Say what you will about Truman (and the man did have his flaws, errors, and mistakes), it didn't kill him to be out of step with the crowd (Obama could take a lesson from him).
Truman was a typical man of his times - early twentieth century - a go-getter, decisive, untroubled by action, and not over-burdened with worry about others' opinions of him. He was the antithesis of modern politicians, such as Jimmy Carter, John Kerry, and Barack Obama, all of whom demonstrate Hamlet-like traits of blowing with the wind of others' opinions.
Truman had confidence in what he knew and believed. He had no pretensions to intellectual posturing; but he wasn't cowed by highly educated "experts". The State Department couldn't bully him into not recognizing Israel - it must have driven them CRAZY. Think of the State Department's groupthink mentality at that time - there WERE Communists in the Dept. - the Verona Papers, released when the Soviet Union collapsed, prove that decisively. Those who weren't members of the Party often shared similar philosophies - bowing to world opinion, eschewing moral imperatives for expediency, towing the "good liberal" line. State was a gathering place for effete elitists, who revelled in the atmosphere of the Ivy "in crowd".
How they hated him - and how he disdained them.
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