Harry S. Truman

This is the life of President Truman, officially by his only daughter, though I found myself wondering if she had professional help (as I am fairly sure she did in the mysteries attributed to her). In fairness, I wonder this partly because it comes across as a serious political biography, only occasionally enlivened by light family anecdotes. Naturally enough, it favors Harry, as both a man and a statesman. It begins by an account of the famous 1948 presidential campaign, then goes back to Harry's childhood and takes the story up to his life in retirement. On controversial topics it favors Harry's side, insisting Boss Prendergast needed Harry more than Harry needed the boss (doubtful), highly praising Harry's Senate record (Probably show more justified), giving a mildly unfavorable account of FDR's limited interactions with Harry. She makes what I think a good point, that Harry's decision to use the atomic bomb saved more Japanese than American lives (though she follows Harry in using the higher estimates of possible American losses if the bomb had not been used). She strongly favors Harry's behavior at Potsdam and in other aspects of foreign policy and stresses that Harry's Soviet policy did not set off the Cold War, though lauding him for how he waged it. She downplays the "corruption and Communism" charges of the opposition. She admires Acheson's refusal to "turn his back on Alger Hiss" (she wrote 5 years before Weinstein's book Perjury demonstrated that Hiss's guilt was virtually certain) and blames the "loss of China" entirely on Chiang Kai-shek. She makes what seems a valid point that General Harry Vaughan successfully sued the Saturday Evening Post for accusing him of corruption, and admits but downplays a number of other corruption cases. She feel s the Korean War was chiefly responsible for the Democrats' decline in the last years of Truman's administration, while supporting her father's strategy against critics like MacArthur. She is cold about Eisenhower. particularly his failure to defend his former patron Gen. Marshall. She has only a few family anecdotes about Truman's later years, ignoring his support of Nixon (though there is a picture of them together) and his criticism of the civil rights movement (though she stresses his earlier strong support for civil rights). Overall, I felt it was a more serious piece of history than I expected, despite is understandable bias. show less

Written by The Presidents Daughter,Margaret. It was chosen as a Book of the Month selection.Text is written from the point of view of an insider who was there while history was being made.

Rated: B+

DEN