Truman doctrine

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Truman doctrine
The Truman doctrine was an original announcement of American cold war policy that was prepared by President Harry Truman and released on 12 March 1947. It is contended by many that the immediate cause of the Truman doctrine was the declaration made by the British authority February 1947. Notably, Truman doctrine was particularly a response to the political as well as social disorder that was taking place in Greece and Turkey. It is important to note that the timing of the Truman declaration concurred with the Conference of Foreign Ministers meeting in Moscow. Therefore, the essence of the statement was to offer economic as well as military assistance to the countries that were threatened by communism, particularly Greece and Turkey.
In February 1947, Ernest Bevin, who was then the minister for foreign affairs in Britain, declared the cessation of their military and economic support for Greece and Turkey. At the same time, the Greek communists were involved in an acrimonious brawl against the reactionary regime. Therefore, President Truman feared that if the communists were successful they might align Athens with Moscow consequently giving Stalin entree to the Mediterranean (Tindall and Shi 1004). Notably, Marshall Tito, of Yugoslavia, was offering assistance for the rebels and none to the Soviets. It is important to note that Tito’s rejection to call back his advisers from Greece was one of the factors that influenced his expulsion from the communist information bureau in July 1949.

Additionally, many historians have argued that the Truman doctrine was an attempt to influence the American public opinion in the period leading up to the 1948 elections. President Truman and his Democratic advisers set up meetings and established that Truman had to take significant steps if he was to win the election. For instance, Truman had to make it clear to the public that he was strongly opposed to the Soviet activities in Eastern Europe as well as the Far East.
The Truman doctrine was an attempt to talk up the threat posed by the Soviet Union. In days that led to the elections of 1948, the administration took additional steps to demonstrate its commitment to contain communist expansion in the US and externally. For instance, during the spring of 1947, Truman developed the Federal employee loyalty scheme that gave government security officials the mandate ton screen hundreds of employees of the federal government for any lead of communist sympathies. Notably, the Truman doctrine influenced the Marshall Plan of June 1947 (Tindall and Shi 1006). The objectives of both were to contain communism, as Truman once noted in an interview, they could be viewed as two halves of the same walnut.
Conclusively, in his speech on March 12, 1947, President Truman sought to highlight the extent of the communist danger and declared that it was not just restricted to Greece and Turkey, but was also a threat to the free citizens of the world. Consequently, the Congress hurriedly passed the president’s request for the fairly small amount to help Greece and Turkey. Nonetheless, Truman’s speech gathered considerable attention from all over the world and was referred to as the Truman doctrine. Notably, the doctrine’s forceful tone, as well as a pledge of help to the free peoples in their struggle against communism, demonstrated the deterioration in relations between the United States and the Soviet Union; this is often viewed as the commencement of the cold war.
Work Cited
Shi, David E., and George Brown Tindall. America: A Narrative History. WW Norton & Company, 2016.