Harry Truman didn't want the job. He was a haberdasher from Missouri who somehow ended up as Vice President just eighty-two days before Franklin D. Roosevelt died. Imagine the weight. One day you’re basically a heartbeat away from the most powerful position on earth, and the next, a grieving Eleanor Roosevelt tells you the President is dead. Truman asked if there was anything he could do for her. She famously replied, "Is there anything we can do for you? For you are the one in trouble now."
That’s how it started. Honestly, the question of was Truman a good president usually depends on which decade you ask. In 1952, he left office with an approval rating of 22%. That is abysmal. It’s lower than Nixon’s during Watergate. People were exhausted by the Korean War and tired of "the mess in Washington." Yet, by the time the 1970s rolled around, historians started looking at his record and realized the man might have saved Western civilization.
The Atomic Shadow and the End of World War II
You can’t talk about Truman without the bomb. It’s the ultimate ethical Rorschach test. Within months of taking office, he had to decide whether to use a weapon of mass destruction that few people even knew existed. Truman claimed he never lost a night’s sleep over it. He viewed the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a way to avoid Operation Downfall—the planned invasion of Japan that General George Marshall estimated could cost a million American casualties.
Critics argue Japan was already on the brink of surrender. They suggest the Soviet entry into the war was the real catalyst. But Truman was a pragmatist. He was looking at the horrific casualty counts from Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He didn't want more body bags coming home to Missouri. He made the call. It ended the war, but it also birthed the nuclear age, a terrifying legacy that we are still grappling with in 2026.
The Marshall Plan and Rebuilding a Broken World
While the bomb was about destruction, the Marshall Plan was about the exact opposite. Most leaders after a world war want to punish the losers. Think back to the Treaty of Versailles after WWI; it was so punitive it basically guaranteed WWII. Truman took a different path.
He authorized billions of dollars to rebuild Europe. This wasn't just charity. It was cold, hard strategy. He knew that starving, desperate people were more likely to turn to Communism. By feeding them and fixing their factories, he bought loyalty and stability. Historian David McCullough, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Truman, argues this was his finest hour. It was a massive gamble that paid off.
The Cold War Architect
Truman basically drew the map of the 20th century. He gave us the Truman Doctrine. The idea was simple: the United States would provide political, military, and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from external or internal authoritarian forces. Basically, we were going to "contain" Communism.
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This led directly to the creation of NATO in 1949. Before Truman, the U.S. generally avoided "entangling alliances" during peacetime. Truman flipped that on its head. He realized the Atlantic Ocean wasn't a big enough moat anymore.
- He oversaw the Berlin Airlift, a logistical miracle that fed a city without firing a shot.
- He recognized the State of Israel in 1948, against the advice of his own State Department.
- He committed troops to Korea without a formal declaration of war from Congress, a move that set a controversial precedent for every president since.
Civil Rights and the "Give 'Em Hell Harry" Persona
Here is something people often forget. Truman grew up in a household with Confederate sympathies. His mother reportedly refused to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom when she visited the White House. Yet, in 1948, Truman did something incredibly brave for a politician of that era.
He issued Executive Order 9981. It desegregated the U.S. Armed Forces.
He didn't do it because it was popular. He did it because he was disgusted by reports of Black veterans returning from the war only to be beaten or lynched in the South. When advisors told him he would lose the election because of it, he basically told them he didn't care. This led to the "Dixiecrat" walkout at the 1948 Democratic National Convention.
That Famous 1948 Election
Everyone thought he would lose. The Chicago Daily Tribune famously printed the headline "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN" before the results were even in. Truman spent the campaign on a train, doing "whistle-stop" tours across the country. He’d stand on the back of the train and just talk to people. No teleprompter. Just raw, blunt Missouri talk.
He won. It remains the greatest upset in American political history.
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The Downside: Why People Hated Him in 1952
If you ask someone in 1952 was Truman a good president, they’d probably laugh in your face. The Korean War had turned into a bloody stalemate. He had fired General Douglas MacArthur, who was a national hero at the time. MacArthur wanted to drop nukes on China; Truman said no, fearing World War III. History says Truman was right, but at the time, he was the most hated man in America for it.
There were also corruption scandals. Not Truman himself—he died relatively poor—but some of his "Missouri gang" cronies were caught taking kickbacks. It looked messy. It looked like the administration had stayed too long at the fair.
The Economic Legacy at Home
Domestically, Truman pushed for the "Fair Deal." He wanted universal health insurance. He wanted an increase in the minimum wage. He wanted to expand Social Security. Most of it was blocked by a conservative Congress, but he laid the groundwork for what would eventually become the Great Society in the 1960s.
He also dealt with massive labor strikes after the war. Thousands of workers walked off the job. Truman, in his typical "no-nonsense" fashion, threatened to draft striking railway workers into the Army. It was a move that alienated his own base but showed he prioritized the national economy over political optics.
Final Verdict: Was Truman a Good President?
When we look back, Truman’s presidency looks like a bridge. He bridged the gap between the New Deal era and the Cold War era. He took a country that wanted to go back to being isolationist and forced it to become a global superpower.
He wasn't polished. He swore. He had a temper. He wrote angry letters to music critics who panned his daughter’s singing. But he was decisive. The sign on his desk said "The Buck Stops Here," and he meant it. He didn't blame his predecessors or his staff. He took the hits.
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Historians today consistently rank him in the top ten. They see a man who made impossible choices under immense pressure. Whether it was the Marshall Plan, the integration of the military, or standing up to Stalin, Truman’s fingerprints are all over the modern world.
How to evaluate Truman’s legacy for yourself:
To get a real sense of whether Truman’s decisions hold up, you should look at the primary sources. Start by reading his 1947 address to Congress, which outlined the Truman Doctrine. It’s the blueprint for American foreign policy for the next forty years.
Next, compare the map of Europe in 1945 to the map in 1955. The rapid recovery of West Germany and Japan is perhaps the most tangible evidence of his administration's success.
Finally, visit the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum website. They have digitized thousands of his personal letters. Seeing the private thoughts of a man deciding the fate of the world provides a level of nuance that no history book can fully capture. It shows a human being, flaws and all, trying to do the right thing when there were no easy answers.