Editing Herbert Hoover (section)

===Post-World War II===
{{Further|Presidency of Harry S. Truman|Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower}}
[[File:Hoover men Allan Herbert Sr Andrew 1950.jpg|thumb|Hoover with his son [[Allan Hoover|Allan]] (left) and his grandson Andrew (above), 1950]]

Following World War II, Hoover befriended President Truman despite their ideological differences.{{sfn|Leuchtenburg 2009|pp=157–158}} Because of Hoover's experience with Germany at the end of World War I, in 1946 Truman selected the former president to tour [[Allied-occupied Germany]] and [[Rome]], Italy to ascertain the food needs of the occupied nations. After touring Germany, Hoover produced [[The President's Economic Mission to Germany and Austria|a number of reports]] critical of U.S. occupation policy.<ref>{{cite book | first = Michael R. | last = Beschloss | title = The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941–1945 | url = https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780743244541 | url-access = registration | publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]]|location=New York City|date = 2002 |isbn=978-0-7432-4454-1|page = [https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780743244541/page/277 277]}}</ref> He stated in one report that "there is the illusion that the New Germany left after the [[Historical Eastern Germany#Potsdam Conference|annexations]] can be reduced to a '[[Morgenthau Plan|pastoral state]].' It cannot be done unless we exterminate or move 25,000,000 people out of it."<ref>{{cite web|author=UN Chronicle |url=https://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2008/webarticles/080103_marshallplan.html |title=The Marshall Plan at 60: The General's Successful War on Poverty |publisher=The United Nations |date=March 18, 1947 |access-date=June 17, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080414103548/http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2008/webarticles/080103_marshallplan.html |archive-date=April 14, 2008 }}</ref> On Hoover's initiative, a school meals program in the [[Bizone|American and British occupation zones of Germany]] was begun on April 14, 1947; the program served 3,500,000 children.<ref>{{cite book |last=Shephard |first=Roy J. |author-link=Roy J. Shephard |year=2014 |title=An Illustrated History of Health and Fitness, from Pre-History to our Post-Modern World |publisher=[[Axel Springer SE]]|location=New York City|page=782 }}</ref>

{{external media | width = 210px | float = right
 | audio1 = [https://www.loc.gov/rr/record/pressclub/hoover.html National Press Club Luncheon Speakers], Herbert Hoover, March 10, 1954, 37:23, Hoover speaks starting at 7:25 about the second reorganization commission, [[Library of Congress]]<ref name="loc">{{cite web | title =National Press Club Luncheon Speakers, Herbert Hoover, March 10, 1954 | publisher =[[Library of Congress]] | url =https://www.loc.gov/rr/record/pressclub/hoover.html | access-date =October 20, 2016 }}</ref> }}

Even more important, in 1947 Truman appointed Hoover to lead the [[Hoover Commission|Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government]] a new high level study. Truman accepted some of the recommendations of the "Hoover Commission" for eliminating waste, fraud, and inefficiency, consolidating agencies, and strengthening White House control of policy.<ref>Richard Norton Smith, ''An Uncommon Man,'' (1984) pp 371–380.</ref><ref>Christopher D. McKenna, "Agents of adhocracy: management consultants and the reorganization of the executive branch, 1947–1949." ''Business and Economic History'' (1996): 101–111.</ref> Though Hoover had opposed Roosevelt's concentration of power in the 1930s, he believed that a stronger presidency was required with the advent of the [[Atomic Age]].{{sfn|Leuchtenburg 2009|pp=158–159}} During the [[1948 United States presidential election|1948 presidential election]], Hoover supported Republican nominee [[Thomas E. Dewey]]'s unsuccessful campaign against Truman, but he remained on good terms with Truman.{{sfn|Whyte 2017|pp=587–588}} Hoover favored the United Nations in principle, but he opposed granting membership to the [[Soviet Union]] and other [[Communist state]]s. He viewed the Soviet Union to be as morally repugnant as Nazi Germany and supported the efforts of [[Richard Nixon]] and others to expose Communists in the United States.{{sfn|Whyte 2017|pp=592–594}}
[[File:President John F. Kennedy and former President Herbert Hoover.jpg|thumb|Hoover with President [[John F. Kennedy]] in 1961]]
In 1949, Dewey, as governor of New York, offered Hoover the Senate seat vacated by [[Robert F. Wagner]]. It was a matter of being senator for only two months and he declined.<ref>Herbert Hoover, ''The Crusade Years, 1933–1955: Herbert Hoover's Lost Memoir of the New Deal Era and Its Aftermath'', edited by George H. Nash,  (Hoover Institution Press, 2013) p 13.</ref>
[[File:Hoover Truman Eisenhower.jpg|thumb|left|Hoover with President [[Harry S. Truman]] and General [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] at [[Princeton University]]]]
Hoover backed conservative leader [[Robert A. Taft]] at the [[1952 Republican National Convention]], but the party's presidential nomination instead went to [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]], who went on to win the [[1952 United States presidential election|1952 election]].{{sfn|Whyte 2017|p=595}} Though Eisenhower appointed Hoover to another presidential commission, Hoover disliked Eisenhower, faulting the latter's failure to roll back the New Deal.{{sfn|Leuchtenburg 2009|pp=158–159}} Hoover's public work helped to rehabilitate his reputation, as did his use of self-deprecating humor; he occasionally remarked that "I am the only person of distinction who's ever had a depression named after him."{{sfn|Whyte 2017|p=592}} In 1958, Congress passed the [[Former Presidents Act]], offering a $25,000 yearly pension ({{Inflation|US|25000|1958|fmt=eq}}) to each former president.<ref name="Smith 2008">{{cite web |title=Former Presidents: Federal Pension and Retirement Benefits |date=March 18, 2008 |publisher=[[U.S. Senate]] |work=[[Congressional Research Service]] |url=https://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/98-249.pdf |access-date=November 18, 2008 |author-link=<!-- Stephanie Smith, but not singer or actress --> |first=Stephanie |last=Smith }}</ref> Hoover took the pension even though he did not need the money, possibly to avoid embarrassing Truman, whose allegedly precarious financial status played a role in the law's enactment.<ref>{{cite book |last=Martin |first=Joseph William |author-link=Joseph William Martin Jr. |year=1960 |title=My First Fifty Years in Politics as Told to Robert J. Donovan |publisher=McGraw-Hill |page=249 }}</ref> In the early 1960s, President [[John F. Kennedy]] offered Hoover various positions; Hoover declined the offers but defended the Kennedy administration after the [[Bay of Pigs Invasion]], [[Cuban Missile Crisis]] and was personally distraught by [[assassination of John F. Kennedy|Kennedy's assassination]] in 1963.{{sfn|Whyte 2017|p=601}}

Hoover wrote several books during his retirement, including ''The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson'', in which he strongly defended Wilson's actions at the Paris Peace Conference.{{sfn|Whyte 2017|pp=571, 604–605}} In 1944, he began working on ''Freedom Betrayed'', which he often referred to as his "[[magnum opus]]". In ''Freedom Betrayed'', Hoover strongly critiques [[Foreign policy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration|Roosevelt's foreign policy]], especially Roosevelt's decision to recognize the Soviet Union in order to provide aid to that country during World War II.{{sfn|Whyte 2017|p=606}} The book was published in 2012 after being edited by historian [[George H. Nash]].<ref>{{Citation|last=Yerxa|first=Donald A|title=Freedom Betrayed: An interview with George H. Nash about Herbert Hoover's Magnum Opus|journal=Historically Speaking|date=September 2012|volume=XIII| issue = 4}}</ref>