Harry Truman: Evaluation Truman proved to be a president of action, but one hampered by a lack of foreign policy training. "Without any real foreign policy experience and left equipped by Roosevelt with only the vaguest of road maps, Truman inherited the task of winding down the war and building a new international order even while the designs established at Teheran and Yalta was coming apart." (Kissinger 424).  During his first few years in office, the United States fumbled about for a comprehensive approach to the post-war order.  To Truman’s credit, he resisted the forces of isolationism; but the president also refused to press the United States’ nuclear monopoly to force Stalin to retreat from Eastern Europe. His conduct in the Korean war and his handling of the Marshall Plan were his best moments.  With the Marshall Plan, he literally saved Western Europe from Communist domination and built up a store of European goodwill toward the United States; with his firing of MacArthur and determination to protect South Korea, he upheld the principle of civilian control over the military and allowed South Korea to develop, over time, into one of the world’s strongest economies.       T. Roosevelt           Wilson       F. Roosevelt         Truman          Philosophy          Incidents          Advisers          Evaluation          Citations        Eisenhower        Kennedy        Johnson        Nixon        Carter        Reagan        Bush

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