by A. J. Baime
“All the world is asking”: “Truman: A Plain Genial Man Who Likes to Listen,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 14, 1945.
“the deadliest campaign”: Bill Sloan, The Ultimate Battle: Okinawa 1945—The Last Epic Struggle of World War II (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2008), p. 5.
“The four months that have”: “The Past Four Months: Unequalled in History,” New York Times, August 12, 1945.
Timeline
“No! No!”: “Cries No! No! As Partisan Shoot Him, Girl Friend,” Washington Post, April 30, 1945.
“as soon as possible”: Selected Documents on the Topic of the Atomic Bomb, box 1, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, NY.
“The alternative for Japan”: The Potsdam Declaration, http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/ps/japan/potsdam.pdf.
Chapter 1
“the whole weight of the moon”: “The Whole Weight of the Moon and Stars,” Daily Boston Globe, May 3, 1945.
“a transfer of power”: Harry S. Truman, Mr. Citizen (New York: Bernard Geis Associates, 1960), p. 9.
“He’s the man who cracks”: William M. Rigdon, White House Sailor (New York: Doubleday, 1962), p. 188.
“Mozart, Beethoven”: “It is not noise. It is music,” Harry Truman’s Record Albums, Harry S. Truman National Historic Site, National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/hstr/learn/historyculture/truman-record-collection.htm.
The Trumans’ bank account : Financial records, Bess W. Truman Papers, Financial Affairs File, box 9, Truman Library.
“regular Army marching speed”: John Hersey, “Mr. President—Quite a Head of Steam,” Profiles, New Yorker, April 7, 1951.
“You had to get up early”: Oral history interview, James J. Rowley, p. 23, Truman Library.
“Look at that thing”: Hersey, “Mr. President.”
“I used to get down here”: Harry S. Truman to Mary Jane Truman and Martha Ellen Truman, April 11, 1945, FBPAP:FCF, box 19, Truman Papers.
“I imagine Spot is getting”: Harry S. Truman to May Wallace, April 12, 1945, letter quoted on Harry S. Truman National Historic Site, National Park Service, https://home.nps.gov/hstr/learn/historyculture/upload/Wallace%20Homes%20Site%20Bulletin.pdf.
“They are a contrary outfit”: Truman to James M. Pendergast, April 12, 1945, James M. Pendergast Papers, box 1, Truman Library.
“with all the brisk eagerness”: Allen Drury, A Senate Journal: 1943–1945 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), p. 409.
“Don’t you think we ought”: Oral history interview, Edward D. McKim, p. 121, Truman Library.
“duty” to witness the camp’s: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe (New York: Avon, 1952), p. 451.
“The things I saw beggar”: Dwight D. Eisenhower to General George C. Marshall, cable, at “Ohrdruf,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10006131.
“the stories of Nazi brutality”: Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, p. 451.
“furious ground fighting”: “Yanks Regain Kakazu Peak on Okinawa,” Washington Post, April 12, 1945.
“Total roof area damaged”: Twenty-First Bomber Command operations report, Curtis E. LeMay Papers, box 28, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
“My idea of what was humanly”: Curtis E. LeMay with MacKinlay Kantor, Mission with LeMay: My Story (New York: Doubleday, 1965), p. 353.
The city had changed: Descriptions of Washington, DC, come from William L. O’Neill, A Democracy at War: America’s Fight at Home & Abroad in World War II (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993); Richard Lingeman, Don’t You Know There’s a War On? The American Home Front 1941–1945 (New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 1970); and A. J. Baime, The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014).
“If you want a friend”: Walter John Raymond, Dictionary of Politics: Selected American and Foreign Political and Legal Terms (Lawrenceville, VA: Brunswick, 1973), p. 225.
“District (not exceeding ten . . .)”: United States Constitution, https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript.
“It abounds in phonies”: Jonathan Daniels, Frontier on the Potomac (New York: Macmillan, 1946), p. 7.
“I’ve never known any President”: Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., “F.D.R. as President,” Don Congdon, ed., The Thirties: A Time to Remember (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1962), p. 431.
“It is one of the episodes”: George E. Allen, Presidents Who Have Known Me (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960), p. 120.
2 percent of Democratic voters: “7 Out of 10 Democrats Favor Wallace,” Washington Post, July 19, 1944.
