Roosevelt died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, 1945, leaving Truman and the public in shock. Truman told reporters the day after taking the oath of office that he felt as if “the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen” on him and asked them to pray for him. He was hardly, however, as scholars have noted, a political naïf. Although he had no foreign policy experience, he was a capable administrator of large bureaucracies and a skilled politician who knew how to use the press to his purposes. Truman was sworn in as president on ...(100 of 2318 words)