How Did the Truman Doctrine Change U.S. Foreign Policy?

Truman Doctrine so impressive. A Few, if any, American foreign policy stances have held the weight, lasted as long, or changed the world as much as the Truman Doctrine. It's the post World War Two strategy designed to contain the spread of communism and hold America's wartime ally, the Soviet Union, in check. Even today, with other global threats emerging and a stated America First foreign policy, the ideas behind the

Truman Doctrine endued and inform the country's worldview. On March twelfth of nineteen forty seven, Harry S. Truman, the thirty third President of the United States, laid out the center beam of what came to be known as the Truman Doctrine in a speech to a joint Session of Congress. He said, in part, I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by

outside pressures. I believe that we must assist free people's to work out their own destinies in their own way. With the Truman doctrine, America stepped away from a largely isolationist history, took the lead in battling communism and furthering democracy, and forged relationships with nations militarily, economically, and otherwise that endured today. So today, let's take a closer look at it.

Less than two years after the end of World War Two, many nations, especially in Europe, were in economic shambles and right for exploitation. Two of them, Greece and Turkey, had major problems with insurgents and faced political uncertainty without outside aid. Even the once mighty British were mired in the struggles of rebuilding their war shattered country. They can no longer chip in to help others, So Greece and Turkey instead turned to the United States, and Truman, a Democrat, turned

to Congress. Republicans then held both the House and the Senate looking for four hundred million dollars in foreign aid. That's more than four point six billion in today's dollars. We spoke with Sam Roche, the supervisory archivist at the Harriest Ruman Librarian Museum in Independence, Missouri. He explained there was a key meeting at the White House in late February with congressional leaders and George Marshall, who was Secretary of State, made a strong pitch, and so did Dean Atchison,

who was the Under Secretary of State. They talked about the merits and the urgency of doing something to help. The British had announced the they were going to withdraw, and Marshall and Atchison didn't want there to be a vacuum that might mean the Soviets would step into that vacuum. After Truman's speech before Congress, a push to pass the Grease Turkey Aide bill was championed by Marshall, Atchison and others.

They managed to bring over even staunch isolationists like Senator Robert A. Taft, though some influential voices such as former Vice President Henry Wallace and conservative journalist Walter Littman remained opposed. Pitching a new foreign policy initiative, one that went against long held isolationist tendencies, to a Congress run by the opposition party and a war weary American public was a

tall order. Rochet said, there was a lot of selling to do, and selling it, I think was the right word to try to sell it to the American people and to Republicans and to conservative Southern Democrats who were very influential as well, that this was really a good thing because it was in our interest. In the end, the idea that commerce between the US, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East could be negatively impacted, that the Soviets could gain more power by stepping in something that could

alter world politics for generations to come, was enough. The Greece Turkey Aid Bill passed convincingly. Truman signed the bill in May of nineteen forty seven in America set out on a new path in Europe and eventually other places in the world. So what did it mean then and what does it still mean today? The journalist Lippman coined the term Cold War what would become a decades long standoff between the US and the Soviet Union that began at the end of World War Two, the implementation of

the Truman Doctrine was one of its major milestones. In eight the so called European Recovery Plan otherwise known as the Marshall Plan, was signed into law, designed to help rebuild Western Europe and further block any Communist in roads. Without the new foreign policy outlined in the Truman doc

trin the Martial Plan would not have been possible. In nineteen forty nine, the US and eleven other nations in North America and Europe, in order to quote guarantee the freedom and security of its members through political and military means, formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO, which now boasts thirty member countries, has ever since acted as a deterrent to Soviet and Communist expansionism. Even before the Truman Doctrine became official policy, its theories were in use as World

War Two was ending. Soviets occupied Korea, of prompting the US to send troops to the peninsula in a standoff that eventually exploded into the Korean War. Immediately after World War Two, the Soviets in the US squared off over Iran, too and Germany. In nineteen fifty four, well after the Truman Doctrine was initiated, President Dwight Eisenhower warned of a

domino effect if communists prevailed in Southeast Asia. A prelude to the US involvement in Vietnam, Ronald Reagan built upon the Truman doctrine with the Reagan Doctrine of the nineteen eighties, which not only called for containment of Soviet expansionism, but

the backing of anti communists everywhere. With the breakup of the Soviet Union in nineteen one, the Cold War technically ended, but the basic ideas behind the Truman doctrine, containing communism, championing democracy, helping others internationally remained important to many modern day politicians. Richet said the Truman doctrine was sort of an explication of a new foreign policy, very international minded.

For Truman, it was in the self interest of the United States to work with other nations in the interests of peace and resisting maybe a verbal war that you see through the United Nations, where he was very active. Truman helped build a structure of peace through the Truman Doctrine, through the United Nations, through NATO, through the Martial Plan. There's a real ideology behind it, but fundamentally Truman sought

in the United States best interest. Former United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill gave a speech in Missouri in ninety and Truman was there, warning of a communist expansion across Europe and calling for a reply that avoided war. In that speech, Churchill said, an iron curtain has descended across

the continent. Surely we should work with conscious purpose for a grand pacification of Europe within the structure of the United Nations and in accordance with its charter that I feel is an open cause of policy, a very great importance. A year later, Truman made his pitch to Congress. Today's episode was written by John Donovan and produced by Tyler Klang. For more on listen lots of other curious topics, visit how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production of

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