#Truman administration

[deadpresidents]

"To hell with them. When history is written they will be the sons of bitches -- not I."

-- President Harry S. Truman, on his political opponents, personal diary entry, December 1, 1952

[dadsinsuits]

Lewis B. Schwellenbach

[todaysdocument]

“Dear President Truman,

I am 9 years old and I think it was a disgrace that in Washington 51 children were not let in to a hotel because 4 children were colored.  The capital is supposed to be for freedom.” May 28, 1948.

Collection HST-OFF: Official Files (Truman Administration)

Series: Official Files

File Unit: Official File 93B

Transcription: 

93-B

May 28, 1948

Dear President Truman,

I am 9 years old and I think it was a disgrace that in Washington 51 children were not let in to a hotel because 4 children were colored.  The capital is supposed to be for freedom.  I am proud to be an american but this makes me feel ashamed because in my own classroom we made up a play on brother hood.

Sincerly,

J. Jagliarin

---

x

[Drawing of 2 children, one with a colored-in face and one with a light face]

[Drawing of a person at a hotel, with words "no room"]

[petsincollections]

W. Averell Harriman With Nikita Khrushchev During 1959 Trip to the Soviet Union

Exterior view believed to have been taken in the gardens of the government's guest dacha Ogarevo located west of Moscow, Russia. Nikita Khrushchev is on the left holding a hedgehog found along the path. W. Averell Harriman is on the right and Frol Kozlov and Yuri Zhukov are in the center looking at the hedgehog. Photograph appeared with Harriman article published in Life Magazine, July 13, 1959. Charles W. Thayer accompanied Harriman as a guide and confidant on the trip which took place May 12 - June 26, 1959. Harriman went as a special foreign correspondent for the North American Newspaper Alliance (NANA). Trip visits included Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Yalta, etc., as well as areas in Siberia and the Urals, and ended with a meeting with Nikita Khrushchev. There is a 2x2 original negative. Credit: Photographer: Charles W. Thayer

This item was produced or created on June 23, 1959.

The creator compiled or maintained the parent series, Photographs Relating to the Administration, Family, and Personal Life of Harry S. Truman, between 1957–2023.

National Archives and Records Administration. Office of Presidential Libraries. Harry S. Truman Library. (4/1/1985 - 7/31/2011)

[denimbex1986]

'In this opening stanza of one of my favorite poems, “La Jornada” by Antonia Quintana Pigno, the speaker laments the disastrous effects of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s love affair with New Mexico.

She suggests that her own love affair as a brown woman with the white scientist could have stopped the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb. This poem ran through my mind multiple times as I watched Christopher Nolan’s film Oppenheimer.

Like Nolan’s other films, the depiction of women in Oppenheimer is terrible. In this one, he manages to reduce two scientists—Jean Tatlock, a psychiatrist who was also queer, and Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer, a botanist—to a floozy and a drunk who are both in love with Oppie, not to mention that they are two of only four women with significant speaking parts. (The third is also involved in an extra-marital affair with Oppenheimer and the fourth was a Manhattan Project scientist who is depicted as trying to shut down the use of the bomb for war purposes. But I digress.) Quintana Pigno writes lovingly about her “Nuevo Méjico,” but it’s a different love than Oppenheimer had for New Mexico.

Oppenheimer

I could have loved you

wrapped my legs tightly

around your white buttocks

to keep you thinly against me

without desire

for food

for water from mountain streams

for the journey to Jornada del Muerto

for the creation of Trinity

“La Jornada” by Antonia Quintana Pigno

In the summer blockbuster, New Mexico serves as a desolate backdrop to Project Y and the Trinity test. The wind and rain that characterize the wild west that Oppenheimer and other Manhattan Project scientists must tame to build and test the bomb contradicts the querencia most of us have for our high desert homeland, the one that Quintana Pigno writes about. One of my favorite Oppenheimer quotes, which sits as an epigraph to “La Jornada,” features prominently in the film. The original quote, though, is different than the movie version. Oppenheimer once said, “My two great loves are physics and New Mexico. It’s a pity they can’t be combined.” In the film, Oppie says, “When I was a kid, I thought that if I could find a way to combine physics with New Mexico, my life would be perfect.” The truth is that his love for New Mexico, like his other romantic affairs, was disastrous. Who should really be pitied here? The truth is, Oppenheimer knew very little about people in New Mexico because he often went to New Mexico to be alone, that is, until he created a government project that changed the cultural and physical landscape of my ancestors forever.

