions which justifiably nurtured Soviet anxieties and suspicions...
...Of all Mr...
...At stake was not simply initiative, but the power and prestige of the Presidency and the cherished freedoms of the nation...
...Truman's foreign policy as unwise and ill-conceived: NATO was provocative, the Truman Doctrine unfortunate, and the continued support of Chiang and his tyranny of Formosa unrealistic...
...As a fierce partisan, he contributed to the rancorous dialogue of the postwar years, and to some of his own political difficulties...
...Truman's policies, the author is most critical of the loyalty and security program...
...And in 1948, liberal Democrats and party bosses, desperately seeking to avoid disaster, tried to dump Mr...
...Truman's record...
...Secretary of State James Byrnes, for example, later publicly acknowledged that the bomb was used in part to end the war before Russia's entry...
...Despite many interviews and access to some private collections, there are no surprises, nothing new of significance...
...Two disruptive issues—international control of atomic energy and the Greek civil war—illustrate these weaknesses...
Vol. 30 • October 1966 • No. 10
