<P> During the 1948 presidential campaign, Truman defended his decision to deploy atomic bombs during the war: </P> <P> As President of the United States, I had the fateful responsibility of deciding whether or not to use this weapon for the first time . It was the hardest decision I ever had to make . But the President cannot duck hard problems--he cannot pass the buck . I made the decision after discussions with the ablest men in our Government, and after long and prayerful consideration . I decided that the bomb should be used in order to end the war quickly and save countless lives--Japanese as well as American . </P> <P> Truman continued to strongly defend himself in his memoirs in 1955--56, stating that many lives could have been lost had the U.S. invaded mainland Japan without the atomic bombs . In 1963, he stood by his decision, telling a journalist that "it was done to save 125,000 youngsters on the U.S. side and 125,000 on the Japanese side from getting killed and that is what it did . It probably also saved a half million youngsters on both sides from being maimed for life ." </P> <P> The end of World War II was followed by an uneasy transition from war to a peacetime economy . The costs of the war effort had been enormous, and Truman was intent on diminishing military services as quickly as possible to curtail the government's military expenditures . The effect of demobilization on the economy was unknown, proposals were met with skepticism and resistance, and fears existed that the nation would slide back into depression . In Roosevelt's final years, Congress began to reassert legislative power and Truman faced a congressional body where Republicans and conservative southern Democrats formed a powerful voting bloc . </P>

Who was the president for most of the 1950s