Truman by David McCullough

I love Presidents. I love learning about them. Some are very interesting and some are characters that seem black and white and incapable of coloration. A good author can certainly help a subject. David McCullough did a great job with this book of Truman.

I read this book over 10 years ago. I reread this recently as I just wanted to revisit my good friend Harry. My favorite President Harry Truman.

The last President raised on the farm. Did not go to college. He was a man of nineteenth century values in the first half of the twentieth century. He was not elected President but became President in the war and after the death of the greatest President we had ever had. He had to make some of the toughest decision ever made by a President. He held the line in Korea but did not allow the war to get out of hand. The Berlin Airlift is one of the greatest post war achievement and underrated. He made the decision on Macarthur and stood firm in the withering criticism. He knew that history would see him correct in his decision. He married late but was a man of strong virtue. Loyalty to his friends was a curse he wore proudly. Honor meant something to him. He was by everything I have read a man of incredible decency and sincerity. Today in a day of polls deciding what color ties to wear on our leaders he made no decision that was wrong in order to gain votes. In most cases his decisions of note were extremely unpopular at the time.

No President has looked better in the rear view mirror than Harry S Truman and no President makes our current crop of leaders looks smaller in his reflection. This man was a hero. He is my favorite President still and always.