Harry S. Truman (1884 – 1972), the 33rd President of the United States, succeeded to the presidency in 1945, when Roosevelt died. Truman ordered the use of atomic weapons against Japan--on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing tens of thousands of civilians. In the aftermath of World War II, tensions with the Soviet Union increased, marking the start of the Cold War. Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947, which created the Department of Defense, the CIA and the National Security Council. The escalation of the Cold War was highlighted by Truman's approval of NCS-68, which called for tripling the defense budget, the globalization and militarization of containment, and mobilization of the U.S. economy to build armaments faster than the Soviets. When North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, he immediately sent in U.S. troops for the Korean War, which was a frustrating stalemate for two years, with over 30,000 Americans killed, until the armistice of 1953.
