Truman

The period between 1946 and 1948 features important events like the launch of the Marshall Plan. Despite Truman’s growing confidence in his role, some continued to question his fit as President. Dean Acheson, however, believed Truman to be honest and decisive. The President sought to improve labor management and endorsed a national health insurance program. Acheson was made under-secretary state. Truman, Acheson, and Marshall viewed the geopolitical situation through the prism of what they believed would be Soviet domination in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. In the autumn of 1946, Truman received a 100,000-word report on Soviet-American relations which was influenced by George Kennan’s views. The Americans feared the expansion of communism in Europe and Asia and expressed concern about the size and scope of the Soviet military capabilities.

This research translated into what came to be known as the Truman Doctrine, based on a speech to Congress that the President delivered on March 12, 1947. The speech focused on the immediate circumstances in Greece and Turkey. But ideologically it sought to challenge the perceived spread of communism, and, therefore, the Soviet Union, all around the world. Truman spoke of supporting “free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressure” (627). The immediate reaction to Truman’s speech, McCullough says, “was overwhelmingly supportive” (627). In mid-1947, Kennan published an article in Foreign Affairs under the name Mr. X in which he argued in favor of containing the Soviet Union. It is this term, containment, that became a cornerstone of American foreign policy during the Cold War.

Kennan also issued a report called “Certain Aspects of the European Recovery Problem from the United States Standpoint” about the postwar economic situation in Europe. At this time, the situation was dire as millions were starving. The American side believed that European collapse would engender radical political movements and a tailspin for the global economy. As a result, the Marshall Plan, named after George Marshall and officially known as the European Recovery Program, was born. Leaving the Soviet Union out of the Marshall Plan, the aid package targeted 17 Western European countries. Congress approved the plan in April 1948.

In private, according to McCullough, Truman acknowledged that “much too much was being made of the ‘the Communist bugaboo’” and that “the country was ‘perfectly safe so far as Communism is concerned’” (630). Nonetheless, that same month Truman issued an Executive Order to launch the Federal Employees Loyalty and Security Program. The goals of this program were to subject federal employees to a loyalty investigation through the FBI and the House Un-American Activities Committee. Domestically, Truman spoke to the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which was the first speech by a president to the group. Truman quoted Abraham Lincoln and spoke against prejudice in what was, McCullough says, “the strongest statement on civil rights heard in Washington since the time of Lincoln” (649). Earlier, in 1946, Truman founded his own civil rights commission.

In Truman’s private life, his mother’s health was failing, and she passed away in July at the age of 94. The author highlights that Martha Ellen Young Truman lived through several presidents and wars and witnessed her son become president. Meanwhile, Margaret’s singing career was growing as she performed at such venues as the Hollywood Bowl. Bess, in contrast to Eleanor Roosevelt, consistently avoided public life and valued her family’s privacy, which she guarded, McCullough says, “like a precious jewel” (658). Yet, despite staying out of public life, Bess “did indeed advise Truman on decisions,” McCullough suggests, and “he listened to her” (658).