Frank Sinatra who fought for civil rights for Black people. Remember that the election took place in November and several months later, Franklin D. Roosevelt was dead. This is a moment to learn more about both Sinatra and Truman. What were they all about? I wonder just how Sinatra felt about the invasion of Ethiopia by Mussolini. I learned things about Harry Truman reading the book by A.J.Baime which was published in 2017. But I had to know more. Knowledge matters!
And after reading the book, finishing it on a plane heading from Barcelona to New York, I referred back to the comments of James Bachelor who wrote “An entertaining new history of Truman’s first months in office…filled with events that are strikingly proportionate to what the Trump administration has weathered since January.”
Truman won reelection but Trump lost his first reelection attempt. But there is much more to look at and I chose to begin with Sinatra who had switched party affiliations by 1970. Barry Goldwater was out of the picture by then and a new Republican Party was taking shape anyway. Did I say new? Read on.
Why did FDR choose Truman? The back book cover writes this about Truman who was hardly known and was therefore not such a good choice. “His well praised work ethic, good judgment, and lack of enemies” were important things about Truman.
Let’s go back to where Truman hailed from, Missouri. Black people could ride the buses and that was basically their only protected civil right. Segregation was powerful there. The Truman family had its roots in the Southern Confederacy and his mother in the White House (after FDR’s death) refused to sleep in the bed of “THAT MAN” during a stay there. THAT MAN was Abraham Lincoln. So, Truman was from the South, suggesting one foot in its history and glory and another foot elsewhere. History matters and there are lessons here that apply even today.
This book is largely about World War II and its aftermath or just a sprinkling of the aftermath. Important things had to be done. Winning a war in both fronts, dealing with the Soviet Union, and recreating life after Hitler. In the book is a quote from a Black woman at that time who said recognized the impact of Hitler on Black people when she said that Hitler got Black women out of the white kitchen. “Black jobs” had been created under Jim Crow across our nation and now Black women could get jobs in industry to help the war effort against Hitler.
And going back to the Bachelor comment about this book. Was he thinking about NATO back then which Truman helped set up and Trump attacked. The Trump attack now even seems to call for removing the United States from NATO. Educated people knew this was coming. It’s no surprise at all. And Putin has to love Trump for that even though Trump may state some minor thing against Putin. That’s politics!
And also, when Truman came to power, Zionism was on people’s minds. Prince Abd Al-Hah arrived in Washington, D.C. to advocate against Zionism. Iraq, at that time, had Black gold in its possession (oil larger than US resources) and the United States needed bases for its military. There was no Israel, and it was known that the Arab world and its arms would target Jews if and when Israel would be formed. Instead of peace, there was hostility in 1945. Truman made no decision about Zionism.
So, there was Truman in 1945, and that back cover covers the major themes of four months which were made possible by FDR and Truman and a cast of characters. The historic events included: founding of the United Nations, the fall of Berlin, victory at Okinawa, firebombings in Tokyo, the first atomic bomb explosion, the Nazi surrender, the liberation of concentration camps, mass starvations in Europe, the Potsdam Conference, the decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan’s surrender, the end of World War II, and the Cold War.
I made note of lots of things in The Accidental President and as I type thinking about the president that never should have been.
Truman and his times. We were not there, but we learned things and often we learned only very little. That was unfortunate.
Two ambassadors to Moscow of the Soviet Union, one I knew about from previous readings (Averell Harriman) and the other man who preceded him (Joseph Davies). Harriman lost an investment in the Soviet Union and definitely wanted to recoup his losses. He objected to the way that Truman dealt with Molotov who was Stalin’s right-hand man. I ask if Harriman had his own monetary losses in the back of his mind as he represented US interests? Davies was married to Marjorie Merriweather Post, and I asked myself if his family interests played a role. Among the items being bought and used during the war happened to be a dry food known on grocery shelves all over the United States which was owned by his wife who was America’s richest woman. No, it’s not in the candy section (Mars), but you probably have figured it out and it’s not The Breakfast of Champions either.
Truman like Trump had his bad moments in business and the haberdashery business with Eddie Jacobson, who worked closely with Truman during World War I in a canteen and helped forge that later partnership, went bankrupt. How many people heard that Truman had been a businessman and how many learned that his success was weak.
And like Trump, Truman was a fighter with strong words. He is an example at a time when Stalin’s people were moving West. Tito moved into a part of Italy called Venezia Giulia which includes the city of Trieste. This made me think of popular chef Lidia Bastianich who is known as an “Italian” chef but with family roots in Yugoslavia. The Western allies wanted Tito out before matters got worse and this was presented in meeting with Stalin and his ministers. You will see that Stalin had Tito back of, but not because of weakness. Not all such decisions are signs of weakness. Joe Biden was not weak even though he has been portrayed that way.
