Harry S. Truman

=== Legacy ===

[[File:Truman pass-the-buck.jpg|thumb|alt=Man in suit sitting behind desk with sign that says "The buck stops here"|Former President Harry Truman with "[[The Buck Stops Here]]" sign on a recreation of his Oval Office desk]]

When he left office in 1953, Truman was one of the most unpopular chief executives in history. His job approval rating of 22% in the [[Gallup Poll]] of February 1952 was lower than [[Richard Nixon]]'s 24% in August 1974, the month that Nixon resigned. American public feeling towards Truman grew steadily warmer with the passing years; as early as 1962, a poll of 75 historians conducted by [[Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr.]] ranked Truman among the "near great" presidents. The period following his death consolidated a partial rehabilitation of his legacy among both historians and members of the public.{{sfn|''Wisconsin Magazine of History''|Autumn 1975}} Truman died when the nation was consumed with crises in [[Vietnam War|Vietnam]] and [[Watergate scandal|Watergate]], and his death brought a new wave of attention to his political career.{{sfn|''Time''|December 3, 1973}} In the early and mid-1970s, Truman captured the popular imagination much as he had in 1948, this time emerging as a kind of political folk hero, a president who was thought to exemplify an integrity and accountability many observers felt was lacking in [[Presidency of Richard Nixon|the Nixon White House]]. This public reassessment of Truman was aided by the popularity of a book of reminiscences which Truman had told to journalist [[Merle Miller]] beginning in 1961, with the agreement that they would not be published until after Truman's death.{{sfn|Dallek|2008|pp=149, 152}}

Truman had his latter-day critics as well. After a review of information available to Truman about the presence of espionage activities in the U.S. government, Democratic Senator [[Daniel Patrick Moynihan]] concluded that Truman was "almost willfully obtuse" concerning the danger of American communism.{{sfn|Moynihan|1997}} In 2010, historian Alonzo Hamby concluded that "Harry Truman remains a controversial president."{{sfn|Hamby|2002}} However, Truman has fared well in [[Historical rankings of presidents of the United States|polls ranking the presidents]], consistently being listed in the top ten;{{sfn|C-SPAN|2009}} this includes a 2022 poll by the [[Siena College Research Institute]], which placed him in seventh.{{Sfn|Siena|2022}}

[[The fall of the Soviet Union]] in 1991 caused Truman advocates to claim vindication for Truman's decisions in the postwar period. According to Truman biographer Robert Dallek, "His contribution to victory in the [[Cold War|cold war]] without a devastating nuclear conflict elevated him to the stature of a great or near-great president."{{sfn|Dallek|2008|p=152}} The 1992 publication of [[David McCollough]]'s favorable biography of Truman further cemented the view of Truman as a highly regarded chief executive.{{sfn|Dallek|2008|p=152}} According to historian Daniel R. McCoy in his book on the Truman presidency:

{{blockquote |
Harry Truman himself gave a strong and far-from-incorrect impression of being a tough, concerned and direct leader.  He was occasionally vulgar, often partisan, and usually nationalistic&nbsp;... On his own terms, Truman can be seen as having prevented the coming of a [[World War III|third world war]] and having preserved from Communist oppression much of what he called the free world.  Yet clearly he largely failed to achieve his [[Woodrow Wilson|Wilsonian]] aim of securing perpetual peace, making the world safe for democracy, and advancing opportunities for individual development internationally.{{sfn|McCoy|1984|pp=318–319}}
}}