Year of Decisions

Memoirs #1

by Harry Truman

Presents Truman's own perspective on the momentous events, personalities, and decisions that filled his first year as president of the United States and led to the successful ending of the Second World War and the building of a new era. A vivid and dramatic account of the months that saw the death of Roosevelt, the conferences at Yale and Potsdam, the explosion of atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the creation of the United Nations. Filled with engaging and informal glimpses of great and famous figures from Stalin and Chiang Kai-shek to Churchill and Charles De Gaulle.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Presidents, Memoir, Autobiography, American History

608 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1955

About the author

Harry S. Truman was the thirty-third President of the United States (1945–1953). As vice president, he succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt, who died less than three months after he began his fourth term.

During World War I Truman served as an artillery officer. After the war he became part of the political machine of Tom Pendergast and was elected a county judge in Missouri and eventually a United States Senator. After he gained national prominence as head of the wartime Truman Committee, Truman replaced vice president Henry A. Wallace as Roosevelt's running mate in 1944.

As president, Truman faced challenge after challenge in domestic affairs. The disorderly reconversion of the economy of the United States was marked by severe shortages, numerous strikes, and the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act over his veto. He confounded all predictions to win re-election in 1948, largely due to his famous Whistle Stop Tour of rural America. After his re-election he was able to pass only one of the proposals in his Fair Deal program. He used executive orders to begin desegregation of the U.S. armed forces and to launch a system of loyalty checks to remove thousands of communist sympathizers from government office, even though he strongly opposed mandatory loyalty oaths for governmental employees, a stance that led to charges that his administration was soft on communism. Truman's presidency was also eventful in foreign affairs, with the end of World War II and his decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan, the founding of the United Nations, the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, the Truman Doctrine to contain communism, the beginning of the Cold War, the creation of NATO, and the Korean War. Corruption in Truman's administration reached the cabinet and senior White House staff. Republicans made corruption a central issue in the 1952 campaign.

Truman, whose demeanor was very different from that of the patrician Roosevelt, was a folksy, unassuming president. He popularized such phrases as "The buck stops here" and "If you can't stand the heat, you better get out of the kitchen." He overcame the low expectations of many political observers who compared him unfavorably with his highly regarded predecessor. At one point in his second term, near the end of the Korean War, Truman's public opinion ratings reached the lowest of any United States president, but popular and scholarly assessments of his presidency became more positive after his retirement from politics and the publication of his memoirs. He died in 1972. Many U.S. scholars today rank him among the top ten presidents. Truman's legendary upset victory in 1948 over Thomas E. Dewey is routinely invoked by underdog presidential candidates.

Reviews

[Mikey B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harry Truman writes of the year he became President after the death of Franklin Roosevelt in April 1945. He also gives us a brief history of his background (less than one hundred pages) – growing up in Missouri, going off to France in World War I, and returning home to become involved in local politics and then elected as a Senator in Washington DC.

Page 142-43 (my book)

As I walked back to my seat [after being sworn in as a Senator] I had a prayer in my heart for wisdom to serve the people acceptably. And it was not only the people of Missouri I had in mind, but the people of every part of the United States, for I felt myself to be a representative of all America.

If only Senator’s today would feel this way, Mitch McConnell comes to mind.

Truman writes of the Potsdam Conference with Stalin and Churchill, followed by Clement Attlee. He describes the build-up, then the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending with Japan’s surrender and the end of a very long war that cost millions upon millions of lives. It was this riveting first-person narration of these trying days that raised the stature of the book for me (giving it four stars).

Truman tells us of the insatiable demands of the Russians (Stalin and Molotov), along with their unremitting dominance of Eastern Europe. This brought to mind the current events in the Ukraine war.

The rest of the book seemed really uninspired. Harry provides us with endless details and lists that are bland and sterile. At times, it was like reading “The Terms of Agreement” when downloading a software package! The writing was at times cumbersome, with tons of bullet points of meetings and conferences. Summaries should have been used. I was a little surprised at this because Truman in real life was a no nonsense and blunt individual.

