Public Papers of the Presidents: Harry S. Truman 1948: Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the Presidents; January 1 to December 31, 1948.

After serving as a United States Senator from Missouri (1935–45) and briefly as Vice President (1945), Harry S. Truman succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Germany surrendered on Truman's 61st birthday, just a few weeks after he assumed the presidency, but the war with Imperial Japan raged on and was expected to last at least another year. Truman approved the use of atomic bombs to end the fighting and to spare the millions of American and Japanese lives that would inevitably be lost in the planned invasion of Japan and Japanese-held islands in the Pacific. Although this decision and the numerous issues that arose as a result of it remain the subject of debate to this day, it was one of the principal factors that forced Japan's unconditional surrender. Truman presided over an unexpected surge in economic prosperity as America sought readjustment after long years of depression and war. His presidency was a turning point in foreign affairs, as the United States engaged in an internationalist foreign policy and renounced isolationism. Truman helped found the United Nations in 1945, issued the Truman Doctrine in 1947 to contain Communism, and got the $13 billion Marshall Plan enacted to rebuild Western Europe. His political coalition was based on the white South, labor unions, farmers, ethnic groups, and traditional Democrats across the North. Truman was able to rally these groups of supporters during the 1948 presidential election and win a surprise victory that secured a presidential term in his own right.