American Presidents: Totalus Rankium - 33.2 Harry Truman

Episode Date: June 27, 2021

Part 2 of Truman is out! See how he deals with the end of the war and the start of another war and all the communists. So many communists.

Welcome to Totalus Rankium. This week, Harry Truman Part 2. Hello and welcome to American Presidents Totalus Rankium. I am Jamie. And I'm Rob, ranking all of the presidents from Washington to Trump. No, Biden. From Washington to Biden. And this is episode 33.2. It's the conclusion to Harry Truman. That's almost a rhyme. I'd say it's a half rhyme yeah yeah why not why not say that um obviously we need our introduction yes we do um let's get like just flashes of green to start with but then it focuses in it's actually money floating from the air just floating down floating money from the air i'm saying that because there's been a war. Cash might be a bit short supply. I don't know.

Okay, no, no, this works. You can go more specific if you want. $20 bills. Okay, that's good. In front of, then as it zooms out, there's pink behind what you think is pink. Then the pink's quite glittery. It zooms out and it's like a showgirl.

Right, okay. Then you realise you're in a strip bar. Right, okay. No right okay no i can definitely work with this so open open on green blurry green there's a flickering and then you realize it's money and then there's more zoom and panning and contra zooming and other technical words that i don't ever know the meaning to it's all panning rob it's all panning so Rob. It's all panning. So pan in and out until you realise, as you say, there's a showgirl, a line of showgirls, doing that thing where they kick their legs really high in the air.

Yes. There's a bunch of ostriches behind them. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, they're dancing, everyone's happy, and then everything slows down. Yep. And the sound sort of goes all

deep and muffled and then there's just a slow rumbling sound that was pretty good, that was impressive just that, but it builds and it builds and then suddenly the wall from one side of the room just implodes. No, explodes.

It's the opposite of implodes. Explodes. Well, I guess the building is imploding, but the wall is exploding. No, the building's not imploding. Just the wall's being blown up. All right. The wall on one side of the building, we're in super slow motion here, just gets obliterated and the room is filled with a blinding flash and then you notice that uh

all the skin from the showgirls is just being ripped apart and all the money goes up in flames yeah i'm i'm assuming then they're not actually $20 bills. No, you just thought they were. But they're actually another denomination. Was it yen by any chance? It might well have been, yes. I don't know how many showgirls were actually there at the time, but artistic license. But yeah, big bright flash.

And then eventually it clears and there's just rubble and death and fire. Ah. And then a cheery little cartoon character pops up on the screen with a moustache. Hello! Hi there!

And he just says, Welcome to the Atomic Age! And he puts his thumbs up. Making the world safer! Yeah. Truman, part two. to the Atomic Age. And he puts his thumbs up. Making the world safer. Yeah. Truman, part two. The cartoon man writes with his finger.

Yeah. Later, children. Goodbye. Remember, be good or the atoms will get you. Beware the alpha particles of doom. Yeah, so there you go. That's how we're opening today's episode. Interesting. I like that. Yeah, that took a hell of a swerve. It did, didn't it? Yeah. Unexpected, foreboding, terrifying. Let's go into the episode, shall we? So Truman finds himself president. Roosevelt dies, not completely unexpectedly, but it was still a shock. I'm glad you didn't

say didn't die but not completely. No, no, he was definitely dead. They checked like twice. They poked him at least once. Very thorough. Yes, he was sworn in on the 12th of April. He was briefly told there was a secret weapon by the way, sir. But no details were gone into.

It was a busy day. He was being sworn in as president and everything. Well, fair enough, yeah. He's probably been up bunting. Two weeks later, someone comes up to him and goes, about this secret weapon we've been developing, you really do need to know a bit about this, because it's quite important.

Is it big? Does it make a bang? Will it stop the enemy? Well, yes, sir. Perfect. Carry on. That I quote him. It is big. It makes a sir. Perfect. Carry on. That's our quote, Tim. It is big.

It makes a big... No, sorry. That's a different quote. We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley era. Ooh.

Yeah. High five? Close enough, yeah. Doom, doom and gloom from Truman here. This weapon sounds scary. Knowing what it could do really puts a

moral dilemma on the decision, doesn't it? Wow, we're getting to that, don't worry. Yeah, lovely debate. Anyway, a couple of weeks after being told that they have a secret weapon, which probably will be usable quite soon, Mussolini was assassinated. Yeah, he was.

Yeah, and then... His body was dragged through the streets. And then Germany surrendered and Hitler committed suicide. And then victory in Europe is declared. Short version of that. That was a very active day. It was very busy especially since victoria in europe was declared around brunch so they really packed it all in in the morning yeah but then you could have the evening to celebrate that's true make sense make sense party in berlin one of those

days where you get up really early just get everything out of the way yeah like i'm up for five yeah so you're dead by seven, Hitler by eight, mop up, eleven o'clock. Bit of breakfast. Oh, yeah, stop for breakfast. Bit of breakfast. So, this very busy morning, coupled with the fact that Truman was very vocal about his continuation of

Roosevelt's presidency, meant that he was actually quite popular with the public. Yeah, because they're going to have a feeling of sympathy, aren't they, for the ex-president. Yeah, exactly. That's going to carry through. Roosevelt was very popular. Truman's saying, I'm just going to continue with his policies.

And by the way, the war's been won, sort of. The one in Europe, anyway. So great, yeah. Everything good. And yeah, everyone said, this is great. Yeah. However, there was soon a problem. because many saw v-day as the end of the war great the war's over everyone kept saying it's it's not over no i tried to point

out quite a few people yeah yes uh mainly those people who still had family members fighting in the pacific yeah so yeah questions started to be asked such as why exactly are we still fighting hitler's dead like the the big the big showy part of the war's over and yeah i know there's fighting in the pacific but it's only a small island what can they do yeah exactly that's not where all the history comes from. That's not the old world. That's just the sideshow, isn't it? Yeah, so this kind of dynamic started to spring up, which obviously frustrated a lot of people in the country. Generally, what everyone could agree on, though,

was the fact that surely it's time for everyone to come home. I think that's a good idea. After all, roughly 400,000 Americans had already died in this war. Yeah. That's a lot. That's a lot. So surely it's time it's over. One way to speed up the Pacific War, of course, was to let the Soviets join in.

Yeah. That'd be good. Let's get some help over there. Team up. Stalin wanted some assurances, however. Certain parts of eastern europe there there'd be mine won't they after the war if i come and help you with japan truman hesitates whole point of the war you know was like restoring democracy of the countries to stop the whole empire building anything you know yeah that's like so last century exactly so yeah maybe not um but on the other hand helping the pacific would be good

so should we just abandon poland yeah so he's sort of selling out half of europe to attack japan to stop americans being killed in a prolonged war you can see it from his point of view but oh yeah at home that's great great yeah yeah stuff if you live in poland however you're probably not best pleased anyway a meeting was put in place between churchill stalin and truman This is the Potsdam Conference. The meeting was to discuss what to do with the mess that was Europe and also what to do with the mess that is Japan.

The first hiccup in this conference was that Churchill, once he got there, found out some news. He was no longer Prime Minister. He said. Yeah, he did. Quite, quite angrily. he the great churchill the man who got the country through the war yeah had been voted out yeah there's there's i love the um the kind

of the suggestions for that reasons like it's a great war prime minister is he a great at home prime minister in times of peace or is he he, in fact, a scary, scary man who we really should not let in charge of things? Instead of Churchill, the British public had chosen the mild-mannered Clement Attlee. Oh, okay. Turns out people in Britain at this time were fed up.

They were at the end of their tether after fighting for so long, and they quite liked the idea of a society with things like universal free healthcare in it. Hey! And houses. And, you know, some kind of social security. You know, stuff that means that we stop starving to death, please. And if I break my arm, I'm not bankrupt for the rest of my life.

Yeah, exactly. That would be nice. Things like that. So Churchill was out. Attlee is in. In a very short time, the dynamic between the three countries dramatically changed. Because no longer was it the three titans of Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill, who all had grudging respect for each other, or genuine respect for each other. Now it was Truman, Attlee and Stalin.

With suspicion and mistrust between all of them going each way. Excellent. Yeah. Despite the suspicions, it was confirmed, however, Russia would indeed help in the Pacific. That's pretty good. And Russia could have Poland. I mean, not have Poland, of course, you know, not have Poland, but, you know, you can have Poland, Russia.

Maybe be the administrators to make sure there's a smooth transition of power. Exactly. Wink, wink, nudge. Exactly. And also, it was during this conference that Truman received word they had tested one of the bombs

in the New Mexico desert. Yes, New Mexico no longer exists, sir. Yeah, good news. The world didn't explode. It didn't set fire to, like, the atmosphere or anything. So that's nice. That was a genuine concern. Yes, it was.

A genuine concern. Yeah, but it's fine. It's fine. Although we've had to rename New Mexico Crater. Yes. The bomb works. The bomb is big. The bomb will stop the enemy, was essentially the report.

Truman went into the next day's meetings feeling a little bit more confident than he had done before. He now was quite literally the most powerful man in the world. Yeah. They now have a super weapon. No one else has one. This is a very small period of history, a very interesting period of history, where only one country has nuclear weapons.

Wow. Yeah. Can you imagine the way Truman walked into that room? Confident. Yeah, I think so. I think so. uh there was debate should we tell the russians about this see i see if you do it's like it's sort of like look what we've got but knowing that if you say that they're gonna well we're kind of working on that as well so it's possible brilliant

we're on the right track if you don't tell them then they won't know you've got the ace up your sleeve yeah but at the same time they will because everyone knew everything that's true senor vladivostok working on the projects might have said a few things who knows apparently they spent um a couple of days deciding exactly how to approach this with the russians i mean will they take it well? They probably already know, but I don't know. What should we say officially? In the end, Truman decided to just drop it into casual conversation. Said something along the lines of, oh, we've invented a new type

of bomb, by the way. It's quite powerful. That's boring. I'd say, do you want to see my baby photos of my new child? A few pictures of babies, look there, it's on the swing. There's, oh, the first day at school then, oh, oh, I shouldn't new child i just a few pictures of babies like theirs on the swing or there there's oh the foot at school then oh oh i shouldn't be showing you that how did that one get in there oh massive weapon let's put that down there huge mushroom cloud that nuclear destruction oh sorry i'll put

that away and this is her at the swimming pool not not hopefully not near the mushroom yeah no it wasn't quite that casual, but it was very casual just dropping it into conversation. We've invented a new bomb. Yeah. So what weapons do you have? Well, Stalin responded equally casually, essentially going, oh, yeah, let's hope it speeds up the war then.

And that was it. That was pretty much all that was said. That is playing it cool. And then everyone in the room pretended that everyone in the room hadn't already been aware of the bomb. Yeah. Or that they had been aware that the other side was aware. Right. No one was fully aware whether the other side were aware that they were aware.

