The Presidents. Truman

Additional Details

Originally broadcast on PBS as a segment of The American Experience.

DVD special feature Teacher's guide (PDF).

Introduction -- New life -- Opportunities -- War and peace -- Senator Truman -- Road to the White House -- New President -- End of the war -- Bomb -- Credits

Introduction -- Crisis at home -- Seeds of the Cold War -- New policies -- Truman defeats Dewey -- Korean War -- Truman vs. MacArthur -- Citizen Truman -- Credits

Narrated by Jason Robards; commentators Victor G. Reuther, David McCullough, Vernon Jarrett, Alonzo Hamby, Charles Babcock, Sue Gentry, McKinley Wooden, Ruth Gruber, Ken Hechler, Walt Bodine, Wilbur D. Sparks, Patricia Hannegan Roll, Harry Byrd, Robert Jay Lifton, Robert J. Donovan, Walter LaFeber, Marshall D. Shulman, Barton Bernstein, George M. Elsey, Stuart Canin, Clark Clifford, Nelson Lichtenstein, Rex Scouten, Norwood C. Williams, Lucius D. Battle, Ellen W. Schrecker, Dorothy I. Height, Marian Norby, Vernon Walters, Edwin H. Simmons, Floyd M. Boring, Paul Hume.

The story of the unlikely rise of a gritty American original, Harry Truman. He was a farmer, a bankrupt businessman, an unknown politician from Missouri who suddenly found himself president. Of all the men who had held America's highest office, Harry Truman was the least prepared, but he would prove to be a surprise. Facing some of the biggest crises of the century, Truman would end the war with Germany, use the atomic bomb against Japan, confront an expanding Soviet Union and wage war in Korea-all while the woman he adored, his wife Bess, refused to stay in the White House and play the role of First Lady.

DVD; Region 1, NTSC; 5.1 surround.

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