A Book Review of Harry S. Truman's, "Year of Decisions"
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Date Published: September 27, 2025
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A Review of “Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Year of Decisions”
- Reviews of the Day: 1955
- Selected Insights from “Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Year of Decisions”
- This Author’s Thoughts on “Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Year of Decisions”
Reviews of the Day: 1955
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On November 6, 1955, The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Mississippi, published a review of the first volume of “Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Year of Decisions.” Ed Goins of the Clarion-Ledger Staff, using the title “First Volume of Truman Memoirs Now Published,” wrote:
“Except for the serious students of history, the volume becomes overly ponderous at times. … A worthy exception is Mr. Truman’s sprightly account of his early years on the farm in Missouri. … “Controversy is not avoided in this first edition, as exemplified by his criticism of the House Un-American Activities Committee: ‘I consider the methods used by the House Committee on Un-American activities to be the most un-American thing in America in its day.’ “Harry S. Truman contends that the committee ‘had completely forgotten’ the constitutional rights of its witnesses.” On November 6, 1955, The Minneapolis Sunday Tribune, published a review of the first of Harry S. Truman’s memoirs entitled: “Year of Decisions.” In the review entitled, “Truman Spiritedly Defends Administration in His Memoirs,” Wilbur E. Elston wrote: |
A picture of the front dust cover of “Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Year of Decisions.”
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“Truman makes a spirited and frequently persuasive defense of his administration. … Like the man himself, the book already is involved in controversy. Excerpts published by the New York Times and Life magazine have prompted sharp rebuttals by several old colleagues who don’t agree with his version of history. …
A high-quality, black-and-white portrait of former President Harry S. Truman.
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“ ‘Year of Decisions’ is a warm and interesting human document of the life of a man thrown into one of the most important jobs in the world at a decisive moment in history.”
On November 6, 1955, The Atlanta Journal published a review of Harry S. Truman’s memoir: “Year of Decisions.” In the review entitled, “Truman’s Book Sets Down Dates, Proves Disappointing,” James Saxon Childers wrote: “This is an enlightening, a provocative, and a disappointing book. … An immediate and just criticism is that the volume is little more than a chronological report. … Frequently, Mr. Truman adds little comments but most of them lack enduring significance. … This gives the book the effect of a diary and prevents the readers from feeling the great sweep of tremendous events. … “One keeps wishing for a more penetrating appraisal of the happenings in which Mr. Truman played a leading part.” |
Selected Insights from “Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Year of Decisions”
- For Harry S. Truman—the U.S. and the World, this Year Was Unlike Any Before It
“I was sworn in as President by Chief Justice Stone at 19:09 on April 12, 1945. Much was going to happen in the few months that followed.
“The world was undergoing great and historic changes: (1) we had come into the atomic age; (2) the wars in Europe and Asia had been brought to a victorious end; (3) the United Nations had been launched; (4) and Churchill, Attlee, Stalin, and I had met at Potsdam in an effort to get Russian co-operation and help to assure the peace.
“The years ahead were to make great demands upon the wisdom, courage, and integrity of statesmen everywhere.”
“The world was undergoing great and historic changes: (1) we had come into the atomic age; (2) the wars in Europe and Asia had been brought to a victorious end; (3) the United Nations had been launched; (4) and Churchill, Attlee, Stalin, and I had met at Potsdam in an effort to get Russian co-operation and help to assure the peace.
“The years ahead were to make great demands upon the wisdom, courage, and integrity of statesmen everywhere.”
Harry S. Truman, Year of Decisions, 1955
- Harry S. Truman’s Thoughts on Post War Germany, Japan and Colonialism
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“I had always been opposed to colonialism. Whatever justification may be cited at any stage, colonialism in any form is hateful to Americans.
“America fought her own war of liberation against colonialism, and we shall always regard with sympathy and understanding the desire of people everywhere to be free of colonial bondage. The intention of President Roosevelt and the Congress to give early freedom to the Philippines was an expression of this policy as well as of the will of the American people, and I was determined to carry it through to speedy fulfillment. … “Now, we had won the war. It was my hope that the people of Germany and Japan could be rehabilitated under the occupation. The United States, as I had stated at Berlin, wanted no territory, no reparations. Peace and happiness for all countries were the goals toward which we would work and for which we had fought. “No nation in the history of the world had taken such a position in complete victory. No nation with the military power of the United States of America had been so generous to its enemies and so helpful to its friends. “Maybe the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount could be put into effect..” |
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Harry S. Truman, Year of Decisions, 1955
- Harry S. Truman’s Views on the Press, Reporters, Editors and Publishers
“It is often helpful for a President to judge, from questions put to him by the reporters, what is going on in the minds of the people. Good reporters are always in close touch with developments and with what the people want to know.
