Time Essay: Trumania in the '70s

"I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell."

—Harry S Truman

He seems, at first glance, an odd candidate to be the object of a cult. The nation is exhausted by its Indochina war. He was in the White House during another bitterly debated Asian conflict. Détente remains the Administration's diplomatic goal. He was a general in the cold war. Politics is perhaps the most discredited profession in the country. He knew no other way of life.

And yet, some 25 years after leaving office and...

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