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JFK Assassination: One Month After JFK’s Murder, Former President Harry Truman Called For Abolishing The CIA One month to the day after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, former President Harry Truman recommended that the U.S. abolish the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In an op-ed column published in the Washington Post on Dec. 22, 1963, Truman never linked the CIA to President Kennedy’s murder, but the timing of the explicit and strongly worded column and complaint implied a connection. “For some time I have been disturbed by the way the CIA has been...

As Congress continues investigations of the IRS and the Justice Department, some have noted that the scandals now plaguing President Barack Obama are hauntingly parallel to those that bedeviled another Democratic president following his re-election. Following his dramatic come-from-behind win in the 1948 election, Harry Truman was plagued by charges of corruption in the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Department of Justice. The corruption and appearance of lax prosecution cost President Truman and the Democrats dearly. In his "Harry Truman and the Crisis Presidency," historian Bert Cochran wrote, "The moral fiber of the Truman administration had been called into...

And President Truman has been proven wrong. The great and honorable legacy of President Truman is the United States being the first nation to officially recognize the re-establishment of the State of Israel.But with regard to his handling of the illegal Chinese military involvement and attack against U.S. and allied troops in Korea, Truman was flat out wrong.The following is from the fourth chapter entiltled "Korea" in the book written by General Douglas MacArthur- "Revitalizing A Nation":["While I was not consulted prior to the President's decision to intervene in support of the Republic of Korea, that decision, from a...

CVN 75, scheduled to deploy this week, cancelled. The Pentagon this afternoon released a statement announcing the delay of the deployment of the USS Harry S. Truman and the USS Gettysburg. The carriers were scheduled to leave Norfolk later this week. Below is a portion of the released statement of Pentagon Press Secretary George Little: "The secretary of defense has delayed the deployment of the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) and the USS Gettysburg (CG-64). "Facing budget uncertainty -- including a continuing resolution and the looming potential for across-the-board sequestration cuts -- the U.S. Navy made this request to the...

On this day in 1950, in anticipation of a crippling strike by railroad workers, President Harry S. Truman issues an executive order putting America's railroads under the control of the U.S. Army, as of August 27, at 4:00 pm. Truman had already intervened in another railway dispute when union employees of the Chicago, North Shore and Milwaukee Railway Company threatened to strike in 1948. This time, however, Truman's intervention was critical, as he had just ordered American troops into a war against North Korean communist forces in June. Since much of America's economic and defense infrastructure was dependent upon the...

TOKYO — Japan marked the 67th anniversary of its World War II surrender with a somber ceremony in the capital Wednesday, while renewed tension over territorial disputes and animosity over its wartime actions heated up across the region. Renewing Japan’s pledge to maintain its war-renouncing policy, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda mourned for the war dead and apologized to victims of Japanese wartime atrocities. “We have caused tremendous damage and pain to many countries, particularly the Asian people, during the war. We deeply regret that and sincerely mourn for those who were sacrificed and their relatives,” Noda said. “We will not...

Today is the 67th anniversary of the US's bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. As with each anniversary, many Japanese hold a ceremony designed to promote peace and prevent the use of nuclear weapons. It is hard to judge these people, as the bombing is of course regrettable, but like the Austrians and Italians, these people have a convenient lapse in memory regarding their culpability in WWII. Most regrettable, however is the attendance of Pres. Truman's grandson at the event. While Clifton Daniel stopped short of decrying his grandfather's leadership in the decision to end the war, his presence was a blithe...

Clifton Truman Daniel will visit Japan from August 2, and attend ceremonies in Hiroshima August 6, and Nagasaki on August 9, according to Kyodo News as reported in the Nihon Keizai Shinbun. It is the first time a member of the late president’s family will attend the ceremonies, and will holds a deep symbolic meaning for the Japanese. Public papers from his time in office reveal a man with no regrets about using the A-bomb, but his grandson told Kyodo News that the late-president was horrified by the destructive power of the Bomb.

Edwin M. Truman explains why the spreading LIBOR scandal has the potential of raising new doubts over the reputations for honesty of many large financial institutions.

You should be sitting down. The skies just might open. Glorious Leader has spoken his first words of truth while bungling Harry Truman's famous quote. "Well, here's what I know, we were just talking about responsibility and as president of the United States, it's pretty clear to me that I'm responsible for folks who are working in the federal government and you know, Harry Truman said the buck stops with you," Obama said. "The Buck stops with YOU !" Does it ever; about $140,000 per taxpayer on our $16 trillion dollar debt. In actuality, a 'one-percenter' is on the hook...