“I have always made a sharp distinction between the working reporter and the editor or publisher. I always got along well with the reporters. They try to do an honest job of reporting the facts. But many of their bosses—the editors and publishers—have their own special interests, and the news is often slanted to serve those interests, which unfortunately are not always for the benefit of the public as a whole.”
“I have always made a sharp distinction between the working reporter and the editor or publisher. I always got along well with the reporters. They try to do an honest job of reporting the facts. But many of their bosses—the editors and publishers—have their own special interests, and the news is often slanted to serve those interests, which unfortunately are not always for the benefit of the public as a whole.”
Harry S. Truman, Year of Decisions, 1955
This Author’s Thoughts on “Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Year of Decisions”
- A Lot of Facts Presented Without Emotion and in a Ponderous Fashion
One reviewer above used the word “ponderous” to describe this first volume of the Memoirs by Harry S. Truman. This is an excellent descriptor. Unless Truman was talking about Republicans hindering one of his programs or businessmen exploiting the government, he showed little emotion about almost anything in this book.
I bought this book to read about his decision to use the atomic bomb to end World War II. Both my father and my father-in-law were in the military in the South Pacific at the time, so if it hadn’t been done they may have ended up being one of the 500,000 casualties that General George Marshall estimated it would take to end the war otherwise. Yet, there was no emotion—no second thoughts, exhibited in this memoir! How is that possible?
Although he believed the “final decision of where and when to use the atomic bomb” was up to him, he writes, “Let there be no mistake. I regarded the bomb as a military weapon and never had any doubt that it should be used.” He goes on to state that it should be used against “a military target … upon a war production center of prime military importance.”
Nothing is added about the loss of civilian lives and if it affected him. Nothing is added that a warning could have been issued to the civilians to evacuate the four cities that were targeted. The devastation would have been the same—the visual and horrific effect the same—without the loss of lives. He merely says he went this route as his scientific team could “propose no technical demonstration likely to bring an end to the war.”
I bought this book to read about his decision to use the atomic bomb to end World War II. Both my father and my father-in-law were in the military in the South Pacific at the time, so if it hadn’t been done they may have ended up being one of the 500,000 casualties that General George Marshall estimated it would take to end the war otherwise. Yet, there was no emotion—no second thoughts, exhibited in this memoir! How is that possible?
Although he believed the “final decision of where and when to use the atomic bomb” was up to him, he writes, “Let there be no mistake. I regarded the bomb as a military weapon and never had any doubt that it should be used.” He goes on to state that it should be used against “a military target … upon a war production center of prime military importance.”
Nothing is added about the loss of civilian lives and if it affected him. Nothing is added that a warning could have been issued to the civilians to evacuate the four cities that were targeted. The devastation would have been the same—the visual and horrific effect the same—without the loss of lives. He merely says he went this route as his scientific team could “propose no technical demonstration likely to bring an end to the war.”
- Doubleday & Company—the Publisher, Missed Some Important Inclusions
Some irritants with the book are that is has no Table of Contents and that there are no titles given to the chapters that would enable a reader to possibly start reading in an area they want to research. There is an index, but why didn’t Doubleday & Company—a very reputable publisher, not add a Table of Contents? Because of this, I purposely bought an extra copy of the book so that I could scan it in, convert it to a pdf, and search on key words.
Instead of finding a chapter entitled “The Decisions Made Around Hiroshima” all a reader finds is that an unnamed Chapter 26 is probably the critical one to read for this information after scanning the other 35 unnamed chapters.
This seems almost unforgiveable in a “Presidential” book. It makes the book impossible to research—read with focused re-readings, without a pdf.
Instead of finding a chapter entitled “The Decisions Made Around Hiroshima” all a reader finds is that an unnamed Chapter 26 is probably the critical one to read for this information after scanning the other 35 unnamed chapters.
This seems almost unforgiveable in a “Presidential” book. It makes the book impossible to research—read with focused re-readings, without a pdf.
- Truman: Too Much A Politician with Too Little Business Background
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In Chapter 12, Harry Truman launches on a tirade about the “so-called” dollar-a-year men who worked without compensation during World War II.
