his victory, the au-thors said, Truman had broken through his "outer shell of submissiveness and ti- midity." Yet, they insisted, the "new" Truman was still a mediocrity-an inept politician and an uninspiring leader.
As surprising as it may seem to Arner- icans who now remember Truman as the jaunty, straight-talking man from Mis- souri, this harsh post-1948 assessment was widely shared at the time. Truman's "approval" rating in the polls never ex- ceeded 32 percent...