Harrry S. Truman was one of the most unfit presidents the United States has ever had. I rate him as the 2nd most undesirable president ever, and the facts show that he, along with George Marshall and Dean Acheson, were almost soleley responsibile for the 50 years of Cold War. Indeed, at Potsdam, Stalin (after meeting Truman for the first time) told his entourage during a recess that he could not believe a country as large and as well developed as the United States could ever had elected a man like Truman to be its president. Stalin was not referring to Truman's firm stand--he had none, but was referring to his naivity and stupidity. Truman was deathly afraid of Stalin until his death. Truman should have been tried as a traitor for his conduct of the Korean War (Truman never referred to the Korean conflict as a War, and forbid his staff to do so--he called it a police action) and his treasonous firing of General McArthur. The great majority of the dead (55,000) in Korea occurred after Truman fired McArthur. His decision to allow the Russians to take Berlin, which ended up nearly 100 miles inside the Russian zone was one of the worst military disasters of history. His weakness precipitated the Berlin Blockade. His weakness, and pinko advisors (Marshall, Acheson) caused the loss of many eastern european countries to communism. The record is endless of his overt attempts to subvert the office of president. This is confirmed by all the congressional hearings to indict and/or remove him from office. The decision that overshadowed all of his disastrous record as president was engineering the fall of Nationalist China to the communists--mostly because he personally did not like Generalissimo Chaing-Chi-Scheck. We lost 400,000,000 million allies with the fall of Nationalist China. Truman forbid the Nationalist chinese on Taiwan to fight along with us in the Korean War though they begged to be let in. He chose to let 55,000 americans die. His intense personal fear of Stalin clouded his presidential decisions time and again, and we as a nation are paying the price today. Harry S. Truman is one president that this nation could have well done without.

I have given Truman a 5 in other reviews primarily on his decision making qualities and firm character; however here I'll give a more detailed analysis on his foreign policy accomplishments. On the positive side, Truman prevented America from sliding into isolationism after the war. Although the foreign policy elite was against isolationism, plenty of Americans believed that it was not our place to fight communist expansion. Truman saw that Soviet communism was a threat to the stability of Europe. His predecessor FDR really didn't have the drive to fight communism like Truman did because a lot of his advisors who were New Deal accolytes had a soft spot for the Soviet system of government. In my view, FDR gave away the farm in Yalta; he didn't see the obvious, that Stalin was a wolf in sheeps clothes. After FDR died, Truman couldn't do much but keep up the path FDR had established. It wasn't until late 1946 that Truman really realized that Stalin was not in it for world peace. He was not able to stop Stalin's massive land grab in Eastern Europe, but at least he managed to contain the communists. The Marshall Plan of 1948 allowed for Europe to be rebuilt; preventing communist insurgencies from taking root in these countries. This set the foundation for US dominance of world markets for nearly 25 years after the 2nd World War. Indeed, Truman set the stage for US dominance in international trade for many years to come. Europe today remains a strategic partner with the United States. The Greek-Turkish Aid Program prevented communist expansionism into these weakened countries facing communist guerilla movements. They would have fallen without our help. Truman did all of this in his first term with most Americans actually opposing him; he did what was right rather than what would make him popular with the people. Most people simply wanted to disengage from the world after the 2nd World War, but this would have been a monumental disaster for the US. We had a responsibility to make sure that a 3rd World War would not be commensed because of communist aggression; a forward strategy was necessary to make sure this didn't happen. This is what made him a leader, he definitely was not shortsighted. However the picture is not all rosy here. Truman's Asia policy, primarily in his second term, was disasterous. The central problem was that he failed to prop up the nationalist Chinese government of Chiang Kai-Chek. Although Chiang's government was utterly corrupt and weak, he didn't do enough to force him to reform his government. The Maoist forces were simply better organized and equipped against the nationalists, which caused China to fall to the communists. This would have dire consequences for Truman during the Korean War. Essentially, most of Asia became communist with the fall of China; they are the lynchpin of the region and Truman should not have ignored them like he did. If China hadn't fallen, Korea would have been nothing less than a squrmish and Vietnam might have not turned out like it did. Red China was the 800 pound gorilla when dealing with Asia. Really this shouldn't have been. Korea would have been much easier in retrospect. That war was a disaster for Americans, something like 55,000 people died in that war of attrition. MacArthur's tactics were brilliant, particularly the landing at Inchon, but he pushed his luck by attempting to get Red China into the fight. This led to a divided command which is what really destroyed the war effort in my opinion. But on the balance, Truman was far more forward thinking than a lot of his critics give him credit for; he built the groundwork for fighting the Cold War.