Thread: President Truman: "I like Stalin"

The mother of all epic lies begun by Truman and taken to another level by Edward Bernays was the "Red Menace". More to come..

For Truman's attitude towards Stalin, see for example, Robert H. Ferrell, ed., Dear Bess: the Letters from Harry to Bess Truman, 1910-1959, New York: Norton, 1983. In letters to his wife, Truman wrote (pp. 520-522):

Dear Bess: The Letters from Harry to Bess Truman, 1910-1959

I like Stalin. He is straightforward. Knows what he wants and will compromise when he can't get it. Uncle Joe gave his dinner last night. There were at least twenty-five toasts -- so much getting up and down that there was practically no time to eat or drink either -- a very good thing. Since I'd had America's No. 1 pianist to play for Uncle Joe at my dinner he had to go me one better. I had one and one violinist -- and he had two of each. The old man loves music. Stalin felt so friendly that he toasted the pianist when he played a Tskowsky (you spell it) piece especially for him.

Robert H. Ferrell, ed., Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman, New York: Penguin, 1980. Similarly, in his private papers, Truman wrote (pp. 44, 53):

Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman

A common everyday citizen [in Russia] has about as much say about his government as a stock holder in the Standard Oil of New Jersey has about his Company. But I don't care what they do. They evidently like their government or they wouldn't die for it. I like ours so let's get along. I can deal with Stalin. He is honest -- but smart as hell.

For discussion of the attitudes of Truman and other Washington officials towards Stalin and his regime, see for example, Melvyn Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992. An excerpt (pp. 15, 52-53):

A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War

At the end of the war, U.S. officials...wanted to cooperate with the Kremlin. But they harbored a distrust sufficiently profound to require terms of cooperation compatible with vital American interests. Truman said it pointedly when he emphasized that the United States had to have its way 85 percent of the time. Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, the Republican spokesman on foreign policy, was a little more categorical: "I think our two antipathetical systems can dwell in the world together -- but only on a basis which establishes the fact that we mean what we say when we say it..."

Humanitarian impulses also were a minor influence on U.S. policy. Principles were espoused because they served American interests and because they accorded with American ideological predilections and not because top officials felt a strong sense of empathy with the peoples under former Nazi rule and potential Soviet tutelage...In Washington, top officials -- Truman, Byrnes, Leahy, Forrestal, Patterson, Davies, Grew, Dunn, Lincoln -- rarely thought about the personal travail caused by war, dislocation, and great power competition...Suffering had to be relieved and hope restored in order to quell the potential for revolution. Rarely does a sense of real compassion and/or moral fervor emerge from the documents and diaries of high officials. These men were concerned primarily with power and self-interest, not with real people facing real problems in the world that had just gone through fifteen years of economic strife, Stalinist terror, and Nazi genocide.

Perhaps nothing better illustrates this moral obtuseness than the way top U.S. officials felt about Stalin. Who could doubt his barbarism? Although the full dimensions of the Gulag were not known, the trials, purges, and murders of the 1930's were a matter of public record. Yet far from worrying about their inability to satisfy Stalin's paranoia, American officialdom had great hope for Stalin in 1945. He appeared frank and willing to compromise. Truman liked him...Lest one think these were the views of a naive American politician, it should be remembered that crusty, tough-nosed Admiral Leahy had some of the same feelings. And so did Eisenhower, Harriman, and Byrnes...What went on in Russia, Truman declared, was the Russians' business. The president was fighting for U.S. interests, and Uncle Joe seemed to be the man with whom one could deal...Truman, among others, frequently voiced concern for Stalin's health; it would be a "real catastrophe" should he die. If "it were possible to see him [Stalin] more frequently," Harriman claimed, "many of our difficulties would be overcome."

Originally Posted by Horhey

For Truman's attitude towards Stalin, see for example, Robert H. Ferrell, ed., Dear Bess: the Letters from Harry to Bess Truman, 1910-1959, New York: Norton, 1983. In letters to his wife, Truman wrote (pp. 520-522):

The letter was composed before the onset of the Cold War and Truman was still trying to get along with Stalin to ensure the Soviet Union's participation in the war against Japan and his predecessor was also a close friend of "Uncle Joe". The Soviet troops played a crucial role in defeating the Axis powers and even Churchill dropped his life-long anti-socialist bias while he was in charge of Britain's wartime foreign policy as a part of the Big Three. But everything changed after Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech and Truman readjusted America's foreign policy accordingly to contain Soviet expansionism as he declared the Truman Doctrine in 1947.

I am not sure what your point is.

Truman, when he met Stalin, was completely inexperienced in dealing with world leaders, and had been President for a very short time. He personally liked when he met him.

As he got to know Stalin, and negotiated with him after the war in Berlin, he realized more and more that he couldn't trust Stalin or the USSR.

Then as the cold war progressed and intesified, Truman was ready to face off- both the Berlin Airlift, and in Korea.

So again- what is your point?

Originally Posted by SFJEFF

I am not sure what your point is.

Truman, when he met Stalin, was completely inexperienced in dealing with world leaders, and had been President for a very short time. He personally liked when he met him.

As he got to know Stalin, and negotiated with him after the war in Berlin, he realized more and more that he couldn't trust Stalin or the USSR.

Then as the cold war progressed and intesified, Truman was ready to face off- both the Berlin Airlift, and in Korea.

So again- what is your point?

Internally, Truman said "A common everyday citizen [in Russia] has about as much say about his government as a stock holder in the Standard Oil of New Jersey has about his Company. But I don't care what they do. They evidently like their government or they wouldn't die for it."- Which is the exact opposite of what he said publicly. Seems like something a sociopath would say. Read the Melvyn Leffler quote on this issue.