Okay. So, I mean, you've got to play it cool. Yeah, yeah. Yes. And so the Cold War began. Excellent. Yeah. Anyway, next day, literally the next day,

Truman ordered the bomb be made ready for use against Japan. There was a lot of debate whether this is the right call, and there has been a lot of debate ever since. Should the United States have wiped out two entire cities in a flash, leaving behind the quite literal fallout. I think you would have... I mean, obviously I wasn't there. I don't know the strategic position of the US Army at that time, or Japan,

but surely attacking a military state or military area, even though it's slightly overkill, you could argue, would have had the same impact. We'll discuss this later later we're rating him because there's a lot to discuss yeah back there um but what i can say is that at the time there was very little discussion in fact i'll quote churchill who later recounts what it was like he said i just loved his eloquence. Yeah, if you translate that, that is, there never was a moment's discussion

as to whether the atomic bomb should be used or not. To avert a vast infinite butchery, to bring the war to an end, to give peace to the world at the cost of a few explosions, the war to an end, to give peace to the world at the cost of a few explosions, seemed after all our toils and perils, a miracle of deliverance.

There was unanimous, automatic, unquestionable agreement around our table. Nor did I ever hear the slightest suggestion that we should do otherwise. So it had already sort of... So it had already sort of been agreed.

Yeah. After years of fighting, after the discovery of the death camps in Eastern Europe, after the discovery of the death marches in Asia, after countless death figures, most have just become numb to all this what wipe out two cities yeah why not just add it on to the death pile i think what makes this sort of even though there was the six million deaths of just just jewish people alone in europe

all the other deaths were army based this is a genuine targeting of innocent men, women, and children. This has been going on since pretty much the start of the war, though. That doesn't make it right. No, I'm not saying it does, but it explains the mindset. People were used to air raids on civilian cities. It no longer was seen as a taboo thing to do. Looking back, we look at atomic weaponry with almost a sort of bogeyman fear, which they wouldn't have had back then.

It was simply just a bigger bomb. That's a good point. Yeah. What we're doing here is saving fuel, really. Just send a couple of planes over instead of a whole fleet of them. So you can see why they just went for it yeah but it is horrific but that's what they do um i mean there were some people who muttered things like end of civilization and nuclear power is going to wipe out everyone

the same things like that but they were told to be quiet. They were running democracy. Even Einstein was kind of like, no, don't use my formula for this. Yeah, yeah. It was, yeah, a lot of people at the time were saying this is a bad idea, but a lot of people weren't.

And you can see the mindset, even if it isn't terrifying, but this is what horrible war does to people yeah you just want to end over and end as quick as possible anyway on the morning of the 6th of August an atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima

or Hiroshima if you're American a large industrial city that was a supply and logistics hub for the Japanese at the time it had got off very lightly throughout the whole war so far. 580 metres above the city, the bomb detonates. Only three on board the Enola Gay, the bomber that had dropped the weapon, knew what they were dropping.

The rest of the crew were taken by surprise. Was it called Big Boy? Or something like that? Little Boy and Fat Man. Little Boy Fat, was it? Can't remember which one was which. I think this one's Little Boy, if I remember correctly. It's one of the two.

But yeah, the crew were told to expect a bright flash and were given some glasses, but they weren't really told what was going to happen. You can see why, because they'd probably refuse. I'll quote one man who was on the plane. It was hard to believe what we saw the whole thing was tremendous and awe-inspiring the men on board with me gasped my god it was obviously worse from the ground around 30 of the city were killed immediately either in the mile

wide blast from the initial detonation or the four-mile-wide firestorm that was created. That's around 80,000 people dead just like that. Yeah. And then the same amount on top of that were quite severely injured. The Japanese government, somewhat confused. Why their communications with an entire city had suddenly gone. What on earth is going on here? There's no way the US could have landed and taken a whole city without us knowing. Within a minute. Well, yes. Why aren't they talking to us?

Something's happened. In the end, after trying various communication attempts, they have to put a pilot in a plane and tell him, go to Hiroshima and find out what's happened. Which the pilot did. Obviously didn't land, got quite far from the city before seeing the massive, massive billowing smoke clouds going on. So the pilot took some photos, turned around, and went back with some quite unbelievable tales of destruction. And it was soon after that Truman released this statement.

The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. We won the race of discovery against the Germans. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans. We shall continue to use it until we completely destroy Japan's power to make war. I think if you're an American hearing like that, that's quite a nice thing to hear. I think if you're an American hearing like that, that's quite a nice thing to hear. Yeah, that's your president saying this is going to end as soon as it can.

We are saving American lives. But at what cost? Again, we'll talk about it later. It's quite horrific stuff. But like I say, this war had been going on for some time at this point. No one was playing around anymore. Japan imposed martial law, and after some deliberation, decided not to surrender. How many of these super bombs could they possibly have anyway? We'll just weather this storm and then carry on. Japan have a government

who are quite literally willing to lose a few cities if it means they don't surrender. Which, uh... Yeah. Yeah. I mean, uh... Anyway, back in the United States codebreakers got wind of this. Fine. Oh. Ready the second bomb, then. Truman didn't have to order this one personally

because the order had been given for the military to just drop them whenever they were ready, so the military were making the decisions here. So it wasn't Truman pressing a button or anything. This time Nagasaki was chosen, a large naval city. Again, it plays out very similar to the first one. This time 40,000 people died in a flash and another 60,000 were injured,

many of whom obviously died shortly afterwards. Of course. Then, get Bomb 3 ready, it was said, which would be ready in about a week's time. I mean, Japan were right. America hadn't got an unlimited supply of these things, but they figured they could certainly get a good few out over the next couple of months.

The Japanese sent word to the United States at this point, we surrender if the emperor can remain in place. So we give up, but the emperor stays. Truman said, fine, not ideal, but you know what, you're right, let's end this. The rest of the Allied command have to agree, of course, but the United States are happy with that. Japan then goes silent for three days. Long enough that Truman ordered a thousand-plane bombing of Tokyo. So just a standard firebombing rather than a nuclear bomb, but that's only because it wasn't quite ready yet. But then word comes through once more.

Japan officially surrender. The war's over. A terrifying end to a terrifying war. Yeah, it's like the atrocities you could just tick off is insane for World War II. World War II is just... Because you learn about it so much, you almost become numb to it. And because it's so close,

you almost become numb to it. But as we've covered so many wars now in both our podcasts, hitting World War II, it does make you go, oh, wow, that was a big one. That was. It's within living memory

because we've had grandparents that lived through it. So, yeah, anyway, the war is over, which is great news for pretty much everyone. But things are only going to get harder for Truman

because he is now facing a very nervous Soviet Union who were very, very aware that they had suffered But things are only going to get harder for Truman, because he is now facing a very nervous Soviet Union, who were very, very aware that they had suffered far more than any other country in the war had, and now the United States had a superweapon and could use it to help their post-war negotiating position. Russia start looking at the United States nervously. Understandably, you think, well, they're going to just steamroller or anything we try and suggest. Yeah.

In September, the... Then in September, the foreign ministers of Britain, the United States and Russia met with the Soviet foreign minister toasting his US counterpart and I'll quote, of course, we all have to pay attention to what Mr. Burns says because the United States are the only people who are making the atomic bomb. So they weren't being subtle with how nervous they were feeling about this. It was a frosty toast. Anyway, in this meeting, maps were gone out and lines drawn on maps with people with rulers and pencils and glints in their eyes.

Discussions went on about who would own what now the war's over. Ultimately, however, the meetings were deemed a failure by the press. It was becoming more and more clear that the United States and the USSR were not going to play nicely together. No, I... No. Because you got a very standoffish kind of, well, screw you, from Russia. And you've got the very, well, we've got a massive bomb from America. Yes.

In fact, I'll quote Truman here. Unless Russia is faced with an iron fist and a strong language, another war is in the making. Only one language they understand. How many divisions do you have? Yeah, there is feeling on both sides that the other countries are a little bit too big and needs to be knocked down a peg or two. Meanwhile, all the stuff's going on in the world,

as you might have noticed. China falls into a civil war. Not going to go over that in this podcast, but just know it's going on. Obviously, this is the one that turns China into a communist nation eventually. Oh, okay. Yes.

But at the moment, there is fighting between the communists and the nationalists. This fed fear in the United States that the entire world was turning to communism. But Truman was more focused on internal problems rather than international problems because everyone was getting worried that the post-war depression after the First World War was about to repeat itself. Things had been bad after World War I for a while. We don't want that to happen again. So Truman announced that he's got a plan to fix this.

Just as Roosevelt had fixed the Great Depression with the New Deal, he would do his own New Deal reforms. Or rather, a fair deal, as he started calling them. The wars distracted us from the goals of the New Deal, but what we need to do is introduce better employment legislation, affordable housing, we need to aid small businesses, we need a national health insurance programme, we need all these things that a decent modern society should have.

And now the war's not on, let's crack on with it, shall we? However, public mood was lukewarm, and the mood of Congress openly hostile to the idea. Congress had too many social conservatives in it to get any reform through whatsoever. They would not back the president on any of these ideas. I guess they're thinking, well, everything's working at the moment. It's been working for a while, so why do we need to change it?

Yeah, and also some of these reforms included crazy, crazy notions such as letting black people have equal working rights with white people and stuff. Yeah, now we can't be having that, said all the racists. So there was a big pushback against the idea of the fair deal, which many just accused of being the New Deal, only worse. But it wasn't just the conservative factions of the parties that he was getting flack from,

because the Liberal wing also were not impressed with Truman at the moment. He wasn't doing enough? Well, exactly. They believed Harry was all talk, but his actions didn't support it. Yeah, you're talking about the fair deal, you're talking about how you're going to be Roosevelt's successor, but what have you actually done? Truman, at this point, probably just silently gesticulating towards Congress,

looking angry. Come on, I've been trying. Yeah. One thing that he was actively doing that annoyed the liberal faction of his party, though, was that he was giving several key jobs to members of the Conservative faction. And also, not only is he giving jobs out to Conservative faction, he is also giving his blessing to a fact-finding board

that was going to be used to stop strikes. That's anti-Labour, isn't it? So, yeah. But I guess in such a capitalist society, like hyper-capitalist, that, you know, you're stopping production, you're stopping things happening. Yes, yeah. In America, that makes sense. Yeah, I mean

ultimately, he was trying to keep both wings of his party happy, and as ever, all he managed to do was annoy both wings. Truman starts to really hate his job. He told anyone who would listen that he never wanted to be president in the first place. I'll quote here, He says this practically every time I see him, says his interior secretary.

