The strategy of containment began to take shape early in 1947 as a result of a crisis in Greece. Greek communists, waging a guerrilla war against the monarchy, were receiving aid from communist Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. Great Britain had been assisting the monarchists but could no longer afford this drain on its resources. In February 1947 the British informed President Truman that they would cut off aid to Greece.
The British predicament forced American policymakers to confront the fact that their European allies had not been able to rebuild their war-weakened economies. The communist “Iron Curtain” (a phrase coined by Winston Churchill) seemed about to fall down on another nation. That the Soviet Union was actually discouraging the rebels out of fear of American intervention in the area the policymakers ignored. As Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson put it, the “corruption” of Greece might “infect” the entire Middle East and then spread through Asia Minor and Egypt to Italy and France.
Truman therefore asked Congress to approve what became known as the Truman Doctrine. If Greece or Turkey fell to the communists, he said, all of the Middle East might be lost. To prevent this “unspeakable tragedy,” he asked for $400 million in military and economic aid to Greece and Turkey. “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,” he said.
By exaggerating the consequences of inaction and by justifying his request on ideological grounds, Truman obtained his objective. The result was the establishment of a right-wing, military-dominated government in Greece. In addition, by not limiting his request to the specific problem posed by the situation in Greece, Truman caused considerable concern in many countries.
The threat to Western Europe certainly loomed large in 1947. With the region, in the words of Winston Churchill (the great phrase-maker of the era), “a rubble-heap, a charnel house, a breeding-ground of pestilence and hate,” the entire continent seemed in danger of falling into communist hands without the Soviet Union raising a finger.
•••-[Read the Document Truman Doctrine, 1947 at Www. myhistorylab. com
World History