Those left out of Oppenheimer

With the attention that the film has received, many people have been able to critique how the film leaves out entire populations of people, such as Indigenous communities, downwind communities, and Nuevomexicana/o farmers. It has allowed us to better explain to the world that New Mexico was not uninhabited in the 1940s. In fact, it has been inhabited since time immemorial. In a recent interview, I finally realized that the journalist was unaware of New Mexico’s geography, and I explained to her that Trinity and Los Alamos were 200 miles apart when I finally realized that she did not know this as she asked her questions. Yet another called it “Mexico” but then corrected herself and repeated “New Mexico.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful that we have this chance to explain these things, and I don’t fault people for not knowing the geography of New Mexico. Certainly, the film makes no effort to distinguish the Pajarito Plateau (Los Alamos) from the Tularosa Basin (Trinity site); New Mexico is one amorphous, desolate desert in the film. Nevertheless, this portrayal is just another effect of nuclear colonialism.

After two bombs were used to attack Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945, news of Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project broke worldwide. Oppie’s face appeared on the November 8, 1948, cover of TIME. As Hollywood magic would have it, Oppenheimer sees his reflection on the magazine cover as he walks into the Oval Office to meet with President Truman in the film. (Oppenheimer resigned from Los Alamos on October 16, 1945, but this inaccuracy with the TIME cover does not actually change much in the film.) It is during this scene that Truman asks Oppenheimer, “I hear you’re leaving Los Alamos. What should we do with it?” To which Oppenheimer responds, “Give it back to the Indians.” Not only is this comment ignorant, but it’s also racist. Oppenheimer and Groves knew who they displaced to institute Project Y; they just didn’t care. Nuevomexicanas/os and Indigenous people, in addition to the Los Alamos Ranch School, were dispossessed from their homes and homelands on the Pajarito Plateau. Not only did they not return the land, but the colonizers never left.

Dealing with the fallout

New Mexicans were left to contend with the lasting effects of the Manhattan Project, including intergenerational trauma, disease and death, contamination, secrecy and obscurity, and environmental racism. In Resolana: Emerging Chicano Dialogues on Community and Globalization by Miguel Montiel, Tomás Atencio, and E.A. “Tony” Mares, Atencio writes about Los Alamos and how northern New Mexico communities have resisted the effects of the Manhattan Project. Atencio writes, “Since the mid-1940s villagers had recognized the dangers of radiation, as men pushing wheelbarrows full of waste in the Los Alamos National Laboratories (LANL) suddenly turned ashen, went home, and died. In the villages, meanwhile, children were dying of leukemia. Despite the evidence from Los Alamos and the knowledge that chemicals, including commercial fertilizer, were polluting the land, we had been told that modern technology would improve nature” (Atencio 27). Stories of family members getting sick or dying because of their work at the Labs are no longer restricted to whispers at kitchen tables, and initiatives to keep traditional knowledge alive and in practice are thriving. Still, other northern New Mexicans, especially, are proud of the work they did and continue to do at the Labs. It’s a conundrum.

In southern New Mexico, the communities surrounding the Trinity site continue to deal with the legacy of illness and death created by the plutonium bomb called the Gadget. New research shows that fallout from the Trinity test reached forty-six states plus Canada and Mexico. A recent New York Times article quotes from the report that “locations in New Mexico where radionuclide deposition reached levels on par with Nevada” from atmospheric nuclear tests conducted at the Nevada Test Site. The new study offers support for the ongoing efforts to amend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to include the Trinity downwinders, who are not eligible under the current federal law. Since its establishment in 1990, the RECA fund has paid out over $2 billion; New Mexican downwinders have never been eligible for compensation under RECA.

Our own role in the current nuclear moment

Last week, the US Senate passed a bill to amend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). This new amendment would include not only New Mexico downwinders, but also it includes post-1971 uranium workers, other downwinders of the Nevada Test Site atmospheric nuclear tests, and downwinders in Guam from testing in and the Pacific Islands. The House must pass their version of this bill now, which is integral before RECA sunsets in 2024. People can call their US Representatives and ask them to support the RECA amendment.

