Truman by Roy Jenkins

Author:Roy Jenkins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 1986-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

9

THE LIMITATIONS OF VICTORY

Just as defeat in the mid-term elections of 1946 had liberated Truman in his own mind from the shadow of Roosevelt’s splendiferous personality, so his much more important victory in 1948 gave him a new freedom in the minds of most of his countrymen both from this formidable shadow and from the limitations of his own occasionally jejune impact. He had joined a small company of three presidents who had succeeded through death and subsequently been re-elected in their own right. Theodore Roosevelt was the first predecessor, Calvin Coolidge the second. Truman could no longer be regarded as a president simply of chance and gaffes.

This gave him no immunity from criticism. But no president including Washington and Jefferson has ever approached such immunity. Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, to cite the other two (with Washington and Jefferson) now most commonly regarded as in the first league, were peculiarly far away from it.

Roosevelt, by virtue of the beneficent power of the United States when Hitler menaced the world, approached immunity internationally, but not internally. Lincoln, on the other hand, signally failed to achieve it either abroad or at home. The London Times under one of its most distinguished editors (Delane) accomplished the considerable feat of describing the Gettysburg Address as ‘rendering ludicrous’ what might otherwise have been an impressive ceremony of dedication. Nor, beset by the relentless ambition to replace him of his Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, and by his own capacity for selecting incompetent generals, did he stand high internally until victory for the Union was manifestly within his grasp. The American democracy has many qualities, but appreciating great presidents during their terms of office is not amongst them.

It should therefore be no surprise that, while Truman’s election was recognized as remarkable, it gave him no guarantee of four years of unchallenged authority. Even before his inauguration on January 20th, 1949, there had been two precursors of the troubles of the second term. In December 1948, Alger Hiss, a State Department official who as a young man of promise had occupied junior but central posts, had been indicted for perjury in denying that he had passed classified documents to a Communist agent. During the same late autumn it became obvious that the Chiang Kai-Shek régime would be driven out of mainland China. Those who wished to oppose the administration said that this was due to supineness in Washington. Those who wished to support the administration thought it was an inevitable result of the corruption and inefficiency of the Kuomintang. It opened a great foreign policy divide in American politics. Towards Europe there was an adequate community of approach. Towards the Far East there was no such thing. Vandenberg’s health was declining. (He died in April 1951.) The China Lobby was rising. Truman was to have more foreign policy trouble at home during the second term than during the first.

Acheson replaced Marshall as Secretary of State because of the latter’s kidney complaint on January 7th, two weeks before the Inauguration.

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