The book stops here with Truman biography
The book stops here with Truman biography

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Published: September 21, 2008

Perhaps it's a coincidence — or maybe it isn't — that a new book on Harry S. Truman has come out during another landmark presidential election. The upset election of 1948 was the stuff of which history is made, and it was 60 years ago this fall that the Republican, Thomas Dewey, and the Democrat, Truman, were slugging it out.

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It was the year pollsters predicted a Dewey landslide. Truman had to abide in the shadow of Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose death elevated Truman to the presidency. He was considered a lesser vessel, a Missouri farmer, a man beset with staggering post-war problems and the threats of the Soviet Union; a man who gave vent to his temper.

Dewey, governor of New York, was so confident that he put little emotion in that 1948 campaign. The pollsters were wrong, some explaining that they quit measuring public opinion too early. Truman won.

He didn't seek re-election in 1952, preferring to retire to Independence, Mo., where he lived out his final 20 years. (The constitutional amendment limiting a president to two terms was adopted during his presidency and did not apply to him.) When he left office, his situation was much like that of President Bush today. His popularity rating had dropped to 32 percent, almost as low as that of Bush, and the country was in an unpopular, frustrating war.

But when the public and the historians realized he had been the right man for his time, his esteem rose to the ranks of the near-great, if not the great, presidents. His courage, determination and ability are revered today. It is interesting to speculate whether Bush's low standing might improve after time passes.

In "Harry S. Truman” (Times Books, $22), Robert Dallek, the author of several best-selling political biographies, discusses presidential greatness, including the men the scholars rank highly, pointing out that these presidents "have a deep, psychic connection with the needs, anxieties, dreams of the people .... (T)hey possess, or are possessed by, a vision of an ideal America.”

Dallek adds, "Of the eighteen twentieth-century American presidents ... only four currently have claims on great or near-great leadership: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. Perhaps in time Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton may join this elite group, but at this juncture such a judgment is premature.” Some people would put President Kennedy among the near-great, but scholars say his tenure before assassination was too brief to allow an educated assessment.

The book is part of a series called "The American Presidents,” which has covered all but a few and in no particular order. Dallek is among the most accomplished authors in the series. He is author of last year's "Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power.” Speaking of Nixon, most authors in the series have tried to be as charitable as possible to their subject, but Nixon gets no such reprieve. He is shown as flawed to the core and a miserable person despite some of his measures, which were commendable.

This book is not the definitive biography of Truman. David McCullough's "Truman,” published in 1992, will probably be the best Truman book for years to come. Dallek, though, has given us a 193-page volume that is as thorough as most readers would desire. Good job!