death on 12 April 1945, he was sworn in as the nation’s 33rd president.
In 1948, President Truman won reelection despite widespread predic-
tions of his defeat.
President Truman’s domestic programs were generally nonmemo-
rable but included desegregating the armed forces; forbidding racial
discrimination in federal employment; and encouraging the U.S.
Supreme Court to hear cases brought by plaintiffs fighting against
segregation.
President Truman’s foreign policy had a lasting impact on Amer-
ica’s Cold War posture. He oversaw the end of World War IIin Eu-
rope; approved the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan on 6 and
9 August 1945; accepted the resulting Japanese surrender; presided
over the founding of the United Nations; and took the first steps in
countering the emerging threat from the Soviet Union. Although he
dismantled the wartime Office of Strategic Services (OSS), Truman
established the National Intelligence Authority (NIA) in 1946,
which led to the drafting of the National Security Act of 1947 and
the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on 18 Sep-
tember 1947.
President Truman firmly believed in blocking Soviet expansion. The
Truman Doctrinewas a manifestation of this belief, through which
the United States pledged to provide military aid to countries resisting
communist insurgencies. In addition, the Marshall Plan sought to re-
vive the war-torn economies of European nations in the hope that com-
munism would not thrive in the midst of prosperity. President Truman
was also instrumental in the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Or-
ganization(NATO) in 1949, which enunciated the doctrine of collec-
tive defense against possible Soviet military incursions into Europe. He
also waged an undeclared but United Nations (UN)–approved war
against communist forces that, in June 1950, had invaded South Korea.TRUST (OPERATION).Operation Trust was a covert deception opera-
tion initiated in 1923 by Soviet intelligence against Western intelligence
services. It created a phony White Russian group called the Monarchist
Association of Central Russia, which succeeded in passing itself off to
Western governments as an anti-Bolshevik resistance group operating
inside the Soviet Union. At a time when the Bolshevik regime was
starved for hard currency, the intelligence services of Britain, France,206 • TRUST (OPERATION)05-398 (2) Dictionary.qxd 10/20/05 6:27 AM Page 206