Saturday, April 18, 1998 | 2:38 a.m.
MIKE O'CALLAGHAN is executive editor of the Las Vegas SUN.
TIME MAGAZINE has the annual habit of picking the men or women of the year and, at different times, telling us who is or isn't important. Time's issue of April 13, 1998, continued this display of academic arrogance by naming the most important people of this century.
I find it difficult to disagree with the listing of world leaders and revolutionaries. They are all important and include giants like Winston Churchill, Pope John Paul II, Ben-Gurion, FDR and Theodore Roosevelt. Also listed are some far lesser people who have gained fame because of the historical times more than because of their personal actions.
Time magazine also dedicated a special section, listing the 20th-century presidents according to their effectiveness when in office. If the panel of historians making the selection had considered what each of the 17 presidents did after leaving office, Jimmy Carter would have been listed No. 1 instead of 14.
Although Harry S. Truman was listed No. 4, with FDR, TR and Woodrow Wilson being named Nos. 1, 2 and 3, I believe he should have been listed No. 1 or 2. Also, it's my opinion he should have been among the outstanding world leaders of the 20th century. Certainly, he deserved the honor more than some listed, such as Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher or Eleanor Roosevelt.
Although Reagan and Thatcher attended the final gasps of the Soviet Union and the spread of communism, it was Harry Truman who was the man to first effectively challenge Joe Stalin's USSR.
It was the Truman Doctrine that put forth policies and acted to stop the spread of communism. He told Congress: "It must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. ... This is no more than a frank recognition that totalitarian regimes imposed on free peoples, by direct or indirect aggression, undermine the foundations of international peace and hence the security of the United States."
It was Truman's Marshall Plan that helped a beaten and battered Europe recover from World War II and rebuild a healthy economy. Without this help, many more nations would have succumbed to the scourge of communism. Even countries like Greece and Turkey, where guerrilla activity and military pressure were being applied, Truman gave both economic and military aid. This was then extended into what became NATO, which still exists today.
Then came the Soviet's military move to block access to West Berlin by the United States, Great Britain and France. Truman answered with the Berlin Airlift. This great task went on for 14 months during 1948-49 as hundreds of airplanes brought thousands of tons of supplies into the city every day. War had been averted, and it had a most invigorating effect on the German people. Truman later recalled: "They had closed ranks and applied themselves to the tasks of reconstruction with new vigor. It had turned them sharply against communism. Germany, which had been waiting passively to see where it should cast its lot for the future, was veering toward the cause of the Western nations."
One of President John F. Kennedy's most popular accomplishments was the establishment of a Peace Corps, which still carries American skills and goodwill across the world. Truman's Point Four program called for making "our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement" of underdeveloped nations.
Truman's daughter Margaret later wrote: "Before the program was killed by unimaginative Republicans in the middle 1950s, more than 2,000 Americans from Boston, St. Louis and Seattle and a hundred other towns and cities taught people in Indonesia, Iran and Brazil better ways to grow their food, purify their water, educate their children. When the Democrats returned to office in 1960, Point Four became John F. Kennedy's Peace Corps."
It was Truman who made the tough decision to end WWII by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This action saved at least a million American and Japanese lives. Then, five years later, he used the first strong military force to defend South Korea. This put the USSR on notice that all of our American spirit hadn't left us.
The first use of U.N. military forces came about when Truman brought them together in Korea. Like Desert Storm 40 years later, it was basically a U.S. war waged with the cooperation of other nations. This is the same UN that Truman personally went before the Senate to gain approval for, where eventually it was passed 89-2.
Even when fighting the war in Korea, Truman had to face down a popular general who refused to execute the administration's policies. His removal of Gen. Douglas MacArthur as head of the armed forces in Korea created a political firestorm. This move did more than just remove an insolent general, it also reminded others that our system of government insists on a civilian government and chief executive. Gen. Matthew Ridgeway later wrote: "President Truman's decision should act as a powerful safeguard against the time, in some great future crisis, when perhaps others may be similarly tempted to challenge the right of the president and his advisers to exercise the powers the Constitution grants to them in the formulation of foreign policy."
Not only did Truman face down worldly tyrants, he also challenged the powerful steel and oil barons here at home and battled an aggressive Republican majority to protect working men and women. At the same time, he desegregated the military and brought about universal military training so that all Americans could and would serve their country for a period of time.
Long after Truman was out of office, President Lyndon Johnson flew to Independence, Mo., to sign his Medicare Bill with the former president seated beside him. This had been an important part of Truman's national health policy he had put forth in 1945 soon after taking office.
The United States and the world have had some dynamic leaders and troublemakers during the 20th century. It's my opinion that few accomplished as much and had as great an impact as the man from Missouri who brought humility and down-home values to the White House.
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