Truman

London, England: Collins, 1986. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. [10], 230 pages. Footnotes. References. Index. Inscribed by the author on the title page. Inscription reads: Inscribed for Charles Manett by Roy Jenkins, 17:II:86; this is believed to be the Charles Manatt (June 9, 1936 - July 22, 2011, who was a U.S. Democratic Party leader. He was an American lawyer, politician and businessman. Manatt was chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1981 to 1985. He supervised and directed the 1984 Democratic National Convention. He was a delegate, sometimes categorized as a super delegate. He was the founder of the law firm Manatt, Phelps, and Phillips LLP, where his practice focused on international and corporate law. He also served as ambassador to the Dominican Republic from 1999 to 2001. Manatt served until June 2008 as chairman of the board of trustees at the George Washington University. Manatt was a former chair of the board of directors of the International Foundation of Election Systems. Book contains Preface, List of Illustrations (black & white illustration between pages 22-23; black & white illustrations between pages 38-39; black and white illustrations between pages 102-103; black and white illustrations between pages 118-119; black and white illustrations between Paper 182-183; and black and white illustrations between pages 198-199. Topics covered include The transition; Jackson County; Junior Senator from Missouri; Heir to a Dying President; The New President; Truman Battered; Truman Resurgent; Victory out of the Jaws of Defeat; The Limitations of Victory; Truman's Third War; The Last Phase; and A Quiet End. In his time, Harry S. Truman was one of the most underrated presidents of the twentieth century. This is the first biography of Truman to be written by an author with anything approaching the subject's own range of political experience, and Roy Jenkins brings to this book a quality of appreciation of Truman's political skills which has not been seen before. It is also the first biography to be written by a British author, giving it a new objectivity on the international affairs which occupied so much of Truman's presidency and by which he must be judged. Derived from a Kirkus review: A short, but loving biography of our 33rd President, by Englishman, Member of Parliament, and recently founder of the Social Democratic Party, Jenkins, previously author of several English political biographies. Truman, often disparagingly painted as a tool of Missouri political boss Tom Pendergast, is here portrayed rather as a scrupulously honest man who called the shots as he saw them and, to his credit, most often called them right in his presidency. Despite his concern to show Truman as one of our near-great presidents, Jenkins is fair in pointing out his flaws. These are usually in the realm of misjudgments, for example in his selections for some major cabinet positions. Truman also doesn't exactly shine in his flip-flopping over his successor candidate in 1952. Jenkins reasserts the conventional story of Truman's ignorance of the atom bomb upon his assumption of the highest office. Dan Kurzman, however, has recently dispelled that notion, with well-documented facts that Truman had, indeed, been made privy to the Manhattan Project during his vice-presidency. Also, in his discussion of Truman's celebrated veto of the Taft-Hartley Bill, later overridden by Congress, Jenkins makes no mention of the fact that, in conversations with Senator Vandenberg, Truman had shrewdly saved face for them both by telling him that he must veto the bill to satisfy his constituency, but that it was crucial to the nation that Vandenberg make certain that the veto be overridden. It still isn't certain from this reading whether Truman was great or merely lucky. His two greatest monuments were the Marshall Plan and NATO--the one was basically George Marshall's idea, and the second was inevitable following upon the heels of WW II. Jenkins' work will help to tip the scales in Truman's direction, though.