James F. Byrnes

James F. Byrnes served as Secretary of State under Harry S. Truman from July 1945 to January 1947. A South Carolina politician who had served in the House, Senate, and Supreme Court, he became a central administrator of economic mobilization during the Second World War. He attended Yalta with Franklin D. Roosevelt before Truman selected him to lead the department. ¹

Byrnes joined Truman at the Potsdam Conference shortly after taking office. He then negotiated with Allied governments in London and Moscow over the peace settlement and the future of former enemy states. These meetings took place as cooperation with the Soviet Union deteriorated and disagreements over occupation, reparations, and political control became harder to resolve. ¹

He supported the use of the atomic bomb against Japan, linking his service to the final decisions of the Pacific war as well as to the opening of the Cold War. His diplomatic freedom narrowed as disagreements with Truman developed over the handling of Soviet relations. The department received George Kennan’s Long Telegram during Byrnes’s tenure, part of the reassessment of Soviet intentions that informed subsequent policy. Byrnes resigned in January 1947 and later became governor of South Carolina. His secretaryship occupied the unsettled interval between military victory and the more defined alliances and doctrines that followed. ¹