Harry truman biography cold war weapon

What sort of statesman?

Harry S Truman became President of the United States on 12 April , amidst profound concern about his capacity for national or world leadership. He was untutored in foreign affairs, and knew nothing about the complex diplomacy of his predecessor, Franklin D Roosevelt.

At the same time the expedient Anglo-American-Soviet alliance - formed in opposition to Nazi Germany during World War Two - was growing strained over Russian actions in eastern Europe, and over Allied policy differences towards a soon-to-be defeated Germany.

After seven years in office, in his last year in the White House, Republicans would charge that Truman's administration had surrendered 15 countries and million people to Communism, and sent 20, Americans to their deaths in Korea.

But the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, would tell the US President that on the contrary it was he, more than anyone else, who had 'saved western civilisation' from Soviet aggression. And Truman's biog