President Harry S. Truman

President Truman is the thirty-third president of the United States.  Within four hours of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's death, Truman was swore into office becoming the seventh man to take office through the accident of death.  Truman is first credited with ending World War II with Japan by the authorization to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  He stated:
 

"It was my responsibility as president to force the Japanese war lords to come to terms as quickly as possible with the minimum loss of lives.  I then made my final decision.  And that final decision was mine alone to make..."  (Lengyel 1964:  92)

The other major thing that Truman is known for is him famous whistlestop campaign.  In response to low public opinion polls, most of the press and radio, he conducted the long campaign where he traveled 30,000 miles to deliver 350 speeches on the back of a train.  The press and even his own party expected Truman to lose the election in 1948 but "in the biggest presidential upset on record, Truman returned to the white house.  He did not recieve the majority of the popular vote, but he won a plurality of over two million votes and an electoral vote of 303 against 189..." (Lengyel 1964:  93-94)   He is shown here holding the Chicago Tribune, which was so sure he would lose, that the early editions of the paper's headlines were wrong.

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