The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World

April 12, 1945, a day that would change the world immensely, began like any other. Vice President Harry Truman, a notoriously early riser, awoke at dawn in the modest Washington, DC, apartment that he shared with his wife Bess, daughter Margaret, and mother-in-law. After breakfast, he left to meet his Secret Service detail (he was the first vice president to have one), and went to his office at the Senate Office Building. Truman’s work was typically not very heavy, as his only official role was president of the Senate, and he had never voted to break a tie in the senate until two days previously. He met an old friend and local businessman for lunch, making plans to play poker and drink whiskey later that night.

In Europe, Allied forces were reaching the outskirts of Berlin, and General Dwight Eisenhower (later to be Truman’s successor as president) visited the Ohrdurf death camp, revealing that the horrors of the Nazi regime were not just Allied propaganda. In the Pacific, a fierce battle was underway for control of Okinawa, and the 21st Bomber Command, based on the Mariana Islands, conducted another incendiary raid on Tokyo, annihilating a vast portion of the city around an aircraft factory.