Dear Bess

Dear Bess

Author: Harry S. Truman

Publisher: University of Missouri Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 614

ISBN-13: 9780826212030

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This correspondence, which encompasses Truman's courtship of his wife, his service in the senate, his presidency, and after, reveals not only the character of Truman's mind but also a shrewd observer's view of American politics.


Harry Truman and Civil Rights

Harry Truman and Civil Rights

Author: Michael R. Gardner

Publisher: SIU Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 9780809388967

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Given his background, President Truman was an unlikely champion of civil rights. Where he grew up--the border state of Missouri--segregation was accepted and largely unquestioned. Both his maternal and paternal grandparents had owned slaves, and his beloved mother, victimized by Yankee forces, railed against Abraham Lincoln for the remainder of her ninety-four years. When Truman assumed the presidency on April 12, 1945, Michael R. Gardner points out, Washington, DC, in many ways resembled Cape Town, South Africa, under apartheid rule circa 1985. Truman's background notwithstanding, Gardner shows that it was Harry Truman--not Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, or John F. Kennedy--who energized the modern civil rights movement, a movement that basically had stalled since Abraham Lincoln had freed the slaves. Gardner recounts Truman's public and private actions regarding black Americans. He analyzes speeches, private conversations with colleagues, the executive orders that shattered federal segregation policies, and the appointments of like-minded civil rights activists to important positions. Among those appointments was the first black federal judge in the continental United States. Gardner characterizes Truman's evolution from a man who grew up in a racist household into a president willing to put his political career at mortal risk by actively supporting the interests of black Americans.


Before the Oath

Before the Oath

Author: Martha Joynt Kumar

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2015-06-30

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 142141659X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"Having watched from a front row seat as many incumbent and electoral campaign presidential teams managed administration transitions, Martha Kumar was struck by how productively the Bush and Obama teams worked together to effect a smooth transition of power in 2008. She has reflected upon what made the transition so effective, and wonders if it could be a model for future incoming and outgoing administrations. This book focuses on the preparations made by President Bush's transition team as well as those by Senators Obama and McCain as one administration exited and the other entered the White House. Using this recent transition as a lens through which to examine the presidential transition process, Kumar simultaneously outlines the congressional legislation that paved the way for this distinctive transition and interweaves comparative examples from previous administrative transitions going back to Truman-to-Eisenhower. She evaluates the early and continuing actions by the General Services Administration to plan and set up transition offices; the work on financial disclosure issues handled by the Office of Government Ethics; and the Office of Management and Budget's preparatory work. In this fascinating historical and contemporary vivisection of presidential transitions, Kumar maps out, in the words of former NSA advisor General James L. Jones, the characteristics of a smooth "glide path" for presidential campaign staffs and their administrations"--


Colonial Crucible

Colonial Crucible

Author: Alfred W. McCoy

Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press

Published: 2009-05-15

Total Pages: 706

ISBN-13: 0299231038

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

At the end of the nineteenth century the United States swiftly occupied a string of small islands dotting the Caribbean and Western Pacific, from Puerto Rico and Cuba to Hawaii and the Philippines. Colonial Crucible: Empire in the Making of the Modern American State reveals how this experiment in direct territorial rule subtly but profoundly shaped U.S. policy and practice—both abroad and, crucially, at home. Edited by Alfred W. McCoy and Francisco A. Scarano, the essays in this volume show how the challenge of ruling such far-flung territories strained the U.S. state to its limits, creating both the need and the opportunity for bold social experiments not yet possible within the United States itself. Plunging Washington’s rudimentary bureaucracy into the white heat of nationalist revolution and imperial rivalry, colonialism was a crucible of change in American statecraft. From an expansion of the federal government to the creation of agile public-private networks for more effective global governance, U.S. empire produced far-reaching innovations. Moving well beyond theory, this volume takes the next step, adding a fine-grained, empirical texture to the study of U.S. imperialism by analyzing its specific consequences. Across a broad range of institutions—policing and prisons, education, race relations, public health, law, the military, and environmental management—this formative experience left a lasting institutional imprint. With each essay distilling years, sometimes decades, of scholarship into a concise argument, Colonial Crucible reveals the roots of a legacy evident, most recently, in Washington’s misadventures in the Middle East.


