Harry S. Truman

Truman ordered the desegregation of the armed forces and fair employment in the federal service in 1948, and commissioned the report To Secure These Rights, the first presidential civil rights programme. He also vetoed the McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950, which Congress passed over his veto. Yet his own 1947 loyalty programme screened millions of federal employees for 'disloyalty' on thin evidence, laying groundwork for McCarthyism. Both sides of the record matter.