Harry S. Truman

No brief summary, however, can adequately indicate the scope of this major American biography. It provides a rare inside view of the Presidency during a crucial period in the nation's history, a time when Harry Truman had to deal decisively with some of the most awesome and far-reaching problems any President has faced. There was the sudden assumption of the Precidency itself during wartime, the negotiations with Stalin, the decision to drop the atomic bomb, the Marshall Plan that rescued Europe, the Berlin Blockade, the Korean War, the dismissal of America's revered military leader, General MacArthur.

And one of the most dramatic events described in the book is the 1948 presidential campaign, when the man from Independence dis what all the polls reported was impossible. He won the Presidency, an outcome that he never doubted. "Now the whole country knew," writes Margaret Truman, "what we had always known. Harry S. Truman was no 'accidental President.' From the moment he took that original oath of office, he wasthe President of the United States." Harry Truman was also a family man in the very best sense of those words. The most important people in his life were his wife, his daughter, his mother and his sister. Frequently, when the President was separated from them or had to remain alone in the "Big White Jail," as he called the White House, he would write to his family. These letters were composed in the pungent Truman style and contain fascinating descriptions of great events as they were happening and world leaders as Mr. Truman saw them. The President also kept private memoranda which he wrote for his own information when he sensed that important events were taking place. Many of these letters and memoranda are drawn upon or published for the first time in Harry S. Truman. They provide some startling revelations, including one electrifying letter the President wrote his daughter telling her he expected that Russia and America might soon be at war.

Finally, there are personal recollections from many people who knew the President and, most important, Margaret Truman's own vivid reminiscences of her father. It is these latter recollections that make this book unique. For Margaret Truman provides a warm and moving portrait of the man who happened to be both her father and President of the United States.

Some men make history. Harry S. Truman was such a man. Some books are read by people of all ages and for years to come. The publisher believes that Harry S. Trumanby Margaret Truman will be such a book.