“I knew almost nothing”: William D. Leahy, I Was There: The Personal Story of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman Based on His Notes and Diaries Made at the Time (New York: Whittlesey House, 1950), p. 248.
“Truman [was] still unknown”: “Bricker, Truman Still Unknown to Millions Despite Fanfare,” Washington Post, November 3, 1944.
“In the scheme of American”: Allen, Presidents, p. 137.
“a graveyard of politicians”: Ibid.
“The Vice President has not”: Luther Huston, “The Vice President Talks of His New Job,” New York Times Magazine, January 21, 1945.
“political Eunuch”: Truman to Hugh P. Williamson, April 5, 1945, letter pictured on Christie’s auction house website, christies.com, last accessed January 11, 2017.
“Study history”: Huston, “Vice President Talks.”
“Anything can happen”: “Lauren Bacall Aids Show for Services,” Washington Post, February 11, 1945.
“Don’t say that”: “Truman Has Job That He Didn’t Want,” Hartford Courant, April 16, 1945.
“I’m afraid you’re right”: McKim oral history, p. 106.
“He knew that”: Oral history interview, Harry Easley, p. 99, Truman Library.
“We saw Harry Truman come in”: Drury, Senate Journal, p. 106 and 410.
“I feel somewhat hesitant”: Congressional Record, April 12, 1945.
“Dear Mamma and Mary”: H. S. Truman to M. J. Truman and M. E. Truman, April 12, 1945, FBPAP:FCF, box 19, Truman Papers.
“You know,” Drury said: Drury, Senate Journal, p. 410.
Chapter 2
“Oh no, no”: Bernard Asbell, When F.D.R. Died (New York: Signet, 1961), p. 17.
“God-awful”: A. J. Baime, The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), p. 251.
“I was terribly shocked”: Henry Morgenthau diaries, April 11, 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/_resources/images/morg/mpd18.pdf.
“Oh, I don’t feel any too good”: Asbell, When F.D.R. Died, p. 18.
“The purge was everywhere”: Charles E. Bohlen, Witness to History: 1929–1969 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1973), p. 43.
“Never—neither then nor at any”: George F. Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950 (Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1967), p. 57.
“In the opinion of this Government”: John Lewis Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War: 1941–1947 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972), p. 4.
“If Hitler invaded Hell”: Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 3, The Grand Alliance (New York: Rosetta, 2002), p. 331.
“Stalin’s aim is to spread”: Gaddis, Origins of the Cold War, p. 54.
“I just have a hunch”: Ibid., p. 64.
“The far reaching decisions”: Franklin D. Roosevelt to Joseph Stalin, February 23, 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Papers as President: Map Room Papers, http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/collections/franklin/?p=collections/findingaid&id=511&q=&rootcontentid=144934#id144934.
“in about one month”: Herbert Feis , From Trust to Terror: The Onset of the Cold War, 1945–1950 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1970), p. 25.
“I am outraged”: W. Averell Harriman to Roosevelt, March 14, 1945, Franklin D.
Roosevelt, Papers as President: Map Room Papers, http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/collections/franklin/?p=collections/findingaid&id=511&q=&rootcontentid=144934#id144934.
“At present, all entry”: Churchill to Roosevelt, March 16, 1945, ibid.
“I feel certain that”: Harriman to Roosevelt, April 3, 1945, ibid.
“I cannot conceal”: Roosevelt to Stalin, March 29, 1945, ibid.
“Matters on the Polish question”: Stalin to Roosevelt, April 7, 1945, ibid.
“It may be assumed”: Stalin to Roosevelt, April 3, 1945, ibid.
“I have received with astonishment”: Roosevelt to Stalin, April 4, 1945, ibid.
“There must not, in any event”: Roosevelt to Stalin, April 11, 1945, ibid.
“Averell [Harriman] is right”: Joseph E. Persico, Roosevelt’s Centurions: FDR and the Commanders He Led to Win World War II (New York: Random House, 2013), p. 498.
“We really believed”: Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948), p. 870.
“The two months that had passed”: Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 6, Triumph and Tragedy (New York: Rosetta, 2002), p. 510.
“A typical State Department”: Asbell, When F.D.R. Died, p. 39.
“Here’s where I make law”: Ibid.
