The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World―A Fast-Paced Chronicle of Truman’s Tumultuous First Days Amidst World War II

I very much enjoyed the first four chapters regarding how Harry S Truman (HST) became the 33rd president of the United States. Some of this information author A. J. Baime reveals I had not been exposed to previously. Most especially the physicians intervention and interaction in Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR)'s death at Warm Springs, Georgia. Very interesting minutes prior to his death, he was still smoking after a year before his physician told him to "distance himself from cigarettes." The book makes light of the Annals of Internal Medicine case report regarding FDR's medical history. Part two is the political education of HST. It is ripe with many interesting facts regarding his life from farmer to president of the USA. Especially interesting, is the 1944 Democratic Chicago Convention in which the Democratic National Committee (DNC) maneuvers to obtain HST on the ticket as vice president. Shades of 2024. Part three is the beginning of the four-month span of HST "baptism of fire" as the replacement of FDR after his passing. Here the reader obtains an eyewitness look into his demeaner and personality with his family and the surrounds. This period is the countdown to the July 1945 Potsdam Tripartite Meeting and the uncertainty of the atomic bomb effectiveness. Part four provides the reader with the ongoings to arrival at the "Big Three Potsdam Meeting" and views of HST during and while the waiting for the test results of the Trinity plutonium bomb test. Many do not realize this was really the testing of the Nagasaki weapon which material was obtained from the reactor in Hanford, Washington. To really appreciate the final part of the book the reader should view the recent film "Oppenheimer" to understand what is happening parallel to the Potsdam meeting. Here The Manhattan District Program is pushed to completion to provide HST with the information to negotiate the finality of the second world war. The book is very interesting and easy to read. However, the contrast of the paperback print can cause asthenopia over time. It is highly informative and sophisticated even for the historian. It is composed of five parts with thirty-eight chapters, an epilogue, B&W photos, notes, and a helpful index. Using personal letters, communiques, diaries, and newspaper articles the author has crafted a significant contribution to the historical record. All interested in this period should purchase this book.

This is a lovely, lovely book, beautifully researched, beautifully written and filled with superb details. Capitalizing on the strengths of great fiction—powerful, unforgettable characters, a riveting story line, fully-realized settings and eternal, compelling themes—this is popular narrative history at its absolute best. The subject is President Truman's very consequential first four months in office. While not a full-fledged biography of HST there are strong biographical elements and a great stress of 'character'—not just the man's personal integrity and tenacity but his full, rounded character. His entire story is a fascinating one, as David McCullough has made clear, but here we see him under extreme pressure, as if the skies have opened and the weight of the universe has fallen across his shoulders. It is one thing to follow a popular and accomplished president, quite another to both end a great war and seek a peace under the most difficult of circumstances. Add to this the need to negotiate with the likes of Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill and make the decision as to the use of nuclear weapons. Baime makes the point time and again that HST possessed two crucial characteristics: the ability to make hard decisions crisply and expeditiously and the possession of titanic integrity. While the author does not make the point here, I have always remembered HST's refusal to benefit financially from the presidency after he left office, declaring, with finality, that the presidency was not for sale. As we are reminded that HST cheated on his eye test to be able to fight in WWI and that he commanded an artillery battery in the Argonne and suffered no casualties (except for horses) I was reminded why he is now ranked toward the middle of our top ten presidents. Without descending into the sentimental or the hyperbolic the author tells HST's story straightforwardly; the only problem is that that straightforward story forced this reader, at least, to read much of the book with moist eyes. Every American should read this book and see how a modest man who had often struggled in his life ascended one of history's greatest stages and taught us all the nature of real leadership, real courage and real accomplishment. I would have awarded even more stars if it was possible to do so. N.B.: the author's book on the 1948 election is coming on July 7, 2020.

Best

Readable

Interesting because I got this book to read out of the blue for pure curiosity around the motives to drop the atomic bombs over Japan. Maybe it would shed some light on this matter... For my great pleasure, the book has more than that. It covers the end of the FDR era and the beginning of a new one: Harry S Truman as the first President coming from the common people to rule the world and set eternal development for all humankind (UN, NATO). Glad to understand a little bit more about the ’40s political environment, specially USSR (Stalin) and Great Britain (W. Churchill the last official meet before his term was over). I am not American and probably because of that I never had heard the lend-lease doctrine (program), where the Americans taxpayers were called to support (finance) the battle against Hitler and the rebuild of a devastated Europe. Thanks For That. Excellent book, five stars for sure.

Espléndida descripción de los primeros meses de la presidencia de Truman, aunque yo habría deseado, a tenor del nombre del libro, una mayor extension sobre el resto de su presidencia, de la misma manera que dedica bastantes páginas a sus años previos a ña misma

Bought as a gift for later in the year. Should be well appreciated