"Every man who's had to command troops in combat has had to look at the big picture. When Harry Truman made the decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan, he didn't do that assuming he wasn't going to be criticized for it. He was looking at ending the war and saving a million American lives. He provided vision for the nation in spite of the fact that many criticized him then and even more do now. And what about Winston Churchill? He let the Germans bomb the British city of Coventry to protect the fact that the Allies had broken the Germans' code. He allowed the Germans to bomb Coventry because he was looking strategically at ending the war. And he knew if he let it be known that he was reading the Germans' mail, they would immediately change their code. That's thinking strategically versus at the tactical situation. I think everybody who's ever commanded troops has had to look at circumstances strategically. And that amounts to having vision."
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Presidents of the United StatesPoliticians from MissouriUnited States presidential candidates, 1952United States presidential candidates, 1948Democratic Party (United States) politicians
Original Language: English
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Sources
William G. Boykin, Man to Man: Rediscovering Masculinity in a Challenging World (2020), p. 29
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman
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Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States (1945–53), an American politician of the Democratic Party. He served as a United States senator from Missouri (1935–45) and briefly as vice president (1945) before he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945 upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was president during the final months of World War II, making the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Truman was electe
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