Harry S. Truman: Truman Doctrine

On March 12, 1947, Democratic President Harry S. Truman addressed a joint session of the Republican-controlled Congress, requesting that $400 million in military and financial aid be appropriated to the struggling governments of Greece and Turkey. The president, seeking bipartisan support for a more interventionist foreign policy aimed at limiting the global influence of the Soviet Union, articulated what would become known as the Truman Doctrine, in which the United States pledged assistance to any democratic government threatened internally or externally by the forces of totalitarianism.

Although Truman did not mention the Soviet Union by name, the totalitarian designation he presented in the Truman Doctrine was certainly a commentary on the deteriorating relationship between the United States and Soviet Union after World War II. The immediate crisis leading to the formulation of the Truman Doctrine was the announcement by the British government in February 1947 that it would no longer be able to support the Greek government in its military engagements with a Communist insurgency. Soviet demands on the Turkish government for greater influence in the Dardanelles encouraged Truman to include Turkey in his address. Congress appropriated the requested funds, and military personnel and supplies were dispatched to Turkey and Greece. American assistance stabilized the governments, and in 1952 both nations joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The Truman Doctrine became a policy followed throughout the cold war by both Republican and Democratic presidents. Many credit the Truman Doctrine with fostering global democracy while limiting the influence of an expansionist Soviet Union. While the Truman Doctrine is often celebrated for playing a key role in the cold war victory of the United States, critics assert that the Truman Doctrine's anti-Communist obsession led the United States to support antidemocratic authoritarian regimes able to procure American aid by claiming they were fighting Communism. According to this reading, implementation of the Truman Doctrine often encouraged an anti-Americanism manifest in many parts of the Middle East and Asia after the cold war era.