“May I respectfully suggest”: Harriman to Roosevelt, April 12, 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Papers as President: Map Room Papers, http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/collections/franklin/?p=collections/findingaid&id=511&q=&rootcontentid=144934#id144934.
“I do not wish to”: Roosevelt to Harriman, April 12, 1945, ibid. Also: Michael Dobbs, Six Months in 1945: From World War to Cold War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), p. 158.
“Now we’ve got just about”: Interview with Elizabeth Shoumatoff, in “Roosevelt Jovial Before Collapse,” New York Times, April 16, 1945.
“I have a terrific headache”: Asbell, When F.D.R. Died, p. 42.
“Ask the Secret Service”: Ibid., p. 43.
Chapter 3
“It was a stricken”: Michael Reilly, Reilly of the White House (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1947), p. 232.
Pulse: 104: The specifics of Dr. Bruenn’s examination and procedure are from Bernard Asbell, When F.D.R. Died (New York: Signet, 1961), pp. 45–46.
“Dr. Bruenn told me it was”: Transcript of press conference with Ross McIntire, April 12, 1945, Eben A. Ayers Papers, box 10, Truman Library.
“The President was in extremis”: Asbell, When F.D.R. Died, p. 48.
“Dr. Bruenn told me things”: McIntire press conference.
“[I] asked her to come”: Transcript of press conference with Stephen Early, April 12, 1945, Ayers Papers, box 10.
“I got into the car”: Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt; The Home Front in World War II (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), p. 603.
“gold-plated office”: Harry S. Truman to Mary Jane Truman and Martha Ellen Truman, April 11, 1945, April 12, 1945, FBPAP:FCF, box 19, Truman Papers.
“Sam wanted me”: Ibid., April 16, 1945.
“I guess some fellahs”: Alfred Steinberg, Sam Rayburn: A Biography (New York: Hawthorn, 1975), p. 195.
“This is the VP”: David McCullough, Truman (New York: Touchstone, 1993), p. 341.
“as quickly and quietly”: H. S. Truman to M. J. Truman and M. E. Truman, April 16, 1945.
“He is kind of a pale”: Steinberg, Sam Rayburn, p. 225.
“Jesus Christ and General Jackson”: Ibid.
“[I] told my office force”: H. S. Truman to M. J. Truman and M. E. Truman, April 16, 1945.
“in almost nothing flat”: Ibid.
“Harry,” she said, “the president”: Ibid.
The lightning has struck!: Various forms of this quote have been attributed to Truman in numerous sources, for example, Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (New York: Touchstone, 1986), p. 614.
“I was fighting off tears”: Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: 1945; Year of Decisions (New York: Konecky & Konecky, 1955), p. 5.
“It was the only time in my life”: H. S. Truman to M. J. Truman and M. E. Truman, April 16, 1945.
“Is there anything I can do”: Truman, Memoirs, p. 5.
“I want to see you”: Oral history interview, James J. Rowley, p. 15, Truman Library.
“During the drive”: Oral history interview, Robert G. Nixon, p. 109, Truman Library.
“It is my sad duty”: Ibid., p.110
“Everything was completely”: The Diaries of Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., 1943–1946, eds. Thomas M. Campbell and George C. Herring (New York: New Viewpoints, 1975), p. 313.
“I told her as soon as”: H. S. Truman to M. J. Truman and M. E. Truman, April 16, 1945.
“I have a flash for you”: Asbell, When F.D.R. Died, p. 79.
“From then on there was”: Robert H. Ferrell, ed., Truman in the White House: The Diary of Eben A. Ayers (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991), p. 8.
“In an odd, tight voice”: Margaret Truman, Bess W. Truman (New York: Macmillan, 1986), pp. 249–50.
FLASH WASHN—FDR DEAD: Anecdote and dialogue from Asbell, When F.D.R. Died, pp. 80–85.
“Her face was a study”: Diary of Joseph E. Davies, April 12, 1945, Joseph Edward Davies Papers, box 1:16, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
“In the long Cabinet Room”: Jonathan Daniels, Frontier on the Potomac (New York: Macmillan, 1946), p. 10.
“The Cabinet was assembling”: Davies diary, April 12, 1945.
