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A Chronicle of
Truman’s Point Four Program
AP History
Mr. Houston
April 11, 2005
Emily Bates
A
Chronicle of Truman’s Point Four Program
Harry S. Truman was the 32nd President of the United States. He became
President upon the death of the Franklin
D. Roosevelt on April 12th 1945. Truman
was elected President in 1948 through his own campaign. He made his
inaugural address on January
20th 1949 in Washington
D.C.
(Harry Truman 1). In this speech Truman made four points addressing the
foreign policy of the country. Point Four of Truman’s 1949 inaugural
address was influenced by prior policies regarding the foreign affairs of
the United States
and established a precedent for modern era involvement in international
politics.
In the years preceding Truman’s presidency, other American leaders had
different views on involvement with other nations. For example, at the
beginning of the century when Theodore Roosevelt became President in 1901,
he was interested in expanding through a policy of naval power, imperial
command of the Pacific and to control the Western hemisphere (Editors of
American Heritage 630). He felt that the United States played an
important part in the world and that it was up to the policies of the
country to allow involvement and control throughout the world (630). He
wanted his country to take on more responsibility with the other nations
and to be a leader among other countries. Roosevelt
served as a pioneer for his thinking on foreign policy and led the way for
other leaders, like Truman, to come up with their own interpretation of a
more comprehensive plan. His ideas and theories were very advanced for the
time period. However, many American citizens were not comfortable with
expanding into international affairs as much as Roosevelt had wanted and
his ideas on foreign policy were never fully put into effect (Jennings
and Brewster 30). The former position of the United States and the rest of
the world was one of isolationism and naivety. He was able to effectively
implant ideas of a greater expansion and involvement in future leaders of
the United States.
The U.S.
president elected in 1932 was Franklin D. Roosevelt. In his inaugural
address he expressed one of his ideas as using the good neighbor policy,
meaning that he wanted the United
States to be respectful of the rights of
other nations of the world and of its own rights (Editors of American
Heritage 801). The previous U. S.
administrations had not made any drastic changes in the foreign policy and
still took as an isolationist approach when relating to Europe and Asia. In 1933 the tension in Europe began to
intensify as Germany
was led by the powerful Hitler. Even when this ruler of Germany renounced his portion of the Versailles Treaty, which had
concluded World War I, and started an intense military buildup, the United States was against an intervention
and participation with Europe (802). This
potential threat did not cause a change in the President’s foreign
policies. The theories of isolationism would prove not to be useful in the
following years of the upcoming World War II and they would ultimately
change. During his third term as President, Roosevelt’s
health began to worsen and, as the campaign for his fourth term approached,
his choice for a vice president for this 1944 election became very crucial.
The President was not as concerned as he should have been so a group of
Democratic Party leaders became responsible for the endorsement of Harry
Truman as his Vice Presidential running mate (Ferrell 107)
Truman started his career as a local political leader in Jackson County, Missouri
with no particular ambition of ever becoming president. In 1934 he was
elected as a senator from Missouri
and he was re-elected in 1940 (Jenkins 29, 47). Through his position as
Senator, Truman became a national figure because of his creation of the
Truman Committee, a war investigating organization (Ferrell 106). Since he
was from a border state, there was the potential to get more votes from
both states for Roosevelt and he had a good record in dealing with the
rights of black people (106). This gave Truman a well rounded position as a
Democrat and gave him a considerable advantage as a candidate for the Vice
Presidential slot on the Democratic ticket. He originally confessed that he
felt the Vice President position was only a figurehead who was waiting on
the death of the real President (106) Truman ultimately changed his mind
when he received his nomination for the position in 1944 and he realized
that Roosevelt was quite ill and that, as Vice President, he might take
over as the President very soon. Truman did not have to long to wait
because Franklin Roosevelt died on April 12th, 1945, less than three months
after the inauguration.
When Truman became President, his energies were focused on ending World War
II and stopping the Japanese powers. Truman was wisely in cooperation with
the other nations in the world. For example, after the war in Europe had
ended, he was involved in such meetings as the Potsdam
Conference in July 1945 which included the Prime Minister of Britain, Clement Atlee, and ruler of Russia,
Joseph Stalin (127). The communications among these countries had showed an
example of the support and collaboration in which the United States was willing to
take part. In order to end the war in the Pacific, Truman supported
the use of nuclear weapons and two bombs were used in the Japanese
conflict. One bomb was used on August 5th, 1945 on the Japanese city of Hiroshima and on August 8th
on the city of Nagasaki
(Hamby 469). The end to the war in the Pacific came on August 14th
and the Japanese formally surrendered on September 2nd (469).
Truman and the United
States had endured the time of war and
now had to deal with the transition to peace in the world.
In 1948 Harry Truman decided to run for the Presidency of the United States
for a full term. He had to work hard for his Democratic Party nomination.
