Maurice Hinchey: “I am very happy to say a few words in strong support of H.R. 3639, the legislation to name the State Department building…”

“I am very happy to say a few words in strong support of H.R. 3639, the legislation to name the State Department building for President Harry S. Truman. It is a most appropriate tribute to our 33rd President to engrave his name on the building that houses our diplomatic corps. Harry Truman, as we all know, rose from humble beginnings to become the leader of our Nation during a time of great crisis. When Franklin Roosevelt died 80 days into his fourth term, his Vice President had been ill-prepared to take over. Not part of Roosevelt's inner circle, Truman had to learn most of his foreign policy on the fly. The country was still at war in Europe and the Pacific, the atomic bomb was being developed in secret, and Joseph Stalin was backing away from the agreements reached at Yalta. Barely within Truman's first month in office, Germany surrendered. While confronting the need to rebuild Europe and control Stalinist governments in Yugoslavia and Poland, the new President also had to wage war in the Pacific. When Japan refused unconditional surrender, Truman had to decide whether to keep fighting by conventional means, which course he knew would cost hundreds of thousands of American and Japanese lives, or to use the atomic weapon. After weighing the cost of prolonging the war, he opted to drop a devastating bomb he did not even know existed 4 months earlier.”