President Harry S. Truman was close to his friends and associates, had a grin for strangers, but could be less than tolerant of some critics. The famous sign placed on his desk in the Oval Office, “The Buck Stops Here,” made it clear that as president he was responsible for all that happened on his watch. He came to the presidency in the shadow of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, but emerged on his own with a stature that has grown monumentally in the sixty-five years since his retirement.