But there is another conversation that has opened recently in New Mexico around the legacy of the nuclear industrial complex. In January 2022, the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, John C. Wester, released a Pastoral Letter, “Living in the Light of Christ’s Peace: A Conversation toward Nuclear Disarmament,” which actually calls for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Suddenly, there is a new conversation happening around the present-day role of nuclear science at the National Laboratories in New Mexico, namely Los Alamos. The National Nuclear Security Administration has tasked Los Alamos with producing a minimum of thirty new plutonium pits per year with a goal of eighty new pits per year between LANL and a second location – the Savannah River Site.

At the end of Oppenheimer, viewers are left questioning the guilt the film’s protagonist might have felt unleashing nuclear weapons into the world. But shouldn’t we also question what role the United States and other nuclear weapons-wielding counties have in the future of nuclear weapons? We must consider how future generations will look back on our nuclear policies and the choices we make. Are nuclear weapons and all their inherent risks and public health impacts a legacy that we really want to pass on?'

[simply-ivanka]

My Long Road From Truman to Trump

I’ve been a Democrat since 1948, when I was 10. But I can no longer abide what my old party has become.

By Bartle Bull Sr. -- Wall Street Journal

I’ve been an outspoken Democrat since 1948, when I was the only student in my fifth-grade class to “vote” for Harry Truman. It’s been astonishingly difficult to disclose that next month I will vote for Donald Trump.

Like many, I will be doing so in the European way, voting for a party and its issues, rather than in the American way of supporting someone I like. When I have expressed my views—on economics, security and cultural matters—long-time liberal friends have said, “You sound like Trump, or some uneducated hillbilly.” Ignoring my schooling at Harvard, Oxford and the Sorbonne, these friends sound like well-meaning dilettantes, otherwise described as self-righteous, useful idiots or bien-pensant.

Such responses prompt me to compare my own liberal credentials with theirs. This makes me a difficult adversary, as I have long been an extremely useful idiot, overloaded with liberal credentials.

To name a few: In 1956 I helped coordinate Harvard Freshmen for Adlai Stevenson. Ten years later, I was arrested as a civil-rights lawyer in Hattiesburg, Miss., where Vernon Dahmer, the local head of the NAACP, had been burned alive in his house. In the same state, I later campaigned for Charles Evers for governor.

In 1968 I quit my job as a Wall Street lawyer to serve as Robert F. Kennedy’s New York campaign coordinator. In 1972, I organized the New York Citizens Committee for McGovern-Shriver. During this period, I was publisher of the Village Voice, a left-wing Manhattan newspaper. In 1976 I worked as Jimmy Carter’s New York state campaign manager, and in 1978 in South Carolina to support Charles Ravenel’s challenge to Sen. Strom Thurmond. My last Democratic Party campaign was in Harlem, backing Craig Schley, a young black reformer, in a primary against Rep. Charles Rangel. In 2008 I was chairman of New York Democrats for John McCain for President.

At the international level, in 1993-94, I volunteered in Bosnia with the International Rescue Committee to help Muslim refugees, spending Christmas Eve with Bosnian soldiers in a bunker in the mountains. In 2010, at 72, I worked in Afghanistan with the Initiative to Educate Afghan Women, going on foot patrols to girls’ schools. The Biden administration later abandoned these courageous women to the Taliban.

For a long time, like an old locomotive, I have been building steam inside when liberal friends, with the certitude and arrogance of the righteous, decry me as a “right-winger.” In a Harvard class-reunion speech many years ago, I said that “Harvard should stand up to the tyrannies of the left today the way it stood up to the tyrannies of the right in the days of Joe McCarthy.” But the progressive agenda doesn’t seem to include what Truman and John F. Kennedy considered liberal values, such as true political tolerance.

Now, as a lifelong Democrat, I am voting Republican for policy reasons, not because I like Mr. Trump. I believe my old party, as it abuses the powers of office and threatens to pack the Supreme Court and end the filibuster, now supports a government that is far too strong at home and far too weak abroad.

Mr. Bull is a writer living in upstate New York. His latest novel is “We’ll Meet Again.”

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

November 29: International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

70 years ago today, the Truman administration rammed the partition of Palestine through the United Nations General Assembly. At a time when most of Africa and the Caribbean was still under West European colonial rule, the racist settler state of Israel was implanted at the crossroads of Asia and Africa with the votes of only three states on those continents. The "African" votes came from the white settler regime of South Africa and Liberia, which was virtually a colony of the Firestone Rubber Company. The Liberian ambassador complained openly of the pressure exerted by the State Department on his and other governments.