In fact, that's all he says. I do wish he wouldn't. Yeah, he's not having the best time of it. But outwardly, he knew the importance of appearing like he did want the job. So to appear more confident, he started putting slogans up around him. Little sound bites, the most famous one being the little sign on his desk that just read, The book stops here. Still, if the book did indeed stop there, it meant that he had to sort out the growing labour problem,

which was always going to be a pain. Publicly, he blamed the growing economic uncertainty on the fact that Congress would not get behind his ideas for reform. But privately, he ranted a lot about the growing unions. Yeah. He claimed that the labour unions were asking unrealistic demands and that middle management within the industries were just as bad for not meeting any of the unions halfway.

We've seen this time and again, with presidents just getting very frustrated with the businesses and the unions. Then, in January of 1946, the largest walkout in the country's history took place, when 80,000 steel workers just downed tools. The country grinds to a stop. That wasn't the only strike going on roughly this time though because there was one in the coal industry, the automobile industry, telephone operators industry, the electric utility companies. Basically you name it they're striking at this time. It gets really bad. The reason for all these strikes was that

the workers were fed up of working for a pittance and the company bosses making a fortune. But overall, the continuous strikes ended up frustrating the public, who just wanted things to go back to normal after the war. So that's when you lose support. Yes, and they very much did so. A poll discovered that roughly 70% of the population approved the idea of banning strikes for a year. It's not that I disagree with striking. Obviously, striking is good for my rights as a worker, but can we just stop for a year, everyone? Was most people's opinion at the time. Back running, and then we'll work that out.

Which, it'd be hard to argue against that if you're a regular person. Well, only 30% of people did. Truman was one who was also annoyed. hard to argue against that if you're a regular person. Well, only 30% of people did. Yeah. Truman was one who was also annoyed. He asked for a law to be passed that stated that all workers on strike would be drafted into the armed forces. How would that solve the

problem? I don't know. I think he was just annoyed. It's like 80,000 people take them out, they're still not working, but now you've got a massive army of really peed off people which you can point at the commies yeah yeah uh yeah no it seriously wasn't um gonna work i mean the the house passed the law uh but calm heads in the senate stopped it going through pointing out that perhaps maybe just maybe this isn't a good idea giving this much power to presidents maybe we'd regret this in the future.

So let's not do that. Anyway, Truman then became more and more frustrated that he had no impact on the situation, but the press firmly blamed him. He felt like he was getting all the blame but could do nothing to stop it. He started to really hate the press at this time. He did not think they gave him a fair chance. And in frustration, in a draft speech about the strikes, he suggested hanging for the traitors being the union leaders. It was a joke. It was never serious. It was just a draft speech and him venting and using dark humour to cover his frustration. But at the same time, when you're president, you shouldn't be making jokes like that. I think mainly because you know it's going to be taken out of yeah it's just not a sensible thing to do um he also expressed a lot

of sympathy with herbert hoover who truman now came to see as and i quote doing the best he possibly could but he was faced with difficulties he just wasn't able to overcome at the time then come the midterms everyone expected the Democrats to be utterly wiped out. The Liberal wing was frustrated with Truman's failure to revive the New Deal, and the Conservatives were angry that Truman was still banging on about equality. With the Democrats

falling apart, everyone assumed the Republicans would have a really, really good bout at the polls. And they did. They absolutely did. Yeah. The Republicans, whilst campaigning, could talk about consumer shortages. They could talk about the strikes. They could talk about the danger of the Russians, don't you know? Yes. In fact, one advert for the Republicans at the time put it very simply. It was just the words, had enough. Which, if that's the

political campaign against you, you're in trouble. The Democrats started to seem like easy targets. One Republican described the Democratic Party as southern racists, big city bosses, and radicals bent on Sovietising the country. Very succinctly damaging all wings of the Democratic Party in one sentence. That's quite a challenge, actually.

The Republicans won the House and the Senate. Oh dear, lame duck president. Yeah, Truman found it hard before. He was going to find it impossible now. He started to despair. I'm in a position that is too big for me. In fact, I think it's too big for anyone. But I know it's too big for me.

I need help. Help. Help. was one diary entry that's not sounding the most confident he's not what he needs is a me day that's what he needs yeah just for him day away yeah at the beach yeah maybe a day on beach under a tree with a book whatever well he tried to cheer himself up by reminding himself that Lincoln suffered from depression during the job. Everyone found this hard. Even the greats. But the loss of Congress also changed one thing. He decided

to stop trying to please both wings of his party. This trying to compromise was never going to work, he finally realised, and I'll quote, I think the proper thing to do is to do what I think is right and let them all go to hell. Fair enough. Shortly after this

he finally wins a political battle. One of the biggest union heads in this country at this man was a man named Lewis. He was the president of the Workers' Mine Union and they threatened a walkout as unions do. This was the height of the public not being behind the strikes and the public did not like lewis he was seen as a demagogue in fact only 13

percent that's one three of the population supported lewis and his actions incidentally there was another poll from this time it was was Truman's approval rating. Want to hazard a guess what he's on? I don't know. 13%. Okay. So they're about as hated as each other, these two. Nice. Yeah, so the battle between them was one where the public didn't really care who won.

No. As long as someone loses. Preferably both. That would be good. It's not an interesting story unfortunately it involves courts and injunctions so i'm not going to go into details but uh truman was able to break the strike it did his image a lot of good he was now seen as one of the only politicians that would actually stand up to the likes of lewis truman saw his approval rating soar to the dizzying heights of 48 percent wow yeah i mean he was still almost

half of the country exactly i mean still most americans thought he was doing a bad job but only just only just that's still a lot better than 13 so now he had proved that he could actually do something against the strikes truman moved to blunt the other line of attack coming from the Republicans, that the Democrats were making the country an easy target for the Soviets. So Truman sets up the President's Temporary Commission on Employee Loyalty. Oh no. No one at the time seeing the irony that the way to fight allegations of being too pro-communism was to create the most Soviet-sounding committee they could possibly think of. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, this commission was told to

study the procedures for assessing the loyalty of current and future government employees. Take from that what you will. This is almost a stepping stone to McCarthyism,ism isn't it in a way it's like you're not not not in a way jamie oh okay this is mccarthyism oh okay i'll say it's the first step towards it is you know it's coming so yeah yeah yeah i mean you're right yeah that's what i meant yeah definitely uh yes we are we are hitting the mccarthy era much so. Yeah, Truman was not particularly worried about the idea of communists infiltrating the government. One person close to the president later said,

The president didn't attach fundamental importance to the so-called communist scare. He thought it was a load of baloney. But political pressures were that he had to recognise it. And that was the same for most people in Washington. Most people realised that the communists aren't infiltrating us, but this is a really good political weapon that we can now start

using to bludgeon each other to death with. Yeah. Don't let your political opponent accuse them of being pro-communist. Yeah. They found very quickly that this whipped people up into a frenzy, especially the Republicans. So, yeah, everyone starts pointing the, especially the Republicans. So yeah, everyone starts pointing the finger at each other. So the reason why Truman created this committee

was to try and blunten all the accusations, because unless he seemed to do something, people would start accusing him personally of being pro-communist. He wasn't happy with setting up this commission, but he feared that if Congress and the FBI had control over it, it would be a lot worse. Meanwhile, the new Republican Congress was doing whatever it could to strip back employment laws that made it harder for strikers. A law was passed with a wide enough margin that it was veto-proof. This law meant that workers no longer had the automatic right to be in a union, unions would not be able to contribute to political campaigns. They could now be sued for contract violations, and the president could declare an

emergency and break any strike. In other words... Unions are gone. Pretty much. I mean, they're now nested useless. It was... It's like de-chloring a cat, isn't it? If you were a worker at this time, which most people were, your life was going to get worse. But, business owner, things are looking good. Swings and roundabouts. Truman, as frustrated as he was with the strikes, because he was very frustrated with the strikes, as was everyone, but he also realised that this was a huge step backwards. This was walking right back into the Gilded Age of 50 years before we do not need and do not want legislation that would take fundamental rights away from our workers he declared pretty

much to an empty room just with some tumbleweed in it because no one cared what he had to say nope nope who are you again oh you're the figurehead yeah the liberal wing of the party were happy with the statement to be fair but i but, I mean, it didn't do anything. But, I mean, at least he's pleasing one faction. And actually, things do start going a bit better for Truman shortly after this, mainly because of his foreign policy. Everything's going wrong at home, but the foreign policy, he feels like he's got something going here.

The Truman Doctrine. It's always good to have a doctrine named after you, isn't it? Yeah. To sum it up in a sentence, it was now the main goal of the foreign policy for the United States to curb Soviet expansion. Before, if you remember, way back to Monroe's time, it was the goal to just say to the old world, stay out of the Americas. Leave us alone and we'll just get on with stuff over here. Apart from occasionally threaten war with Japan. And slowly but surely take over all the countries in South America. But apart from that, leave us alone Europe,

as essentially the foreign policy before. Not anymore. The foreign policy is now, no Russia. Bad Russia. This is sort of showing America for I mean they were sort of a superpower in World War I but this is super superpower. They became

a world power. Yeah. They are now a superpower. Quite literally because they are the only ones with the nukes. Anyway with Russia looking to take control of Greece and Turkey and Britain announcing that we're broke sorry so we can't support Greece anymore, Truman decided that they needed to make it official that they were not going to sit back and watch the Soviets expand.

Now, due to the idea of communists infiltrating the government being used as a political weapon for the last couple of years, it was actually very easy to get the public on side for this. People in charge have been banging on about how dangerous communism was for so long, then, yeah, people were very happy to believe that the most important thing for all Americans right now was to stop Russians being in Greece. Congress was harder to convince that this was something we need to push. Congress, after all, knew exactly how real the Soviet threat was in Washington. Not particularly at this point. So do we really need to commit money and armed forces to this? Because we're all having great fun pointing the finger at each

other, accusing each other of being commies, but do we want to spend money? Do we? Truman then announced that he wanted to send $400 million to Greece to help them out. Yeah, after that, support for his ideas faded very quickly from Congress and the public. It's all very well you're saying we need to stop the Soviets, but that's a lot of money. But Truman was just starting, it turned out, because Marshall, his Secretary of State, had a plan. The Marshall Plan. He called it. He was very proud of it. Actually, plan. The Marshall Plan. He called it. He was very proud of it.

Actually, no, he didn't. He called it the European Recovery Programme, but everyone else called it the Marshall Plan. Yes. The plan is really simple. He said, tapping a massive document. Really, really simple. Was it just an oversized dollar bill?

Just give them this. Yeah, pretty much. If Europe was an economic disaster zone for the next few decades, the Soviets will be able to walk in. If they don't simply invade, the countries in Europe will reject capitalism and just turn to communism. The capitalist system only really works if the masses in the country believe that one day they also will be rich. If no one's rich, they might start getting crazy notions of, I don't know, economic equality.

