Three books done, two on deck

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I took my 992 page book Truman to Colorado to visit my son’s family a week ago. I have been slowly devouring it for three weeks. I put it down half an hour ago after marking some passages a few pages from the next to the last chapter as he is packing up the White House to go home to Independence Missouri. I maked them because they seemed like an ideal place to start a column about my current reading. Following the Atkinson books on the Revolutionary War I decided that it was time to read the best book on Truman who’s history was already firmly in my head but only in a sketchy form. Forty years ago I read Merle Miller’s book about him which is half the size of McCulloughs and better reflected the Truman at the end of his life than the Truman who was President. The observation McCullough made on page 919 was … Well that’s the column.

I had planned to follow it immediately with a well regarded book on Eisenhower the man who succeeded to the White House. But even before we left for our 16 hour drives to and back from Colorado I was already thinking about another book that has been waiting for me on my shelves for an easy ten years. The Bitter Road to Freedom is one of three books on war ravaged Europe I’ve wanted to read. When I discovered it was authored by the same William I. Hitchcock who authored the book on Ike it was kismet. And then we listened to the first book heading down. Claudia read both book in recent years and said they were great. They also were both about the same subjet. The hidden world of Espionage in World War II. The First was about the premier French leader of the Resistance which we only needed two chapters of todays drive to finish. The second book was Dagers and Books about the collection of scholars assembled to dig into reams of material about Europe to help think through how the US should best attack the European was. They were part of the pre CIA called OSS until shortly after the war. They included the Monuments Men who located the stolen treasures of Hitler and a great many other people who went to Europe to rifle libraries for all manner of useful info to conduct the war.

Of Course, Harry Truman was the most unexpected president and found himself finishing off the war as the whole world held its breath doubtful that he could measure up to Franklin Roosevelt. He did.

We finished the second book which was only recently written and warned that we are on a path to revisit the evils our nation fought against in that war.

I had a little time to kill so while Claudia leaned in on our last thirty miles I crawled back to my suitcase and pulled out Bitter Road to read its preface to her. The preface ended by pointing out that Americans today view what we accomplished as our advancing Democracy and freedom in the world. Then author Hitchcock pivoted writing this:

“Europeans generally viewed these claims with skepticism and I now know why. They began from a different premise than Americans, for they had lived througnh liberation, and still cary the scars. The year 1945 taught Europeans a lesson they have never forgotten: that a war of liberation is still a war, and no matter how noble the cause, mothers and children will die, houses of worship will be burned, disease will spread, refugees will tramp the roads and then, after all these horrors are over, liberators and liberated alike will still face the hard work of constructing freedom and restoring human dignity.”

If today’s headlines haven’t alerted you that we are in the regime of a man who thinks the city of a million people turned to rubble is the world’s next Riviera let me alert you now. Donald Trump is Harry Trumans toe only Donald’s got him out of Vietnam so that after calling John McCain a loser he could turn his attention to starting a war with Iran after lambasting Republicans for the disasters of picking wars that only created a glut of refugees who have overrun Europe. So…..that note that made me catch my breath in McCullough’s book. He finished the book when it still seemed like we not only won the Cold War but we had turned the big bad Russian Bear into a plushie. And then Donald Trump came round to bow and scrape at the guy who’s team sent America the rumor that Trump had paid Russian ladies of the night to urinate on the bed Barack Obama once slept in. And it sure seemed like a rumor with the ring of truth. The Rooskies are good at this stuff.

McCullough’s wrote how Truman had confidence that Russia would join the rest of mankind eventually. He didn’t know how or when but he had confidence that this would come to be. So did my Dad. So did I on the strength of their and then my study of history. And hearing Harry’s biographer praise him for his presience was very disconcerting just as Donald Trump is disconcerting in his eagerness to be our Big Golden Brother.

I’ve got an hour an a half to finish the final 60 pages. I’ll just read the last four to finish chapter 17.

About the author

Harry is a ferociously good natured eccentric in Duluth Minnesota who detests traitors dressed up as Uncle Sam. You can find somewhat better edited writings of his at the Duluth Reader "contributors." page. The URL is:

https://duluthreader.com/contributors/h/84/284-harry-welty