George Catlett Marshall Jr. was an American army officer and statesman. He rose through the United States Army to become Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, then served as Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense under Truman. Winston Churchill lauded Marshall as the "organizer of victory" for his leadership of the Allied victory in World War II. After the war, he spent a frustrating year trying and failing to avoid the impending Chinese Civil War. As Secretary of State, Marshall advocated for a U.S. economic and political commitment to post-war European recovery, including the Marshall Plan that bore his name. In recognition of this work, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953, the only Army general ever to be so honored.
The 1944 United States presidential election was the 40th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 7, 1944. The election took place during World War II, which ended the following year. Incumbent Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Republican Thomas E. Dewey to win an unprecedented fourth term. It was also the fifth presidential election in which both major party candidates were registered in the same home state; the others have been in 1860, 1904, 1920, 1940, and 2016.
Douglas MacArthur was an American military leader who served as General of the Army for the United States, as well as a field marshal to the Philippine Army. He served with distinction in World War I, was Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. MacArthur was nominated for the Medal of Honor three times, and received it for his service in the Philippines campaign. This made him along with his father Arthur MacArthur Jr. the first father and son to be awarded the medal. He was one of only five men to rise to the rank of General of the Army in the U.S. Army, and the only one conferred the rank of field marshal in the Philippine Army.
Containment was a geopolitical strategic foreign policy pursued by the United States during the Cold War to prevent the spread of communism after the end of World War II. The name was loosely related to the term cordon sanitaire, which was containment of the Soviet Union in the interwar period.
Robert Abercrombie Lovett was an American politician who served as the fourth United States Secretary of Defense, having been promoted to this position from Deputy Secretary of Defense. He served in the cabinet of President Harry S. Truman from 1951 to 1953 and in this capacity, directed the Korean War. As Under Secretary of State, he handled most of the tasks of the State Department while George C. Marshall was Secretary.
A limited war is one in which the belligerents do not expend all of the resources at their disposal, whether human, industrial, agricultural, military, natural, technological, or otherwise in a specific conflict. This may be to preserve those resources for other purposes, or because it might be more difficult for the participants to use all of an area's resources rather than part of them. Limited war is the opposite concept to total war.
Edward Paul Flanders was an American actor. He is best known for playing Dr. Donald Westphall in the medical drama series St. Elsewhere (1982–1988). Flanders was nominated for eight Primetime Emmys and won three times in 1976, 1977, and 1983.
American Veterans (AMVETS) is a non-partisan, volunteer-led organization formed by World War II veterans of the United States military. It advocates for its members as well as for causes that its members deem helpful to the nation at large. The group holds a Federal charter under Title 36 of the United States Code. It is a 501(c)19 organization.
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as a United States senator from Missouri from 1935 to 1945 and briefly as the 34th vice president in 1945 under Franklin D. Roosevelt. Assuming the presidency after Roosevelt's death, Truman implemented the Marshall Plan in the wake of World War II to rebuild the economy of Western Europe and established both the Truman Doctrine and NATO to contain the expansion of Soviet communism. He proposed numerous liberal domestic reforms, but few were enacted by the conservative coalition that dominated the Congress.
Truman is a 1995 American biographical drama television film directed by Frank Pierson and written by Thomas Rickman, based on David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1992 book, Truman. Starring Gary Sinise as Harry S. Truman, the film centers on Truman's humble beginnings, his rise to the presidency, World War II, and his decision to use the first atomic bomb. The film's tagline is "It took a farmer's hand to shape a nation." The film aired on HBO on September 9, 1995.
The Marshall Mission was a failed diplomatic mission undertaken by US Army General George C. Marshall to China in an attempt to negotiate between the Chinese Communist Party and the Nationalists (Kuomintang) to create a unified Chinese government.
MacArthur is a 1977 American biographical war film directed by Joseph Sargent and starring Gregory Peck in the eponymous role as American General of the Army Douglas MacArthur.
Robert Hugh Ferrell was an American historian. He authored more than 60 books on topics including the U.S. presidency, World War I, and U.S. foreign policy and diplomacy. One of the country's leading historians, Ferrell was widely considered the preeminent authority on the administration of Harry S. Truman, and also wrote books about half a dozen other 20th-century presidents. He was thought by many in the field to be the "dean of American diplomatic historians", a title he disavowed.
Harry S. Truman's tenure as the 33rd president of the United States began on April 12, 1945, upon the death of president Franklin D. Roosevelt, and ended on January 20, 1953. He had been vice president for only 82 days when he succeeded to the presidency. Truman, a Democrat from Missouri, ran for and won a full four-year term in the 1948 presidential election, in which he narrowly defeated Republican nominee Thomas E. Dewey and Dixiecrat nominee Strom Thurmond. Although exempted from the newly ratified Twenty-second Amendment, Truman did not run for a second full term in the 1952 presidential election because of his low popularity. He was succeeded by Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower.
On 11 April 1951, U.S. president Harry S. Truman relieved General of the Army Douglas MacArthur of his commands after MacArthur made public statements that contradicted the administration's policies. MacArthur was a popular hero of World War II who was then commander of United Nations Command forces fighting in the Korean War, and his relief remains a controversial topic in the field of civil–military relations.
On October 15, 1950, U.S. President Harry S. Truman and General Douglas MacArthur met on Wake Island to confer about the progress of the Korean War. Truman decided he would meet MacArthur at Wake Island, "so that General MacArthur would not have to be away from the troops in the field for long." The conference was to be the only time that Truman and MacArthur would ever meet face to face.
Anthony Harry Leviero was an American journalist who spent over two decades as a reporter for The New York Times. He won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 1952.
"The Interview" was the twenty-fifth and final episode of the fourth season of the TV series M*A*S*H. The 97th episode overall, it first aired in the United States on February 24, 1976.
The main issues of the United States foreign policy during the 1945–1953 presidency of Harry S. Truman include:
The presidential transition of Dwight D. Eisenhower began when he won the United States 1952 United States presidential election, becoming the president-elect, and ended when Eisenhower was inaugurated at noon EST on January 20, 1953.
