"Never has a simpler, more homespun, less pretentious man inherited such enormous powers. Yet Truman rose to the job superbly. He remained personally unassuming and often clumsily naïve, as when he wrote a childishly abusive letter to the music critic of the Washington Post who had criticized his daughter's playing, or, more seriously, when he gave what Mr Jenkins calls "a devastatingly foolish series of answers" at a press conference, implying that he might use the atom bomb in Korea. Yet somehow he got all the big decisions right... Truman is the most spectacular example of an ordinary man plucked from obscurity to hold high office, and the strongest argument for feeling that we should choose our leaders more often from those who don't seek the job. It could not happen today. With all the money that has to be spent and the indignities that have to be undergone to get anywhere near the Presidency, only very twisted, ragingly ambitious individuals have a chance... Truman's life restores one's faith in the possibilities of democracy."
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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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A review of Truman by Roy Jenkins
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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