In the days before the vote, the Philippines' representative General Carlos P. Romulo stated: "We hold that the issue is primarily moral. The issue is whether the United Nations should accept responsibility for the enforcement of a policy which is clearly repugnant to the valid nationalist aspirations of the people of Palestine. The Philippines Government holds that the United Nations ought not to accept such responsibility". After a phone call from Washington, Romulo was recalled and the Philippines' vote changed.

The Siamese delegation had its credentials revoked after it opposed partition in committee on Nov. 25. The largest bloc of yes votes came from 13 Latin American countries, all whom were subject to extreme pressure from the United States. Haiti, a country devastated by US military and economic intervention, was told that a $1 million dollar loan from the United States depended on its voting for partition.

-- Bill Dores

Poster by Burhan Karkoutly (1984)

[tomorrowusa]

Dr. Anthony Fauci voluntarily testified before a House committee and debunked MAGA Republican conspiracy theories regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.

While Donald Trump and his lickspittles were telling Americans to drink bleach, take useless malaria pills, stick ultraviolet lights up their butts, and eat horse paste, Dr. Fauci headed an effort to develop vaccines for COVID-19.

A reminder to people with short memories who view the Trump administration as some sort of bucolic paradise: The last quarter of that administration included the worst government response to an infectious disease outbreak since 1920. Trumpsters who want us to ignore Trump's horribly botched response to the pandemic are like cruise-liner enthusiasts who want us to ignore the last 2% of the voyage of the Titanic.

Economic activity ground to a halt in 2020 as the US slid into a recession. I took this picture of a sign at a dollar store which had been completely closed for almost two months.

The whole Trump clan was disdainful of the sacrifices hundreds of millions of Americans were making.

Why has the U.S. COVID-19 response been so bad? Jared Kushner, Vanity Fair suggests.

At Times Square Jared and Ivanka's contemptuousness was made into an ad before Election Day.

If you are looking for the Original Sin of Trump's pandemic response, it was on January 22nd when he basically told CNBC's Joe Kernen that COVID-19 was nothing to worry about.

Of course it wasn't "just fine".

Trump did not declare a state of emergency for seven weeks. That gave the virus plenty of time for it to spread throughout the US.

Republicans know that their Dear Leader totally mishandled the pandemic response. That's why they repeatedly try to make Dr. Fauci a type of scapegoat for Trump's horrendous incompetence. Dr. Fauci has spent his entire career fighting disease. Donald Trump has spent his entire career narcissistically promoting himself.

Harry Truman had a sign on his desk saying: "The Buck Stops Here!" If Trump had a sign on his Oval Office desk (which he seldom used except for photo ops) it would be: "It's Everybody's Fault But Mine!"

Don't be hesitant to remind people of how awful 2020 was. And point the finger of blame at the orange blob who was responsible for the catastrophe.

[st4rrzynight]

Hey, sincerely asking. What do you think will happen should trump win?

hi! thanks for asking 🙃

shit will get expensive for people who are not millionares because of trumps tax that benefits the wealthy.

also project 2025 as it states at aclu.org

"Project 2025 is a federal policy agenda and blueprint for a radical restructuring of the executive branch authored and published by former Trump administration officials in partnership with The Heritage Foundation, a longstanding conservative think tank that opposes abortion and reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, immigrants’ rights, and racial equity."

i personally don't want to fear for my right to love a woman, and my rights and my families rights because were mexican. i also want to have rights for my own body for reproduction.

MASS DEPORTATIONS

Targeting immigrant communities through mass deportations and raids, ending birthright citizenship, separating families, and dismantling our nation’s asylum system.

i personally dont want to see my family getting deported, im not sure if my birthright citizenship would also be at risk but id assume so.

What Are Donald Trump’s Connections to Project 2025?

Project 2025 was published by The Heritage Foundation, a longstanding conservative think tank with direct ties to former President Trump’s administration. Though Trump has falsely claimed he is not connected to Project 2025, a recent report from CNN found at least 140 people who worked on Project 2025 previously worked in the Trump administration. The Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts also previously worked on President Trump’s transition team in 2016, and has described his organization’s role as “institutionalizing Trumpism.”

he claims to not have anything to do with project 2025 but he is a liar.

ROLLING BACK TRANS RIGHTS

Weaponizing federal law to require states and private actors to discriminate against transgender people by threatening to sue schools that protect the rights of trans students or telling hospitals that they would lose their Medicaid funding if they provide gender-affirming medical care to trans adolescents

why are we going back in time? he literally wants to abolish so many rights that people fought so hard to have

"If Donald Trump wants to make America great again, as his oft-repeated slogan promises, then that leads to the question: When was the last time America was actually great?

