Harry Truman—a failed retailer, failed farmer, failed zinc miner, failed oil driller, and senator held on a leash by local Missouri businessmen—was almost universally panned when he became president after Franklin Roosevelt died. The Washington Post wrote: “We should be less than candid at this grave moment if we did not recognize the great disparity between Mr. Truman’s experience and the responsibilities that have been thrust upon him.” David McCullough wrote: “To many it was not just that the greatest of men had fallen, but that the least of men—or at any rate the least likely of men—had
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