Stalin wanted Franco out of power in Spain, but that did not happen. Again, that was only a minor thing. I shared this with people I met in Barcelona, so they knew about it before you. One man was from Slovakia, and we talked a lot. The other man was from the Dominican Republic, and we talked a lot, too. We were even joined by a Puerto Rican whose family member is extremely well-known to Puerto Rican governor Pedro Pierluisi who lost the primary recently in Puerto Rico. I was declared by the Puerto Rican from Arecibo as a Domini Rican, which I accepted of course. Stalin, by the way, wanted another “trophy” outside of his sphere of influence where he could spread communism.
Remember the communist defeat in Spain in the 1930s when Franco was supported by Hitler and Mussolini and the newly formed Republican government was taken over by fascism. The Republicans were supported even by high level communists and Stalin wanted revenge for that several years later. Art lovers should think of Picasso’s painting Guernica.
I wish that Professor Randolph Braham were alive right now to shed more light. I learned from him in the 1960s in his political science class what he experienced as the communists moved into Romania. I also wished that I had developed a relationship with him as I have wished that about others I have known. Braham told me that the Soviet troops who arrived were not there to free or liberate the people. It was the appearance of a liberation for sure, but the substance was not there. The Soviets were our allies, but there were huge differences. A. J. Baime alludes to the problems the allies faced to gain any entry into Romania, where Braham lived. He suffered the loss of parents during The Holocaust. The Truman government knew this and much more, especially since it had already been known that Stalin had ordered 19,000 officers killed in the Katyn Woods years before. And anyone and everyone who was not a communist to Stalin became a fascist and our leaders allowed this to happen. The experience of great Polish and Czech pilots in England and who helped save England against Hitler and his Luftwaffe are testimony to this truth.
At the same time, African American soldiers were admired by people in England who protected them from constant fights with Southern, racist soldiers. This, too, would see its candle flicker more since the problem could not be easily resolved. There will be more later. And do not forget that Black troops were not allowed in the victory parade into Paris as well.
And truth marches on here. And I am not referring to Glory Glory Hallelujah at all.
With all the confusion that we see in our news about all kinds of things including genocide and war criminality, we must learn just how military leaders of that time made decisions knowing that they could face charges for being war criminals. Let’s take a look. I had that sense of history by reading and writing about the war in the Pacific years ago.
Here I was reading about much worse things than I had read before. Preceding the use of the atomic bomb was the use of 6,632 tons of “conventional and incendiary” bombs that engulfed Japanese cities. There was no opposition, and those places were warned in advance. People were burned to death and if they sought shelter in waters, they were boiled to death at temperatures reaching 1,600 degrees F. Napalm was used there, and we learned about napalm’s use in the Vietnam War.
Tokyo, Nagoya, Kobe, Osaka, Yokohama, and Kawasaki were firebombed intensely. The Japanese refused to give up. I knew about flame throwers being used to eliminate Japanese soldiers in island caves from another book and here was the same kind of death taking place on a massive scale to win the war.
Later in the same month, only days later, Hiroshima enters the picture where the atomic bomb was used. Hiroshima was definitely a major miliary target which I had never bothered to learn about before. There were no Prisoner of War camps in Hiroshima and that made it a target.
Hiroshima was “an Army city…a major quartermaster depot.”
The military supplies included guns, tanks, machine tools, and aircraft parts. Hiroshima was not even the target selected since another city had cloudy conditions and was passed over. The weather was clear in Hiroshima that day. A survivor of that blast within a 100-yard radius of the hit was Goichi Oshima, who described the blast ten years later. It was a sudden explosion, he passed out and when he came to, he knew that Hiroshima was in ruins. Just how he survived I don’t even know.
A member of the crew of the Enola Gay, the bomber that carried the Little Boy, which was the first atomic bomb’s name, claimed he knew what atomic fission tastes like: like lead.
The Japanese emperor did not budge, and the people resolved to fight on. Leaflets were dropped before the next bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. This was the Fat Man. The leaflets asked the people of Japan to petition the emperor to end the war and the destruction. Since there was no immediate change, the plans went through quickly and the rest is history. The war was over after the second bombing.
Truman had a lot of luck, especially with timing. The bomb was ready and in reading the book it was also clear that there were great concerns for the future of the world. Nuclear energy was the possibility and one factor that most of the world prays for: world peace. Stalin knew about the bomb since he had spies and by 1949 the Soviet Union was in possession of its own atomic bomb. It’s fortunate that Germany had not completed a bomb during WW II. But this is what you have to know based on thorough research of that period. It was expected that with such great power in our hands that peace would be achieved. I could write that in capital letters to more effectively show you what people were thinking. The United States had taken possession of power that would lead countries away from war. What? We are seeing wars again at this time and possibly more wars taking place. Every generation has had its wars and there seems to be no stopping it. Have you not seen the recent or heard about this so-called genius who has been portrayed as Superman? No, not Joe Biden.