Trump has an answer. In an interview with The New York Times published Saturday, the real estate mogul was asked when the country last reached the GOP front-runner's lofty ideal -- as a reporter asked, when do "you think the United States last had the right balance, either in terms of defense footprint or in terms of trade?"

The answer, Trump explained, was during periods of military and industrial expansion at the onset of the 20th century and again in the years after World War II."

the years after world war II?

Truman announced Japan's surrender and the end of World War II. The news spread quickly and celebrations erupted across the United States. On September 2, 1945, formal surrender documents were signed aboard the USS Missouri, designating the day as the official Victory over Japan Day (V-J Day).

world war two ended 1945

In the 1950s-1980s, women often lacked the right to full control over their finances, property ownership, career choices, reproductive decisions, equal pay, protection from workplace discrimination, and were often expected to prioritize domestic duties over professional ambitions, with societal pressure to primarily be wives and mothers, limiting their participation in politics and other public spheres; they also faced restrictions on access to credit and the ability to make legal contracts without their husband's consent in many cases.

Key points about women's limited rights in this period:

Limited employment opportunities:

Many jobs were considered "men's work" and women were often pushed towards traditionally female roles like secretarial work, with lower pay compared to men doing similar jobs.

Husband's legal authority:

Married women often had limited legal rights, with husbands having significant control over their finances and property.

Restrictions on reproductive choices:

Access to contraception and abortion was often limited or heavily regulated, with societal pressure to prioritize motherhood.

Discrimination in credit and loans:

Women often faced difficulty obtaining credit cards or loans without a male co-signer.

Lack of protection from sexual harassment

Legal protections against sexual harassment in the workplace were largely absent.

Limited representation in politics:

Women were significantly underrepresented in political leadership positions.

why would we want to vote for someone who wants to take us back in time to a point where we were restricted of so many things?

thats why i dont want trump to win cause if he said himself he had a part in overturning roe v wade imagine what else he would do with another 4 years of presidency.

(please reblog so this gains more traction so people know that trump is legit not a good candidate or person at all)

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 8, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Aug 09, 2024

Fifty years ago, on August 9, 1974, Richard M. Nixon became the first president in U.S. history to resign.

The road to that resignation began in 1971, when Daniel Ellsberg, who was at the time an employee of the RAND Corporation and thus had access to a top-secret Pentagon study of the way U.S. leaders had made decisions about the Vietnam War, leaked that study to major U.S. newspapers, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. 

The Pentagon Papers showed that every president from Harry S. Truman to Lyndon B. Johnson had lied to the public about events in Vietnam, and Nixon worried that “enemies” would follow the Pentagon Papers with a leak of information about his own decision-making to destroy his administration and hand the 1972 election to a Democrat. 

The FBI seemed to Nixon reluctant to believe he was being stalked by enemies. So the president organized his own Special Investigations Unit out of the White House to stop leaks. And who stops leaks? Plumbers. 

The plumbers burglarized the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist in California, hoping to find something to discredit him, then moved on to bigger targets. Together with the Committee to Re-elect the President (fittingly dubbed CREEP as its activities became known), they planted fake letters in newspapers declaring support for Nixon and hatred for his opponents, spied on Democrats, and hired vendors for Democratic rallies and then scarpered on the bills. Finally, they set out to wiretap the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, in the fashionable Watergate office complex.

Early in the morning of June 17, 1972, Watergate security guard Frank Wills noticed that a door lock had been taped open. He ripped off the tape and closed the door, but on his next round, he found the door taped open again. Wills called the police, who arrested five men ransacking the DNC’s files. 

The White House immediately denounced what it called a “third-rate burglary attempt,” and the Watergate break-in gained no traction before the 1972 election, which Nixon and Vice-President Spiro Agnew won with an astonishing 60.7% of the popular vote. 

But Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, two young Washington Post reporters, followed the sloppy money trail back to the White House, and by March 1973 the scheme was unraveling. One of the burglars, James W. McCord Jr., wrote a letter to Judge John Sirica before his sentencing claiming he had lied at his trial to protect government officials. Sirica made the letter public, and White House counsel John Dean immediately began cooperating with prosecutors.

