Heartland Politics with Robin Johnson

Harry Truman's First 120 Days: "No Other President Faced So Consequential A Start To Their Term"

By Robin Johnson

Published August 21, 2026 at 11:00 PM CDT

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New York Times best selling author AJ Baime talks about his book, The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World. He discusses Truman's unlikely rise to the presidency, detailed looks at the day FDR died and Truman's first day as president, and the many events taking place early in his presidency including the fall of Berlin, the founding of the UN, victory at Okinawa, firebombings in Tokyo, the first atomic explosion, the Nazi surrender, the liberation of concentration camps, the Potsdam conference, the decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the surrender of Japan, the end of WWII and the beginning of the Cold War.

Heartland Politics with Robin Johnson

Robin Johnson

Robin A. Johnson is a governmental relations, public policy and political consultant. He is an expert on government reform issues and has consulted with numerous local governments on consolidation/merger, public-private partnerships and full-cost accounting of public services. Robin has also helped candidates win elections for the U.S. Senate, U.S. Congress, state legislature, judiciary and local government. Robin served as a consultant to the Office of Statewide Performance Review in the Illinois Governor’s Office and is former director of the Illinois Center for Competitive Government, a partnership between the Illinois Comptroller’s Office and the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs at Western Illinois University. Prior to that, he was Director of the Local Government Affairs Division of the Illinois Comptroller’s Office. Robin served on the Board of Directors of the National Council for Public-Private Partnerships (NCPPP) in 1999-2000.

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