Week 16
During the winter of 1946-47 Europe was teetering on the edge of chaos. Soviet tanks were menacing all along the Eastern European borders, winter weather had delivered the most severe cold weather in a century, governments were on the verge of breakdown. The result was the appearance of President Truman before a special session of both Houses of Congress on March 12, 1947 and the annunciation of what was immediately called the Truman Doctrine: ‘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 pressure.’ Truman did not say how long such support might be necessary but he indicated that it must be provided for as long as was needed, which might be many years. In short, the US was now undertaking an open-ended commitment, both military and economic, to preserve democracy in the world. It had the means, and it had the will, because it had the men: Truman himself, leading two whole generations of active internationalists, young and old, who had learned from experience and history that America had to take its full part in the world, for the sake of the human race. These men, military and civil, politicians and diplomats, included Eisenhower, Marshall, MacArthur, Dean Acheson, Averell Harriman, George Kennan, John McCloy, Charles Bohlen, Robert Lovett, and many leading senators and congressmen, of whom the ‘born again’ newly internationalist Senator Vandenberg was the outstanding leader. (Paul Johnson. A History of the American People (p. 811). HarperCollins)
