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Harry TrumanTruman Doctrine
Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1947A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Key Figures
President Harry Truman
Harry Truman (1884-1972) was the 33rd President and first proponent of the eponymous “Truman Doctrine.” Truman was born in Missouri and raised in a rural, Baptist family. When the US entered the First World War in 1917, Truman enlisted in the army, gaining the rank of captain and serving until his honorable discharge in 1919. After the war, Truman worked as a County Judge in Jackson County, Missouri before running successfully for election as one of Missouri’s Senators in 1935. He kept this role until 1945, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt chose him as a compromise candidate for the Vice Presidency and as his likely successor given Roosevelt’s ailing health. After an uneventful year as Vice President in which he was generally not included in government decision making, Truman was thrust into power when Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945.
As President, his domestic policy was marked by a continuation of New Deal policies, support for civil rights, changing the footing of the economy from war to consumerism, and clashes with unions. His foreign policy was largely concerned with stopping the spread of communism. His Truman Doctrine speech was an explicit statement of these plans, which became manifest in events such as the support for Greece and Turkey, the Marshall Plan, the Berlin Airlift, and, most directly, the Korean War.
The US Congress
The US Congress is the main legislative branch of the Federal Government, consisting of the House of Representatives and the Senate. It was in a joint session of both chambers of Congress that Truman delivered his Truman Doctrine speech.
The composition of Congress at this time is notable. In the 1946 midterm election, the Republican Party had gained control of both chambers of Congress. There had been a considerable backlash against Truman for the economic hardships of the war, the handling of strikes, and the straining of US-Soviet relations.
To endear the Truman Doctrine to this Congress, Truman had to ensure that it had a wide, bipartisan appeal. This explains much of the composition of the speech, with both the condemnation of the right-wing Greek government’s political authoritarianism and the stance taken against communism.
The Greek Government
The Greek government in 1947 was a constitutional monarchy. The king was head of the government, but his power was limited. Most executive and legislative power rested in the Prime Minister and Parliament. During the Second World War, the Italian/German invasion of Greece caused the monarch, and elements of the government, to flee to British territories. With the end of the Second World War, the Greek government was restored to power; however, its legitimacy was undermined by the communist resistance movements that had led the fight against German occupation.
The Greek government took a strict anti-communist stance, engaging in authoritarian measures such as the “White Terror” persecution of left-leaning groups. This anti-communist fervor endeared the government to the most stringently anti-communist members of the US Congress and naturally to Truman. However, its authoritarian tendencies led to criticism from the most left-leaning in Congress. In crafting his bipartisan appeal for support, Truman had to include condemnation of the actions the Greek government had taken and the excuse that it had acted “in an atmosphere of chaos and extremism” (19).
The USSR
The Soviet Union, or Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was a communist dictatorship founded after the Russian Revolution of 1917. After 1924, it was led by Joseph Stalin, who industrialized the country rapidly to make it a modern superpower. While initially allied to Hitler, Stalin became a leader in the Allied forces upon the Nazi invasion of Russia in 1941. From here, the Soviet Union bore much of the cost of fighting the Germans, with up to 30 million Russians dying during the war. In the final stages of the war, and during its immediate aftermath, the USSR began the creation of “satellite states,” placing communist governments in Eastern European states that would be friendly to the Soviets and expand their sphere of influence.
While the USSR is never directly mentioned in the Truman Doctrine speech, he criticizes it indirectly on account of its creation of satellite states by stating that Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria had already been coerced into installing totalitarian regimes. The USSR’s lack of mention in the speech itself was likely an attempt to avoid directly escalating tensions; however, the danger it posed to Western Europe looms over Truman’s speech, providing a rationale for efforts to contain the spread of communism.
The United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization founded after the end of the Second World War, intended to promote peace, security, and cooperation among nations. It was created to replace the League of Nations—a similar organization founded after the First World War, which had failed in large part due to America’s refusal to join. At the time of its founding, the United Nations was comprised of 51 member states with five permanent members of the crucial Security Council: The United States, The Soviet Union, The United Kingdom, France, and China.
The UN’s goal of maintaining world peace during the Cold War was complicated by the growing animosity between the United States and the Soviet Union, each of which had veto powers that sometimes prevented the organization from taking crucial action. Accordingly, in his speech, Truman pledges support for the UN’s aims even as he argues that the organization is incapable of the rapid action needed to support democracy. The inability of the UN to consistently act effectively is presented as a reason for the necessity of US global leadership.