Now, you can debate whether communism can give a society economic equality. All you want. But that is what the communist societies were claiming, and America feared, quite rightly, that that sounds quite good to a lot of poor people. I mean, you could also make the argument that there has never been a communist state. Yes. Not a truly communist state. No, but I mean, you can also argue that there's never been a utopia,

so therefore every system of government works. Yeah. Yeah. All systems. But that makes it easy then to just say, it'll do this. As, oh, who said it? A quote popped into my head. I think it might be

churchill actually all governments of system are awful capitalism just happens to be the least awful one yeah that's churchill yeah yeah so this is very much the problem that's uh going on at the moment capitalism is falling over and uh people are worried that people will turn to communism which in turn could well fall over. But let's not prejudge. Maybe Soviet Russia will turn out to be wonderful. Maybe it will. You never know.

You never know. In another, like, what, 60 years after this, Russia will be absolutely fine. Anyway, Europe needs to be strong, said Marshall over the voices of everyone having this chat that we just had. He did lots of coughing and then he counted down to zero. God, I want attention back. Yeah, Europe needs to be strong so we can defend against the Soviets.

And the best way to do that is, and this is the really simple part, we give them all of the money. All of the money. All of the money? It's pretty much the equivalent of All of the money. All of the money? That's pretty much the equivalent of $114

billion. Oh! That is a lot of money. Yeah. That's like modern day equivalent, by the way. That's like Bezos' amount. Yes. That's an insane amount.

Or just how much one guy has in America. Yeah, about a quarter of this money was going to go straight to Britain, which is nice, if you're in Britain. Way! Britain are in a mess, and they're our biggest allies over there at the moment, and they really are a mess. They owe us a lot of money for all the low-lease stuff, said Marshall.

In fact, they're not going to be able to pay this back for quite some time, or indeed ever if they turn communist because they're broke. So we need to give them some money. Is it a loan or is it a gift? There are different elements to it. Is it tax-deductible? There are different elements to it, but essentially it was mostly a gift. But Britain already owed the United States so much money that this was essentially giving money to Britain so Britain could then afford to give money back to the United States.

It was an investment. So it's basically, so you just say, just cut off this. Don't pay us back for this, surely. It was, here's enough money that your society doesn't collapse, so you can keep paying us back until, guess when? This is going to be so ridiculous, isn't it? Past 2000, surely. 2006.

Bloody hell. That's when Britain managed to pay back the United States for everything that it was loaned during World War II. Did they actually finish it on that date? Yep, 2006. Wow. Yeah. That is mental.

Britain went, ha, at last, at last we can finally start saving some money. Oh, economic disaster. That was two years later, yeah. Yeah. Good times. Anyway, that's why Britain's getting about quarter of the cash from the Marshall Plan. But obviously other countries received lots as well. The next largest amount of money went to France for very similar reasons.

They owe us a lot of money and we don't want them to fall to communism. But they do give us giant copper statues. They do, they do. Yeah, many countries in Europe received financial aid. It was, like I say, a huge investment. But actually the argument was very easy to understand in the United States. We either do this or Europe falls, and if Europe falls, we are in trouble because the Soviets will just explode. So actually, even though it was a huge

amount of money, most people got behind it. In a really nice touch, the United States even offered Russia some of the aid, knowing full well that Russia would refuse. Because there's no way Russia are going to look like they need help from the United States. We've got a five-year plan, don't you know? They always work. Yeah, but what was nice about this, of course,

is then the United States could say, but we tried to help. And it's those Russians who have kept us from helping. Yeah, it was a nice political manoeuvre there. Anyway, this actually goes down quite well. And Truman's popularity starts to grow, home and abroad. But the next problem on the agenda was a nice simple one.

Israel. Oh. Nothing too big. No. No. Yeah, this region, apparently, a bit of a sticking point according to some people there's been some problems in that area for a while i mean as we've seen in the 1200 years that we have covered in our roman podcast a lot of stuff goes on over there it does so why should

post-world war ii be any different at all but let's do a quick recap just in case you're not really sure what's going on in the region at this time. The region before World War II was controlled by Britain. Good old British Empire. The local population of Palestinian Arabs were by far the largest population in the region. However, ever since the British took over in 1917, there had been a general push for Jewish people to reclaim their ancient homeland. So the region already had a large Jewish minority, around

one-sixth of the population, but under British rule, that rapidly increased to the point where it became about one-third of the population by the time of World War II. That is a huge increase. That is a massive increase. As we have seen time and time again in our podcasts, when immigration into a country rises rapidly,

so does hostility towards those immigrating. Yeah. Yeah. Tensions grew. With the added dynamic this time, because why not, that the minority immigrating in large numbers had support of the occupying empire that was running the country. It was a territory, though.

Yeah, it's the Palestinian mandate. Now, hugely simplifying this for speed reasons, during the interwar years, a couple of revolts break out where the Palestinians attempted to gain their independence from British rule. And to do that, they fought the British, obviously, but also the Jewish population, who they found were coming over here, taking our jobs, etc., etc., the usual stuff.

At one point, some bright spark, probably with a glint in his eye, a map in one hand, and a pencil in the other, suggested, why don't we just partition the country with arbitrary lines? That always works well in the long run. Yay, said everybody. Yay! Everyone got their rulers

out. Everyone had a great time. The Palestinian leaders rejected this outright. No, no, this is our land. The Jewish leaders thought there's merits in this. It's not ideal, no, this is our land. The Jewish leaders thought, there's merits in this. It's not ideal, obviously, but a bit of land for us to put on a map and say it's definitely ours. Yeah, okay.

So you can work with, yeah. The British then also suggested a cap on immigration. The amount of immigration into the area at the moment was causing tensions. So why not just put a bit of a lid on the immigration for a bit, suggested Britain. The Jewish leaders rejected this outright. No, no, no, definitely not. This is our ancient homeland, don't you know? We have a right to be here.

The Palestinian leaders, okay, no, this sounds like this could work, perhaps. So a couple of things coming up. Both sides had an idea which way they wanted it to go. So, a couple of things coming up. Both sides had an idea which way they wanted it to go. Yeah, of course. Yeah. The idea for partitioning the country was pushed back, however,

for various reasons, but the immigration limits were put into law. So, far fewer Jews allowed into the country, but we're not going to draw lines on any maps. And then World War II starts.

Yeah, it did. Yeah. The region was attacked by Italy, because obviously they were attacking Britain. The British government created a regiment from the area. One platoon of Jewish people and one platoon of Palestinian people. And then off to Italy to fight the Italians they go. Off you go. Yeah.

While this was going on, the Holocaust they go. Off you go. Yeah. While this was going on, the Holocaust starts up and millions of displaced Jewish families attempt to flee the utter horror that was going on. And where to run to? Well, obviously anywhere for a start, but once you've got out of the immediate danger, well, actually,

ancient homelands has been a push in the last couple of decades. Maybe we should go there. But don't forget, Britain had put a cap on immigration into the area, and that was still in effect. So Britain said, no, you can't go. So many Jewish people trying to get into the area were just seized and put under lock and key.

We're fighting a war. We can't really deal with you guys at the moment, but you can't go over there. We've got a law capping immigration. Yeah. Yeah. By the end of the war, an estimated 250,000 people were stranded

attempting to get into the country. Oh. Yeah. Now, this time it was the Jewish population who rose up against the British oppression. Really? Oh, yes. Attlee, who had just become Prime Minister, had run on a campaign that

stated he would help the Jewish people. So when he wins the election, he says just that, I'm going to help out now. And that pretty much catches us up to modern times in the podcast. Truman sympathised with the Jewish refugees, as did many people after what was going

on during the holocaust came out understandably but at the same time he did not want to get dragged into a war which the united states almost certainly would if he sent military support to help refugees into the country truman found it very frustrating and i'll quote here i've come to the conclusion that there is no solution but we will keep trying in a cabinet meeting he just became more and more frustrated at the pressure he was being put under to get more involved he really didn't want to get involved in this but there was a lot of pressure for him to do so who from just cabinet or his cabinet and also Congress, obviously getting letters from the public. And obviously you've got a huge Jewish population in America

who definitely wanted to see all these people who are stranded have a home. So yeah, just general political pressure. But yeah, Truman's getting very frustrated and I'll quote him here in a cabinet meeting. Jesus Christ couldn't please them when he was on Earth, so how could anyone expect that I would have any luck? He said.

Anyway, eventually, it was decided. Despite the risk of getting drawn into a protracted political minefield, which would also endanger, by the way, their access to Middle Eastern oil, a couple of people pointed out. Well, that's not important.

Not important. He would officially offer an expression of support to the old pencil-on-the-map idea. Meanwhile, Britain did the national equivalent of putting its hands in its pockets, whistling tunelessly, and walking away from the region, saying something along the lines of

nothing to do with me, gov. and it asked the United Nations to sort it out that's what you ends there for isn't it okay job for you you and sort this out the UN also decided on the old pencil on the map approach so Truman again offered support the plan was voted on. The Jewish population, very, very happy. The Palestinian population, utterly outraged. Of course. Yeah. Britain, obviously, said, good luck. We're taking our troops home now.

Empire? Tally-ho. What empire? Nasty businesses empires. You wouldn't catch us with one of those. No. Oh, no, no. Commonwealth.

That sounds better, doesn't it? Yes. Yes. of those. No. Oh, no. Commonwealth. That sounds better, doesn't it? Yes. Far better. Yeah. Violence erupts in the area. But, you'll be pleased to know, it all got sorted out nice and quickly. Everything's fine now. That's true. That's what I heard. No problems in Israel at all. Yeah.

Absolutely fine. Yeah. Back home. Truman is dealing with the fact that the election's coming up, and it's not going well. No. The Democrats were still not happy with him, especially the Southern ones, who were outraged that Truman had created a committee on

civil rights. And this committee's job was to look into equal employment rights for black people. It produced a report called To Secure These Rights, which, amongst other things, pushed for anti-lynching laws to finally go through. This resulted in many in the South, for the first time, starting to think, you know what, maybe the Republicans are the way to go. Is this a switch?

Yeah, yeah, we're starting to see the switch here. But Truman was determined, and I'll quote here, when the mob gangs can take four people out and shoot them in the back and everyone is accounted with who did the shooting and nothing is done about it, then that country is in a pretty bad fix. Yeah. Yeah.

So he's determined to go through. He knows it's going to cost him politically, but it's the right thing to do. So he goes for it. Moral's over. Yeah. Yeah. So he's determined to go through. He knows it's going to cost him politically, but it's the right thing to do. So he goes for it. Moral's over. Yeah. In order to counter all the negativity, Truman went on a literal whistle-top tour around the country.

