Presidency of Harry S. Truman
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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