Truman could recall as a young man reading avidly of Woodrow Wilson’s attempts to convince Congress to embrace the treaty of the League of Nations, after World War I. The League of Nations would save the world from future wars, Wilson argued. But Wilson failed in his mission to get Congress on board, and the League of Nations failed, as a result. The league’s collapse crushed Wilson physically (he suffered a stroke) and—many believed—had a great deal to do with the war now being fought all over the world.
It did
