How Harry Truman Sold His Truman Doctrine To Americans

President Harry Truman, with the help of key members of his administration, transformed the scope of America’s foreign policy through superb salesmanship, laden with emotional appeals to the nation’s sense of moral responsibility and collective ego.

His speech to Congress, in 1947, urging aid to Greece and Turkey subtly marked the most sweeping pronouncement in history of an American foreign policy shift. It turned the country into an interventionist power and solidified the Cold War status that quickly developed after World War II.

He succeeded in his pitch by painting the world as a struggle between good and evil — liberty and tyranny. By appealing to American traditions and governing principles, his administration and its allies in the media convinced the Republican Congress and most Americans that if the United States did not counter tyranny abroad it would have to eventually fight it at home.

Although the voices of opposition were loud and many, the interventionists carried the day and changed both the way the U.S. was perceived abroad and how Americans viewed their role in global affairs.

Pulling British Chestnuts Out of the Fire

The wartime alliance between the Soviet Union and the U.S. had always been fragile…