The Accidental President
Page 54
and eastern European countries, 18–19, 193, 356–57
and Germany, 186–87
Great Purge, 16–17
on Japan, 344–45, 350
on Roosevelt’s death, 35–36
US, on avoiding war with, 209–10
WWII alliance and subsequent breakdown, 17–20
United Nations, 323. See also San Francisco conference
charter signing, 259
Senate debate, 265, 323–24
Truman signs charter, 344
United Nations Conference on International Organization. See San Francisco conference
U.S. Ninth Army, 6
USS Missouri, 355
USS Potomac, 197, 239
U.S. Tenth Army, 8
V
Vaccaro, Tony, 13, 117
Vandenberg, Arthur, 35, 77, 119, 124, 176, 183, 259, 266
Van Kirk, Theodore “Dutch,” 337
Vaughan, Harry, 3, 65, 81, 86, 108, 140, 272, 275
Veatch, Tom, 67
Vinson, Fred, 239, 268, 331, 342
Vyshinsky, Andrey, 295
W
Wallace, David, 43, 44
Wallace, Elizabeth “Bess.” See Truman, Elizabeth “Bess”
Wallace, George, 144
Wallace, Henry, 11, 29, 93–95, 97, 99–100, 102–4, 204
cabinet meetings, Truman’s, 155
Wallace, Madge, 4, 202
Wallgren, Monrad, 256–57
Wall Street Journal, 119, 189
War Relocation Authority, 216
Washington, DC, employment boom, 9
Washington News, 254
Washington Post, 69, 71, 74, 76, 81, 256, 273
mood of the country under Truman, 223
Okinawa campaign, 8
vice-presidential nominee unknown, 10
Washington Times-Herald, 142
Welles, Orson, 109
Whaley, Richard, 265
Wheeler, Burton, 77, 83
Wherry, Ken, 13
White, Wallace H., 27, 123
White House
Cabinet Room, 3, 29–32, 154, 186, 241
China Room, 185
Diplomatic Reception Room, 176, 188, 342
East Portico, 265
East Room, 134
funerals, 133–34
“the Great White Jail,” 239
Green Room, 112, 185
Lincoln Bedroom, 186
Map Room, 139–40
North Portico, 185
Oval Office, 76, 118, 141, 268
Red Room, 33
South Portico, 111, 160, 238
staff of, 184–85
State Dining Room, 222, 254
State Dinner, first for Truman, 220–22
Trumans move in, 159, 184, 186–87
West Wing, 186
Wickard, Claude Raymond, 30, 224
Wiley, Alexander, 12–13
Wilson, Woodrow, 49–50, 52, 176, 226
Winant, John, 319
Wise, Stephen, 158
Wooden, McKinley, 59
World Today, The, 29
World War I, 51, 52, 53
World War II, 130, 189. See also Japan
American and Russian armies meet, 178
atomic bomb and end of war, 350
Central Europe, 151
concentration camps liberated, 150
Eisenhower in Germany, 151–52
Europe’s food problems, 181
Germany’s surrender, 178–79, 181, 186–87, 188
Hitler reported dead, 179–80
Italy surrender, 179
on Japan, 248–49, 343
Korea and Manchuria occupation, 351
Nazi blitzkrieg in Europe, 80
report on Nazi death camps, 192
Soviets surround Nazis in Vienna, 6
Y
Yalta Conference, 112–13
Declaration on Liberated Europe, 18, 131
failure of, 20
secret agreements with Stalin, concessions from China, 161–62, 208–9
shorthand notes from Byrnes, 125, 161
Yugoslavia, northern Italy territory of Venezia Giulia seizure, 205–6
Z
Zhukov, Georgy, 317
Zionist Organization of America, 158
About the Author
A. J. BAIME is the New York Times best-selling author of The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War and Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans. Both books are in development for major motion pictures. Baime is a longtime regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, and his articles have also appeared in the New York Times, Popular Science, and Men’s Journal. He lives in Granite Bay, California.
Visit A. J. online
facebook.com/ajbaime
trumanbook.com
Connect with HMH on Social Media
Follow us for book news, reviews, author updates, exclusive content, giveaways, and more.
Footnotes
* The Soviet government had also signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939, further offending American officials. This pact was of course broken by the surprise Nazi attack on the Soviet Union, in 1941.
[back]
* * *
* In fact, negotiations had taken place at Berne, regarding the surrender of German forces in Italy. But these were purely military and not political negotiations, and the American officials present had no authority to speak for the president of the United States.
[back]
* * *
* In 1941 the Georgia legislature voted not to use daylight saving time, so Georgia’s clocks were an hour behind Washington’s.
[back]
* * *
* Boring led a fascinating career in the secret service. He had become the president’s driver under FDR, on a day when Roosevelt’s usual driver was discovered to be intoxicated. Boring was with Roosevelt in Warm Springs the day Roosevelt died, and he later took part in a gunfight during a 1950 assassination attempt on President Truman, which left one shooter and a secret service man dead.
[back]
* * *
* Britain finally paid off its World War II debt to the United States in 2006. The Soviets settled their debt as part of a 1972 trade package.
[back]
* * *
* Historians have never agreed on whether Truman’s delay for setting up the tripartite meeting was in fact because of the bomb, and this gray area has proven controversial. Certainly Truman wanted to delay so that he could become educated enough in international relations to negotiate with the likes of Churchill and Stalin. Still, this author sides with those who believe Truman’s delay was directly linked to the bomb, as evidenced in these pages.
[back]
* * *
* “It was great fun writing a book,” Churchill once said. “One lived with it. It became a companion.” Source: https://www.nationalchurchillmuseum.org/winston-churchill-the-writer.html, last accessed April 6, 2017.
[back]
* * *
* At a 1943 meeting in Quebec, the United States and Britain had made a pact regarding the bomb. Their agreement listed the following: “We [the U.S. and Britain] will never use this agency against each other,” “we will not use it against third parties without each other’s consent,” and “we will not either of us communicate any information about [the bomb] to third parties except by mutual consent.” Source: Articles of Agreement Governing Collaboration Between the Authorities of the USA and the UK in the Matter of Tube Alloys, avalon.law.yale.edu, last accessed January 28, 2017.
[back]
* * *
* At Yalta the Big Three agreed to allow the eastern Polish border to be moved west, so the USSR was given a part of Poland. Thus, at Potsdam, Poland wanted to get some frontier back, at the expense of the Germans.
[back]
* * *