Whistle-stop tour. That's what I tried to say, but my tongue hates me. A literal whistle-stop tour around the country, making impromptu speeches where he would just rile at the Republican Congress for stopping him from doing anything. He'd get quite wound up, and the crowd would cheer him on,

shouting things like, Pour it on and give him hell, Harry. And actually, it turned out that him getting quite riled up in these unplanned speeches worked much better than his normal speeches. So he just continues on with this style. A bit more free-flowing, a bit more passionate. Fair enough.

The Democratic Convention comes up. There's talk of getting someone more popular in. Truman's not. Is he a vote winner? I don't know. But there was no collective support for anyone else. The party was too split. So in the end, Harry was nominated

without fuss. But it did tear the party apart because southern conservatives at this point split from the party and create their own party. And this party becomes known as the Dixiecrats. Well, that's not their

official name. Their official name is the States' Rights Democratic Party. Right. But Dixiecrats is what everyone calls them. Their position was how states should have more rights to resist federal laws. Sorry, which laws? You know which laws. You don't have to ask.

You all know which laws. Yeah, you don't have to ask which laws. Yeah. Anyway, with the Democrats split and the Republicans popular, it was very obvious that the Republican candidate was going to win. And sure enough, papers printed it all out and everything. Truman loses. Yeah.

Yeah. 303 electoral college votes to 189. Ooh, that's a landslide. Yeah, for Truman. Oh. Yeah, the papers got it wrong. They printed their front pages before the actual count took place. Everyone thought Truman

was going to lose. Truman thought Truman was... I thought Truman was going to lose. Everyone did. Everyone thought he was going to lose. There is a photo of Truman the next day holding up one of the papers declaring that he's lost with a big grin on his face. That is brilliant. The polling companies

had egg all over their face. They've tried to explain it later by saying we probably shouldn't have stopped asking people who they were going to vote for two weeks before the actual election. Oh yeah. We probably should have carried on doing our jobs. But everyone knew Truman was going to lose, so why bother?

So we were in the pub. It's fine. Yeah, quite how Truman won this, when everyone thought he wasn't going to, is debatable. But it's one of those things where it turns out that Truman seemed to have done just enough that people were willing to give him another go. He had more personality. He was more likeable than Dewey, his opponent. And also, Dewey had slowed down his campaigning towards the end. He didn't want to appear like he was just beating up a defeated opponent,

so he took his foot off the gas. Truman, however, fought to the bitter end, pointing out that the do-nothing Congress Had stalled the country's progress And if we get rid of that Congress I will actually be able to do something You just need to give me another chance That is a fair point for any president

So despite the Dixiecrats picking up four states The Democrats carried the rest of the South The South is still, although it's shaky Solidly democratic Because of that, he gets it. He is president once more. And in his own right this time. He's no longer an accidental president.

That's true. He's earned this one. Truman starts his second term pushing for what he saw as the successor to the New Deal. Like I say, this is the fair deal, but he's going to get it up and running this time. So, again, this is a higher minimum wage, a fairer tax structure, a fair program that would look after small businesses, small farms. He would repeal that anti-union law that he was forced to sign through in his last term. So the unions would get more power once more, more housing would be created, more education, and yes, a push on civil rights, he said, glaring at Congress, especially those from the South.

And the reason why he could do this is because not only had he won the presidency, the Democrats now hound both houses. Hey, that helps. Yeah, they've got Congress and the White House. So there you go, clean slate. You can do whatever you want, push anything through, yeah? No.

No, no. Technically, yes, the Democrats held Congress, but that's only if you included the Southern Democrats or the Dixiecrats, and that party kind of fell apart. Many of them were still actually in the Democratic Party, so... All of that civil rights stuff was going nowhere, dead on arrival. Oh, and actually, those Southern Democrats also wanted to keep the anti-union laws now they thought about it.

Yeah. Truman started to feel very frustrated that it looked like he was not going to find this Congress any easier than the last one. Yeah. It's not going to, is it? And also, there's all the communism going on as well. So much communism. It's coming out there is, there well. So much communism. Coming out there is, there were.

So much communism. Yes. The Republicans were, after 16 years of being out of the White House and a promised fervour for to come, they were furious. They really thought they were going to win that election. They were not happy. The frustration had led to the more radical and extreme wings

of the Republican Party to come to the fore. One such radical and more extreme member of Congress was a new congressman called Richard Nixon. Oh, I've heard of him. Oh, yes. He very quickly jumped onto the accuse all your opponents of being a commie bandwagon. But there was a man even more extreme than Nixon at this time. You know his name. You said it earlier. McCarthy. McCarthy. Yes.

He was developing a name for himself as the Rooter Outer of Communism. He had it put on a badge and everything. Yeah. His role as the Witch Hunter was exacerbated in September of 1949 when the Soviets detonated an atomic bomb.

Oh dear. Oh dear. Yeah, this spreads fear rippling throughout the country. We were nervous that we had atomic bombs because, I mean, they're dangerous weapons, but at least we had the atomic bombs. Now they've got atomic bombs. Well, that's not fair. Is there an atomic war on

the horizon? And if there is, are we all going to die? Because I think we're all going to die. Yeah, we're all going to die. Yeah, politicians like McCarthy use this fear to keep piling on the pressure on his political opponents. Anyone who disagreed with anything he and his faction said were branded communist. Truman attempted to ignore this senator's attacks on his administration, but when the Chinese civil war finally ended, resulting in the creation of communist China, more fears rippled throughout the country. Truman became very frustrated with what he saw as a real danger,

and that was international spread of communism. Yeah. Challenging United States power. So he was worried that that was a genuine fear. If enough countries fall to communism, they will try and defeat us, either through economic means or actual war. We do need to push this back,

was what Truman was worried about. He was also very frustrated with it being used as a political witch hunt back home. Well, yeah. Yes. It's like the treason trials, almost. Yeah, exactly. He said as much when he described one of the McCarthy-esque investigations as a red

herring. It's like, yes, communism is a threat, but it's an international threat, not an internal threat. All of this is distracting us from the real threat, or this's an international threat, not an internal threat. All of this is distracting us from the real threat, or this is a red herring. He got a lot of stick for that. Truman misread the mood of the country. A poll showed that nearly 80% of the country fully believed that communists had infiltrated the government and were working from the inside to bring it down.

It's like QAnon in the 50s. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Very, very much like that. While the Republicans were successfully depicting the Truman administration as a den of secret commies, Truman's administration were helping form NATO and an

anti-communist mutual defence act. Hey! Yeah. Truman was also asked what to do about the fact that the Soviets have created a bomb don't know if you noticed Truman but they've got the bomb. There were two options he was told by his advisors

we can act through diplomatic channels, build up communication and try and pull back on this arms race you could describe it of atomic weapons which ultimately could lead to the destruction of all mankind this arms race, you could describe it, of atomic weapons, which ultimately could lead to the destruction of all mankind.

The trouble with that is if you try and pull yourself back, it's like, well, but they're not. And that leads us to option two, we race. Oh, yeah. Yeah. As you say, the trouble with option one is it leaves you very vulnerable and no one wants to be vulnerable. So option two we race was the option they went for we cannot risk that the soviets overtake us was essentially

the mood so what can we do about it well said his advisors um we are on the verge of inventing a super bomb to which i'm guessing truman went hang on, what? Have we stepped back in time? We've already done that. No, no, no. We've kind of done it again. H-bomb. Oh, yes, that's right. You know the stupidly powerful bomb we invented a few years ago.

Well, how would you like one 10 to 100 times bigger? Because we think we figured that out now. The hydrogen bomb. Yeah. Isn't physics wonderful? So much progress. Excellent, says Truman. The hydrogen bomb. Yeah. Isn't physics wonderful? So much progress. Excellent, says Truman.

I'll take 10 of those, please. Yeah, no, get going on it was the idea. If we can have one of these, then we'll stay ahead of the Russians, and we need to do that. And also, what's our budget for everything at the moment? Just put that in defence. It can all go in defence. Sorry, education?

Yes, I know I said something about education. Just defence. Put it in defence. I'm quite scared the Russians have an atomic bomb. Well, yeah. Yeah, so the arms race hots up. The Republicans, obviously, were able to use this to build up the rhetoric in the Capitol. Yeah.

Look how serious the threat of the commies are. Look how Truman is secretly pandering to them whilst at the same time scared of them, so he's fighting back. Which sounds contradictory, but we've heard attacks like that very recently, and contradictory statements still work. Yeah, they do. They do. Yeah, McCarthy announced that he had proof that there were 205 communists in the State Department alone. As for the proof, he said he could name 57 of them,

and a week later he said 81 of them he would be able to name personally. Any day now. Well, I've not got it on me. Obviously not. Oh, no. But they're there. I mean, you should see this report. He said waving a report probably. A plain piece of paper.

Yeah. But you just wait till it all comes out, because it's definitely coming out. He's got proof. Truman was furious, calling McCartney a pathological liar. Unfortunately, though, he couldn't do much about it because there's now a problem in Korea. Oh, Korean War.

After the war, the United States and Soviet forces had taken the country off the Japanese. And then somebody popped in the tent, bright spark in his eye, map in one hand, pencil in the other. How about the old arbitrary line?

He said, big grin on his face they always work they always work yeah they do yeah i mean you should see what's going on in israel at the moment it's brilliant and and berlin have you seen berlin and germany oh loving these they have plans for amazing war yeah oh anyway let's. Anyway, let's pop a line on, shall we? Follow the course of a river, don't be stupid. Right, there we go. That's that done. Said Lionel.

His name's Lionel. Yeah, it is. Lionel puts his pencil in his pocket, whistles a tune to himself, rubs his hands together, job well done, peace in our time. And then he walks out and no one sees him ever again. Meanwhile, the country is split in two. The United States occupied the South, the Russians occupied the North. But after a couple of years of this, I mean, Korea's not really on anyone's radar, is it? Who cares about Korea? Why are we even here, said the United

States and the Russians. So they both withdraw, both leaving their own puppet governments in place. So that'll be fine. Yeah, surprise, surprise, it wasn't fine. The North invaded the South. Yeah, of course it did. Yeah, literally the moment that the Soviet and the US forces left. Of course it did.

Yeah, straight away. The moment everyone's bats were turned, pouring over that invisible line they were, Lionel watched from a nearby mountain a solitary tear rolling down his cheek. But I had a pencil. A pencil. Can't you see the line?

No, no. Because it doesn't follow anything in nature. There's no obvious dividing line here, Lionel. Anyway. But I use a ruler. Truman was put into a tricky situation. No one cared about Korea. It was of no strategic importance whatsoever. However, with the pressures of McCarthyism at home, he couldn't be seen as soft on communism. Plus,

he was genuinely worried that if the Russians saw that South Korea could just be walked into and turned communist without any repercussions, then they would start going into places like, I don't know, Iran, where there's like oil and stuff. So with internal and external worries, Truman realises he's got to do something. Now by this time the North had invaded the South and captured the capital of Seoul. They were doing quite well, was the North. They were so successful, in fact, it looked like they were going to take the whole country before the United States could get their forces back.