I have read all of Churchill’s Memoirs of the Second World War (six of them). There is no comparison. I am not encouraged from this to go onto the second (and last) part of Truman’s memoirs.

Page 168

There is no substitute for a fact. When the facts are known, reasonable men [I would have written “people”] do not disagree with respect to them.

[Gabriela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, this was a hard one because WWII was influenced in so many ways by the USA and Roosevelt basically shaped the international law scene by promoting his idea of an international organization which resulted to be the United Nations.

So it was very interesting to read how the balance of power was kept by Truman given the fact that he took the presidential mandate with such short notice. The atomic bomb, end of WWII, end of lend lease, negotiating with Stalin, internal disruptions in the labor field, cooperation with UK and Canada..this is just a short resume with Truman's activity in his first years as POTUS. Truman was a terrific man during some nasty history years.

[Luis Roman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have always thought Harry Truman was one of the most remarkable characters in American history. The son a Missouri farmer who rose to the office of Vice-President and then, after only 82 days in office, was elevated to the Presidency after Franklin Roosevelt's death. Truman became President at a time when the war in Europe was winding down, but still raging in the Pacific, a time of great uncertainty for the country, when Truman, who very few people at the time knew anything about, would be looked to by a country filled with grief and anxiety for calm, steady leadership.

In this, the first of two volumes (the second volume covering the years 1946-1952,) Truman relates, in his own words, his experience at being elevated to the Presidency and thrust into the maelstrom of world events. He does so in economical, straight forward prose, giving us a a long look behind the scenes inside the White House, as well as a front row seat at the Potsdam conference with Churchill and Stalin (during which Churchill's party was voted out of office and Churchill was succeeded as Prime minister by Clement Atlee.)

For a fan of history like myself the reading is fascinating, as some of the bold faced names of that period, such as Harold Ickes, Harry Hopkins, Clark Clifford appear under Truman's unvarnished gaze. In Truman's unstinting fashion, we get the story behind his "Fair Deal" program, the successor to FDR's New Deal. We also witness the birth of the nuclear age, as the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. if there was debate over the wisdom of these acts, Truman does not disclose it. As he relates it, once he learned of the A-bomb's existence, he was fully in favor of it's deployment, as a means of preventing hundreds of thousands of deaths projected to occur if the Allies had to invade Japan. He never wavers in his belief in the rightness of his decision, but he then goes on to champion steps to guard against the danger of unrestricted nuclear proliferation.

Truman is guarded when it comes to personal matters. His wife Bess and daughter Margaret appear only in passing, with very little information shared. Truman does, however, pause to treat us to a number of the letters he had time to send to his 90 year old mother and his sister living at the family home in Independence, MO.

I thoroughly enjoyed this look into the mind of Harry Truman and would recommend it to any fan of U.S. history or politics.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting book in Truman's own words on one of the most momentous years in the last century.

I read this after McCullough's book on Truman and gained new insights into his thinking on Potsdam, the Russians, atomic energy, the end of the war, making the peace, etc.

It , in my mind, puts to bed all the revisionist history on why the bombs were dropped on Japan, and how the war was brought to a conclusion. Far from the revisionist's position that Truman did NOT want the Russians in the war in the Far East, I highlighted over 20 instances in this book alone, where Truman, in his own words, said that was his main purpose in Potsdam, to get the Russians INTO the war but keep them OUT of the occupation of Japan. Also it is quite clear that the Russian involvement in the war had almost NOTHING to do with the final capitulation.

[BJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

No, I didn't read the whole thing, nor will I, but I would like to go back and read more. The sections I did read were very intriguing. Much personal thought and also an insider's peak into the White House during the end of WWII. The letter's from Stalin and Churchhill amidst news flashes were fascinating.

I was really struck by the decisive humility of Truman during this unparalleled time in human history. Decisive in his decisions to end the war, whether you agree with them or not, and his humility in not ever really wanting to become President (coupled with his great respect for Roosevelt) but rising to the task.

