* And so on March 12, 1947, before a joint session of Congress, President Truman articulated, for the first time, a comprehensive American foreign policy for the postwar world.
* He did not mention the Soviet Union by name, or refer to the need to contain its power in Europe, though he did place American freedom against "totalitarian regimes."
* Appealing to American universalist ideals, he declared that U.S. foreign policy henceforth must side with any nation facing aggression, anywhere in the world.
* WATCH IT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=-LMXGFhfbCs
* READ IT: https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/harrystrumantrumandoctrine.html
* Why not the UN?
* Because the U.S.S.R. would intervene.
* But that’s the POINT of the UN.
* International co-operation.
* Here we are, a year and change after the creation of the UN, and the U.S. is already acting unilaterally in European affairs.
* His key phrases:
* I believe 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.
* I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way.
* I believe that our help should be primarily through economic and financial aid which is essential to economic stability and orderly political processes.
* What about the free peoples who are resisting armed MAJORITIES?
* What about the free peoples of Palestine?
* You’ll notice that in his speech, Truman never mentions the Soviets by name.
* But he hints at them.
* He mentions Yalta and “totalitarian regimes”.
* So the Soviets have officially gone from being Allied and friends to the boogieman.
* BTW.
* Please note that Truman in 1947 is referring to the U.S.S.R. as a “totalitarian regime”.
* When people point to the U.S.S.R. and say “look! Socialism doesn’t work!” I always point out that it wasn’t actually socialism or communism - it was totalitarianism.
* People seem to think that socialism has to be totalitarian.
* Which is, of course, nonsense.
* Australia has a form of socialism - "social democracy".
* One of our two major political parties, the ALP, calls itself a democratic socialist party.
* So does Finland.
* So does Sweden.
* None of those countries have totalitarian governments.
* Socialism and democracy can go together.
* Just remember that.
* Back to Truman.
* His speech was really just a rehash of Churchill’s “We Will Fight Them On The Beaches” speech.
* Truman expanded on it.
* “We will fight them on the beaches… of other countries… even if they don’t want us to."
* And how did the Soviets respond to his speech?
* Six days later, Nikolai Novikov, who had returned from Washington to Moscow to take part in a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, discussed Truman’s speech with Molotov.
* He said The speech showed that the United States would support “reactionary regimes” in those countries where they existed, and would try to undermine the progressive regimes of Eastern Europe.
* Novikov writes in his memoirs That Molotov replied with an ironical smile
* Molotov said, “The President is trying to intimidate us,” “to turn us at a stroke into obedient little boys. But we don’t give a damn. At the meeting of the Council [of Foreign Ministers] we will firmly pursue our principled line.”
* Origins of Cold War; an International History, 2e (2005).pdf - page 73
* Now the implications of the Truman Doctrine were enormous.
* Until 1947, the U.S. had openly criticised countries that played power politics.
* Now it has committed itself to playing it on a global scale.
* But as a political tactic, it worked: Truman received the support he wanted from Republicans who wanted the U.S
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