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Happy Birthday, Harry!

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By RANDOLPH FILLMORE Special to the Tribune

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 8, 2008

No, it's not Harry Potter's birthday. It's the birthday of another great wizard. A political wizard, the late Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of United States.

Born May 8, 1884, in Lamar, Mo., Harry would turn 124 today. With his political magic nearly forgotten, let it be remembered that he had more defining moments than any president but for Lincoln, and that he - and he alone - largely shaped the second half of 20th century American history.

The first act of magic in the Truman biography was performed by his parents, John and Martha Ellen, who could not agree on a middle name for Harry. Each wanting to honor their father, either Solomon or Shipp, they compromised with a disappearing middle name, using just the letter "S," which stood for either name, or nothing.

There was plenty of wizardry throughout Truman's life and political career as he dodged the failure of the family farm and bankruptcy, rose above accusations of ties to Midwest gangsters and stood impervious to the barbs his political enemies threw at him for his cronyism.

Here is what Harry S. Truman, a ward politician with only a high school education did as President of the United States.

In 1945 he ended the war in the Pacific by making the difficult decision to drop the atomic bomb. He integrated the U.S. military. He initiated the Marshall Plan that reinvigorated a war-devastated Europe. Perhaps his greatest feat of political magic was pulling victory out of the jaws of defeat in the election of 1948, beating New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey even after his approval ratings as president had been some of the lowest in modern history. He saw the genesis of the United Nations and the beginning of the confrontational relationship with the Soviet Union to become known as "The Cold War." He defiantly sent American aid around the Soviet blockade in the Berlin Airlift. He laid the foundation for civil rights legislation. He oversaw a booming, post-War U.S. economy.

Truman, who drank a shot of whiskey every morning before work, also walked briskly every day, leaving Secret Service agents jogging to catch up.

Harry initiated the Department of Defense, to be overseen by a single secretary of defense. He established the U.S. Air Force as a separate branch of the military. He started the National Security Council and gave formal authorization to create the Central Intelligence Agency. He established the Atomic Energy Commission, keeping the atom bomb under civilian rather than military control and called for national health insurance to be funded by payroll deductions.

In 1950 he survived an assassination attempt by Puerto Rican nationalists. The same year, Truman held the line against the North Koreans and Chinese by sending U.S. troops to defend South Korea in a "police action," an undeclared three-year war that, by its cease fire in 1953, had become as unpopular but deadlier for U.S. troops than today's war in Iraq.

Happy Birthday, Harry. What a guy.

Randolph Fillmore is a freelance writer.

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