[Jlkempen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pretty interesting insight to how Pres. Truman made decisions and how much he was kept in the dark as VP. and was kind of naive about some aspects of politics we take for granted.
His mind is very organized and he did a lot of correspondence for which one wonders how he found the time! Quite a good review of his childhood and how the presidency transistioned after FDR.
Slow going....some dry detail. Trying to get through both volumes. May take some time

[Nolan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a highly readable look at President Truman’s 1st year in office from his perspective. I technically could end this review right there, but it feels like I'm doing both me and you a disservice. I tend to look back at these reviews sometimes to refresh my memory as to whether I’ve read the book. So, for my sake if for no other reason, I’ll plunge on here and hope I don’t get too far in the weeds as this book does in a couple of spots.

The first several chapters provide a human look at a man who ultimately stood in no one’s shadow when it came to changing the history of post-war America. He served just over 80 days as vice president when he got the word that Roosevelt died. He freely admits those 80 days prepared him for nothing when he assumed the presidency. His letters home to his mother and sister reflected that sense of bewilderment and unbelievability he felt at suddenly finding himself in the position of making all the decisions.

Chapter nine and 10 deal with his boyhood, and those chapters provide a fascinating look at what it was like to grow up in rural Missouri in the 1880s. He covers his failed haberdashery in these early chapters, insisting that he paid his creditors down to the last penny rather than opt for bankruptcy.

He references his years in the U.S. Senate in these early chapters, and while he gets in the policy weeds a bit in chapters 12 and 13, he also shows you the complexities of the man. He gave full-throated support to Roosevelt’s intention to pack the Supreme Court in 1937, but he pushed back against a tax hike in the same year.

I guess I knew that Charles de Gaulle was a consummate pain in the butt that Eisenhower constantly had to deal with, but I didn’t know Truman had equally vexing problems with him. You’ll read that here.

I found Truman’s mother’s reaction to the White house most fascinating. Being a pro-Confederate Missourian from the get-go, old Mrs. Truman refused to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom, insisting she wouldn’t sleep anywhere where his body had lain. They tried to put her in the Rose Room, in those days reserved for female heads of state. She declared that too fancy. A small room adjoining the Rose Room included a single bed, and old Mrs. Truman figured that was more her style. His sister, Mary, took the Rose Room apparently without complaint.

The end of the war in Europe didn’t bring an end to Truman’s difficulties with the region. It was just the beginning. Military and other officials expressed the concern that many Europeans would starve to death without some kind of help. American wheat reserves were at an all-time high, but droughts in Central and South America would tax those reserves in addition to the European issues.

The battles between Truman and Stalin’s Eastern European puppets heat up in that spring of 1945 as well, and they make for interesting reading. Truman devotes several chapters to the Potsdam conference. Chalk it up to my intellectual shortcomings if you need to, but I found those chapters frustrating. Of course, Stalin is going to argue against anything that smacks of freedom for the Polish people. History resoundingly proved that. I realize that was an important conference, but his observations on it felt like they went on for paragraphs, pages, and chapters.

Things get fascinating again from chapter 26 through 30. Those are the ones the deal with the dropping of the atomic bombs and the subsequent Japanese surrender.

I confess I tuned out much of the post-bomb chapters. They dealt with domestic policies, labor strikes, price controls, and similar domestic things.

So, what are the takeaways? This is a highly readable book. If you pick this up thinking you’re going to get a lot of agonizing over whether to drop the bombs on Japan, Truman will disappoint you. He offers neither regret nor apology here. He saw his decision as fully justified by the number of American lives his action would save. Don’t misunderstand: Of course, he expresses sorrow about the lives lost and the destruction, but he insists it was the only course that made sense.

If you’re looking for a war-era politician tell-all, this will disappoint you. There’s not a lot here that I recall about his inherited term beyond the first year or so. But volume two is out there, and, since this first volume was easy to read and enjoyable, I’ve downloaded the second one. I won’t get to it for a while, but it’s there when I’m ready to tackle it.

