Truman left office as one of the most unpopular presidents of the twentieth century, mainly due to the Korean War and his then controversial decision to dismiss General Douglas MacArthur, resulting in a huge loss of support.

[14] The office of vice president remained vacant during Truman's first (3 years, 253 days partial) term, as the Constitution then had no provision for filling a vacancy prior to the 1967 ratification of the Twenty-fifth Amendment.

The main issues of the United States foreign policy during include:[35] In his last years in office Roosevelt had promoted several major initiatives to reshape the postwar politics and economy, and avoid the mistakes of 1919.

[46] Despite significant opposition from those who favored higher tariffs, Truman was able to win legislative extension of the reciprocity program, and his administration reached numerous bilateral agreements that lowered trade barriers.

The U.S. forcefully opposed this proposed alteration to the 1936 Montreux Convention, which had granted Turkey sole control over the straits, and Truman dispatched a fleet to the Eastern Mediterranean to show his administration's commitment to the region.

[citation needed] With support from Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., Vandenberg admitted there was no certainty that the plan would succeed, but said it would halt economic chaos, sustain Western civilization, and stop further Soviet expansion.

NATO's goals were to contain Soviet expansion in Europe and to send a clear message to communist leaders that the world's democracies were willing and able to build new security structures in support of democratic ideals.

The United States increased its commitment to NATO, invited Greece and Turkey to join the alliance, and launched a second major foreign aid program with the enactment of the Mutual Security Act.

Chiang's strong support among sections of the American public, along with desire to assure other allies that the U.S. was committed to containment, convinced Truman to increase economic and military aid to the Nationalists.

[145] Truman, meanwhile, did not view Korea itself as a vital region in the Cold War, but he believed that allowing a Western-aligned country to fall would embolden Communists around the world and damage his own standing at home.

[152] Fearing that the escalation of the war could spark a global conflict with the Soviet Union, Truman refused MacArthur's request to bomb Chinese supply bases north of the Yalu River.

[155] On April 5, House Minority Leader Joseph Martin made public a letter from MacArthur that strongly criticized Truman's handling of the Korean War and called for an expansion of the conflict against China.

[180] Though unemployment remained low, labor unrest, inflation, and other issues badly damaged Truman's popularity, which in turn contributed to a poor Democratic showing in the November 1946 mid-term elections.

Bill had been passed in 1944 by a conservative coalition that wanted to restrict benefits to "deserving" wartime veterans, as opposed to the larger welfare program favored by the Roosevelt administration that would reach all low income families.

[200][c] Congress also passed bills designed to cut taxes, weaken the Interstate Commerce Commission, and reduce the number of employees covered by Social Security, but all were vetoed by Truman in 1947.

[219] Historians Donald R. McCoy and Richard T. Ruetten write that Truman "was the first president to have a civil rights program, the first to try to come to grips with the basic problems of minorities, and the first to condemn, vigorously and consistently, the presence of discrimination and inequality in America.

The Justice Department in 1947 organized a 'racket squad' to build evidence for grand jury investigations in several major cities, and the income tax returns of many gambling entrepreneurs and racketeers were audited.

Kefauver also found that over 160 Internal Revenue Service (IRS) officials took bribes, used their offices to run private businesses, embezzled federal funds, or tolerated corrupt behavior by their subordinates.

[244][246][e] The onset of the Cold War produced turmoil in the left wing of the Democratic Party over foreign policy issues, especially regarding the role of the Soviet Union and the response to domestic communism.

[257][258] In August 1948, Whittaker Chambers, a former spy for the Soviets and a senior editor at Time magazine, testified to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) that an underground communist network had been working within the U.S. government since the 1930s.

However, Truman did not fully share such opinions, and throughout his tenure he would balance a desire to maintain internal security against the fear that a red scare could hurt innocents and impede government operations.

Senator Pat McCarran of Nevada put forward a bill that would require Communist organizations to register with the government, and allowed the president to indefinitely detain those who were suspected of having engaged in espionage.

[268][page needed] In 1945, the War Brides Act allowed foreign-born wives of U.S. citizens who had served in the U.S. Armed Forces to immigrate to the United States; it was later extended to include the fiancés of American soldiers.

[279] The "New Deal" loyalists within the party—including FDR's son James—tried to swing the Democratic nomination to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, a highly popular figure whose political views and party affiliation were totally unknown.

[284] South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond, a segregationist, declared his candidacy for the presidency on a Dixiecrat ticket and led a full-scale revolt of Southern "states' rights" proponents.

[291] The large, mostly spontaneous gatherings at Truman's whistle stop events were an important sign of a change in momentum in the campaign, but this shift went virtually unnoticed by the national press corps.

[301] Eisenhower was outraged when Truman, who made a whistle-stop tour in support of Stevenson, accused Ike of disregarding "sinister forces ... Anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, and anti-foreignism" within the Republican Party.

"[304] Polls consistently indicated that Eisenhower would win the race, and Nixon deftly handled a potentially dangerous controversy over his finances with his Checkers speech, delivered live on national television.

[315] During this period, Truman captured the popular imagination, emerging as a kind of political folk hero, a president who was thought to exemplify an integrity and accountability many observers felt was lacking in the Nixon White House.

Biographer Robert Donovan has emphasized Truman's personality:Vigorous, hard-working, simple, he had grown up close to the soil of the Midwest and understood the struggles of the people on the farms and in the small towns....After 10 years in the Senate, he had risen above the Pendergast organization.