Harry S. Truman Quotes

… the first armed aggression which the world has seen since the end of the war.

Malicious attacks on the Soviet Union produce a natural feeling of indignation.

Do we really want a world in which every country feels entitled to attack any other that might someday threaten it?

We will not allow other countries to use our soil as a battleground.

During the early Cold War, Truman concluded that inter‐branch deliberations over war and peace were luxuries the country could not afford. The constant threat of Soviet aggression meant that the nation was already at war, and to protect the country, the president had to have the unilateral power to act, with force if necessary, anywhere in the world. Every post‐war president has advanced some version of this claim to justify military action unauthorized by Congress.

Every Conservative desires peace. The threat to peace comes from Communism which has powerful forces ready to attack anywhere. Communism waits for weakness, it leaves strength alone. Britain must therefore be strong, strong in her arms, strong in her faith, strong in her own way of life.

If we let Korea down, the Soviet[s] will keep right on going and swallow up one [place] after another.

NATO's brutal military alliance has become the most perfidious instrument of repression known in the history of humankind.

We probably haven't seen the variety and diversity of threats to Americans' safety and well-being and our national security in a long, long time. Some have said it almost makes you yearn for the Cold War days when you knew who the bad guys were and who the good guys were, and there was a wall dividing us.

The safety and security of all Americans is at stake in Ukraine and anywhere that our adversaries threaten the cause of freedom.

It is impossible to work out a reduction in nuclear threat as long as one side is going all out to demonize the other.

No matter what President Trump says, Russia is an adversary and a threat - look no further than their invasion of Crimea.

America is carrying out policies against Russia and its leadership. They know I'm among those ready to give my life for Russia and that I have a good army capable of attacking and defending. We'll see who comes out on top.

And most worryingly, it wouldn't surprise me if Putin ends up starting a major military conflict with the West at some point in the future to save his own skin as head of state in Russia.

I don't worry about superpower confrontation. You know, I lived through the Cold War days, and where everybody was worried about a Soviet Union armed to the teeth. I think we're going to get along fine with Russia, and I don't see them as internationally ambitious.

Iraq's invasion of Kuwait is a case of bad men doing wrong things for wicked reasons. This is the full-sized or standard purebred evil and is easily recognized even by moral neophytes. Other malignities-drugs in America, famine in Africa and everything in the Middle East-are more complex. When combating those evils people sometimes have trouble deciding whom to shoot.

I think Russia is dangerous, not a superpower. I know what the president is trying to say. I worked for him for five years, not just two.He doesn't want us to overreact. He doesn't want to go back to the Cold War and some superpower competition. But my own view, and I think General Mattis stated something similar today, is that Russia is a challenge for the United States. It is a threat to some of our allies.

Would the Iraq War have occurred without WMD? I doubt it.

North Korea announced that they have nuclear weapons and they have no plans to give them up. The White House, acting quickly, announced their plan to invade Iran.

Think about it: Iran, Cuba, Venezuela - these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us.

In my generation, this was not the first occasion when the strong had attacked the weak.Communism was acting in Korea just as Hitler, Mussolini, and the Japanese had acted ten, fifteen, and twenty years earlier. I felt certain that if South Korea was allowed to fall, Communist leaders would be emboldened to override nations closer to our own shores.

We shouldn't overdramatize the current disagreements with the Russians. They are real, but they're not really all that threatening. And the notion that we're moving back to some Cold War I think is really an exaggerated judgment.

President Roosevelt and President Truman and President Eisenhower had the same experience, they all made the effort to get along with the Russians. But every time, finally it failed. And the reason it failed was because the Communists are determined to destroy us, and regardless of what hand of friendship we may hold out or what arguments we may put up, the only thing that will make that decisive difference is the strength of the United States.

The fact is that we have been consistent in a predictable 60-year commitment to national security, while our friends and former enemies - by intent or default - have followed different paths since 1989. We stayed mostly the same as they became hypopowers that, to take a small example, would and could do nothing should a madman in Korea wish to kill millions.

In contrast, Western historians, and those in South Korea, say the North attacked the South on June 25, 1950. Both sides agree that after the war began, the North Korean Army captured Seoul in three days and pushed as far south as Pusan before American troops arrived to drive back the North Koreans nearly as far north as the border to China.