[Rory · Rating 4 out of 5]

President Truman has a fine instinct for sensing when the reader starts to feel overwhelmed by the sheer daily tonnage of policy decisions and those involving World War II in the early days of his sudden presidency. Before the reader can begin to wonder what they still haven't seen on Netflix, he trains his mind on his memory, recounting his past, which isn't as dry as some of the policy, in order to set the record straight on what he sees as distortions of his life, political and otherwise, which sprouted after he became president, and which most likely dogged him as a former president, too.

Truman keeps this up for five chapters, which, while historians after him could provide more in-depth, more of a variety of, perspectives than one man simply could in such momentous history in our nation, help us return to the then-current crises with a better sense of who he was in that office, and what of himself influenced those decisions. Like any president seeking to set the record straight on his administration, Truman is of course self-serving at times, but far less so than future former presidents with book deals. There is genuine care for the good of the nation in these pages, and it's at once a relief that there were such men in that high office who did care, and worry over whether there will be such care again, perhaps even with Truman's approach.

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

1945 was an eventful, dramatic year. Truman, dropped unexpectedly into the presidency, had to deal with the finish of WWII, the attempts of various countries to grab war-torn territories, massive famine from war loses and bad weather, and individuals at home who wanted to take advantage of the post-war reorganization to take as much power as they could. I hadn't known of all these issues that arose during a time that most people in the US hoped to relax with the coming of peace.

President Truman comes across as a reliable, admirable guy. I enjoyed his explanations of his reasoning and reactions in office. He also included (and his daughter who did the editing left them in) a great many official documents and even the minutes of meetings, and those I slogged a bit to get through. I also have the second half of the memoir; I may very well dip through it instead of reading it systematically.

[Jerry D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great insight into the office of the POTUS

Also, into the conclusion of the war, it's aftermath and the beginning of the cold war. I highly recommend this book for any with an interest in that time in our history

[David Dill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting in reading the reasoning behind some very difficult decisions that were made during this presidency.

[Sandy Aragon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very forthright and informative

This account really gives insight to the man and all that it involves to be President and run the country especially during such tumultuous times.

[Pat Bakelaar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eye opening!!

I knew so little of the “workings” of efforts in closing out WWII. Truman’s memoirs are enlightening and quite revealing.

[Judy Trenkle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific!

[Aaron Million · Rating 2 out of 5]

Informative yet dry recount of the momentous year of 1945, courtesy of President Harry Truman. He decided that 1945 was so important that he would devote the entire book to just that year. Unfortunately, the reviews of this book (and his subsequent memoir covering the remainder of his presidency) that I read indicated that the language was often wooden and stilted. In that respect, the book lived down to its billing. This read like an academic study of the beginning of Truman's presidency.

Truman begins with FDR's sudden - though not really unexpected - death on April 12. He is immediately thrust into a whirlwind of meetings, decisions, telegram exchanges with Churchill and Stalin, and Cabinet decisions. One issue that Truman had to address immediately was the formation of the United Nations, which was just about to begin. Problems developed with the Soviet Union concerning admittance of some Soviet states, and more specifically, issues about how the Security Council would be constructed. These problems have really never stopped.

Germany's surrender happens within the first month of Truman taking the oath of office. Again, more problems here with the USSR concerning how to divide up and manage Germany. Truman - as he does throughout this book - borrows liberally (and sometimes in full) from telegraphic messages that he exchanges with both Churchill and Stalin. While these messages can be interesting, quoting them so frequently and at length really bogs down the narrative. Condensing some of them would have been helpful.

Truman then changes course and spends almost one-hundred pages recounting his life from birth up to FDR's death. This was an odd thing to do starting on page 131. Truman writes that he wants to give the reader context behind the type of person that he is, and he does accomplish this. He discusses his failed haberdashery business with Eddie Jacobson in Kansas City; his military service in WWI as an artillery Captain; his boyhood in Independence and Grandview, MO; and his beginnings in elected office as Jackson County Judge. Note that "Judge" in this context meant someone who today would be considered a sort of County Commissioner. He was not a judge as we typically think of the word.

