Truman in Berlin
Posted: Thursday, July 24, 2008 3:45 PM by Sam Singal
By Andy Franklin, Senior producer
A lot of the discussion around Barack Obama's speech in Berlin today has mentioned historic visits to that city by two American presidents: John F. Kennedy, declaring himself a citizen of Berlin at the height of the Cold War on June 26, 1963, and Ronald Reagan, calling for an end to that war and the destruction of its most potent symbol -- the Berlin Wall -- on June 12, 1987. But there's another presidential visit worth remembering: Harry S. Truman's trip to Berlin in July 1945.
President Truman came to Berlin to participate in the Potsdam Conference -- the "Big Three" summit between the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union, just weeks after the defeat of Nazi Germany. Truman, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin met on the outskirts of a city shattered by war to map out the postwar world, and to issue a final ultimatum to Imperial Japan. The decisions they made at Potsdam helped define the world we live in to this day.
It was a hopeful moment. The United States was emerging from the wreckage of World War II as a newborn superpower, and it fell to Truman to describe the role his country hoped to take in the world in the years to come -- to tell the world, in effect, what kind of country the United States of America intended to be. He did so 63 years ago this week, in characteristically plain-spoken remarks at the U.S. headquarters in Berlin. The occasion was the raising of the American flag -- the same flag, it turns out, that had been flying over the U.S. Capitol the day Pearl Harbor was attacked.
Here is what Truman said that day:
"This is an historic occasion. We have conclusively proven that a free people can successfully look after the affairs of the world. We are here today to raise the flag of victory over the capital of our greatest adversary. In doing that, we must remember that in raising that flag we are raising it in the name of the people of the United States, who are looking forward to a better world, a peaceful world, a world in which all the people will have an opportunity to enjoy the good things of life, and not just a few at the top. Let us not forget that we are fighting for peace, and for the welfare of mankind. We are not fighting for conquest. We want peace and prosperity for the world as a whole. We want to see the time come when we can do the things in peace that we have been able to do in war. If we can put this tremendous machine of ours, which has made this victory possible, to work for peace we can look forward to the greatest age in the history of mankind. That is what we propose to do."
-- President Harry S. Truman, July 20, 1945