Stalin was the master of power in the Soviet Union and many other countries and there is a lesson about the last paragraph to make the point much stronger. Stalin wanted controls over China for economic and political reasons and for whatever reason Stalin wanted. As quickly as the ink dried on that atomic disaster, Stalin moved 1 million troops into China and eventually moving his power in Korea. The dropping of the atomic bomb wouldn’t stop him and then in 1949 he could portray himself as a kind of supreme power to much of the world. Now the world has Putin to deal with and the world situation is getting much more complicated as Syria’s Bashar Al-Hassad has fallen.
We must reference all this history to educate the world. The atomic bomb did not stop Stalin, and his plans and Truman was still in power. North Korea was not stopped by Trump, but the lie is that North Korea was shaking even thinking about Trump. That is what Trump drums up and the world will soon learn much more about all this. That is how he fights (with his mouth), and he has no track record.
Here it is in more detail. Japan surrendered in 1945 in August. Conditions in China and Korea were already known to be “ready to explode only five weeks later. The Japanese troops (700,000 Japanese troops) in Manchuria (China, actually surrendered to Soviet forces there. This was a Soviet Union that had never set a date to enter the fight against Japan, which it was not at war with. The atomic bomb did not stop the Soviet Union where its leader was known for putting a machine gun at the backs of his own troops (no desertion of troops permitted).
And there is a parallel to think about. There was the Election of 1946 and think about today since the election of 2024 was only weeks ago. The Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives and the Senate after Truman had achieved high ratings and the nation was moving toward normalcy after fighting a war on two fronts. Truman’s popularity decreased even though high inflation predicted by his opponents did not materialize. He was called “High Tax Harry” at a moment when there was labor strife taking place and what really did not sit well with Americans was Truman’s advocacy of civil rights. Racism slapped the Truman administration in its face. Black soldiers coming home wanted equality and did not receive it. The lesson is that all oppression should stop and there really is no oppression of a white majority. No oppression!
Under Trump there will be a lot of oppression as there was from 2017-2021. Securing civil rights in 1946 involved proposed comprehensive civil rights legislation to Congress and ordered antidiscrimination and desegregation throughout the government and armed forces. This work led to antilynching measures and to the desegregation of the Armed Forces in 1948 under Truman.
Everyone needs to be free in this nation. Sanctuary should exist everywhere. Did you know that Jews, Muslims, Black people, homosexuals, and even trans people died in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany? Education matters and we do not need Trump and/or his cohorts to educate US.
There was “domestic backlash” back then, and there is domestic backlash now. Education matters and not just people producing an unjustified backlash. Truth matters and the entire world knows that Trump is lying most of the time.
This is taken from the National Archives related to that Civil Rights Commission in 1946.
THE TIME IS NOW
TWICE BEFORE in American history the nation has found it necessary to review the state of its civil rights. The first time was during the 15 years between 1776 and 1791, from the drafting of the Declaration of Independence through the Articles of Confederation experiment to the writing of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It was then that the distinctively American heritage was finally distilled from earlier views of liberty. The second time was when the Union was temporarily sundered over the question of whether it could exist “half-slave” and “half-free.”
There can be no abortion states and non-abortion states. There can be no sanctuary states and no non-sanctuary states. That kind of nation, which we are right now, must be more educated so that people can be free. There can be no woke states and no non-woke states. The unity that is needed calls for the overthrowing Trumpism quickly and efficiently. More education is badly needed.
Frank Sinatra switched political parties in 1970. I wonder why. You can learn that his affiliation with the Mafia was a big turnoff in the Kennedy Clan, which hardly affected his fan base. I wonder if a biography of Sinatra exists that reveals the changes that led him to switch. Perhaps, he felt that enough had been done about civil rights in 1970. Who knows? I did find Robin Johnson who interviewed Sinatra biographer James Kaplan.
Kaplan was asked about Trump vs. Clinton in 2016 and the closest answer was Clinton and Sinatra had moved to the center or conservative side, especially after supporting Nixon and Reagan. Trump was a no way. Kaplan thought that Sinatra would enjoy the charisma of Bill Clinton. I was looking for deeper reasons besides what happened because of Sinatra’s Mafia connections. It was mentioned that Sinatra was part Sicilian and that to me was not intellectual at all. That was about holding grudges. It seems to me that Sinatra needed more education to stay the liberal Sinatra. Education.