With bland, hapless Michigan-born Mitt Romney betraying a greater likeness each day to bland, hapless Michigan-born Thomas E. Dewey, the comparisons of 2012’s presidential marathon to 1948’s Dewey-Truman match-up slog steadily forward—with the latest installment arriving on our doorstep in the form of tonight’s State of the Union Address. Like many a politician before him, Barack Obama preaches a lilting bi-partisanship but practices a harsh partisanship. Predictions that his 2012 State of the Union Address will in reality be a campaign roadmap are near universal. In this instance, once again, “Give ‘Em Hell” Barry, scold of the “Do Nothing 112th...

As the election for the presidency starts to heat up, the discussion if Barack Obama is a natural born citizen is also heating up. The Supreme Court case Minor v Happersett is being used as the main case to declare Obama not natural born in growing state ballot challenges to his candidacy. What I have noticed in the heated arguments on many political forum boards lately is that Obama supporters are countering Minor v Happersett with the Indiana case Ankeny v Daniels. That case declares this: "Based upon the language of Article II, Section 1, Clause 4 and the guidance...

Harry Truman is the one president widely admired today who was generally reviled in his own times. There was no cult of personality around Truman while he was in the White House; to the contrary, he eventually logged the lowest approval ratings in Gallup’s history, just nudging out Richard Nixon on the eve of resignation. His legislative record was anemic. He failed to curb the anti-communist fervor known as McCarthyism, and the carnage of the Korean War is part of his resume. The fact Truman endures is a testament to two factors: the first, his exemplary decision to assert American...

"Mr. Truman's St. Paul, Minn., pie for everybody speech last night reminded us that at the tail end of the recent session of Congress, Representative Clarence J. Brown (R-Ohio) jammed into the Congressional Record the following poem describing its author only as a prominent Democrat of the State of Georgia."

President Obama's slow ride down Gallup's daily presidential job approval index has finally passed below Jimmy Carter, earning Obama the worst job approval rating of any president at this stage of his term in modern political history. Since March, Obama's job approval rating has hovered above Carter's, considered among the 20th century's worst presidents, but today Obama's punctured Carter's dismal job approval line. On their comparison chart, Gallup put Obama's job approval rating at 43 percent compared to Carter's 51 percent.

In the spirit of the recent holiday, among the many things for which Americans should be thankful is a political decision made more than 67 years ago as the Second World War was beginning to wind down and as the nation’s voters prepared for a presidential election. It was one of Franklin Roosevelt’s finest moments of decision, though admittedly, one he exercised reluctantly. By 1944, FDR was living on borrowed time. It was a hardly a secret that health issues he had been dealing with were reaching critical mass, though only a few insiders had any idea as to the...

Give 'Em Hell, BarryThe new model for Obama: Truman vs. the "do-nothing Congress" Recently both First Lady Michelle Obama and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis went to the key swing state of Florida to blast the president’s adversaries. For the first lady, Obama’s opponents were concerned only with “the few at the top” and care little for racial, gender, or class justice. For Solis, the sexually derogatory term “tea-bagger” summed up the wave of 2010 that for a while stopped Obama’s attempts to borrow more money in order to stimulate the moribund economy. Apparently Harry Truman’s unforeseen win in 1948 against...

For all of the recent comparisons made between Barack Obama seeking reelection in 2012 to Harry Truman in his stunning upset win of 1948, there are some sharp differences, and pundits should be more careful in saying "Give 'em Hell Harry" can be replicated next year by "Give 'Em Hell Barry." That was the conclusion last week of a respected historian who has written three books exploring important presidential years. David Pietrusza, author of the widely praised books "1960" and "1920" on the presidential elections of those years, was in Washington, D.C., to appear on the weekly C-SPAN documentary, "The...

It’s often been said that Barack Obama is an audacious leader. But perhaps it's better to consider the possibility that he is just a politician who lacks a sense of irony, at least when it comes to himself. For example, last weekend in Detroit, the president said: The time for Washington games is over. The time for action is now. No more manufactured crises. No more games. Now is not the time for the people you sent to Washington to worry about their jobs; now is the time for them to worry about your jobs. This would perhaps be a...