Harry S. Truman

Born 8 May 1884 in Lamar and died December 6, 1972 in Independence, both towns in the state of Missouri.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt chose him as his Vice President in 1944. When Roosevelt died, Truman became President.

It was he who ordered the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and three days later on Nagasaki, barbarous acts of terrorism that caused 220,000 deaths in the first minute following the blast. Tens of thousands of victims have died since then due to the radioactive contamination unleashed by these explosions.

During his term in office (1944-1952), following the conclusion of World War II, the Cold War began, pitting the capitalist powers led by U.S. imperialism against the Soviet Union and the infant socialist world. This confrontation had world-wide consequences and was reflected in U.S. relations with nations in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In the final days of the world war, the Truman administration achieved the institutionalization of the Inter American System, under an imperial aegis, during the meeting in Chapultepec, Mexico between February and March of 1945. The hemispheric agreements which were adopted were immediately implemented, in one way or another, by U.S. power sectors, setting up a close alliance with local oligarchies so that their violent multi-faceted counter-offensive on social concerns and progressive forms of expression would be legitimized. This was brought together under the so-called Truman Doctrine which ratified the imposition of the Monroe Doctrine on Latin America. Under the Truman administration, the U.S. brought about the signing of the Inter American Reciprocal Assistance Treaty (RIO Treaty), blessing Yankee interventionism on the continent, supporting coups in Brazil, Paraguay and Venezuela, fostering the repression of communist and socialist parties and welcoming with open arms such well-known despots as Anastasio Somoza and Rafael Leonidas Trujillo.

Under its mandate, the Central Intelligence Agency was established in 1967; it became one of the most famous promoters of State terrorism in a myriad of variations on a world wide scale.