Truman Doctrine

Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States

The Truman Doctrine is the common name for the Cold War strategy of containment versus the Soviet Union and the expansion of communism. This doctrine was first promulgated by President Harry Truman in an address to the U.S. Congress on March 12, 1947.

In 1946, George Kennan wrote his famed "Long Telegram", which spoke of how the Soviets would only respond to force and that the best way to handle them would be through a long-term strategy of containment. This dispatch came to the attention of Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, a leading advocate for a hard-line approach to relations with the Soviets.

In March 1947, President Truman appeared before Congress and used Kennan's warnings in the "Long Telegram" as the basis for what became known as the Truman Doctrine. Based on the Long Telegram, Kennan published an article in the July 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs under the pseudonym "X," titled "The Sources of Soviet Conduct." The publication triggered an intense debate. Walter Lippmann, a leading U.S. journalist and commentator on international affairs, who favored proposals of disengagement in Germany, strongly criticized the "X" article.

President Truman, who was supported by Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg and the Republican-controlled Congress, promulgated this doctrine after Prime Minister Tsaldaris of Greece visited Washington in December 1946 to ask for additional American assistance. Aid was agreed by the United States government to be given to both Greece and Turkey. It was an early response to a perceived political involvement by the Soviet Union in Europe and Asia, as suggested by the Communist movements in Turkey and Greece.

The situation was perceived as very important for American balance of power politics in the context of the cold war: "If Greece was lost, Turkey would become an untenable outpost in a sea of communism. Similarly, if Turkey yielded to Soviet demands, the position of Greece would be extremely endangered." It was a regional domino effect threat that guided the United States' decision. The United States was cautious of a third World War at this time, and needed military advantages over the Soviet Union if they were to win. Greece and Turkey turned out to be very important: "the failure of the West to prevent a communist takeover in Greece would not only put the Russians on a particularly dangerous flank for the Turks, but strengthen the Soviet Union's ability to cut off allied supplies and assistance in the event of war."

The Truman Doctrine was the first in a series of containment moves by the United States, followed by economic restoration of Western Europe through the Marshall Plan and military containment by the creation of NATO in 1949. In Truman's words, it became "the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." Using a framing rhetoric that continues to have resonance today, Truman reasoned that because these "totalitarian regimes" coerced "free peoples," they represented a threat to international peace and the national security of the United States.

President Truman made the proclamation in an address to the U.S. Congress on March 12, 1947, amid the crisis of the Greek Civil War (1946–1949). Truman insisted that if Greece and Turkey did not receive the aid that they needed, they would inevitably fall to Communism with consequences throughout the region.

In 1950, Truman signed the top-secret policy plan NSC-68, which shifted foreign policy from passive to active containment. The document differed from Kennan's original notion of containment outlined in the "X" article, containing much harsher anti-Communist rhetoric. NSC-68 explicitly stated that the Communists planned for world domination.

Greece

See also: Greek Civil War

The act, which Truman signed into law on May 22, 1947, granted Greece $300 million in military and economic aid. In the second stage of the civil war in December 1944 (The Dekimvriana), the British helped prevent the seizure of Athens by the leftist National Liberation Front (EAM), controlled effectively by the Communists. In the third phase (1946–1949), guerrilla forces controlled by the Greek Communist Party (KKE) fought against the internationally recognized Greek government which was formed after 1946 elections boycotted by the KKE.

Increased American aid helped defeat the KKE, after interim defeats for government forces from 1946 to 1948. British support was affected by the British economic crisis. In 1967 a Greek military junta overthrew the centre right government of Panagiotis Kanellopoulos and seized power. The military junta of Greece, though criticized worldwide for its human rights record, was supported by the American government during its seven year rule. This caused anti-American sentiment in Greece. Some forty years after the harsh oppressions under military rule, U.S. President Bill Clinton issued an apology, largely unreported by the Western media, for the United States' past support of the totalitarian government.

Turkey

Main article: Counter-Guerrilla

At the conclusion of World War II, Stalin demanded partial control of the Dardanelles, a strategic passage between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Since British assistance to Turkey had ended in 1947, the U.S. dispatched military aid to ensure that Turkey would retain chief control of the passage. The aircraft carrier Franklin D Roosevelt was sent to join the Missouri, accompanied by $100 million in economic and military aid to the nation.

The postwar period from 1946 started with a "multi-party period" and a Democratic Party government of Adnan Menderes, but in 1960 there was a military coup d'état led by General Cemal Gürsel, followed by the execution of Menderes. In 1971 there was another coup against the rightist government of Süleyman Demirel and the Justice Party, and another coup in 1980.

See also

• Liberal internationalism
• Turkey – United States relations

Bibliography

• Frazier, Robert. "Acheson and the Formulation of the Truman Doctrine" Journal of Modern Greek Studies 1999 17(2): 229–251. ISSN 0738-1727
• Gaddis, John Lewis. "Reconsiderations: Was the Truman Doctrine a Real Turning Point?" Foreign Affairs 1974 52(2): 386–402. ISSN 0015-7120
• Ivie, Robert L. "Fire, Flood, and Red Fever: Motivating Metaphors of Global Emergency in the Truman Doctrine Speech." Presidential Studies Quarterly 1999 29(3): 570–591. ISSN 0360-4918
• Jeffrey, Judith S. Ambiguous Commitments and Uncertain Policies: The Truman Doctrine in Greece, 1947-1952 Lexington, 2000. 257 pp.
• Jones, Howard. "A New Kind of War": America's Global Strategy and the Truman Doctrine in Greece Oxford U. Press, 1989. 327 pp
• Leffler, Melvyn P. "Strategy, Diplomacy, and the Cold War: the United States, Turkey, and NATO, 1945–1952" Journal of American History 1985 71(4): 807–825. ISSN 0021-8723
• McGhee, George. The U.S.-Turkish-NATO Middle East Connection: How the Truman Doctrine and Turkey's NATO Entry Contained the Soviets in the Middle East. St. Martin's, 1990. 224 pp.
• Meiertöns, Heiko: The Doctrines of US Security Policy - An Evaluation under International Law, Cambridge University Press (2010), ISBN-13: 9780521766487.
• Merrill, Dennis. "The Truman Doctrine: Containing Communism and Modernity" Presidential Studies Quarterly 2006 36(1): 27–37. ISSN 0360-4918
• Offner, Arnold A. "'Another Such Victory': President Truman, American Foreign Policy, and the Cold War." Diplomatic History 1999 23(2): 127–155. ISSN 0145-2096
• Spalding, Elizabeth Edwards. The First Cold Warrior: Harry Truman, Containment, And the Remaking of Liberal Internationalism (2006)

External links

• Truman Library website with papers related to the Truman Doctrine
• Full text of the speech
• Full text and audio of the speech
• Cartoon on display at the LoC