Messages 2010
Thoughts of a President.
August 26th, 2010.
Berkeley, California
Received by FAB
I am here, Harry Truman.
I have been reading along with you this book about my time as president [The Fifties, by David Halberstam]. I am glad you find my comments were honest and refreshing.
Well, I certainly had my character strengths, but I have suffered greatly for many things I did, particularly as president. I had more than a notion of what awaited me here, but I didn’t understand the full impact until I found myself confined by my own conscience. Besides, these sorts of matters did not preoccupy me on Earth. I really wish they had.
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the 33rd President of the United States (1945–1953). As President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s third vice-president and the 34th Vice President of the United States, he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his historic fourth term.
During World War I, Truman served as an artillery officer, making him the only president to have seen combat in World War I (his successor Eisenhower spent the war training tank crews in Pennsylvania). After the war he became part of the political machine of Tom Pendergast and was elected a county commissioner in Missouri and eventually a Democratic United States senator. After he gained national prominence as head of the wartime Truman Committee, Truman replaced vice president Henry A. Wallace as Roosevelt’s running mate in 1944. (Source: Wikipedia)