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Presidency of Harry S. Truman

The Truman Cabinet
Office Name Term
President Harry S. Truman 1945–1953
Vice President none 1945–1949
Alben W. Barkley 1949–1953
Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius, Jr. 1945
James F. Byrnes 1945–1947
George C. Marshall 1947–1949
Dean G. Acheson 1949–1953
Secretary of Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr. 1945
Fred M. Vinson 1945–1946
John W. Snyder 1946–1953
Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson 1945
Robert P. Patterson 1945–1947
Kenneth C. Royall 1947
Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal 1947–1949
Louis A. Johnson 1949–1950
George C. Marshall 1950–1951
Robert A. Lovett 1951–1953
Attorney General Francis Biddle 1945
Tom C. Clark 1945–1949
J. Howard McGrath 1949–1952
James P. McGranery 1952–1953
Postmaster General Frank C. Walker 1945
Robert E. Hannegan 1945–1947
Jesse M. Donaldson 1947–1953
Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal 1945–1947
Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes 1945–1946
Julius A. Krug 1946–1949
Oscar L. Chapman 1949–1953
Secretary of Agriculture Claude R. Wickard 1945
Clinton P. Anderson 1945–1948
Charles F. Brannan 1948–1953
Secretary of Commerce Henry A. Wallace 1945–1946
W. Averell Harriman 1946–1948
Charles W. Sawyer 1948–1953
Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins 1945
Lewis B. Schwellenbach 1945–1948
Maurice J. Tobin 1948–1953

The presidency of Harry S. Truman began on April 12, 1945, when Harry S. Truman became President of the United States upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and ended on January 20, 1953. He had been Vice President of the United States for only 82 days when he succeeded to the presidency. A Democrat, he ran for and won a full four–year term in the 1948 election. His victory in that election, over Republican Thomas E. Dewey, was one of the greatest upsets in presidential electoral history. Following the 1952 election, Truman was succeeded in office by Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Truman, the 33rd United States president, presided over the final defeat of Germany and Japan in World War II, the launching of the Marshall Plan to rebuild the economy of Western Europe, the undertaking of the Korean War, and the inception of the Cold War against the Soviet Union. In domestic affairs, his liberal proposals were a continuation of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, but the Conservative Coalition-dominated Congress blocked most of them. He used presidential authority to mandate equal treatment for blacks in the military and put civil rights on the national political agenda.

Truman's presidency was a turning point in foreign affairs, as the United States engaged in an internationalist foreign policy and renounced isolationism. In mid-1945, Truman helped establish the United Nations as Roosevelt had planned it. When relations with the Soviet Union turned hostile in 1947, he issued the Truman Doctrine in 1947 to contain Communism; it is often used to mark the start of the Cold War. In 1948 he got the $13 billion Marshall Plan enacted to rebuild Western Europe. Fears of Soviet espionage led to a Red Scare and the rise of McCarthyism. Truman oversaw the Berlin Airlift of 1948 and the creation of NATO in 1949. When communist North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, he sent U.S. troops and gained UN approval for seizing North Korea in the Korean War. After initial successes, however, American/UN forces were thrown back by Chinese intervention in late 1950. The bloody war was stalemated throughout the final years of Truman's presidency.


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