In April, three of Nixon’s top advisors resigned, and in May the president was forced to appoint former solicitor general of the United States Archibald Cox as a special prosecutor to investigate the affair. That same month, the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, informally known as the Senate Watergate Committee, began nationally televised hearings. The committee’s chair was Sam Ervin (D-NC), a conservative Democrat who would not run for reelection in 1974 and thus was expected to be able to do the job without political grandstanding.

The hearings turned up the explosive testimony of John Dean, who said he had talked to Nixon about covering up the burglary more than 30 times, but there the investigation sat during the hot summer of 1973 as the committee churned through witnesses. And then, on July 13, 1973, deputy assistant to the president Alexander Butterfield revealed the bombshell news that conversations and phone calls in the Oval Office had been taped since 1971.

Nixon refused to provide copies of the tapes either to Cox or to the Senate committee. When Cox subpoenaed a number of the tapes, Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire him. In the October 20, 1973, “Saturday Night Massacre,” Richardson and his deputy, William Ruckelshaus, refused to execute Nixon’s order and resigned in protest; it was only the third man at the Justice Department—Solicitor General Robert Bork—who was willing to carry out the order firing Cox.

Popular outrage at the resignations and firing forced Nixon to ask Bork—now acting attorney general—to appoint a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, a Democrat who had voted for Nixon, on November 1. On November 17, Nixon assured the American people that “I am not a crook.”

Like Cox before him, Jaworski was determined to hear the Oval Office tapes. He subpoenaed a number of them. Nixon fought the subpoenas on the grounds of executive privilege. On July 24, 1974, in U.S. v. Nixon, the Supreme Court sided unanimously with the prosecutor, saying that executive privilege “must be considered in light of our historic commitment to the rule of law. This is nowhere more profoundly manifest than in our view that 'the twofold aim (of criminal justice) is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer.'... The very integrity of the judicial system and public confidence in the system depend on full disclosure of all the facts….”

Their hand forced, Nixon’s people released transcripts of the tapes. They were damning, not just in content but also in style. Nixon had cultivated an image of himself as a clean family man, but the tapes revealed a mean-spirited, foul-mouthed bully. Aware that the tapes would damage his image, Nixon had his swearing redacted. “[Expletive deleted]” trended.

In late July 1974, the House Committee on the Judiciary passed articles of impeachment, charging the president with obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress. Each article ended with the same statement: “In all of this, Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore Richard M. Nixon, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.”

And then, on August 5, in response to a subpoena, the White House released a tape recorded on June 23, 1972, just six days after the Watergate break-in, that showed Nixon and his aide H.R. Haldeman plotting to invoke national security to protect the president. Even Republican senators, who had not wanted to convict their president, knew the game was over. A delegation went to the White House to deliver the news to the president that he must resign or be impeached by the full House and convicted by the Senate.

In his resignation speech, Nixon refused to acknowledge that he had done anything wrong. Instead, he told the American people he had to step down because he no longer had the support he needed in Congress to advance the national interest. He blamed the press, whose “leaks and accusations and innuendo” had been designed to destroy him. His disappointed supporters embraced the idea that there was a “liberal” conspiracy, spearheaded by the press, to bring down any Republican president.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[charlesoberonn]

List of US Presidents and how many future presidents were born during their administrations

Before Independence: 8. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Quincy Adams, Jackson, William Harrison

Before Presidency: 2. Van Buren, Taylor

Washington: 3. Tyler, Polk, Buchanan

Adams: 1. Fillmore

Jefferson: 3. Pierce, Lincoln, Johnson

Madison: 0.

Monroe: 2. Grant, Hayes

Quincy Adams: 0.

Jackson: 3. Garfield, Arthur, Harrison

Van Buren: 1. Cleveland

Henry Harrison: 0.

Tyler: 1. McKinley

Polk: 0.

Taylor: 0.

Fillmore: 0.

Pierce: 2. Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson

Buchanan: 1. Taft

Lincoln: 0.

Johnson: 1. Harding

Grant: 2. Coolidge, Hoover

Hayes: 0.

Garfield: 0.

Arthur: 2. FDR, Truman

Cleveland: 0.

Harrison: 1. Eisenhower

McKinley: 0.

Teddy Roosevelt: 1. LBJ

Taft: 2. Nixon, Reagan

Wilson: 2. Kennedy, Ford

Harding: 0.

Coolidge: 2. Carter, H.W Bush

Hoover: 0.