He points out that the businesses received contracts totaling “almost three billion dollars to sixty-six firms whose officials had served the government at a dollar a year.” He then goes on to discuss only one “outrage,” replaces a leader and then ends the diatribe that the new leader “was surrounded by good men who were honestly anxious to win the war as quickly and efficiently as possible—many of them, to be sure, dollar-a-year men.” He writes about the “waste and confusion.” Well, the same could be said about our pre-world war government that allowed Pearl Harbor to happen: a government of which he was a leading senatorial participant. Wartime, for any country at peace, usually starts with waste and confusion. I had hoped also that there might be some tidbits in here about the great individual industrialists who served our county to the best of their abilities. One of these was Thomas J. Watson Sr. of the IBM Corporation who was awarded the Medal for Merit after the war. Maybe ending this article with some of the words from the award will help a reader of this book understand that Harry S. Truman, the politician, wasn’t the only “leader” who pulled our country together in a time of crisis. |
Harry S. Truman awarded Thomas J. Watson Sr. the “Medal for Merit” for his and his company’s (IBM's) contribution to the World War II effort.
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This Medal for Merit was presented by the Robert Patterson, U.S. Secretary of War for Harry S. Truman to Thomas J. Watson Sr. for his services rendered to his country during World War II.
This award recognized that Tom Watson “from the earliest stages of pre-war defense until the end of hostilities was preeminent in leadership and untiring in his support of all phases of the war effort. … [he anticipated the] enormous administrative management problems [and] converted his highly competitive selling organization to one of exclusive and intensive service to the army, navy, air force, and government agencies. …
“When the need arose, he personally directed the stripping of necessary equipment from the accounting department of his company’s own executive offices and from its factory and sales offices all over the country to meet the rush requirements … for basic industrial materials.”
Tom Watson made “available to the government the exclusive services of his highly-trained technical personnel at great sacrifice to his own interests. … In all of his government contracts, he voluntarily limited the profits to less than 1.5 per cent and placed this sum in a fund for the benefit of widows and orphans of his employees who lost their lives in the war.”
In my evaluation of “Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Year of Decisions,” it seems our former president lacked the feeling and emotions of some of our former presidents like Theodore Roosevelt. Unlike Theodore Roosevelt who tried to find a balance and was constantly finding ways to look for good industrialists as well as upbraiding the bad ones, Mr. Truman was a little to one-sided on the “upbraiding” for my taste.
Truman says he wrote the book because “It would have been helpful for us to know more of what was in their [our former President’s] minds and what impelled them to do what they did.” Unfortunately, in my opinion, Truman, unlike Theodore Roosevelt, never—ever, truly lets the reader “inside his mind.” The emotional involvement Truman reflected in his once-in-a-lifetime decisions is flat making him seem either too analytical or less involved emotionally than he should have been.
Let me know if you think otherwise after reading this book.
Now, to read Volume II: “Years of Trial and Hope.”
I hope the story telling improves.
Cheers,
- Peter E.
This award recognized that Tom Watson “from the earliest stages of pre-war defense until the end of hostilities was preeminent in leadership and untiring in his support of all phases of the war effort. … [he anticipated the] enormous administrative management problems [and] converted his highly competitive selling organization to one of exclusive and intensive service to the army, navy, air force, and government agencies. …
“When the need arose, he personally directed the stripping of necessary equipment from the accounting department of his company’s own executive offices and from its factory and sales offices all over the country to meet the rush requirements … for basic industrial materials.”
Tom Watson made “available to the government the exclusive services of his highly-trained technical personnel at great sacrifice to his own interests. … In all of his government contracts, he voluntarily limited the profits to less than 1.5 per cent and placed this sum in a fund for the benefit of widows and orphans of his employees who lost their lives in the war.”
In my evaluation of “Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Year of Decisions,” it seems our former president lacked the feeling and emotions of some of our former presidents like Theodore Roosevelt. Unlike Theodore Roosevelt who tried to find a balance and was constantly finding ways to look for good industrialists as well as upbraiding the bad ones, Mr. Truman was a little to one-sided on the “upbraiding” for my taste.
Truman says he wrote the book because “It would have been helpful for us to know more of what was in their [our former President’s] minds and what impelled them to do what they did.” Unfortunately, in my opinion, Truman, unlike Theodore Roosevelt, never—ever, truly lets the reader “inside his mind.” The emotional involvement Truman reflected in his once-in-a-lifetime decisions is flat making him seem either too analytical or less involved emotionally than he should have been.
Let me know if you think otherwise after reading this book.
Now, to read Volume II: “Years of Trial and Hope.”
I hope the story telling improves.
Cheers,
- Peter E.