With Franklin Roosevelt¿s death in April of 1945, Vice President Harry Truman and Senator Arthur Vandenberg, the Republican leader on foreign policy, inherited a world in turmoil. With Europe flattened and the Soviets emerging as America¿s new adversary, Truman and Vandenberg built a tight partnership with one another to address the challenges at hand. Working in strong bipartisan fashion at a bitterly partisan time, they crafted a dramatic new foreign policy through which the United States stepped boldly onto the world stage for the first time to protect its friends, confront its enemies, and promote freedom. These two men¿unlikely partners by way of personality and style¿transformed the United States from a reluctant global giant to a self-confident leader; from a nation that traditionally turned inward after war to one that remained engaged to shape the post-war landscape; and from a nation with no real military establishment to one that now spends more on defense than the next dozen nations combined. Lawrence J. Haas, an award-wining journalist, reveals how, through the close collaboration of Truman and Vandenberg, the United States created the United Nations to replace the League of Nations, pursued the Truman Doctrine to defend freedom from Communist threat, launched the Marshall Plan to rescue Western Europe¿s economy from the devastation of war, and established NATO to defend Western Europe.

Acknowledgments     Prologue: April 1945     Introduction: Harry and Arthur     Part 1: “A Victory against War Itself”      1: “President Wilson Tried to Work Out a Way”      2: “We May Perfect This Charter of Peace and Justice”      3: “As Dumb as They Come”      4: “Sensible Machinery for the Settlement of Disputes”      5: “America Wins!”      6: “A Solid Structure upon Which We Can Build”      Part 2: “To Support Free Peoples” 7: “What Is Russia Up To Now?”      8: “The Russians Are Trying to Chisel Away a Little Here, a Little There”      9: “Halfbright”      10: “Vandenberg Expressed His Complete Agreement with Me”      11: “The President’s Message Faces Facts”      12: “The Administration Made a Colossal Blunder in Ignoring the UN”      Part 3: “The World Situation Is Very Serious” 13: “Desperate Men Are Liable to Destroy the Structure of Their Society”      14: “I Have No Illusions about This So-Called ‘Marshall Plan’”      15: “The Perils of Hunger and Cold in Europe”      16: “The Commies Will Be Completely Back in the Saddle”      17: “A Problem Which They Themselves Must Meet”      18: “A Welcome Beacon in the World’s Dark Night”      Part 4: “An Attack against Them All” 19: “Their Hope Must Lie in This New World of Ours”      20: “A Sound Answer to Several Critical Necessities”      21: “Nothing Will Be Done without Consultation with You”      22: “Politics Shall Stop at the Water’s Edge”      23: “The Most Sensible, Powerful, Practicable, and Economical Step”      24: “The Senate Has Lost a Pillar of Strength”      Epilogue: A Look Ahead     Notes     Bibliography     Index