FDR: 1. Biden

Truman: 3. Clinton, W. Bush, Trump

Eisenhower: 0.

JFK: 1. Obama

LBJ: 0.

Nixon: 0.

Ford: 0.

Carter: 0.

Reagan: 0.

H.W Bush: 0.

Clinton: 0.

W. Bush: 0.

Obama: 0.

Trump: 0.

Biden: 0.

[deadpresidents]

Just saw Oppenheimer and I was a bit disappointed with how they portrayed Truman. He came across pretty poorly IMO. It was only one scene but I wondered what you thought.

I understand your disappointment and it certainly wasn't a very in-depth portrayal of Truman, but according to the book that the movie was largely based on -- American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) -- the meeting that Oppenheimer had with President Truman went down pretty much as depicted in the film.

As Bird and Sherwin write in American Prometheus:

(O)n October 25, 1945, Oppenheimer was ushered into the Oval Office. President Truman was naturally curious to meet the celebrated physicist, whom he knew by reputation to be an eloquent and charismatic figure. After being introduced by Secretary [of War Robert P.] Patterson, the only other individual in the room, the three men sat down. By one account, Truman opened the conversation by asking for Oppenheimer's help in getting Congress to pass the May-Johnson bill, giving the Army permanent control over atomic energy. "The first thing is to define the national problem," Truman said, "then the international." Oppenheimer let an uncomfortably long silence pass and then said, haltingly, "Perhaps it would be best first to define the international problem." He meant, of course, that the first imperative was to stop the spread of these weapons by placing international controls over all atomic technology. At one point in their conversation, Truman suddenly asked him to guess when the Russians would develop their own atomic bomb. When Oppie replied that he did not know, Truman confidently said he knew the answer: "Never." For Oppenheimer, such foolishness was proof of Truman's limitations. The "incomprehension it showed just knocked the heart out of him," recalled Willie Higinbotham. As for Truman, a man who compensated for his insecurities with calculated displays of decisiveness, Oppenheimer seemed maddeningly tentative, obscure -- and cheerless. Finally, sensing that the President was not comprehending the deadly urgency of his message, Oppenheimer nervously wrung his hands and uttered another of those regrettable remarks that he characteristically made under pressure. "Mr. President," he said quietly, "I feel I have blood on my hands." The comment angered Truman. He later informed David Lilienthal, "I told him the blood was on my hands -- to let me worry about that." But over the years, Truman embellished the story. By one account, he replied, "Never mind, it'll all come out in the wash." In yet another version, he pulled his handkerchief from his breast pocket and offered it to Oppenheimer, saying, "Well, here, would you like to wipe your hands?" An awkward silence followed this exchange, and then Truman stood up to signal that the meeting was over. The two men shook hands, and Truman reportedly said, "Don't worry, we're going to work something out, and you're going to help us." Afterwards, the President was heard to mutter, "Blood on his hands, dammit, he hasn't half as much blood on his hands as I have. You just don't go around bellyaching about it." He later told [Secretary of State] Dean Acheson, "I don't want to see that son-of-a-bitch in this office ever again." Even in May 1946, the encounter still vivid in his mind, he wrote Acheson and described Oppenheimer as a "cry-baby scientist" who had come to "my office some five or six months ago and spent most of his time wringing his hands and telling me they had blood on them because of the discovery of atomic energy."

[findingrome1]

Peace be with you friends.

Today August 6th and later August 9th will mark the 79th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This event marks the 1st and God willing only time when nuclear weapons were used in history. Since then history was permanently altered for better or for worse.

This choice is argued for as justified for numerous reasons. One of these chief arguments originally coming from the Truman administration is that of a grim calculation. They made the utilitarian argument that if these 2 bombs can end the war in 2 radical new demonstrations of force killing 100s of thousands then it is worth using. Since in November the USA alongside her allies would invade the home islands. This invasion in conservative estimates would lead to millions more war dead since Japan intended to mirror Germany and to fight to the bitter end. Furthermore take a moment and imagine yourself as the Truman administration in winter. You need to justify a draft expansion to a war worry nation for the Japanese meat grinder where millions of young men have already died. I can empathize with this sentiment and see the reasoning but the Magistrium of the Roman Catholic church and a deeper dive into history shows the use of Little Boy and Fat Man were morally grave actions.

