Tag Archives: Harry Truman

national news

Two dates coincide historically

For the life of me I never gave this issue a first thought — let alone a second one.

Aug. 9 is important for two unique reasons, yet they both occupy huge spots in our nation’s history.

On that date in 1945, the U.S. Army Air Force dropped the second of two atomic bombs, this one on Nagasaki, Japan. The first one exploded over Hiroshima, Japan, three days earlier, President Truman wanted to send a message to our remaining World War II enemy that further resistance was futile and could be a very deadly to the Japanese.

Give ‘Em Hell Harry ordered the second bonbing and … well, there you have it. Japan waved the white flag five days later and the street dances commenced all across our nation as we celebrated VJ Day.

The world never would be the same.

Twenty-nine years later, on that date in 1974, President Nixon quit the office to which he was re-elected in a historic landslide just two years earlier. In June 1972, some doofus burglars broke into the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate complex in D.C.; they rifled through some desk drawers, looking for dirt on the Dems.

If there was a more stupid political stunt ever conceived, you would have to explain it to me. Nixon was cruising to his huge victory, yet the Committee to Re-Elect the President, aka CREEP, just had to break the law.

Nixon got into trouble by covering up the crime when he ordered the CIA to intervene on his behalf. The House of Representatives then would prepare articles of impeachment against him. An impeachment was a done deal; so was a Senate trial conviction.

Nixon got the word from his Republican allies in the Senate that he was toast.

So … he resigned, becoming the first POTUS ever to leave office in this shameful manner.

Both of these events stand alone as monumental episodes in our nation’s long and complicated history.

Let’s not allow either of them to repeat themselves.

entertainment news, national news

‘Oppenheimer’: grim history lesson

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J. Robert Oppenheimer knew the moment he decided to take on a monumental task in the 1940s that he likely would create a monster.

Indeed, that monster has been — more or less — caged up by nations around the world that have developed nuclear weapons. The United States was the first nation on Earth to develop The Bomb, and in August 1945, it decided to seek a relatively quick end to World War II by being the only nation (so far) to use the weapon in war.

“Oppenheimer,” a film I watched today with my sons, tells the gripping story of the physicist’s struggle dealing with what he created. It speaks to the awesome power of the atomic bomb and also whether scientists could perfect a bomb that fused atoms — rather than splitting them — to create an even more devastating weapon to use against our enemy in Japan.

On Aug. 6, 1945, Hiroshima felt the wrath of the first of two bombs; the second one dropped on Nagasaki three days later. Five days after that Japan surrendered.

Mission accomplished … in the eyes of those who believed the A-bomb was the better option than to send troops ashore in Japan.

The film tells a chilling tale of deception among the scientists working on the project. It speaks to the monstrosity that Oppenheimer, Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi and other brainiacs assembled.

“Oppenheimer” depicts a meeting between the title character and President Harry Truman in the Oval Office. Oppenheimer wonders aloud whether he did the right thing by creating the weapon. President Truman — portrayed in the film by Gary Oldman — tells Oppenheimer the world “doesn’t give a sh** who created it. The people of Hiroshima care who dropped it. I did that.”

Right there is a case study in nerves of steel by the president of the United States.

But the world still has this weapon in the arsenals of many more nations than anyone likely envisioned in 1945. May we never see its use in war ever again.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news

Socialism = scare tactic

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I never have thought of Harry Truman as being a squishy socialist, a guy who wanted to wrest control of our lives from private interests and hand it all over to the government.

What he says in these remarks attributed to him near the end of his presidency do resonate today as conservatives seeks to paint so many efforts to help Americans as a ploy to enact socialistic policy.

I hear it from friends of mine. One of them, an Amarillo business owner, believes that President-elect Biden is a tool of socialist interests who are intent on enacting a full government takeover of virtually every aspect of our lives. That’s how the dictionary defines socialism, by the way.

Well, I will stand by my own belief that it is not going to unfold as the president-elect’s critics suggest. They are intent on injecting fear among us.

President Truman’s wisdom is in short supply among many contemporary politicians.

Socialism = red herring | High Plains Blogger

military news

Nothing to celebrate

The world changed forever 75 years ago to this very day.

That was when a B-29 bomber took off from Tinian Island in the Pacific Ocean and dropped a single explosive device on Hiroshima, Japan. In an instant, tens of thousands of people were vaporized; many thousands more would die from the effects of that nuclear blast.

The nation was involved in a world war with Japan. Another airplane would take off three days later and inflict the same level of destruction on Nagasaki, Japan. A week after that second blast, the Japanese surrendered. World War II was over.

They danced in the streets of this country. A few days after surrendering, Japanese and Allied officials met in Tokyo harbor to sign the documents.

We look back on this day with grimness. It’s not a moment to celebrate. It is an event to commemorate with somber reflection. I am not particularly proud to have been born in the only nation on Earth to have used nuclear weapons in war. Indeed, it is a grim reminder of the path we took to reach that moment.