Unfortunately, Truman breezes past the 1934 election (in which he was first elected as U.S. Senator from Missouri) in one paragraph. Is this because he was sponsored by the corrupt Pendergast organization? Truman skirts around this by saying that he never got involved in corruption. Truman certainly was not corrupt, but it is difficult to see how his government career ever would have been launched without a corrupt machine supporting him.

Truman's first-person account of the Potsdam conference is more interesting. Yet even here it contains a somewhat academic tone. Truman does provide personal opinions and observations about the titans that he had to negotiate with, and their seemingly endless disagreements. In fact, Truman was close to leaving the conference early at one point because of the pettiness of Churchill and the intractableness of Stalin. Truman writes that he knew right then that the USSR would be a constant thorn in the side of the U.S. and of democracy.

Throughout the book, Truman interspersed letters that he wrote to his mother and sister, and sometimes his wife Bess. Here, in these letters, we see the real, unvarnished Truman - which makes for much more interesting reading. Here is an example from page 328, writing about German Hermann Goering's baton that was given to him by three generals: "Can you imagine a fat pig like that strutting around with a forty thousand dollar bauble - at the poor taxpayer's expense, and making 'em like it?" More of this frank talk would have been most welcome.

Grade: C-

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most momentous year of my lifetime, from a world standpoint, took place the year I turned seven. On January 20, 1945 Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated for the fourth time as President of the United States of America. With him, a little known a Senator from Missouri, was sworn in as the new Vice-President.

Less than three months later, upon Roosevelt's death, the unprepared VP became president of the world's greatest power on April 12. Few could have anticipated the seismic shifts in the geo-political world in the remaining months of 1945.

Just weeks after Truman became President World War II ended on the European front. Both Hitler and Mussolini were dead and Victory in Europe was declared on May 9. With the Allied powers converging on Berlin, England, France, Russia and the United States divided the German Republic. The Potsdam Conference, with Truman as the Chairman, took place in Germany as Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Harry Truman made determinations on the new United Nation. Before the conference was over Churchill was replaced as Prime Minister by Clement Attlee in July, and Russia had proven it's adversarial position.

Still the United Nations became a reality in 1945. Russia was having her way in many of the defeated European Countries. The U.S. and Great Britain hoped Russia would join them in defeating Japan, but seeing Russia's dealing with her satellites in Europe had second thoughts as the war wore on in the Pacific. As Truman made his way home by ship from Potsdam he received word that the atomic tests had resulted in the most powerful bombs the world had seen.
The first atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 7 with thousands dead, but no surrender by Japan. Three days later the second atomic bomb fell on Nagasaki. Between the two, more than 100,000 people died immediately with two cities destroyed and tens of thousands to die later of radiation exposure. Truman had to make the awful decision to drop the bombs, but in so doing May have ultimately saved millions of deaths and casualties. The war was probably cut short by several years.

Truman details all this and more in the first volume of his autobiography, Harry S. Truman, 1945 Year of Decision. It is an excellent book, though obviously biased in places by President Truman's memory.

[Bob Ely · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a book. It was very wordy and hard to read more than 1 chapter at a time. Even with that in mind, it was a very interesting book. I liked the way he took us through his first months in office and how he got there. As we look back, I don't believe the American People really understand what he accomplished within his early tenure in office. The most important feature, I thought, was, you couldn't trust the Russians then and you still can't trust them today. We should have followed Patton's advice and gone in and taken care of them at the end of WWII. He followed through on FDR's ideas, mainly ending the wars in both Europe and Asia, was instrumental in establishing the United Nations, changing the way office of President is filled if the Vice President is not available and tried to maintain our secrets with Atomic Energy. A person can see where he made some of the people in the U.S. mad, but things he did, he had to do. I also found it amazing that some of the Unions in this country survived with the power hungry people they had in charge. After reading this, I do believe even more, that history repeats itself. I highly recommend this book, especially for high school civic classes.

