President Harry S Truman

Michael Devine: Harry Truman - the worth of the man

Harry S. Truman joined the ranks of the unemployed when he returned to Independence  following nearly eight years as the nation’s president. At nearly 69 years old and with only a high school education, his career prospects appeared unpromising. In addition, he was not eligible for Social Security (farmers and public servants at the local and state levels were not covered then), there was no Medicare, and pensions for former presidents of the United States did not become a reality until 1958. Mr. Truman’s only regular source of income was a monthly payment of $112.56 from his pension as a retired colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve. However, recently opened Truman and Wallace family documents, made available to the Truman Library following the death of his daughter Margaret Truman Daniel in 2008, reveal that the former president had planned carefully for his retirement. Mr. Truman put a considerable amount of his salary as U.S. President into savings – perhaps as much as 20 or 25 percent of his annual compensation from 1945-1953. Furthermore, he personally owned more than 400 acres of the family farm near Grandview, and the value of this land was increasing rapidly as the suburbs of Kansas City extended southward. In addition, he expected his memoirs to generate a substantial royalty. On two separate occasions, in 1952 and again in 1953, Mr. Truman prepared handwritten documents for his wife Bess “in case disaster overtakes me” or “in case of my passing on Dec. 1953,” – (Truman was to undergo a serious gall bladder operation in 1954.) His first undated note “For Mrs. Truman” was written about the time he left the White House. President Truman placed this document in an envelope labeled “Instructions for the disposal of certain land holdings” and summarized his estimated net worth: The document also outlined the President’s wishes for his own funeral: “as simple a ceremony at the last as possible. Probably have to be Baptist although I have no objection to Episcopal services.” He made it clear that he wanted Bess and Margaret to have the 219 Delaware St. home throughout their lifetimes, and then it would be “turned over to an organization similar to Mt. Vernon the Hermitage and the Hayes Home in Ohio.” Concerned about his legacy, he instructed that some acreage from the Grandview property be used for a new Masonic lodge and his future presidential library. President Truman lived a life of genteel poverty throughout his early years in Independence and Grandview. Even as a United States Senator, he had to struggle to make ends meet while sharing a home with his in-laws. Until the late 1940s, the Grandview farm seemed to be a marginal operation and appeared to be heavily mortgaged. Truman’s business ventures never succeeded, and one, the Truman-Jacobson Haberdashery, was a notorious failure that left both partners in dire straits. However, the office of the presidency paid a huge salary of $100,000 (compared to only $400,000 received today by President Obama); and, in the post World War II economic boom, farm land became extremely valuable – especially acreage located in the path of suburban sprawl.

President Harry S Truman authorizes support for the Republic of ...

Parallel.  Equipped with Soviet-made tanks, supported by massed artillery fire, the communist offensive quickly drove south through Koesong and toward Uijongbu north of Seoul.  Other attacks pressed against the mainly South Korean defenders all across the frontier to Kangnung on the east coast. 

As the news worsened over the course of the day, General MacArthur, Commander in Chief, Far East Command, then at General Headquarters in Tokyo, ordered the shipment of ammunition from depots in Japan to resupply the South Koreans.  That was as far as he could proceed on his own authority.

President Truman, then at home in Independence, Missouri, heard the news of the invasion on the night of 24 June from his secretary of State, Dean Acheson.  The President then tasked Acheson to request a meeting of the United Nations Security Council.  The UNSC met at 1400 the following day and, owing to the continued absence of the Soviet representative (who had boycotted that body since January), the Security Council passed a resolution calling for peace and the restoration of the 38 Parallel boundary, calling upon “all members to render every assistance to the United Nations in the execution of this resolution and to refrain from giving assistance to the North Korean authorities.” 

On the same day, as President Truman traveled back to Washington, the Joint Chiefs of Staff alerted MacArthur to the possibility, should the United Nations ask member nations to employ military force, that he might be directed to commit air, naval and ground forces to stabilize the combat situation.

The key question facing the United States, and indeed the United Nations as a whole, was the reaction of the Soviet Union.  The American intelligence community believed the Soviets were the true aggressors in Korea, in spirit if not in fact.  A central Intelligence Agency (CIA) report on 19 June had called the Democratic People’s Republic of northern Korea “a firmly controlled Soviet Satellite that exercises no independent initiative and depends entirely on the support of the USSR for existence.” 

The U.S. embassy in Moscow argued in their daily summary report that the attack was “a clear cut Soviet challenge to the United States which should be answered firmly and swiftly because it constitutes a direct threat to US leadership of the free world against Soviet-Communist imperialism.”

In Washington on the evening of 25 June, President Truman met with his senior civilian and military advisors at Blair House.  During the resulting discussions, which focused on the communist threat to Korea as well as Formosa, the prevailing opinion was that the United States needed to draw the line against Soviet aggression somewhere, and that somewhere was Korea.

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