Obviously reading the last two Truman books, I found the first four months of his presidency a lot more interesting than the rest of it. Hence why I threw in a third book focusing on that. It was indeed comprehensive and bringing the situation at the time to life, which I really appreciated. This book "poses a new thesis" about how he had the most challenging four month period in any American presidency. Truman was an ordinary guy--no college, never owned his own hoe, never governed a city or state, and became president by accident, in his opinion. I'm not going to list the stuff like the author did, but it's a packed paragraph full of death, falls, victories, etc. "Never had fate shoehorned so much history into such a short period."
Nobody really knew how the hell Truman ended up with the job, nobody seemed to know much about him and Roosevelt didn't tell him diddly and the secretaries wouldn't return his phone calls. He was pretty much picked for being the least hurtful of the ticket. Someone randomly said, "Anything can happen in this country!"
I do think it's adorable how Truman fell in love circa age six and never loved anyone else. She was beautiful and popular, he had glasses and was a "sissy." "Harry sat next to Bess Wallace at church school. Somehow he knew already that he would devote his whole life to this one person. It took him five years to get up the courage to say hello." Circa age 26, he finally got somewhere by bringing a cake plate back to the house after her family had gone through hard times and her dad killed himself. I can't help but find that all cute.
I'm amused that the political factions in Truman's area when he first got into politics were called the Goats and the Rabbits. Also there's a quote: "Do you mean seriously to tell me that you actually believe that Truman can be nominated and elected to the United States Senate?" Then later someone says to him, "For the first six months you'll wonder how you got here, and after that you'll wonder how the rest of us got here."
Also funny: someone calls the house at 3:30 a.m., Bess answers, and hears, "I'd like to congratulate the wife of the senator from Missouri." "I don't think that's funny," Bess yells, slams down the phone....then realizes that was one of the campaign workers.
I think I got exhausted on bookmarking notes to take the more intense it got here.... you definitely feel bad for Truman having to make literally the worst and hardest decision in the world ever, on very little experience or ANYTHING. "I am going to have to make a decision which no man in history has ever had to make. I'll make the decision but it is terrifying to think about what I will have to decide." There's lots of details on the bomb, dealing with Churchill and Stalin, people's relief at the war ending soon... anyway, I think I've pooped out on writing this review, but these things happen sometimes. I give it four stars if you're into the topic.
Comments