"Jesus Christ and Gen Jackson," Vice President Harry S. Truman said when the phone rang in Speaker Sam Rayburn's office that Thursday afternoon in April 1945 informing him that President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), the icon who had led the United States for the past 13 years through some of the most difficult periods in its history, had died.
Harry Truman was now President. The fact that President Roosevelt had died was shocking, but not surprising. Truman, in his few contacts with the man, had seen the serious deterioration in his health. Nonetheless, the new President had not been part of FDR's inner circle, and had little knowledge of the ins and outs of military and international affairs at this critical moment in history. Could this former senator from Missouri, farmer, failed haberdasher, captain of artillery in World War I, and product of a corrupt political machine in Missouri, assume the mantle of the most powerful office in the world and face the awesome responsibilities demanded by the time?
Mr. Truman's War recalls the events, the issues, the state of the world, and the critical moments that the new President faced between that fateful moment in April until the Japanese surrender on the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945, less than 5 months later. To quote from Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."
It was the best of times because the most destructive war in history was ended with total victory for the Grand Alliance of which the United States emerged as the leader. The forces of the German Reich and the Japanese Empire had finally been defeated after years of total war. The victorious Allies agreed at San Francisco to form a United Nations that would forever outlaw war as an instrument to settle international disputes. The United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and China, the principal allies in the great conflict just ended, were in harmony in the need to settle the affairs of the postwar world in a peaceful manner. The world seemed to be on the threshold of a new era.
It was also the worst of times. At the Potsdam Conference held in June 1945, the vexing issues that were to mar the unity of the Alliance began to surface. They foreshadowed the difficulties yet to come. The restoration of Europe to its prewar status was challenged by new forces born in the chaos of war. France, led by Charles DeGaulle, demanded a larger share of the victor's pie than the allies felt he deserved. The many displaced persons, some of whom did not want to return to their homeland, created discontent. Among these were the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, who wanted to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, much to the consternation of the Arabs and particularly the British, who were losing control of their empire in the Middle East. Throughout the world, people who had been subject to European colonialism were striving to find their national identity. In the most populous land on earth, China, the two rival factions, the Nationalists led by Chiang Kaishek and the Communists led by Mao Tsetung, were preparing for the ultimate showdown. These were just a few of the obstacles that stood in the way of a peaceful and prosperous postwar world.
Thus Mr, Truman's War recalls an era that would have a significant effect on the U.S. Marine Corps, just as it would have on many other institutions of the world.
Mr. Truman, unlike his predecessor, had little knowledge or understanding of the Marine Corps, calling it at a later time, "the Navy's police force." But at the moment that he became President, the Corps was the largest it had ever been before or since with six divisions and five aircraft wings. President Truman's decision to use the atomic bombs against Japan was made, in part, with the knowledge that an invasion of the home islands of Japan would meet with the same kind of hard fighting that the Army and Marines experienced on Okinawa. The invasion would have been spearheaded by all six Marine divisions. The President's decision and the Japanese surrender on 14 August 1945 were well received by the Marines in the Pacific.
Mr. Truman's War chronicles how President Truman faced both the good and the bad in his first 5 months as President. Moskin sees Truman in the same light that most historians have come to view his presidency. The author makes the point, however, that from the minute Truman took the oath he was his own man, and he faced the many challenges of the office with confidence in his own judgment.
Moskin is a journalist who was trained as a historian. Throughout the book one can see the journalist in his writing as if the events were happening at that moment. At the same time one can see the historian reflecting on events long past and their effect upon the last 50 years. To many Mr. Truman's War reflects on a time of transition from war to peace, but at the same time there is a undercurrent of the unsettled times still to come. As President, Truman took steps and made decisions that are still part of our life today. Mr. Moskin tells us how it happened in a popular, highly readable history of a remarkable era.
MR. TRUMAN'S WAR: The Final Victories of World War II and the Birth of the Postwar World.
By J. Robert Moskin
Random House, New York, 1996, 392 pp.,
$30.00. (Member $27.00)
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