"Being a president is like riding a tiger. You have to keep on riding or be swallowed." Harry Truman's assessment of the office accurately described the conditions under which he found himself thrust into it. To the little-known man from Missouri would fall the burden of ending a World War and asserting the U.S.'s leadership in a newly-aligned and hostile international environment. While he successfully asserted the U.S.'s leadership in a newly-aligned environment, he nevertheless found the task of bringing equal rights to all Americans impossible. Learn more with this biography from American Experience: "The Presidents."