Truman is famous in Japan for dropping nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but in reality his duties are widespread.
Harry S. Truman before becoming president
Truman was born and raised in Missouri in 1886, and after graduating from a local high school he got a job at a bank. Truman is the person who became president without attending college until the end.
When World War I broke out, Truman joined as a volunteer and eventually became a captain.
After returning to Japan, he joined the racist group KKK (Kuk Klux Klan) (it seems that he had a conversation after that), won the election of the county's administrator, and started political activities.
He was elected by the Democratic Party of Japan as a member of the Missouri state in 1934, and in 1941 he established the Truman Committee, which sought out military injustice. Became Vice President of Roosevelt.
Franklin Roosevelt died in 1945, and Truman became the 33rd President of the United States.
33rd President of the United States
Truman was active as Vice President for only 82 days, during which he met Roosevelt only once. Truman had never been involved in diplomacy in his career, but Roosevelt's death suddenly put him on his most intense stage.
Meanwhile, Truman participated in the Potsdam Conference, issued the Potsdam Declaration with Britain and China, and ultimatumed the Japanese army. At this time, the exclusion of Soviate Stalin made the relationship between the two countries worse at once.
Japan did not accept the Potsdam Declaration. As a result, the United States dropped a new bomb, Atomic Bomb, on Hiroshima and then Nagasaki, killing hundreds of thousands of people in just three days. It was never in the history of the world that so many people were lost in such a short period of time.
The use of the nuclear bomb was violently protested by military executives such as McArthur and Eisenhower, but it was used without notice to the Japanese side due to opinions such as Churchill in the United Kingdom.
On August 15, 1945, Japan accepted the Potsdam Declaration and unconditionally surrendered, but the Soviet Union invaded Japan through a Yalta secret agreement with Franklin Roosevelt, at which time it was robbing the northern territory.
Stalin also informed Truman that he would also invade Hokkaido, but Truman refused to do so, and it can be said that the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union had already begun by this time.
His predecessor, Roosevelt, deepened his relationship with Stalin and Chiang Kai-shek, but Truman worsened his relationship and blamed Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang in particular. As a result of discontinuing support for the Kuomintang, in 1949 the Kuomintang was defeated by the Chinese Communist Party led by Mao Zedong, and Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan.
Truman's rival Republican Party was denounced in this matter, and it was even said that Truman had created a Communist Party government in China.
He also won the 1948 presidential election in such a situation and remains in the presidency.
At this time, he called his own policy the "Fair Deal Policy," claiming that it would succeed Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal Policy," and appealed for the strengthening of social security and civil rights laws.
Truman once belonged to the racist organization KKK, but by the time he became president, he was rather a human rights sect, and was the first president of the United States to speak against black discrimination. This trend would then be passed on to President Kennedy, leading to a civil rights movement led by Rev. King.
In the United States during this period, various institutions were established one after another for postwar processing, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Department of Defense (Pentagon), which are familiar in Hollywood movies, were established in Japan, and the United Nations headquartered in New York also Founded.
In such a flow of international cooperation, the United States improved relations with European countries and formed "Western countries", but relations with China and the Soviet Union deteriorated, and it was set in the Korean Peninsula. The war has led to a division between North Korea, which is supported by the communist sphere, and South Korea, which is supported by others, and even as of 2019, there is no clue to solve the problem.
During the Korean War, MacArthur insisted on a nuclear attack on China, but Truman dismissed MacArthur in response to this statement, which was exposed to criticism domestically, and Truman went to the next presidential election. Decided not to run, died in 1964 after retiring. He was 88 years old.
Personal evaluation of Harry S. Truman
I think he was one of the most difficult presidents of the United States to steer. In response to the WWII and Korean War, the beginning of the Cold War, and the domestic disagreement that the president is a democratic party but the parliament is a republican party, Truman fulfilled most of his promises and made the United States a superpower. ..
On the other hand, he issued the "Truman Doctrine", a containment policy for the communist bloc, which worsened relations with the Soviet Union and China, which formed the Cold War and the current international order.
While dropping a nuclear bomb on Japan, he opposed the dropping of an atomic bomb on China. Considering this without emotional theory, it can be said that Truman's judgment avoided World War III and the nuclear war with the Soviet Union, and it can be said that the world escaped destruction.
From a domestic perspective, the president has worked hard on labor issues, including raising the minimum wage, and is in conflict with the wealthy-focused Republican Party, which is the majority of the parliament. There wasn't.
The policies of Truman and Franklin Roosevelt to protect workers have increased the opposition to the Democratic Party of the wealthy, and the crazy McCarthyism (Communist Party hunting) by the Republican member McCarthy has also taken place. Many people unrelated to the Communist Party, such as Chaplin, have also been deported.
Truman was not a president with a strong charisma like Roosevelt, but he was still a good practitioner and a relatively humane person except for the statement that dropped the atomic bomb.
Although there are some points that should be criticized, such as the dropping of the atomic bomb, the Korean War, and the start of the Cold War, overall, it will be ranked high in the history of the President of the United States.