“It is my sad duty to report”: James Forrestal, The Forrestal Diaries, ed. Walter Millis (New York: Viking, 1951), p. 42.
“I want every one of you”: Henry Morgenthau diaries, April 12, 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/_resources/images/morg/mpd19.pdf.
“Mr. Truman, I will do”: Ibid.
“He spoke very warmly”: Diary of Henry L. Stimson, April 12, 1945, Stimson Papers, series 2, box 172, Yale University Library.
“sad and a little frightened”: Daniels, Frontier on the Potomac, p. 11.
“I told him that he had”: Campbell and Herring, Diaries of Edward R. Stettinius, p. 315.
“I, Harry Shipp Truman”: Truman, Bess W. Truman, p. 252.
“In that moment of actual”: Jonathan Daniels, The Man of Independence (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat, 1971), p. 27.
“Mr. President, will you come”: Oral history interview, Eben A. Ayers, p. 8, Truman Library.
“The world may be sure”: Statement by the President After Taking the Oath of Office, April 12, 1945, https://trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/index.php?pid=1.
“about a most urgent matter”: Truman, Memoirs, p. 10.
“He wanted me to know”: Ibid.
“That was all he felt free”: Ibid.
“I was very much shocked”: Diary of Harry S. Truman, April 12, 1945, PSF, Truman Papers.
“The President has left”: Daniels, Frontier on the Potomac, p. 12.
Chapter 4
“It finally crushed him”: Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948), p. 880.
“Good God!”: Cabell Phillips, The Truman Presidency: The History of a Triumphant Succession (London: Collier-Macmillan, 1966), p. 1.
“I realize,” he told listeners: Radio broadcast, April 12, 1945, transcript in Tom L. Evans Papers, box 5, Truman Library.
“The gravest question-mark”: Diary of Arthur H. Vandenberg, excerpted in Arthur H. Vandenberg, Jr., ed., The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1952), p. 165.
“He seemed deeply moved”: W. Averell Harriman to White House, cable, quoted in W. Averell Harriman and Elie Abel, Special Envoy to Churchill and Stalin 1941–1946 (New York: Random House, 1975), p. 440.
“We have the miracle”: Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (New York: Avon, 1975), p. 586.
“as if
I had been struck”: Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 6, Triumph and Tragedy (New York: Bantam, 1953), p. 403.
“We pondered over the effect”: Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Crusade in Europe,” Life, December 13, 1948.
“We talked for nearly”: H. W. Brands, The General vs. the President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War (New York: Penguin, 2016), Kindle edition.
“It seems very unfortunate”: David McCullough, Truman (New York: Touchstone, 1993), p. 350.
“As long as he lived”: Oral history interview, Mary Jane Truman, pp. 1–2, Truman Library.
“Mother is terribly, terribly”: “Truman’s Mother,” Pittsburgh Press, April 13, 1945.
“Roosevelt was a great”: Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (New York: Vintage, 2005), p. 290.
“He did not say much to us”: Margaret Truman, Bess W. Truman (New York: Macmillan, 1986), p. 252.
“Be good, Harry”: Ibid., p. 253.
he awoke to find his wife: Ibid.
“Who the hell is Harry”: Jonathan Daniels, The Man of Independence (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat, 1971), p. 111.
Chapter 5
“We would hunt birds’”: Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: 1945; Year of Decisions (New York: Konecky & Konecky, 1955), p. 114.
“You know,” said a Grandview: Oral history interview, Stephen S. Slaughter, p. 34, Truman Library.
“light-foot Baptist”: Harry S. Truman to Bess W. Wallace, March 19, 1911, FBPAP:FCF, box 1, Truman Papers.
“Rebel Democrats”: See Meyer Berger, “Mother Truman—Portrait of a Rebel,” New York Times, June 23, 1946.
“No one could make remarks”: “Truman Memoirs: Part 2,” Life, October 3, 1955.
“He was one of the hardest”: Sound recording of Truman interview, MP2002-21, Screen Gems Collection, Truman Library.
“flat eyeballs”: “A President Grows Up,” Truman Library, https://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/fastfacts/ffearly.htm.
“It was very unusual”: Oral history interview, Mize Peters, p. 11, Truman Library.
“a new consciousness”: Willa Cather, O Pioneers! (New York: Penguin Classics, 1989), p. vii.