Why was Truman such an unpopular president?

Factual Questions
1

He still holds the record for the lowest approval rating (22%) late in his second term, and was only at 36% during the spring of his re-election year. Yet, overall, he seems to have been a pretty good president.

Why didn’t the public like him? Were they just predisposed to hate whoever took over for FDR? Was it the atomic bomb? Korea? I guess it couldn’t entirely be Korea, because that didn’t happen until his second term and he had low ratings before that.

Looking over the events of his terms in office, I’m just really not seeing anything that would stand out to make him less liked than Nixon or Bush. What’s the deal?

2

I wasn’t around at the time, and my reading (especially McCullouch’s Truman) doesn’t help a lot. But I suspect that one big thing that made Truman unpopular was his firing of MacArthur when he disobeyed presidential orders in his handling of Korea. MacArthur was already a hero for his actions (and his style – “I shall return!”, and he did) in World Warr II, and his masterful re-invasion of Korea re-took the South. But he overstepped limits on his actions warned of by China and by his own president. After that, what choice did Truman have? Yet the idea didn’t sit well, I gather, with the public. pop culture from the time shows that MacArthur was still adored.

Truman was popular enough to get himself re-elected, despite all the predictions (that famous “Dewey Defeats Truman” photo), so he wasn’t seriously unpopular, even after completing that first term. I suspect the combination of a letdown after Roosevelt, the postwar recession, and memories of the Pedergast machine and its corruption might have sullied Truman’s image, regardless of what he did. I don’t think the use of the atomic bomb caused any issue – I get the clear impression that most Americans felt pretty good that we had it and could use it.

3

As in the formula of Republicans at the time, it was “Korea, corruption, and Communism”.

Korea was most important–not because most Americans opposed going to war there, but because they were frustrated that we couldn’t win. In the years since, we’ve become accustomed to wars that drag on without visible progress. At the time, this was very much a novelty. Then, too, Truman fired MacArthur–in an era when Americans revered military heroes.

The Korean War also unleashed a wave of anti-Communism which didn’t help Truman or any Democrat. Many in Truman’s administration were “eastern establishment intellectuals” who had dabbled in radicalism during the Thirties, and they were easy targets for red-baiters.

Finally, there were scandals in Truman’s administration. His appointment secretary was convicted of accepting bribes, and several employees in the IRS and Reconstruction Finance Corporation went to jail. This was minor by historical standards, but of course it seemed worse when it was dominating the headlines.

4

[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
(snip) MacArthur was already a hero for his actions (and his style – “I shall return!”, and he did) in World Warr II. (snip)QUOTE]

    A sidetrack, but perhaps salient to the OP: I wasn't around then either, but was that a prevailing view of of MacArthur then? My dad was a Navy man in the S.Pacific and didn't have much to say about "Dugout Doug " and Bataan.
5

As I say,. I weasn’t around, and perhaps someone who was can weigh in. But things from the period seem to view MacArthur almost like a saint. Lots of folks may not have liked him, but the general impression I’ve gotten is that he was the Hero Who Could Do No Wrong.

6

Let me suggest that there were a number of things going on that gave Harry Truman trouble.

Truman was a surprise winner in the 1948 election. Many Republican lawmakers and movers and shakers were bitter about that and increased their attacks on Truman as a consequence – Senator Taft (who was an honorable man) is a notable example as is the ramping up of the Red Scare and the emergence of Senator McCarthy (who was not).

The economic paradise that many expected to come with the end of WWII did not happen with the speed and size that many demobilized veterans had hoped for.

In the South the Dixiecrats were dominant and Truman supported the first feeble efforts toward federal civil rights legislation – remember that Strom Thurmond (who was a legitimate citizen-soldier hero) and his supporters walked out of the 1948 convention. In the North the flow of Southern Blacks to places like Detroit, Cleveland, Akron, Chicago and the reentry of demobilized veterans into the job market was causing discontent.

The Soviet Union was becoming and increasing threat and Truman’s administration was unable to make that threat disappear. Things like the Soviet blockade of Berlin and the inability to effectively deal with it (the Berlin Airlift, as romantic as it may have been, did not end the Soviet menace) simply informed the public perception that Truman was not up to confronting the Soviets.

The war was over and the public wanted relief from the tax burden associated with paying for the war. This was the time of a 90% marginal tax rate.

Korea was a big part of Truman’s problem. The war never was going well. About the time it looked like the thing ad been settled the Chinese intervened and the whole thing disintegrate into a bloody and expensive stalemate with no end in sight. Mac Arthur had been the architect of the campaign that almost ended the war and which brought the Chinese into it but Truman fired him for the sort of rank insubordination that no President could accept. MacArthur was hugely popular as a Man on a White Horse and because of his tendency toward hard talk about the Soviets and the Red Chinese (eg, taking the war into Manchuria and using the A-bomb).