We had been fighting Japan, Nazi Germany and (until 1943) fascist Italy since 1941. Then in April 1945, our commander in chief, President Roosevelt, died in Georgia and suddenly, a modest man from Missouri, Harry Truman, was thrust into the role of president.

He didn’t know about the atomic weapon being developed in New Mexico until someone from the Joint Chiefs of Staff told him about this new weapon that could end the war quickly. President Truman weighed the cost of unleashing this device against the cost of invading Japan; he chose to use the bomb.

I have long embraced President Truman’s decision. Why? I had skin in that game. You see, my father was in the Philippines when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were incinerated. He was a proud Navy sailor who might have taken part in that invasion of Japan had the order been given and, yes, he could have died in that effort. He had survived intense combat in The Med and likely figured he was living on borrowed time.

So, you must understand that President Truman’s decision allowed me to be born into this world.

Do I celebrate those twin events? Do I perform a happy dance just knowing a wartime president’s resolve allowed me to enter this world? I do none of that.

I merely want to echo the refrain we have heard in the decades since that fateful event: Never again.

national news

White House leadership is MIA

President Harry Truman had that sign on his desk that said “The Buck Stops Here.”

President John F. Kennedy told the nation after the failed Bay of Pigs, Cuba, military operation that “Victory has a thousand fathers; defeat is an orphan.”

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, when he commanded Allied forces in Europe during World War II, planned the D-Day landing at Normandy and wrote a letter he would read to the world if the mission failed; he would take full responsibility for its failure … which thankfully he never had to read.

These men were leaders of the first magnitude. The current president of the United States, Donald John Trump, has demonstrated what I have to label as a “fair weather style of leadership.”

He takes credit when matters go well; he even takes credit when and where he doesn’t deserve it. When the strategy fails? He says he “takes no responsibility at all.”

We are witnessing how leadership becomes missing in action when the fecal matter hits the fan. Donald Trump keeps boasting about what he’s done to battle the coronavirus pandemic. Yet he denies the virtually proven instances when he fell short.

Trump’s leadership, such as it exists, has fallen far short of the kind of presidential leadership that an unprecedented health crisis of this scale requires. Trump can brag and boast all he wants. It doesn’t wipe out what we all know about the federal response to this crisis.

The nation needs focused, driven and dedicated leadership that presents itself at all levels. We are not getting it from this president, during this crisis.

Donald Trump’s mantra, unlike Harry Truman, is that the “buck stops … over there.” 

medical news, national news

Passing the buck, eh, Mr. POTUS?

Donald John “Buck Passer in Chief” Trump took a question this afternoon from a reporter who asked if the president took “responsibility” for the lack of testing kits available to help detect the coronavirus among Americans.

Trump called the reporter’s inquiry a “nasty question,” but then added that he takes “no responsibility at all,” even though the Trump administration dismantled the safeguards it inherited to deal with crises such as what we’re experiencing at the moment.

Trump said he didn’t know about the dismantling of the team that had been formed. He looked around at the folks standing with him in the White House Rose Garden for someone who could answer the question directly.

Wherever he is, President Harry Truman is seething. It was President Truman who famously displayed the sign on his White House desk that declared that “The Buck Stops Here.”

That is no longer the case. Donald Trump doesn’t accept any responsibility for any decision that reflects badly on him, the administration or the presidency itself.

Interesting, yes?

Consider, finally, something that I have noted already on High Plains Blogger: Donald Trump stood before the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in the summer of 2016 and pronounced to the entire world that “I, alone” can repair what he said ails the nation.

That was a lie, too.

International news

God bless President Truman

I have commented already on this blog about the significance that Aug. 6 has to the country and to me personally.

On that date in 1945, President Harry Truman issued an order that stands the test of time. He ordered a B-29 crew to take off from Tinian Island in the Pacific Ocean. It carried a single bomb.

The plane dropped that bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. The A-bomb killed about 70,000 people instantly. Three days later, another bomber would fly over Nagasaki, Japan, and would drop another bomb. It killed 50,000 people.

Five days after that, Japan surrendered. World War II had come to an end.

I long have saluted President Truman for having the courage to act as he did to bring that war to an end.

He became president after Franklin Roosevelt’s death in April 1945. World War II would rage in Europe until May 8. The Nazis surrendered as the Soviet Red Army marched into Berlin. The Japanese would continue the fight into the summer on the other side of planet. Truman knew a tiny bit about some New Mexico project that was developing a new kind of weapon. Then the Joint Chiefs briefed him, telling him, in effect, “Mr. President, we have this bomb that we believe can end this war quickly.”

My father was part of an occupation force in The Philippines that summer. He was preparing to take part in the invasion of Japan, were that operation were to commence. He had already seen plenty of combat in the Mediterranean Theater. Dad told me once he figured that more combat awaited him once the invasion of Japan commenced. He was a Navy boatswain’s mate. His shipboard duty required him to fire a deck gun in anger at enemy aircraft in the Med. More of that kind of duty likely awaited him.

