TRUMAN (AMERICAN EXPERIENCE)

Details

• Release Year: 2006
• Genre: Documentary, Special Interest
• Plot: He was a farmer, a businessman gone bankrupt, an obscure Missouri politician almost unknown in Washington. Now Harry Truman was President. of all the men who had held the highest office, he was the lead prepared. But he would prove to be a surprise. Incorporating remarkable archival film footage and photographs, a wide range of eyewitness interviews, personal diaries and letters, and new film footage, Truman traces the unlikely rise of a gritty American original. Taking over after Franklin Roosevelt's death shocked the nation, Truman faced some of the biggest crises of the century. He would end the war with Germany, use the atomic bomb against Japan, confront an expanding Soviet Union and wage war in Korea-all while the woman he adored, his wife Bess, refused to stay in the White House and play the role of First Lady. Truman's stubborn determination and Midwestern modesty eventually earned him the admiration of many middle-class Americans, who propelled him to a stunning political upset with the rallying cry ''Give 'Em Hell, Harry.'
• Cast: Charles Babcock, Winston Churchill, Robert Farren, Sue Gentry, Ruth Gruber, Alonzo Hamby, Vernon Jarrett, David McCullough, Vyacheslav Molotov, Tom Pendergast, Victor Reuther, Jason Robards, Joseph Stalin, Bess Truman, Harry S. Truman, Margaret Truman, McKinley Wooden, David Grubin, Nick Davis
• Director: David Grubin
• Runtime: 4:20
• Company: WGBH Boston, PBS Home Video, Paramount Home Video
• Media Format: Series