Truman's failure

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

President Harry Truman and Henry Grady at a dinner, October 1952. (Courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.)

The jacket of journalist John Judis’ new book features a photo of Harry Truman, placed so that only one of his eyes stares out from the cover. This is probably meant to signify the president’s failure to see clearly the morass into which his misguided Middle Eastern policy would ultimately lead the United States. But Truman is guilty, according to Judis, not only of a failure of perception. He deserves blame for lending his nation’s support to a movement that was most unworthy of it. continue