Truman Doctrine
Uploaded by sonoma14022 on Nov 13, 2001
"I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressure." (Harry Truman mach 1947). This is part of the speech Harry S. Truman gave to congress on the behalf of small countries falling to the pressures of communism. The Truman Doctrine was a anti-communist foreign policy that would change of the world.
Turkey and Greece were under a great threat by the Soviet-supported rebels seeking to topple the government and install communist power. This made the United States and especially Truman very nervous. This is why the Marshall Plan which is one of the direct influence to the Doctrine was thought up. This plan was designed to give aid to any european country damaged during WW2. It tremendously helped ravaged European nations such as Italy and France. By helping these countries the United States was economically forcing away communism. This was the way the United States had it all planned out. We weren't making the Communist very mad cause it was very indirect but later on this wouldn't be the case.
The process by which the Truman Doctrine came about was a long and tedious one. After WW2 the US and Soviet Union were at the top of all world powers. Everything was pretty much equal such as military, economics, and nuclear power. The one thing that scared the US the most was the fact that the Soviets were greedy and wanted more and more land. This is where we began to see a huge threat to Greece, Turkey, and Iran. Because of all this on March 12, 1947 President Harry S. Truman gave a speech to congress that would later be call the Truman Doctrine.
The Truman Doctrine would ask for a total of 400 million dollars for both Greece and Turkey (Freeland pg. 87). The money for Greece would be split between economic and military aid and for Turkey the aid was entirely for military purposes. The President had turned debate on two modest proposals into a vote of confidence on his administration's foreign policy and a test of American willingness to resist a threat defined to endanger the basic security and values of the American society
(Pemberton pg. 92). By Truman doing this it almost put congress at a no win situation. Congress couldn't go against Truman cause this speech was nationally...