Truman Doctrine the First Episode That Led Essay

Truman Doctrine

The first episode that led to the development of what came to be known as the Truman Doctrine occurred in 1947, when Truman asked Congress to provide monetary aid to Greece and Turkey to support their fight against encroaching Communist elements (Spalding 2006; Murrin et al. 2008). Truman's justification for this, and the concept that became his eponymous Doctrine, was that any free people should be supported in their resistance to "armed minorities" from within their own nation or pressures (monetary and military) exerted by outside forces (Murrin et al. 2008; UDDOS 2011). In this particular instance, Great Britain had been supporting Turkey against the Soviet Union and Greece against insurrection, but informed the United States that they would not be able to continue providing this support (USDOS 2011). The Truman Doctrine was developed in order to contain Communism by helping non-Communist nations to resist being oppressed and controlled by Communist nations or being overrun in a Communist revolution (Gregorsky 1992).In practice, the Truman Doctrine worked much the same as it was put forth by Truman himself and those in his administration. In the first development and test of this new Doctrine, Truman and his advisers convinced a politically opposed Congress (the majority in both houses was Republican) to provide a total of $400 million in aid to Greece and Turkey (Murrin et al. 2008). This presented a fairly drastic change from previous policies, which considered "foreign aid" and "taking sides" to be "un-American" (Gregorsky 1992). This policy quickly took hold, however, and led to the systematic support of foreign nations facing Communist threats (USDOS 2011).

The effects of the Truman Doctrine on the trajectory of….....