How long was truman president

Back home from the war, Truman opened a men's furnishings store shirts, ties, underwear, sock, etc. The shop failed, however, after only a few years. In , Thomas J. Pendergast, the Democratic boss of Kansas City, asked Truman to run for a judgeship on the county court of Jackson County's eastern district.

Truman served one term, was defeated for a second, and then became presiding judge in , a position he held until As presiding judge, Truman managed the county's finances during the early years of the Great Depression. Despite his association with the corrupt Pendergast, Truman established a reputation for personal integrity, honesty, and efficiency. In , Truman was elected to the U. Senate with help of the Pendergast political machine.

Senator Truman supported the New Deal, although he proved only a marginally important legislator. He became a national figure during World War II when he chaired the "Truman Committee" investigating government defense spending. President Franklin D. Roosevelt chose Truman as his running mate in the presidential campaign largely because the Missourian passed muster with Southern Democrats and party officials.

The Roosevelt-Truman ticket won a comfortable victory over its Republican opposition, though Truman would serve only eighty-two days as vice president. Truman became the thirty-third President of the United States.

The German leader Adolf Hitler committed suicide in Berlin only two weeks into Truman's presidency and the allies declared victory in Europe on May 7, The war in the Pacific, however, was far from being over; most experts believed it might last another year and require an American invasion of Japan. The U. Upon its completion and successful testing in the summer of , Truman approved its use against Japan. On August 6 and 9, , the U. Army Air Force dropped atomic bombs on two cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, immediately killing upwards of , people with perhaps twice that number dying from the aftereffects of radiation poisoning.

Truman faced unprecedented and defining challenges in international affairs during the first years of his presidency. American relations with the Soviet Union—nominal allies in the battle against Germany and Japan—began to deteriorate even before victory in World War II. Serious ideological differences—the United States supported democratic institutions and market principles, while Soviet leaders were totalitarian and ran a command economy—separated the two countries.

But it was the diverging interests of the emerging superpowers in Europe and Asia which sharpened their differences. In response to what it viewed as Soviet threats, the Truman administration constructed foreign policies to contain the Soviet Union's political power and counter its military strength.

By , Soviet and American policies had divided Europe into a Soviet-controlled bloc in the east and an American-supported grouping in the west. That same year, a communist government sympathetic to the Soviet Union came to power in China, the world's most populous nation.

At home, President Truman presided over the difficult transition from a war-time to a peace-time economy. During World War II, the American government had intervened in the nation's economy to an unprecedented degree, controlling prices, wages, and production. Truman lobbied for a continuing government role in the immediate post-war economy and also for an expansive liberal agenda that built on the New Deal.

Republicans and conservative Democrats attacked this strategy and the President mercilessly. An immediate postwar economy characterized by high inflation and consumer shortages further eroded Truman's support and contributed to the Democrats losing control of Congress in the midterm elections.

Newly empowered Republicans and conservative Democrats stymied Truman's liberal proposals and began rolling back some New Deal gains, especially through the Taft-Hartley labor law moderately restricting union activity.

Truman's political fortunes reached their low point in and , a nadir from which few observers believed the President could recover to win a second term. Wallace was replaced by W. Averell Harriman. As a result prices rose sharply. Lewis when mine leader, defying a government injunction, called members of the United Mine Workers union out on strike.

Reaffirmed his predecessor's Good Neighbor Policy. The doctrine received the backing of most of the Republican members of Congress in accordance with the bipartisan foreign policy which was in effect during most of the Truman administration. Bill passed by Congress over the veto on 23 June. Appointed James V. Forrestal as first secretary of the unified National Military Established later realigned as Department of Defense.

Treaty of Rio de Janeiro signed. Bill passed by Congress over the president's veto the following day. Economic Cooperation Administration established to administer program. On January 20, , he took the vice-presidential oath, and after President Roosevelt's unexpected death only eighty-two days later on April 12, , he was sworn in as the nations' thirty-third President. Truman later called his first year as President a "year of decisions. He participated in a conference at Potsdam, Germany, governing defeated Germany, and to lay some groundwork for the final stage of the war against Japan.

Truman approved the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan on August 6 and 9, Japan surrendered on August 14, and American forces of occupation began to land by the end of the month. This first year of Truman's presidency also saw the founding of the United Nations and the development of an increasingly strained and confrontational relationship with the Soviet Union. Truman's presidency was marked throughout by important foreign policy initiatives.

Central to almost everything Truman undertook in his foreign policy was the desire to prevent the expansion of the influence of the Soviet Union.

The Truman Doctrine was an enunciation of American willingness to provide military aid to countries resisting communist insurgencies; the Marshall Plan sought to revive the economies of the nations of Europe in the hope that communism would not thrive in the midst of prosperity; the North Atlantic Treaty Organization built a military barrier confronting the Soviet-dominated part of Europe. Truman's recognition of Israel in May demonstrated his support for democracy and his commitment to a homeland for the Jewish people.

The one time during his presidency when a communist nation invaded a non-communist one -- when North Korea invaded South Korea in June -- Truman responded by waging undeclared war. In his domestic policies, Truman sought to accomplish the difficult transition from a war to a peace economy without plunging the nation into recession, and he hoped to extend New Deal social programs to include more government protection and services and to reach more people.

He was successful in achieving a healthy peacetime economy, but only a few of his social program proposals became law. The Congress, which was much more Republican in its membership during his presidency than it had been during Franklin Roosevelt's, did not usually share Truman's desire to build on the legacy of the New Deal. The Truman administration went considerably beyond the New Deal in the area of civil rights. Although, the conservative Congress thwarted Truman's desire to achieve significant civil rights legislation, he was able to use his powers as President to achieve some important changes.

He issued executive orders desegregating the armed forces and forbidding racial discrimination in Federal employment. He also established a Committee on Civil Rights and encouraged the Justice Department to argue before the Supreme Court on behalf of plaintiffs fighting against segregation.

In , Truman won reelection.