The Uncertain Friendship

The Uncertain Friendship

Author: Herbert Druks

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2000-11-30

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 0313002754

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Although the United States has been a friend to Israel from the beginning and Israel has in return been an important American ally in the region, relations between the two nations have never been without difficulties. This study traces U.S.-Israeli relations from the 1930s to the early 1960s and examines the roles played by both Israelis and Americans in the formation of an independent Israel. Taking into account economic, political, social, and military factors, Druks devotes particular attention to elements of Israel's dependence on and independence from the United States during crucial phases of relations. These include the Holocaust and the failure to rescue European Jewry; Roosevelt and the promise of independence; establishment and recognition; Washington's ongoing relations with the new nation; the 1956 Sinai War; and President John F. Kennedy's enlightened approach towards Israel and the Middle East. On the U.S. side, Druks analyzes the defining roles played by the various presidents involved, the efforts of Congress, the influence of the media, and the contributions of Americans in general. Discussion of the Israeli side of the equation includes the impact of Israeli leaders, society, and the parliamentary democratic process. The work is based on materials from public and private archives in the U.S. and Israel, published governmental documents, as well as personal diaries. In addition, the author includes interviews with such key figures as Harry S Truman, W. Averell Harriman, Roger P. Davies, Yitzhak Rabin, Benjamin Netanyahu, Yitzhak Shamir Moti Gur, Moshe Arens, and Ezer Weizman.


The General vs. the President

The General vs. the President

Author: H. W. Brands

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2017-10-03

Total Pages: 482

ISBN-13: 1101912170

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, bestselling historian, and author of Our First Civil War comes the riveting story of how President Harry Truman and General Douglas MacArthur squared off to decide America's future in the aftermath of World War II. "A highly readable take on the clash of two titanic figures in a period of hair-trigger nuclear tensions.... History offers few antagonists with such dramatic contrasts, and Brands brings these two to life." —Los Angeles Times At the height of the Korean War, President Harry S. Truman committed a gaffe that sent shock waves around the world, when he suggested that General Douglas MacArthur, the willful, fearless, and highly decorated commander of the American and U.N. forces, had his finger on the nuclear trigger. At a time when the Soviets, too, had the bomb, the specter of a catastrophic third World War lurked menacingly close on the horizon. A correction quickly followed, but the damage was done; two visions for America’s path forward were clearly in opposition, and one man would have to make way. The contest of wills between these two titanic characters unfolds against the turbulent backdrop of a faraway war and terrors conjured at home by Joseph McCarthy. From the drama of Stalin’s blockade of West Berlin to the daring landing of MacArthur’s forces at Inchon to the shocking entrance of China into the war, The General and the President vividly evokes the making of a new American era.


Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman

Author: Robert Dallek

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2008-09-02

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 1429998105

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The plainspoken man from Missouri who never expected to be president yet rose to become one of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century In April 1945, after the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the presidency fell to a former haberdasher and clubhouse politician from Independence, Missouri. Many believed he would be overmatched by the job, but Harry S. Truman would surprise them all. Few chief executives have had so lasting an impact. Truman ushered America into the nuclear age, established the alliances and principles that would define the cold war and the national security state, started the nation on the road to civil rights, and won the most dramatic election of the twentieth century—his 1948 "whistlestop campaign" against Thomas E. Dewey. Robert Dallek, the bestselling biographer of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, shows how this unassuming yet supremely confident man rose to the occasion. Truman clashed with Southerners over civil rights, with organized labor over the right to strike, and with General Douglas MacArthur over the conduct of the Korean War. He personified Thomas Jefferson's observation that the presidency is a "splendid misery," but it was during his tenure that the United States truly came of age.