Truman's legacy

Harry S. Truman, left, is sworn in as President of the United States by Chief Justice Harlan Stone, in the executive offices of the White House, Washington, DC, April 12, 1945, following the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt at Warm Springs. Mrs. Truman is at the center. Attorney General Francis Biddle is just behind Truman, and between the new President and Mrs. Truman is Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius, Jr. (AP Photo/stf)

** FILE ** A photo from July 23, 1945 showing the handshake between Winston Churchill, left, Harry S. Truman and Josef Stalin, right infront of Churchill's residence in Potsdam, Germany. Ninety years after he was executed, Czar Nicholas II is leading a tight race to be named the greatest Russian in history. His closest competitors? Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet state that killed the last czar and his entire family. The contest, sponsored by state-owned Rossiya television, is a Russian version of the 2002 BBC show \"Great Britons,\" which was won by Winston Churchill. A U.S. version in 2005 declared Ronald Reagan, the former president who had died the year before, to be the \"Greatest American.\" (AP Photo/Files)

** FILE ** A mushroom cloud rises 20,000 feet over Nagasaki, Japan on Aug. 9, 1945, moments after an atomic bomb was dropped on the city by U.S. forces. Although nuclear weapons are cached by a relatively small number of nations, the nuclear arms club has grown, the newest members - India, Pakistan and now North Korea. (AP Photo/U.S. Air Force, File)

8th August 1945: The 33rd American President Harry S Truman (1884 - 1972) ratifies the United Nations charter. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)

***Licesnsed for NN-turning points_truman. Sept.-Nov 2008***singelis**********As pedestrians watch, an American sailor passionately kisses a white-uniformed nurse in Times Square to celebrate the long awaited-victory over Japan. August 14, 1945. This is an outtake that is not the iconic image for which Eisenstaedt is widely know. (Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

American President Harry S Truman (1884 - 1972) signing the Foreign Aid Assistance Act, which provided a programme of foreign aid to Greece and Turkey. The provision of economic support to any nation resisting communist pressure came to be known as the Truman Doctrine. (Photo by MPI/Getty Images)

29th August 1949: President Harry S. Truman (1884 - 1972) signing the North Atlantic Treaty which marked the beginning of NATO, behind him are (from left) Sir Derrick Hoyes Miller, Henrik de Kauffman, W D Matthews, Louis Johnson, Wilhelm Munthe de Morgenstienne, Henry Bonnet, Pedro Theotonio Pereira, Dean Acheson, Jontchess reuchlin and Mario Lucienni. (Photo by MPI/Getty Images)

A meeting between President Harry S. Truman (1884 - 1972) (left), and Governor Thomas E. Dewey (1902 - 1971) (right), at New York's St Patrick's Day Parade, March 17, 1948. Both were presidential candidates that year. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

Campaigning President Harry S. Truman speaks to a Waco, Texas crowd from his train platform, September 27, 1948. (AP Photo/stf)

Black Americans line up to receive ballots at Columbia, S.C., as members of the black community vote in a South Carolina Democratic primary for the first time since 1876 on Aug. 10, 1948. In 1944, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that blacks cannot be denied the right to vote in primary elections. (AP Photo)

U.S. President Harry S. Truman holds up an Election Day edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune, which, based on early results, mistakenly announced \"Dewey Defeats Truman\" on November 4, 1948. The president told well-wishers at St. Louis' Union Station, \"That is one for the books!\" (AP Photo/Byron Rollins)

American paratroopers comb over a village near Sunchon, North Korea on Oct. 20, 1950 during the Korean War. (AP Photo/Max Desfor)

**FILE** President Truman pins the Distinguished Service Medal with four oak leaf clusters on the shirt of General Douglas MacArthur during a ceremony at the airstrip on Wake Island, in this Oct. 14, 1950, file photo. In the center is John J. Muccio, United States ambassador to Korea, who was decorated with a Medal of Merit. According to a letter sent by Muccio to the State Department, U.S. soldiers would fire on refugees if they approached U.S. lines. The letter referred to a policy set down on July 25, 1950, the night before members of the 7th U.S. Cavalry began killing South Korean refugees at the village of No Gun Ri. (AP Photo, File)

President Harry S Truman announces the government seizure of the steel industry on April 8, 1952. His action came after the collapse in New York of union-industry negotiations designed to head off a strike of thousands of steelworkers on April 8. (AP Photo)

** FILE ** Special Army Counsel Joseph Welch, left, lashes Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis., right, as a \"reckless and cruel\" man after McCarthy threw a charge of communist association at a member of Welch's law firm during testimony at the Army-McCarthy hearings in this June 9, 1954 file photo in Washington. Lt. Col. John Murray is at center. The hearings of Spring 1954 have been called \"the first great made-for-TV political spectacle.\" McCarthy, who rose to prominence through a shrewd use of television for his scripted news conferences and speeches, was, ironically, about to be undone by TV exposure beyond his control. (AP Photo/File)

3rd December 1950: American statesman Harry S Truman (1884 - 1972), the 33rd President of the United States of America, laughing on board the 'Williamsburg', bound for Florida on vacation. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)