I won't go into all details but I shall provide 2 excellent youtube videos covering this topic. One from World War Two (yes that's the name), and one from the Counsel of Trent. Now the utilitarian argument can overlap with the objective moral truths found in Christianity it still is deficient.

The Atomic bombings were unjustifiable. They targeted civilians by dropping on city centers to maximize their deaths. Miles away from significant military assets and factories. What helped to justify is during the course of ww2 both sides experimented with different theories of targeted civilians. This is because the powers involved were in a state of total war. This meant all sides sought to get the most out of their resources so the line between civilian and soldier was murky. Strategic bombing theory which developed in Europe in the 1920s was put into full effect with the UK under Air Marshal Harris against Germany and her allies. The USA from 1943 onwards was around the clock bombing Japan's economy to ruins. Now these were not justified either. This bombings intentionally ruined 100s of thousands of homes, killed 10s of thousands civilians. People who were not soldiers, but mostly women and children.

One final thing I shall note is that the United States and her allies made blunders in negotiations which prolonged the war. Imperial Japan would have been more keen to come to the peace table if they knew the Emperor would be allowed to live and keep his title even as a puppet. We knew about this through spying and backdoor diplomatic channels but still kept ambiguous on this. This isn't the only blunder but this is the most notable in my opinion. Please visit the links those professionals do a way better job than I could on a post I spent a half hour to write and they go into far greater detail than I did. Keep safe and God bless.

https://youtu.be/Y79iz3ufZbg?si=7Us2H3txroG7I1f6

https://youtu.be/6amuetZv-eM?si=bdAJc3bc9KKHEas0

[todaysdocument]

Letter from Andrew S. Evans to President Harry S. Truman

Collection HST-OFF: Official Files (Truman Administration)Series: Official FilesFile Unit: Segregation, July 1948-June 1949, OF 93b

3228-Hiatt Pl. N.W.

Wash; 10, DC

June 20, 1949

Dear Mr. President,

I live about three yards from a white playground, yet it is a public school playground. I am a colored boy and not allowed to go on it. All the white boys enjoy playing with me. But I am put off by the adult managers. I am writing you for a consideration because my playground is 4 or 5 blocks away. My parents are afraid of me being hit by cars. I am eleven yrs. old. Please answer.

Sincerely,

Andrew S. Evans

[added by hand in pencil "6 child's letter" "93-B" 'X93 miscel"]

[hussyknee]

I'm blocking ANY American I see pulling this shit from now on. The blood is almost pouring out of our fucking televisions because of Biden. And the Dems. They deserve eternity in Hell. The Republicans are not "worse"- they just have worse manners, they are less polite - that's the only difference.

I have seen more dead children in the last three weeks than I have seen in my entire life. You would think that seeing Biden, Trump, Hillary and Bernie all support "Israel's right to self-defence" for the last solid three weeks would be a wake up call. (Bernie issued a milquetoast statement a few days that maybe this shit should stop, without saying the word "ceasefire" once.)

Imani is a prominent activist on both Black Twitter and Disability Twitter who has been consistently speaking out for all the millions of people continuing to die and become disabled from the Biden Administration's eugenicist COVID policies over the last three years.

There's also this:

This goes all the way back to Harry Truman in 1948 who was almost single-handedly responsible for the colonization of Palestine to creat Israel. But it doesn't mention that the US political establishment was actually against him at the time because they rightly said it would ruin their relations with the Middle East, and Truman's relationship with his own State Department nearly broke down over it. General Marshall, architect of the Marshall Plan, held out until 30 minutes before Britain emancipated Palestine, which was the deadline to claim what would be the initial land for the state of Israel. His decision is said to have been influenced by his Christian upbringing, despite his distaste of both Jews and Zionism.

Now why would an antisemitic white Christian be in favour of herding Jewish war refugees into Israel, where everyone knew they would have to stay fighting Palestine until it was completely defeated, which they couldn't do without relying on the US for help? 🤔 And how would the US government have stayed committed to Israel ever since? Raise your hand if you know the answer!

But no, y'all don't need a system change, just someone who will hold the line at the top against white Christian fundamentalism. There's nothing entrenched here at all. 🙃

Meanwhile:

Adrian Hemond, a Michigan-based Democratic strategist, cautioned that there is a lot of time between now and Election Day in which voters could change their minds as passions cool. And, he said, voters are highly sympathetic to Israel right now, which could benefit Biden politically.

[fillejondrette]

trump now referring to himself as “a fine and brilliant young man” you were born during the truman administration