LAD #38: Truman Doctrine

Truman Doctrine - March 12, 1947

• President Truman addresses the pressing issue of the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union
• He recognizes that this issue has involved the foreign policy and national security of the nation, and that something has to be done about it
• Truman starts by talking about Greece and Turkey, and how relief from the US, in the form of supplies for their army, was being needed in Greece since Soviet troops had occupied the country after German forces were kicked out by Allied troops
• Turkey also needed aid form the US after WWII, along with several other Western European countries that were demolished by Germany
• Truman declares the US as a "promoter of democratic freedom," when describing how the US plans to aid the other countries, and also a "protector of the free world against the spread of Communism"
• This increases the idea of the US foreign policy of containment, and Truman uses this doctrine in order to request that Congress send $750 million with a small military force to both Greece and Turkey

  

  The way that the US carried out the Truman Doctrine can easily be related to US involvement in the Vietnam War.  Both of these actions by the US were taken in order to reinforce the foreign policy of containment.  Both of them show that the US was willing to go to extraordinary lengths to protect their country, and democracy.