Harry Truman had been Vice President for less than 3 months when news came from Georgia the President was dead.
He felt the "whole weight of the moon and the stars" were now on his shoulders. Allied troops were nearing Berlin and U.S. bombers had begun the destruction of Tokyo from the air. In his first military briefing the generals expected the war in Europe to last another 6 months and estimated the Pacific war to last another year and a half.
In San Francisco, world leaders were scheduled to meet to begin the formation "of a United Nations" that would create a framework for a long lasting peace. The Russians said they would attend, then broke their promise as they had done with every other promise they had made throughout the war. In a few days, Truman would be briefed in detail on what he had only known as "a great explosion" during his time as a Senator.
---
It's nearly impossible for us to imagine today what it must have been like for the whole world to be at war. Everything in chaos and seemingly upside down. Millions of people would depend upon the decisions of a single man, now and well into the future. Yet somehow, the hand of destiny delivered to us Harry S Truman, in many ways an accidental President, but exactly the right man for the job at that point in history.
I think about Truman today and how the stars somehow aligned, almost by some random and haphazard way, to deliver the right man for the job. President Trump was the longest of long shots to sit in the Oval Office just a short time ago. Yet here he sits by some sort of fluke or happenstance I'll most likely never understand. And he must feel the weight of the world upon his shoulders.
Although Trump was never my own personal choice for leader of the free world, I can't help but wonder if the stars once again magically aligned to deliver exactly the right man for exactly this point in history. We've seen it before.