[Attycorcoran · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this as the free nook book from Barnes & Noble. There were a lot of problems with the format, but it was free. It is really amazing the situation Truman was forced into. After FDR was President for about 13 years, all of sudden Truman has to face the end of the war in Europe, the beginning of the Cold War, the decision to use nuclear weapons in the Pacific and the transition of the United States from a war time to a peace time economy. The memoir tends come across as a diary with moment by moment accounts. It has its pros and cons. It comes across as unbiased (or at least intellectually honest in its bias) and provides some real insight, obviously. The recounting of the Potsdam Conference are especially good. You get a play by play of Churchill adn Stalin going at it. It is focused primarily on foreign affairs which makes sense given the time in which he became President. The only parts of the book on domestic affairs address Truman's transition from war time measures to a regular domestic economy. The book is about average in terms of the writing style. I would recommend reading it.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written years later, this describes the events that occurred during the 7 1/2 months that Truman was President of the United States. He was sworn in on April 12, 1945 after the death of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This book contains boring, mind numbing and teeth clenching lists of the time, date, and attendees at meetings, personal letters home etc. But then as he sums up, and I'll let him say it. "The world was undergoing great and historic changes. We had come into the atomic age. The wars in Europe and Asia had been brought to a victorious end. The United Nations had been launched. Churchill, Attlee, Stalin, and I had met at Potsdam...." Reading about these events from someone who lived them was the best history lesson I've ever experienced.

[Bob]

Great history of the last months of WW 2 and the first months of Truman's presidency. A unique perspective from the man that had to make decisioins that still effect us today. Its disjointed at times with some repetitive descriptions of events and meetings, but that is probaly what the time felt like to him. There are some interesting parallels to the politics of today as Truman tries to move the country from a war time economy to one based on peace. I'll let you draw your own conclusions, but my view is that almost 60 years later very little has changed other than in those days there was a willingness to compromise.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

My grandmother had copies of the original two volumes of President Truman's memoirs, and I read them when she was living. If you can find copies of these memoirs, they offer an insight into the thinking of a president who dealt with many complex issues at the end of the Second World War, including the decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan.

[Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

An important look at a autobiographical look at Harry Truman's life and reasons for many difficult calls He was forced to make after the death of Franklin Roosevelt and his using the atomic bomb to force Japan to surrender. Historian will find many of his letters in the period and find His thoughts on that historic year.

[Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written like a presidential memoir but exciting to read with the perspective of all else I have about WW2 and Churchill. It certainly gives important insights into this very important year of history and important context to many of today's challenges in foreign relations. I am glad it was recommended to me.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Truman repeatedly placed himself on a pedestal. He seemed to take credit for all of the correct actions taken during his presidency, and blamed the incorrect actions taken during his presidency on congressional committees. Even so, the book was extremely informative.

[Julia Prater · Rating 4 out of 5]

At times a bit tedious, but incredible first hand record of so many issues we don't see in our history books. Particularly in the aftermath of the war, dealing with world wide hunger, the fledging United Nations and what to do with the knowledge gained in the development of the atomic bomb.

[Beverly Hollandbeck · Rating 3 out of 5]

Historically speaking, this book is of museum quality. It details day-by-day the first year of Truman's presidency as lived and documented by Truman himself. But because of the minute attention to detail, it's not an easy read.

[Dana]

I read the memoir for President Truman's thoughts on the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and also enjoyed his letters. some of the political detail I skimmed but overall I enjoyed his writing style and gained some insight into the reasons my grandparents hated all things Japanese/

[Leah G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh Truman. What a fella. What a memoir. I just appreciate him so much.

[Tamer Sadek · Rating 4 out of 5]

A truly fascinating insight into one of the most momentous years in history. Hard going in places but worth persevering with.

[Evelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Truman

Interesting to learn all Truman had to deal with during his first year as President but parts were detailed verbatim quotes of communiques, etc. that were slow reading.