But, once in, the general in charge of the United States forces managed to quickly push the North Koreans back across the border. Go away! This general, by the way, annoyingly is called MacArthur. Oh, no. Yeah. I've heard of him the way, annoyingly is called MacArthur. Oh no. I've heard of him. Might be a reason why. So I'm going to call him General MacArthur and I'm going to call McCarthy just

McCarthy to try and not get confused but I will probably misname one of them at least once during this episode. That's alright. Anyway, it's a good start. General MacArthur's pushed the North Koreans above the line but what now because we're here now and now we're here we can see that i mean there's literally nothing here we could just take three steps and now we're in north korea so should we do that and then take

down the soviet puppet government one in the eye to the ruskies said general macarthur that i mean at the moment we're pretty cold as a war there's no heat to this war you could argue we don't add heat to this war I think we should keep it cold that person was slapped round the face and told to shut up of course

damn you Eric if there were fears that the Russians and the Chinese would get involved well actually it looked like they weren't going to because we just kicked the bottom of the North Koreans, and Russia and China didn't lift

a finger. And you know what? It really would show everyone that you don't mess with the United States, even if you're half a world away. You know what, said General MacArthur, I think I can make this work. Truman was convinced and gave the order. Oh no. In you go.

Go into the north. Don't go near the border with China or Russia. So don't go to the very top. Stay near the bottom. And also, if we get reports of the Russians or the Chinese on the move, we'll tell you to back out and you get out there as quick as possible. We do not want this war to go hot. But let's just nip in and see what we can do.

Let's make it lukewarm. This is where a lot of the propaganda arises in North Korea to American atrocities apparently caused during this. Yes, yeah. So, quick, sharp surgical attack. All be over by Thanksgiving. That's what they need. Yeah.

So, General MacArthur goes in, and they were in there for approximately 30 seconds when reports of the Chinese entering the country come through. Yeah. Okay, obviously wasn't quite that. I am being facetious. But it was not long until reports of the Chinese army come through. General MacArthur was doing well. But, yeah, he had his orders.

He knew exactly what to do. It had been made very clear, once the Chinese get involved, you get out. So General MacArthur sends a message. I'd quite like to go to the border of China and blow up some bridges, if that's okay. Why? Because I kind of realised that the Chinese troops coming in had gone into a fairly strong position and the only way to really stop them

from being able to wipe out the American forces was to make sure more troops couldn't move around quickly so we need to stop them from entering the country. We need to go and blow up some bridges. Okay. Yeah, it's like, that's not good thought Truman and with a sinking feeling that this was going to spiral agreed. Okay. Yeah, it's like, that's not good, thought Truman, and with a sinking feeling

that this was going to spiral, agreed. Okay, well obviously you need to defend yourself, so fine. Off you go then. But that's it. Yeah, that's it, that's it, and then we're out. MacArthur, MacArthur, look me in the eye. Repeat after me.

That's it. Do more. No. That's it do more no that's it do more no you can blow up two bridges do more

no MacArthur yeah back home there's genuine fears that World War 3 was about to start in fact many people in the country when asked the question in one poll thought that World War 3 had already started

this was World War 3 just the start of it. The Republicans used this to their advantage. McCarthy led the charge to accuse Truman as being responsible for the deteriorating situation in Korea. If only he had been stronger against the communists, they never would have dared to do this in the first place. The Democrats lost seats in the midterms that took place and it was seen as a big win for mccarthyism something that greatly annoyed

truman who got blind drunk that night he was very frustrated that the public were not turning against him for sensible reasons like the economy's not doing great or yeah not agreeing with his foreign policy he could understand that, but they were being suckered in by the demagoguery of McCarthy and his cronies, and he just could not understand why. The man's clearly a lying idiot, but people are voting for him.

That's where you get when you're a populist. Yeah. Meanwhile, in Korea, General MacArthur's going rogue. Oh, no. Yeah. I've taken over China, sir. You're not far off. He was certain that he and only he knew how to win the war.

General MacArthur had become convinced that if he was just given free reign, he would sort this out in no time whatsoever. The Truman administration were holding him back. So without getting consent from the Joint Chiefs, General MacArthur went ahead with a bold and daring plan. If this plan succeeded, the war would be won. It was dangerous, but by dammit he would get results. What's the problem with bold and daring plans?

They often just spurt in your face what you need to expect. Yeah, that's exactly what happens. It just goes completely wrong. General MacArthur finds himself in the military term is a pickle. And he sent word that he needed to get the Taiwanese government, that is the losing side of the Chinese Civil War, who had fled to Taiwan. He was going to get the Taiwanese government, that is the losing side of the Chinese civil war, who had fled to Taiwan, he was going to get Taiwanese government involved.

So he was going to reignite the Chinese civil war. Excellent. Said Truman. Yeah, this had gone a long way from a pop over the border, just poke them in the eye and then retreat, just to show them that you can't mess with us no now oh dear this is full-on civil war in china this is i mean russia are not going to ignore that because they are not going to allow any threat to the chinese communist regime

so that's going to be russia involved and you know what this is now looking like world war three only this time both sides have atomic weapons. I mean, it's got a World War III edge to it, you've got to be honest. Yeah, it really, really does. So, Truman, trying to de-escalate the situation, sent word to General MacArthur, no, no, definitely not, you are not getting the Taiwanese government involved. That's a stupid idea. General MacArthur was furious. His plan was obviously going to work and it would end the war and Truman was a civilian idiot who didn't know what he was talking about. So, he

told the press just that. Smooth. Yeah. He was working under an enormous handicap. Without precedent in history. Although the Republicans had a field day with that. Oh, I'm sure they did. He's got a way with words, hasn't he?

Truman, then, one day, talking to the press, did something a bit silly. He was asked whether he would rule out the use of atomic bombs in Korea. Truman did not rule out the use of atomic bombs. Everyone sort of clenched a little bit. Times are getting a bit bomb-clenchy. That's, yeah, that's sort of... Yeah, ripples of fear go round the world. Atlee pops to Washington.

Hello! Quick word, please, if you may. Yes. If I may. Literally, I think after we finish the conversation with the press, it's like, hello! Atlee! Can I have a quick word, if I may, please?

Yeah. So, Truman, about atomic weapons in Korea, you're not about to do anything stupid, are you? I mean, the last time was understandable, but stupid. Yeah, this would be really stupid. Truman assured the British Prime Minister that, no, we will not do anything before consulting you that was probably a pause where Attlee went

that's not a no that's just you're going to tell me before you do something stupid Truman also said to Attlee that they would not abandon Korea this was not a war that they were going to lose the United States could not afford to look weaker. And so a stalemate ensued.

Troops either side of the border once more. Everyone on their side of the imaginary line. There's the pencil line. Follow it. Lionel's been drawing it for weeks. Look at his pencil. It's worn down to a nubbin. But he's looking a bit more cheerful now. Everyone's on the right side of the line.

Well done, well done, guys. Well done, fellows. Splendid. Truman starts to send out feelers for the case of a ceasefire, maybe. Ceasefire, everyone? We're all roughly in the right place now. Maybe we call bygones bygones. That was a fun little war.

Little epilogue to World War II. Not World War III, yeah? Yeah. Great. There was one person not happy about this. MacArthur. Yeah, General MacArthur, outraged. He was going to win this war.

He knew how to win this war. Truman was slowing him down. And this was another example of it. So, he issued a statement that the war so far proved that China were incapable of winning and needed to surrender immediately. So there you go, that's all talks of a ceasefire out the window. There's no way China could now talk about a ceasefire without it looking like they are surrendering. MacArthur wasn't done though, there's more to do. A letter of his was leaked by the Republican minority leader of the House, outlining his plan to save the war.

He was going to invade China. Oh, dear God. Truman had no choice and fires MacArthur. I'll quote, I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of a b****. Although he was. I fired him because he would not respect the authority of the president. Of course.

That's the only reason. But the problem of General MacArthur was not done. Because when he returned home, he returned like a war hero. Parades through the streets. Ticker tape. Bans. All sorts. He was even invited to speak in Congress.

So you could argue he was respected. Well, to be fair, he did a lot for America, if you're into kind of like, you know, arm flexing. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And a lot of people were, a lot of people agreed with MacArthur's point of view and thought that actually he would have been able to win the war if it wasn't for Truman.

The only reason why there's still a war on is because of Truman. So a lot of people did respect him. When he was in Congress, MacArthur used the speech to just rip into the president. Excellent. The election two days away. Not quite, but it's not great timing. but it's not great timing. Like I say, accusations of the war being all Truman's fault right from the inside of the Congress building. Yeah. Yeah. Once the speech is over, Truman gave his assessment of the speech as, and I quote, 100% ****.

It's all about time with the railway company. Yeah, that's what it is. All that foul language. But the damage was done. Truman's evaluation wasn't enough to paper over those cracks. Truman was politically injured. And the McCarthy wing of the Republicans, scenting blood, went all in.

One senator, Senator Jenner, claimed, and I quote here, "...this country today is in the hands of a secret coterie which is directed by agents of the Soviet Union," and then called for the impeachment of Truman, accusing him of being involved. Essentially, they said that Truman was a commie spy, or agent, I should say. Which obviously is ridiculous, but that was the kind of thing that was flying around Washington at the time. A very frustrated Truman vented in his personal diary about the whole situation, about Korea, about Russia, about McCarthy and that faction, the Republicans.

McCarthy and that faction, the Republicans. One day he wrote down how he was going to just inform Moscow that he was going to destroy either Siberia or China and then make Moscow choose which one. Then in another entry, he just lists cities that he's going to wipe off the map. Bloody hell, you can't do that. Yeah. Now, obviously, much like him writing down that he's going to hang the union bosses, he didn't really mean this. It's his own personal frustrations and venting. But again, when you're the president, you shouldn't be writing down lists of cities that you want to wipe off the map. That's the whole problem, because people believe you and maybe take that to the extreme. Yeah. By this time, Truman's decided one thing.

He's not going to be president again. The 22nd Amendment was in by this point, but it didn't apply to the current president. So he could, if he wanted to, run for another term. But he didn't want to. He'd had enough. Very fair. Yes. He just was not happy.

Had enough. Very fair. Yes. He just was not happy. So instead, he decided the best thing to do would be to get the Democrats to win the next election. At least that wouldn't be too embarrassing. So what he needed was a popular successor. An old war hero, perhaps.

Perhaps even a supreme commander. Ah. Yeah. They have fancy uniforms. I'm obviously talking about Eisenhower here. He should run for president. He was popular enough to defeat the Republicans. That's what he was.

