Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal expressed the feelings of many who had to deal with the Soviet Union and its behavior in Europe as he complained that

„whenever an American tries to protect U.S. security, ‘he is apt to be called a god-damned fascist or imperialist. [But] if Uncle Joe [Stalin] suggests he needs the Baltic Provinces, half of Poland, all of Bessarabia, and access to the Mediterranean [through Turkey], all hands agree that he is a fine, frank, candid and generally delightful fellow who is very easy to deal with because he is so explicit in what he wants.“[290]

Now, it was Harry S. Truman who had to deal with this fellow. Born in 1884 as a child of a Missouri farmer’s family, he could not afford tuition for college. After some hapless attempts to open his own business, he served ‘with distinction’ in World War I and became active in local politics. In 1934 he was elected Senator of Missouri and served for the Democrats in Congress. In the 1944 presidential elec- tions he was chosen as Roosevelt’s running-mate. After the death of Roosevelt,
Truman was sworn in as president of the United States.[291]  His predecessor had not given him any instruction in foreign policy at all and the insecure ‘rookie’ depended on the advice of more experienced advisers. Roosevelt had not even told his vice-president the exact results of his summit talks. Truman was always afraid of appearing too ‘weak’ or ‘insecure’ and thus favored being a tone too harsh than a tone too mild.[292]

   The nation Truman took over from Roosevelt was ever more self-confident. The depression had been overcome, the Constitution and democracy were still the two fundaments the Republic and the country were built on. In a great effort, the United States had turned around the fate of the war and won on two fronts more than half- way around the globe from America. America’s navy was as large as all other navies combined, 100,000 planes were at disposition to protect the United States and it possessed bases all around the globe. The United States produced 50% of the world’s goods and services.[293]  However, Paul Kennedy objects that „weil der Rest der Welt nach dem Krieg entweder so erschöpft war oder sich immer noch im Zustand kolonialer ‘Unterentwicklung’ befand, war die amerikanische Macht 1945 -in Ermangelung eines besseren Begriffs - künstlich so hoch wie beispielsweise die britische um 1815.“[294] (transl.: the rest of world being either so exhausted or still in the state of colonial 'under-development', American power in 1945 was - lacking any better expression - artificially as high as i.e. British power around 1815. -B.Wahler)

   But the question was not how great America’s power was - it was tremendous - but how it would react to the challenges it had to meet and how it would perceive its challenger.