Truman Doctrine

Greek crisis

In October 1944, British and Greek forces landed in Greece following the gradual withdrawal of Axis occupational forces from the country. Despite the Caserta Agreement stipulating that all Greek resistance factions would join a new Greek Army under British command, General Ronald Scobie ordered the EAM's armed wing, ELAS, to unilaterally disarm on December 1, 1944. EAM responded to the "Scobie Order" by organizing a rally in Athens on December 3 in protest, which was fired upon by Greek security forces, killing 28 protestors. This sparked the Dekemvriana, a series of clashes between EAM and Greek government forces along with their British allies. It ended in EAM's defeat and disarmament under the terms of the Treaty of Varkiza, which marked the end of ELAS and broke EAM's power. This was followed by the White Terror, a period of persecution against Greek leftists, which contributed to the outbreak of the Greek Civil War in 1946.

After the civil war broke out, Communist Party of Greece (KKE) guerrillas revolted against the internationally recognized Greek government which was formed after elections in 1946 which were boycotted by the KKE. The British realized that the KKE were being directly funded by Josip Broz Tito in neighboring Yugoslavia. In line with the Anglo-Soviet percentages agreement, the KKE received no help from the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia provided them support and sanctuary against Joseph Stalin's wishes. By late 1946, Britain informed the U.S. that due to its own declining economy, it could no longer continue to provide military and economic support to the Greek government.

In 1946–1947, the United States and the Soviet Union moved from being wartime allies to Cold War adversaries. The breakdown of Allied cooperation in Germany provided a backdrop of escalating tensions for the Truman Doctrine. To Truman, the growing unrest in Greece began to look like a pincer movement against the oil-rich areas of the Middle East and the warm-water ports of the Mediterranean. In February 1946, George F. Kennan, an American diplomat in Moscow, sent his famed "Long Telegram", which predicted the Soviets would only respond to force and that the best way to handle them would be through a long-term strategy of containment; that is, stopping their geographical expansion. After the British warned that they could no longer help Greece, and following Prime Minister Konstantinos Tsaldaris's visit to Washington, D.C. in December 1946 to ask for assistance, the U.S. State Department formulated a plan. Aid would be given to both Greece and Turkey, in an effort to strengthen them against communist forces while cooling their rivalry to keep them both in the Western camp.

American policy makers recognized the instability of the region, fearing that if Greece was lost to communism, Turkey would not last long. Similarly, if Turkey yielded to Soviet demands, the position of Greece would be endangered. A regional domino effect threat therefore guided the American decision. Greece and Turkey were strategic allies important for geographical reasons as well, for the fall of Greece would put the Soviets on a particularly dangerous flank for the Turks, and strengthen the Soviet Union's ability to cut off allied supply lines in the event of war.

Truman's address

To pass any legislation, Truman needed the support of the Republicans, who controlled both houses of Congress. The chief Republican spokesman Senator Arthur Vandenberg strongly supported Truman and overcame the doubts of isolationists such as Senator Robert A. Taft. Truman laid the groundwork for his request by having key congressional leaders meet with himself, U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall, and Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson. Acheson laid out the "domino theory" in the starkest terms, comparing a communist state to a rotten apple that could spread its infection to an entire barrel. Vandenberg was impressed, and advised Truman to appear before Congress and "scare the hell out of the American people." On March 7, Acheson warned Truman that the communists in Greece could win within weeks without outside aid.

When a draft for Truman's address was circulated to policymakers, Marshall, Kennan, and others criticized it for containing excess "rhetoric." Truman responded that, as Vandenberg had suggested, his request would only be approved if he played up the threat.

On March 12, 1947, Truman appeared before a joint session of Congress. In his eighteen-minute speech, he stated:

I believe 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 peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way.

I believe that our help should be primarily through economic and financial aid which is essential to economic stability and orderly political processes.

The domestic reaction to Truman's speech was broadly positive, though there were dissenters. Anti-communists in both parties supported both Truman's proposed aid package and the doctrine behind it, and Collier's described it as a "popularity jackpot" for the President. Influential columnist Walter Lippmann was more skeptical, noting the open-ended nature of Truman's pledge; he felt so strongly that he almost came to blows while arguing with Acheson over the doctrine. Others argued that the Greek monarchy Truman proposed to defend was itself a repressive government, rather than a democracy.

Despite these objections, the fear that there was a growing communist threat almost guaranteed the bill's passage. In May 1947, two months after Truman's request, a large majority of Congress approved $400 million in military and economic aid to Greece and Turkey. Increased American aid assisted the Greek government's defeat of the KKE, after interim defeats for government forces from 1946 to 1948. 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.

Long-term policy and metaphor

Historian Eric Foner writes that the doctrine "set a precedent for American assistance to anticommunist regimes throughout the world, no matter how undemocratic, and for the creation of a set of global military alliances directed against the Soviet Union."

The Truman Doctrine underpinned American Cold War policy in Europe and around the world. In the words of historian James T. Patterson:

The Truman Doctrine was a highly publicized commitment of a sort the administration had not previously undertaken. Its sweeping rhetoric, promising that the United States should aid all 'free people' being subjugated, set the stage for innumerable later ventures that led to globalisation commitments. It was in these ways a major step.

Historian Dennis Merill argues that the doctrine endured because it addressed broader cultural insecurity regarding modern life in a globalized world. It dealt with Washington's concern over communism's domino effect, it enabled a media-sensitive presentation of the doctrine that won bipartisan support, and it mobilized American economic power to modernize and stabilize unstable regions without direct military intervention. It brought nation-building activities and modernization programs to the forefront of foreign policy.

The Truman Doctrine became a metaphor for aid to keep a nation from communist influence. Truman used disease imagery not only to communicate a sense of impending disaster in the spread of communism but also to create a "rhetorical vision" of containing it by extending a protective shield around non-communist countries throughout the world. It echoed the "quarantine the aggressor" policy Truman's predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had sought to impose to contain German and Japanese expansion in 1937 ("quarantine" suggested the role of public health officials handling an infectious disease). The medical metaphor extended beyond the immediate aims of the Truman Doctrine in that the imagery, combined with fire and flood imagery evocative of disaster, provided the U.S. with an easy transition to direct military confrontation in later years with the Korean War and the Vietnam War. By framing ideological differences in life or death terms, Truman was able to garner support for this communism-containing policy.