Or so we hoped, anyway. There was one problem, however. Truman met with Eisenhower, floated the idea of Eisenhower running for president. Eisenhower said, Nah. Probably not, but maybe... I'll get back to you, was how the meeting ended. And then, the next thing

Truman hears about it is when Eisenhower publicly declared that if he was to run for president, and he's not saying he is, but if he were to run, it would be as a Republican, not as a Democrat. Ooh. Yeah. Burn. And there's very little to say about the election that followed

And what there is to say about it We'll do next episode But Truman's not involved in any way Eisenhower goes on to win Easily with his running mate Richard Nixon So there you go, Truman retires He threatened not to go to the inauguration

Of Eisenhower because he was so annoyed with the man What president would do that? Well, I know, I know. But, I mean, in the end he did realise that that's ridiculous and for the good of the country, obviously he went to the inauguration. Of course, yeah. Obviously. He didn't want to be labelled a John Adams. Yeah, or an idiot.

So, for the good of the country, he went to the inauguration. And then he retired. Him and Bess went to their home where they'd lived with Bess's mother years and years before, in independence. And he sees the world a bit, does some bits and bobs. He's quite poor at one point, because he never came from a rich family, and there wasn't any pensions for presidents at this point. Until eventually, a pension for presidents came in and kind of solved his financial worries. The only other president alive at this time was Herbert Hoover,

who obviously didn't need the money because he was a Brazilian. But he took the money anyway. Of course he did. Of course he did. That's what rich people do. Well, people point out he did it to make sure Truman could accept the money and it was to save face for Truman. That was the excuse given.

Yes, I'm sure there's no benefit for him at all. No other benefit, no other reason. No. Anyway, in 1972. No. 1972. That's when disco was going on. Jamie, the first three Led Zeppelin albums were out

Bloody hell yeah Everything that the Beatles ever released is already in the world Yeah That's how far we've got Wow So he was listening to Led Zepp 2 and he drowned in the Mississippi Sorry that's Jeff Buckley Jeff Buckley died

Sorry I just told you how Jeff Buckley died and said Truman He was listening to Led Zepp 2 and he drowned in the Mississippi Jeff Buckley. Jeff Buckley died. Sorry, I just told you how Jeff Buckley died in Seb Truman. He was listening to Led Zepp 2 when he drowned in the Mississippi. Truman wasn't listening to Led Zepp 2 and died of pneumonia. Yeah, I always get those two confused. Well, it's easy mistake to make. Easy to make. Yeah. Right, so there you go.

He's dead. Wow. 72. That's unbelievably close. So modern. So modern. He's wearing flares when he. So modern, so modern. He's wearing flares when he dies. Yes, he was.

That's what dragged him under the Mississippi. No, no, pneumonia. Anyway, let's rate him. Good. Only released one album, but what an album. What an album. What an album. Yeah, one album. But I heard there was a supercar.

Right. No, come on. Focus. Good for statesmanship. He tried to enact laws that would have made the country fairer and people more secure. Yes. It was all for pushing the New Deal into the Fair Deal, for helping the struggling, getting better wages, better healthcare.

Generally, if you're an average person in the country not doing too well at this time, things would have been a fairer society probably had his laws gone through. So he's got your back is what you're saying. Unless, of course, you're one of the business owners or you just hated him so you voted against him anyway. But objectively, looking from the future, you could argue that this possibly would have done the country some good if he'd managed to get some of these laws through. Something I've not gone into too much,

although I did mention it a couple of times, was his push on civil rights. Once president, he seemed to put aside his casual racism of his youth and attempted to work for all in his country, not just the majority. That's good. Which is a good thing. That's what you want from your president. But that said, none of it really worked. He was just fighting a Congress that never allowed him to achieve anything.

So how do you judge a president who can't get anything done because Congress won't let him? Well, because you sort of understand why that situation is in place. You don't want a president that's too powerful. Yeah, definitely. I get that. But the trouble is, when you've got the Senate and the House against the president, nothing happens.

You've got nothing being done because the House and the Senate are against the president, so they're just constantly bashing against each other, like two hands clapping in front of a microphone. Yeah, it's a tricky one to judge. But then also, we do have some other things that we need to take into consideration. Yes. Two little things.

And that's the two atomic bombs he dropped. Now, I'll be honest, I don't know whether to put this one in statesmanship or disgrace gate. There are arguments for both. As long as he loses points for it, it doesn't really matter, ultimately. Let's talk about it here, and then we can decide which round we're going to put it into. He is the only leader in all of history to order the use of atomica weapons on human beings.

That's pretty bad. Yes, but you could also say it was also agreed by other other world leaders yes it wasn't just him you're absolutely right it was an allied decision just as churchill said we all just were going to use it there was never discussion so you'd have to like put you know that's not justifying it at all. No, no, but that's a good argument to make. There are other arguments for why this shouldn't be seen too bad. Like I sort of talked about earlier, this was seen as just a more effective airstrike.

So it's nothing that the two sides have not been doing to each other all war. It's just one bomb instead of dropping a thousand bombs. Then, also, people point out that in this war, both sides have been killing far, far more than those who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki on a regular basis. Yes, the numbers are horrific, but actually, if you look at the rest of the war and what's been going on, it's not out of character.

No. No. But in terms of civilian city with schools... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't worry, I'm about to get into the... Okay. This is just the defence of Truman. Okay, okay.

And then, obviously, this is the big one. The argument is it helped shorten the war. The argument is, ultimately, the same amount of people or more would have died. Because Japan wouldn't have given up, the war would have dragged on, and it would have been Allied troops who ended up dead instead of the enemy. So obviously... Instead of innocent civilians.

Well, obviously the leader of the army who's trying to win would rather the enemy die than their own troops. So enemy, innocent civilians, men and women but if you say enemy it sounds so much better doesn't it yeah it takes the edge off does take the edge off yeah so i mean these are the obvious arguments that people put forth uh but then obviously you've got um people who say no this was a a terrible thing for him to do they point out that the united states dropped two nuclear bombs on innocent civilians this is a point that you you perhaps have risen uh yourself uh i may mention once or twice it's uh it's an argument that's hard to beat that it really is

the united states could have dropped one bomb in a far less populated area just to prove what they've got. Now, the argument against this is, even after Hiroshima was wiped off the map, Japan didn't surrender immediately. So you could argue, actually, if it wasn't this bad, Japan just would not have surrendered. But... See, yeah, but you could

strategy... guys, that's a word, hit one, send a warning, then send another one. Next time, it could be a city with innocent men, women, and children. But that could be an empty threat, though, and that's a problem.

Yeah, I know what decision I would have made, and I personally think that the outcome could have been achieved without two cities being wiped off the map. Yeah. But hindsight's a wonderful thing, isn't it? We don't actually know. And this is why this debate has raged on for so long.

Yeah, of course. Ultimately, though, he dropped two atomic bombs on two cities. You're losing points for that, one way or the other. It just depends how many points you're going to be losing. Yeah. But you could argue the point he also ended, he personally ended World War II. That is an argument you could put forth for going for it.

It's an argument... Because in Europe, we're very Europe-centric, aren't we? Yes. As soon as it was said, World War II has ended, but it's not. Well, yeah, exactly. This is something for us from Europe we need to remember, centric aren't we yes as soon as it was said what has ended what's not is well yeah exactly this is something from europe we need to remember is that um the pacific war was horrendous

and uh anything that shortened that war surely is a good thing by anything looking at the mushroom cloud uh yeah um so difficult one to write but here it is ah do you remember when slavery ended and we thought that this podcast would get easier well i do you know what i think we should base this on the american people version because the statement statesmanship is about that so as a statesmanship he should get a good few marks at the end of world war ii for disgrace gate that's why he should drop oh okay interesting you you're gonna separate them by rounds i think so you're gonna take into consideration both sides of the argument give points for and deduct yes nuanced like. Yes. That's less of a

blunt instrument. I'm willing to go with that. Fair enough. We'll see how it pans out as we go through the rounds. Not quite finished this round yet, though, because then we've got the Korean War as well. The Korean War, utter disaster. It achieved nothing but the deaths of American troops. From an American perspective,

it also achieved the death of many other people who weren't American troops, obviously. But for America, yeah, it was a complete disaster. Yes, Truman was fighting against a general who had gone rogue, but that's no excuse. After all, as one president once very publicly

said, the book stops here. So, um, it's kind of on him. Also, it also started another war with China yeah you see that's not good is it but must be said Truman was instrumental in keeping the Cold War

cold if someone else had been in charge you can easily see how they would have sided with MacArthur and the Korean War well could have become World War 3 this time it's atomic so the Korean War well could have become World War III. This time it's atomic. So you can say Truman

started that one and he should have not started it, but at least he kept a lid on it from spiralling too much. So, there you go. Statesmanship. Didn't do much politically. Dropped some nukes. But kind of stopped World War 3's happening.

So he ended World War 2 and prevented World War 3. I wouldn't say he prevented World War 3. He was the one who crossed that imaginary line into North Korea when he didn't need to. But he realised it was too far and pulled it back. Yeah, he pulled it back.

I think if you're an American citizen at the time you'd be kind of that's you don't thank the arsonist for rescuing you from your burning building well as a statesman protecting american situations i would give him a five you know what after all the debate and it being all over the place, I think you're probably about right there. You get the feeling he tried his best. He wasn't awful. But there are those couple of things that, oh, that's bad, so he's got to get points knocked off. Okay, five. I'm with it. Ten.

See, here's where we're going to knock him back. Some minus numbers. Well, again, he dropped two atomic bombs on two cities it's a really hard one to get over in my mind i'm sorry it really is but i think we've probably discussed that as much as we need to um and uh yeah like you say potentially gained some marks in statesmanship for ending the war um but he certainly is going to be losing marks in this one for the way he ended the war if you're an average japanese citizen working in a bakery in hiroshima and suddenly there's a massive blinding light

you're gonna be annoyed with him briefly very annoyed but apart that, let's put the atomic bombs aside carefully. He was corrupt. I mean, not massively, remember. He wasn't corrupt himself. He just worked for corrupt people was the justification. So he's subtly corrupt. He got into politics because he needed some cash. And the best way to make some cash was just to get into politics, do some favours here, another favour there, leave a horse head in a bed, that kind of thing.

Yeah, a few broken legs. Exactly. I should probably point out he wasn't actually involved in organised crime. But, I mean, it's on the periphery. It's on the periphery. I think he was very much aware of it and did nothing. Yeah, but I mean, what are you going to do?

