Truman Doctrine
It was announced to Congress by President Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947,[2] and further developed on July 4, 1948, when he pledged to oppose the communist rebellions in Greece and Soviet demands from Turkey.
[3] Truman told Congress that "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.
"[4] Truman contended that because totalitarian regimes coerced free peoples, they automatically represented a threat to international peace and the national security of the United States.
Truman argued that if Greece and Turkey did not receive the aid, they would inevitably fall out of the United States' sphere of influence and into the communist bloc, with grave consequences throughout the region.
As the Turkish government would not submit to the Soviet Union's requests, tensions arose in the region, leading to a show of naval force on the site of the Straits.
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.
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.
[11] 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,[12] the U.S. State Department formulated a plan.
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.
[2]: 548 [15]: 129 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.
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 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.
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.
