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Truman's tenure as Vice President was brief. In less than three months, Eleanor Roosevelt was to tell him: "Harry, the President is dead." The new President spoke to reporters next day: "I don't know whether you fellows ever had a load of hay or a bull fall on you. But last night the moon, the stars and all the planets fell on me. If you fellows ever pray, pray for me."
He was ill-prepared because Roosevelt had not taken him into his inner councils, had not even let him in on the secret of the atom bomb. For a while, Truman floundered, and he never did acquire any sense of personal grandeur. But he did come to understand his office. On his desk, he placed a sign: THE BUCK STOPS HERE. So did pretension.
Neither status nor success made any significant change. Truman's idea of a holiday was to spend a week in the VIP quarters at the Key West naval base and do a little fishing. He still took his early-morning walks (at the military quicktime pace of 120 steps a minute), to the distress of Secret Service men and reporters trying to stay awake and keep up with him. When a Washington critic said some unpleasant things about the singing talent of his daughter Margaret ("my baby"), he dashed off a letter which said, in part: "I have just finished reading your lousy review. I never met you, but if I do you'll need a new nose and plenty of beefsteak and perhaps a supporter below."
Manure. Always an earthy talker, Truman once offended a friend of his wife's by referring repeatedly to "the good manure" that must have been used to nurture the fine blossoms at a Washington horticulture show. "Bess, couldn't you get the President to say 'fertilizer'?" the woman complained. Replied Mrs. Truman: "Heavens, no. It took me 25 years to get him to say 'manure.' " When confronted by a press conference question he did not care to answer, Truman did not hesitate to say "no comment" or, more pointedly, "That's none of your business."
When confronted by the great issues Harry Truman never flinched. The one that has brought him the heaviest criticism was the decision to drop the atomic bomb. As was his practice, Truman listened to both sides of the argument, thought, and then decided. Later he recalled: "We faced half a million casualties trying to take Japan by land. It was either that or the atom bomb, and I didn't hesitate a minute, and I've never lost any sleep over it since."
In the wake of World War II, Truman enjoyed a brief honeymoon with the public. Then troubles came. Abroad, the Communists were pressing hard, backing an armed insurrection in Greece and threatening Turkey. In 1947, the hard-pressed British declared that they could no longer defend the borders of freedom in the eastern Mediterranean. Remote as such places then seemed to U.S. interests, the President proclaimed the Truman Doctrine: the U.S. would aid free countries threatened by Communist aggression.
Only months later, Truman initiated Secretary of State George Marshall's plan for the economic revival of Europe. Along with the largely military Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan probably staved off imminent revolution in some countries and provided Western Europe with the means to rebuild its cities and industries.