★★★★☆ Harry and Joe made the world I grew up in

Ascent to Power: How Truman Emerged from Roosevelt's Shadow and Remade the World

David L. Roll

I was born in 1955. By that time Harry Truman had been out of power for two years. Joseph Stalin died in 1953. But for the first thirty years of my life, the international and political world I lived in was the one they made in Truman's first term as President of the USA, from 1945-1948. Indeed, as I look at the headlines on 16-Apr-2024, with Israel and Palestinians once more at war, and Putin's Russia trying to reconquer Ukraine, it is obvious that, even though we have to some extent moved on, we still live in the world that Harry and Joe made.

Harry and Joe met for the first time in Potsdam on 17-Jul-1945. Harry was impressed by Joe: “I can deal with Stalin. He is honest— but smart as hell.” Joe thought Harry was a lightweight, “Truman’s neither educated nor clever.” Stalin was not exactly wrong. In July, 1945, Harry *WAS* a lightweight. He had been ignored by Roosevelt and given no access to the political machinations that were central to his presidency. But Joe missed something important: Harry was a quick learner.

And something else: Harry was surrounded by smart people, and he was smart enough to use them. Harry appointed George (Marshall) as his Secretary of State, and stood aside and let him take the credit for sending American treasure and people to Japan and Europe (Germany included), resulting in an economically strong alliance of democracies that kept Joe's Soviet Union in a box until it finally collapsed, many years later.

We should pause for a second to appreciate how unusual this was. The historical rule is "To the victor go the spoils". It was entirely precedented and accepted that when you won a war, you walked off with everything that wasn't nailed down. This, indeed, was Joe's approach to that portion of Germany left in his hands -- to loot it. Harry and George brought about economic miracles in Japan and Germany (seriously, look up the German word Wirtschaftswunder). They didn't do this because they were generous -- they did it because they were smart. Far too many people -- even powerful world leaders -- believe that one person can benefit only if others lose. Harry and George made a bet that a powerful Japan and Europe would be good for the USA.

Harry also did other things that shaped the next several decades. He dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. But he was known as a straightforward, honest, and fair man. And he seems to have deserved that reputation. Harry recognized the new state of Israel within minutes of its declaration. Harry also championed civil rights in the USA -- a weaker version than we would now support, but it was the first big step towards a more fair USA. Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond, who deserted Harry's Democratic Party over the civil rights issue, when asked why he would desert over Harry's actions when he had overlooked similar promises made by Roosevelt in 1944, answered that the difference was that “Truman really means it.”

David L. Roll's Ascent to Power: How Truman Emerged from Roosevelt's Shadow and Remade the World, is not a complete biography of Truman.

Unlike previous histories of the Roosevelt and Truman presidencies, this book focuses on the transition— the long shadow cast by the dead president, Truman’s struggle to emerge, and how decisions during the years of transition, 1944 through 1948, impacted the peoples who survived the sword.

Thus, compared to a full biography like David McCullough's Truman, Ascent to Power is relatively brief and focused. (I was taken aback by Roll's calling the entire four years of Truman's first term the "transition", but since he is straightforward about doing that, I have no real complaint.) It is not by any means a light read, and there was little here I didn't already know. I had not previously appreciated the extent to which these four years made the world I grew up in. That was an enlightenment.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for an advance reader copy of Ascent to Power: How Truman Emerged from Roosevelt's Shadow and Remade the World.

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