“Truman has become the patron saint of failed presidents because he left office with a 27 percent approval rating, and people were saying, 'To err is Truman,' yet look at what he did: the Marshall Plan, the creation of NATO, the Truman Doctrine.”

American author and historian, professor of history

Douglas Brinkley is an American author, historian, and professor of history at Rice University. He is also the Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities, a history commentator for CNN, and Presidential Historian for the New York Historical. Brinkley has written widely on American history and public affairs, and he serves as a contributing editor to Vanity Fair. He is also a public spokesperson on conservation issues. He joined the Rice faculty in 2007 and the board of directors of the National Archives Foundation in 2023.