Giving Hell To Harry

Growing up in Independence in the late 60's and early 70's you learned to idolize Harry Truman. I've recounted before about being a tiny guy out with my mom shopping on the Independence Square and saying "hello" to the former president out on his daily walk. Yesterday I took my wife and mother-in-law to the Truman Library. It seemed like an Independence Day type thing to do. It's been years since I've been there but I still know my way around enough to make a pretty good docent. For yesterday's festivities there was a Harry Truman impersonator dressed in the president's ever trusty double-breast suit and straw fedora. He remained in character greeting people and welcoming them to "his" library. He was actually very good. I found myself falling in to the fantasy and began telling him my fond childhood memories about waving to Bess from the car window every time we drove by their house. Mrs. Truman used to sit on that porch for hours and would always wave back. I found myself being drawn in even more when the president held a "press conference" with all the visitors in the small auditorium playing the part of the White House Press Corps. People asked about the standard topics; The atomic bomb, Douglas MacArthur, Margaret's singing. It was when someone asked him about Korea that I began to get worked up. It was very difficult listening to the president defending US involvement in Korea. Mr. Truman stated that we did not start that war. It was North Korea invading South Korea that "forced" him to go to war. He maintained that it was crucial to US security to have a free and democratic South Korea. I was grinding my teeth and restraining myself from not asking a follow up question demanding that he explain that logic. I wanted to hear him defend his "containment policy" which would later become known as The Truman Doctrine. I wanted to know why a free and democratic North Korea wasn't also crucial. For that matter why wasn't a free and democratic China? That's pretty much how MacArthur felt. I wanted to know who appointed the US the moral guardian of the world with the sole responsibility of spreading and defending our brand of democracy? His statements about Israel and Korea and West Germany being crucial to American security sounded just like what I hear today about Israel and Afghanistan and Iraq. We're still basing foreign policy on logic from half a century ago. The same logic that brought about McCarthyism and pamphlets telling you to be safe by hiding behind the boiler in the basement in case of a nuclear attack. I guess I'm screwed because we don't have a boiler... In the end I just kept quiet and enjoyed the day. Probably a good thing. If I'd started complaining about US involvement overseas somebody might have mistaken me for a Democrat. Or a Republican. Which is it? The lines are so blurry these days...