The US had lost its nuclear monopoly. That was a huge shock and tied into the Red Scare and the view that Truman was just pussy-footing with the Soviets and their Asian agents, the Red Chinese.

A Democrat had been in the White House since 1933, almost 30 years. Truman was not the charismatic leader that Roosevelt had been and he suffered in the comparison.

7

[QUOTE=Carson O’Genic]
A sidetrack, but perhaps salient to the OP: I wasn’t around then either, but was that a prevailing view of of MacArthur then? My dad was a Navy man in the S.Pacific and didn’t have much to say about "Dugout Doug " and Bataan.
[/QUOTE]
Macarthur was extremely popular among the general public. He had worked hard on creating his image of great warrior back in WWII. The less you knew him, the more likely you were to be impressed by him.

8

[QUOTE=Spavined Gelding]
<…>The Soviet Union was becoming and increasing threat and Truman’s administration was unable to make that threat disappear. Things like the Soviet blockade of Berlin and the inability to effectively deal with it (the Berlin Airlift, as romantic as it may have been, did not end the Soviet menace) simply informed the public perception that Truman was not up to confronting the Soviets.

The war was over and the public wanted relief from the tax burden associated with paying for the war. This was the time of a 90% marginal tax rate.<…>
[/QUOTE]
Kind of an ironic combination. Fighting World War Three would not have helped the tax rates at all.

9

[QUOTE=RealityChuck]
Macarthur was extremely popular among the general public. He had worked hard on creating his image of great warrior back in WWII. The less you knew him, the more likely you were to be impressed by him.
[/QUOTE]

I don’t know - my grandfather served under him (way, way under him) in the Army during the War, and he worshipped the man. He was especially a fan of his “island-hopping” strategy, claiming it was designed to keep his soldiers alive. As one of those soldiers, he was in favor of it.

10

Truman also lost China, remember.

11

[QUOTE=neutron star]
He still holds the record for the lowest approval rating (22%) late in his second term
[/QUOTE]
But isn’t there a good deal of question about the accuracy of these polls back then, compared to recent ones?

Remember that all the polls back then were saying Truman would lose the election badly, yet he won it. Even election night, they were still getting it wrong – remember the photo of Truman with the “Dewey defeats Truman” headline?

Given how inaccurate all those other polls were, why do we believe that the 22% approval rating was an accurate one?

12

[QUOTE=t-bonham@scc.net]
But isn’t there a good deal of question about the accuracy of these polls back then, compared to recent ones?

Remember that all the polls back then were saying Truman would lose the election badly, yet he won it. Even election night, they were still getting it wrong – remember the photo of Truman with the “Dewey defeats Truman” headline?

Given how inaccurate all those other polls were, why do we believe that the 22% approval rating was an accurate one?
[/QUOTE]

Polls can’t do any more than give a snapshot of how people feel on a given day. IIRC, the polling at the time wasn’t all-pervasive and daily as it is now. The pollsters stopped intensive polling early because it seemed to be one-sided, but a lot of people made up their minds at the last minute.

The 22% figure, however, was the culmination of a long series of negative polls and there’s no reason to doubt that they were all wrong.

MacArthur’s reputation waxes and wanes. A recent major book, 15 Stars: Eisenhower, MacArthur, Marshall: Three Generals Who Saved the American Century, by Stanley Weintraub has the most completely negative portrayal of MacArthur you’ll probably ever read. He accuses him not merely of bad generaling but of active outright lying and deception about every activity he ever undertook, including what he had for breakfast. He accuses a series of tame newsmen of writing and ghostwriting articles and books falsely burnishing his reputation to make him the one indispensable hero. There was no reason for the public not to buy into this, and they did wholeheartedly.

Truman’s problem was simply a combination of the awful times he presided over and his not being the idolized Roosevelt. Spavined Gelding gave a good list of some of the issues. The Democrats had been in power for so long that they were assigned the blame for every ill. Nobody could possibly have been another Democrat following Roosevelt and not suffer from similar accusations.

The re-evaluation of Truman since those days is made possible by our moving out of those times to see that Truman was not responsible for much of what went wrong. He did much good - the Marshall Plan saved western civilization, and that’s only a slight bit of hyperbole - and his failings were magnified by his political foes, who were as loathsome a set as any we’ve seen in America. With enemies like that you’re bound to eventually look good by comparison.

Not at the time, though, not while they were still in full bellow. People wanted the victory parades of WWII to go on for years. They didn’t and couldn’t. Truman got the blame at the time. He didn’t deserve it, but that’s sometimes what the President is for.