But then the president ordered the dropping of those atomic bombs. The war ended quickly afterward.

I never have questioned for a moment the wisdom of President Truman’s decision or doubted the courage he demonstrated in issuing the order. Hey, I have some “skin in that game” … you know?

I mean, if Dad hadn’t survived, well, I wouldn’t be here today, writing this blog telling you about how grateful I am to have been given life.

I once told a veterans group in Amarillo about my personal connection to the events of Aug. 6 and 9, 1945. I told those vets, “God bless President Truman.”

They clapped and cheered.

I feel just as strongly today as I always have about the president’s decision to end that terrible conflict in the manner that he did.

national news

‘The buck stops with everybody’?

John F. Kennedy once said that “victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.”

Harry Truman once had a sign on his desk that declared “The buck stops here.”

Ronald Reagan once admitted that he was mistaken when he said he never traded arms for hostages.

Donald Trump now says that “the buck stops with everybody.”

Which of those statements connotes a weak leader? Which of them suggests the person who abides by it doesn’t want to take responsibility?

If you said the fourth one, we are on the same page. Donald Trump won’t accept responsibility for the dispute that has closed part of the federal government and has thrown hundreds of thousands of federal employees out of work, causing them varying degrees of financial hardship — all over whether to build The Wall along our southern border.

Trump’s equivocation speaks volumes about his lack of leadership. He is illustrating once more how he won’t accept what most of the rest of us believe already, that he cannot stand by what he said, that he would be willing to take the heat for shutting down the government.

Now he’s done it. Federal employees are hurting.

Own it, Mr. President.

national news

A feud ended 55 years ago today

Ex-Presidents Truman and Eisenhower outside St. Matthew’s Cathedral after President Kennedy’s funeral, 55 years ago today.  According to , this picture was taken after they saw young JFK Jr. salute his father. On this day, Truman and Ike ended their 11-year feud.

This Twitter message came from presidential historian Michael Beschloss, who posted it with this picture I am sharing here.

The photo was taken at JFK’s funeral. It shows his two immediate predecessors, President Harry Truman (left) and President Dwight Eisenhower. The “ClintHill_SS” referenced in the above tweet is the name of the Secret Service agent who climbed aboard the limousine carrying the president and first lady as gunshots rang out in downtown Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

The two men disliked each other intensely. Their domestic and foreign policy differences became personal between them. Ike succeeded Give ‘Em Hell Harry in January 1953 and the two men barely spoke to each other for the decade that preceded President Kennedy’s brutal murder.

Then the two former presidents came to pay their respects to their slain successor.

And while there they buried the hostility they held toward each other. As Beschloss noted in his tweet, the picture was taken as the two men saw John Kennedy Jr. salute his father’s casket as it wheeled past him.

I had learned long ago about the Truman-Eisenhower feud. It ended when they sat together and listened to the tributes to the young president who succeeded Ike in 1961. The youngest elected president was laid to rest and the two old warriors laid their antipathy toward each other to rest at the same time.

It’s a long-forgotten, but still poignant testimony to the fragility of Earthly life. Ike and Truman got to live to become old men, something denied to JFK. The two presidents came to that realization when President Kennedy was laid to rest.

It’s one of life’s most valuable lessons.

Donald Trump

Why now do we talk about POTUS and racial intolerance?

I came into this world more than 68 years ago. My first memory of anything takes me back to when I was around 3 years of age.

Over many of the next nearly seven decades I have been fairly politically dialed in. I have had a great interest in politics and public policy. I was able to shake Bobby Kennedy’s hand in May 1968, a week before he died at the hands of an assassin. I returned from the Army in 1970 and became a college campus volunteer for George McGovern’s failed campaign in 1972. I have been able to cover two national presidential political conventions.

Thus, I must declare that this time in our history — during the presidency of Donald John Trump — is the first time I can recall such widespread discussion of whether the president of the United States is friendly to white supremacist hate groups.

This upcoming weekend will mark the first year since the riot exploded in Charlottesville, Va., the incident that started with white supremacists protested the removal from a public park of a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee.

It got ugly. Counter protesters challenged the haters. A young woman died when she was run over in the melee; a young man associated with the hate groups has been charged with murder.

Donald Trump has refused to condemn the white supremacists singularly. He has been virtually silent about the Klan and the neo-Nazis.

I was born during the Truman years. My first presidential memory is of Dwight Eisenhower. Every single president from Ike’s era has not been the subject of this kind of discussion.

Until now. Trump has broken the mold. He is the first president in my lengthy memory who continues to be associated in the minds of many Americans with those who espouse the kind of violence that the rest of us condemn with a full-throated roar.

We are witnessing a scary precedent coming from an equally scary president.

So … sad.