In the 30s, in an American city? Yeah, come on. Things happen to people who stood up. Not for very long with their broken legs. Yeah. Anyway, so he was corrupt, but not massively, massively corrupt. But then, equally, that seems to stop

once he hits the national scene. Once he's out of Kansas City, it's no longer quite the same thing anymore. He was seen as a stooge for Partygast. Partygast? Party Boss Pendergast, is what I tried to say there. But once he was on the national scene, less so. He just kind of got on with his job. There were a couple of

accusations when he was president that a couple of people close to him got perks. But we're kind of talking on the level of someone had a fridge freezer, which perhaps they shouldn't have had, that kind of thing. I mean, it's not right, it shouldn't be done, but you've got someone having a fridge freezer in one hand, you've got two atomic bombs in the other.

I know which one I'm thinking about. So apart from that, there's really not much in this round. I'm giving minus 10. Are you going a full minus 10? he dropped two nuclear bombs on innocent people yes he's getting 10 i understand why you're giving him minus 10 but i'm not going to in the same way that i wouldn't give churchill minus 10 for ordering all the air raids on germany during a. I would give Churchill minus 10 in this round, by the way. Spoiler alerts for if we ever do him in the future for any reason. But not for fighting in a war.

And it was fighting in a war. I'm giving him points for dropping the atomic bomb. Don't get me wrong. But I'm trying to put myself in the mindset of someone who is trying desperately to win a war and is told, I've got a weapon that will end the war tomorrow. And how do you then tell people you didn't use it? It's such a tricky one, this one.

Whose idiotic idea was it to put a simple number system on such complex moral questions? Such an arbitrary thing. Such an arbitrary thing. Are you saying you wouldn't have used the atomic bomb at all? Not on a city. But you would have used one. at all not on a city but you would have used not in the same way but you're not in the same way not on innocence who's who's in the people that signed up people that signed up to fight and willingly said yes there's a chance i might die and i say willingly with a with a with an asterisk see it's tricky isn't it jamie it's tricky um but it's not i to

me it's not i'm going to go for minus seven okay fair enough yeah just because you're right it's it's really bad but i'm trying to put myself in the situation then not thinking about the 70 years since where we've been living in an atomic world where everyone's a little bit nervous about atomic bombs wiping out the entire world. And it was less so then. Yeah, that's true. Okay, I'm going for that. Okay, that's minus 17 for this round.

Silver's green. Fortunately, he's got a good story. He grew up on a family farm, his family on the rise socially. But then his family lost everything, remember? Yes. He was forced to move to Kansas City. He then worked in the railways. He learned to swear, like you do.

He worked for a bank, and then he was forced to go back to the farm. He pined over Bess for quite some time, who kept saying, No, no, please stop writing to me. No, I'm not coming around, until eventually she said yes. So that worked. Then World War I happened. He became a captain, and he fought as an artillery man, and there's all sorts of exciting stuff going on there.

Then he comes back home, and he opens a silk shirt shop, which was fun to say, a silk shirt shop. And he married Bess, probably wearing one of his silk shirts I'm guessing but then the business goes under which is a shame so instead he works politically for the local party boss then he goes into the senate

things get a bit boring for a while because what do senators do but then he becomes the vice president because he was in the right place at the right time because of Pearl Harbour he was on the committee that suddenly got shot to the front uh and then he becomes president because fdr dies uh he does he drops two nuclear bombs and he attempts to introduce some decent laws he goes to war with korea and then he is chased out of the white house then i don't know it's something to do

with led zeppelin and the mississippi I can't quite remember the end so yeah so yeah I mean that's that's pretty good it's a damn good that'd be an amazing sort of like series

to watch yeah yeah that would be good especially since apparently he swore all the time so it would be a bit like watching Deadwood

oh yeah because they'd update the swearing to make it sound shocking he'd be dropping the C-bomb like no one's business. What are you thinking? I'm thinking a

healthy 8, probably even a 9. Just the morality of dropping a bomb. How eager was he? Probably quite, to be fair. You've got both world wars. One from the perspective of fighting on the ground,

one from the perspective of being high up in government and then being the president. He goes and meets Churchill and Stalin at one point, which, I mean, that's always going to be good to film, isn't it? It's good. I'm going nine. I'm impressed with it.

It's a good story. I've got all the crime boss stuff as well. Sorry, party boss, party boss, not crime boss. No, that's good. I'm impressed. Right, let's share the screen. There's the Capitol building in the background, billowing clouds.

We are very much back to the original. It's been a while since we've had this. I'm surprised there isn't a red carpet. Not a red carpet, a red curtain. And some Roman imagery. But this reminds me of the early days. He's outside, capital building behind

him, sky, big sweeping vessel. There's a bit of a tree. Looks like it might be something in the tree. No, that's a bit of sky behind the tree. And there's Truman himself, looking a bit like a bank clerk. He really does, actually. Massive of sky behind the tree. And there's Truman himself looking a bit like a bank clerk. He really does, actually. Massive lapels on the jacket.

But that is very much a suit. It really is a suit. Fashion has not really changed since this point. We are now in modern fashion. This is it now until the end. Suits. Just suits. Black suits.

Unless you're crazy and wear a tan suit. But, I mean, who would do such a thing? I mean, yeah, that means you're a traitor. Probably, yeah. It's not bad. He looks quite happy there. For someone that really didn't want the job earlier on, with a good smile on his face and a dramatic background. Yeah.

I'm giving him a 7. Yeah, I'll match a 7. That's looking pretty good. Let's go for 7. Terms 1 Although he served Almost 2 It wasn't fully 2 So he only gets

One point Fair enough Assassination 1 Someone tried to kill him As president Yep When renovations

Were going on In the living quarters Of the White House Truman stayed In Blair House Hotel nearby. The West Wing was still up and running, so he wanted to be nearby so he could get to work. So just nearby hotel. On the 1st of November, two Puerto Rican men

attempted to storm the hotel and kill Truman. Wow. Yeah, they were a little bit annoyed with the whole, you know, the United States taking over Puerto Rico, and then saying things like, you can be a state one day, honest or independent, and then just kind of not doing anything about it. But it's fine, that's all sorted now.

All right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so one of the men killed a police officer trying to get into the hotel, and was gunned down and killed. The other was arrested, sentenced to death, but Truman commuted that to life imprisonment, which then eventually he was fully pardoned.

Wow. In the 70s, if I remember correctly, but I didn't write it down. But anyway, that's a genuine assassination attempt. And so he gets a point. Yeah. I'd say that's the best way to get a point in this round. Yes. Because I didn't really get near him. It's true.

It's not like he took a bullet or anything. He picks up a point, so there you go. Good attempt. And then finally, election won. He won with a 57% vote of the Electoral College, which puts him in the not-landslide category. So that is three points for bonus. That gives us a total score of 16.5.

Oh, there we go. Someone he is identical to. And you know what? This works perfectly. He has the same score as Herbert Hoover. Ah, oh, okay. Yeah. The president he really identified with and thought got a bad rap. Well, oh, okay. Yeah, the president he really identified

with and thought got a bad rap. Well, there we go. Yeah, you can be miserable together. That's what you can be. Yeah, so there you go. That is 16.5. But Herbert Hoover didn't get American. So, let's decide.

American or American? I think that's a very good argument for giving it to him he ended world war ii and prevented kind of world war iii i think saying he prevented world war iii is very generous i think it's very generous to be honest i think saying he ended world war ii is very generous. Well, he stopped the war in the East, which was part of World War II. Yeah, yeah. It was a team effort, let's say that.

No, it's definitely a team effort, but I think, I don't know, I think his presidency was such an impact. But you could argue, if anyone had been in position, would they have done the same thing? Probably. Yes. Yeah. You could argue Roosevelt had the impact.uman was the substitute who came on in the last three minutes and scored a goal scored a goal when the team were already

winning yeah he's got an interesting story but i'm not sure if it's quite interesting enough i i mean if he doesn't get it i'd be okay with that if he got it i think there'd be an interesting twist to everything i i would say no, personally. Because he just couldn't get anything done. But he's not a definite straight-up no. I'll go with no as well, yeah. You're going with no? I think that's fair.

Okay, fair enough. So that is a no to Truman. It's 16.5. I get the feeling some of our listeners might be writing comments to us about this one. That's okay. Let them. Yeah. This one was always going to be a tricky one to do wasn't it so i think it's interesting because

you could do both views quite easily and both views are valid which is yeah it's a tricky one but you could argue when you're responsible for 120 000 innocent deaths then that you know got to pay the price somehow and if it's in a round in a podcast then that's so be it damn it okay right well that is truman and next obviously we have the supreme commander eisenhower so look forward to that one but until then uh thank you for following us on uh facebook and twitter and you can download some pop beanbean and iTunes and hopefully Stitcher and Spotify and Amazon in the future as well. It's literally a button away, we just haven't done it yet. I know, we keep

saying it. What I will say is between this episode and next episode we are hoping for some news on updates for how this podcast is going to go forward with new interesting things coming your way. Because of that, we might have a week off coming up

to give us time to organise that. But yeah, so watch this space. It really should be coming soon. Might well be the next thing you hear in the podcast feed. Okay, right, and until next time. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Hello.

I had waited you on the gains into the career. What can you tell me? Yes, Mr. President, sir. It's General MacArthur, sir. General MacArthur? That's a shame. I've heard such good things of him. Yes. He's gone rogue, sir.

Gone rogue? He's gone red. Oh, no, no, no. You don't need to worry about that. He's quite empathic on the subject of not going red. No, he's getting ideas about the way the war should be going, and he's been quite loud with those ideas. But he's so far away. How could those ideas be spreading?

Oh, you know, he's leaking things to the press. He's saying that we should be invading China, for example. Invading China? Yes. No, obviously not ideal. But if he does that, and that will drag Russia in, that'll drag all the communist states in. What do we do?

Well, the problem is, it's not just that he's suggesting we invade China. That was... What? I thought I'd best build up. I mean, that was the first thing he did. The first thing? There's more. He then invaded China.

Oh, he's done it. So, on a scale of one to furious, how angry are China? Oh, they're very furious. I mean, they weren't expecting it. MacArthur had the element of surprise. He invaded from the north. No one saw it coming. But Korea, that's from the south.

Hence why they were surprised. He came in from the north through Mongolia, sir. But how on earth did he do that? Elephants, sir. He rode in on elephants. Oh, he's doing a Hannibal, isn't he? He's doing a Hannibal, yes. Oh, high five, though.

High five, yes. We're all mightily impressed, but it's a bit of a sticky situation starting the old World War III. It is a little bit. I situation starting the old World War III. It is a little bit. I mean, the UN will be furious. Yes, Stalin, they're getting involved now. Oh, damn it.

Yes, and they have said that they are going to invade. Yes, they are invading. So, this MacArthur. Yes. Can we nuke him? We've already sent it on its way, sir. Splendid. He said,

I just love his eloquence. Yeah, if you translate that, that is, there never was a moment's discussion as to whether the atomic bomb should be used or not. I love that. That's what the darkest hour film should have been. Sometimes it's atomic speeds. They missed a chance there.