13

[QUOTE=Alessan]
I don’t know - my grandfather served under him (way, way under him) in the Army during the War, and he worshipped the man. He was especially a fan of his “island-hopping” strategy, claiming it was designed to keep his soldiers alive. As one of those soldiers, he was in favor of it.
[/QUOTE]
I wouldn’t be a bit surprised, but I have noted that some of the worst generals out there* were beloved by their men.

But I was referring to those who knew Macarthur personally. His men didn’t see him on a day-to-day basis and didn’t see some of the traits that his staff and other generals noted.

I know that Truman was frustrated by Macarthur for some time before he fire him, but hesitated because of Macarthur’s popularity. But once Macarthur started talking about political war ends, including screwing up Truman’s attempts to get a cease fire, he crossed the line. He was usurping civilian control of the army, and the rest of the Joint Chiefs all agreed that Macarthur had to go.

*e.g., Sir Charles Townsend, whose incompetence as a general was monumental, and who after surrendering his forces, left his men to be starved in Turkish POW camps while he was wined and dined at the Turkish commander’s villa.

14

[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase]
A recent major book, 15 Stars: Eisenhower, MacArthur, Marshall: Three Generals Who Saved the American Century, by Stanley Weintraub…
[/QUOTE]
Funny how the first and third, who won the war through the new-fangled method of logistics and organization, were so much more successful than the classic Blowhard General. MacArthur was from the 19th Century while the others were thoroughly Late-20th Century.

Absolutely no argument that Marshall did more to save Western Civilization, both during and after the war, than anyone ever has. Look at Western Europe’s near-instant (as these things go) recovery. In Ancient Rome he would be deified. By comparison, Japan itself, besides some bombed out cities, saved itself from the pummeling suffered by Germany by a timely surrender.

However, HST was doomed from the first because he wasn’t FDR. Sure, some of the men who served under MacArthur worshiped him (though some I knew thought he was a butcher trying to get them killed to make him look better) but it is nothing like how millions of poor folk who credited FDR with saving their lives in the 30s. Old men and women (remember that most of Mac’s fans were men but women could also vote) who would never cry in public still grow misty at the mention of his name. These people came very close to that Roman deification and Jesus Himself would have a tough time fighting it.

15

I would suggest a viewing of the American Experience episodes concerning Truman’s presidency. It covers the issues very nicely.

16

[QUOTE=RealityChuck]
I wouldn’t be a bit surprised, but I have noted that some of the worst generals out there* were beloved by their men.

But I was referring to those who knew Macarthur personally. His men didn’t see him on a day-to-day basis and didn’t see some of the traits that his staff and other generals noted.

[/QUOTE]

  1. Well, sometimes that love is justified. Do you have data comparing casualty rates of MacArthur’s, Eisenhower’s and Nimitz’s forces? My Google skills seem to be insufficient to the task.

  2. By all accounts, MacArthur was a grade-A asshole in person. But so what? The only important thing is whether he got the job done.

17

[QUOTE=Alessan]

  1. By all accounts, MacArthur was a grade-A asshole in person. But so what? The only important thing is whether he got the job done.
    [/QUOTE]

I respectfully disagree. It’s important to get the job done, but only within the policies of the Commander in Chief: Truman, in this case. MacArthur blatantly disregarded Truman’s direction and dared him to do something about it. Truman obliged by flying out to Wake Island to speak with him (and meet him for the first time).

As he deplaned, MacArthur snubbed him by not saluting. This was a serious breach of discipline and protocol, and showed a total lack of respect. Even if Truman had been willing to discuss the issues, that probably sealed Mac’s fate and cost him a future presidency, a la Ike. Truman never commented on that lack of courtesy and respect until after he had left the presidency, and was asked about it by a writer. The meeting was brief and MacArthur was relieved of command shortly thereafter.

18

Oh, I agree that Truman did the right thing in firing him. What MacArthur did was unforgivable. Besides, Truman didn’t so anything to Mac that Mac wouldn’t have done to one of *his * subordinates who showed such disrespect and lack of discipline.

Still, that doesn’t take away from his achievements in the War.

19

[QUOTE=Alessan]

Still, that doesn’t take away from his achievements in the War.
[/QUOTE]

Agreed.

20

I don’t have enough reading to fully evaluate the issue. However, 15 Stars, as stated above, makes a very strong case that MacArthur was a terrible general who hurt the overall war effort in many ways, before and during WWII.

The book is certainly a reaction to hagiographies of MacArthur and his take on the man and general is uniformly negative. It’s hard to know what the proper middle ground is.