Truman’s Republican opponent was Thomas E. Dewey. In this election it was
unanimously predicted by the media that Truman would lose the election
(Jenkins 147). In the end Truman had won over the Republican Dewey with an
electoral vote of 303 to 189 and a popular vote of 24, 105,812 to
21,970,065 (Editors of American Heritage 893). This was a very close
election that came down to the last hours of the voting. Truman later
had said about the election that: “At six
o’clock I was defeated. At ten o’clock I was defeated. Twelve o’clock I was defeated. Four o’clock I had won the
election. And the next morning (…) in St.
Louis, I was handed this paper which
said, ‘Dewey Defeats Truman!!’ ” (860) Upon his election, Truman continued
his foreign policies to accommodate the world’s relations at that point in
the 1940’s.
After World War II ended the Cold War developed between the Soviet Union and its former allies in the war. The
Soviet Union was no longer linked with the United States as it had been
during in World War II. By the end of the 1940’s the countries of East
Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, and, until
1948, Yugoslavia were under the influence of the Soviet Union (Peduzzi 642). Czechoslovakia was taken over
when the USSR
staged a coup and overthrew its president, Jan Masaryk
(642). This displayed the Soviet Union’s
growing influence throughout the world and the great lengths it would go
through to expand and spread its communist ideals. On February 9th
1946, Stalin, the ruler of the Soviet Union, gave a speech in which he
claimed that communism and capitalism were not capable of existing together
and that the world economy had to eventually transform through communist
influence (641) Truman hoped to be able to control Soviet expansion and communism
by a policy that would help the nations with weak economic democracies and
by placing nuclear weapons in allied countries (643). This theory was one
of several that Truman had in order to regulate the Soviet
Union’s activities.
Many different strategies were used in figuring out what to do with the Soviet Union expansion. Truman’s Open Door Policy
allowed Eastern Europe freedom of
independence to try to convince these countries to become democracies on
their own (642). Another policy was that of containment which was the
theory that communism could be controlled through political influence
(643). This containment strategy failed in China in 1949 when the
government of Chiang Kai-Shek was taken over by a
communist revolution led by Mao Zedong (647). Throughout the tough
times of the aftermath of World War II the United States began to put
forth an effort to help the other countries of the world. On June 26th 1948,
during the Cold War when Russia
blockaded Berlin in
order to create a border for their communist areas, Truman ordered military
planes to fly food and supplies to Berlin
(Ferrell 150). In addition, the United States attempted to lead
the rest of the world and to influence the other war-torn allies. In 1946
Congress loaned Great Britain
$3,750,000,000 to get their economy and country together (Hamby 470).
An era of unparalleled danger in foreign relations demanded unprecedented
decisions. Truman saw the flaring problems in Russia,
Iran, China, Greece,
Italy, France, Germany,
India, Israel, and Korea as sparks that could
start a Third World War. Each of these required a decision which was in its
own way momentous, and had to be made with one idea in mind ---- eventual
world peace. (Ferrell 169)
Truman was not afraid to
make the necessary decisions with the information that he knew about the
other countries of the world.
The Cold War brought forth many issues that were not expected during World
War II. The United
States had to adapt their foreign
policies by creating new ones to offer aid in the areas needed. One of the
documents created by Truman to go along with the foreign nations after
World War II was the Truman Doctrine. This was introduced on March 12th, 1947
as an international resistance to Communist aggression (Hamby 470). The
Truman Doctrine gave aid to countries to buy their allegiance and to
establish democracy. It “guaranteed American aid to free nations resisting
Communist propaganda and sabotage” (470). Truman was urged to make this
doctrine because of the war-torn countries of the Eastern world. Greece was poverty stricken, England was bankrupt, and Turkey had 19 million people and only a
600,000 man army bordering Communist Russia
(Ferrell 176) The Truman Doctrine made it possible for the United States to provide $250 million
dollars to Greece and
$150 million to Turkey
(177). After the Cold War began the United States started to become
involved with the other nations and to attempt to help the war-torn
countries as much as possible.
Other policies were created by Truman to go along with the theme of helping
more nations in post World War II. The proposal of the Marshall Plan was to
assist and restore the European economies after the war and protect them
from Communist control (Tuleja). This was created
to maintain healthy trading partnership between the U.S. and Europe.
The idea for this plan came from a Cub Scout Troop in Maryland which
wanted to raise money and then send it abroad to suffering children similar
in age to them. The kids called their idea the “Junior Marshall Plan” and
submitted it to the Secretary of State George Marshall (Jennings and
Brewster 301) In George Marshall’s speech of his proposal of the Marshall
Plan, he stated the plan was “against hunger, poverty, desperation, and
chaos” (Weisberger 28). The goals of this
proposal were not to just hand out money to individual nations but to help
the economy of Europe as a whole (26).
Another key element of this application was to continue an American
commitment in Europe for many years. The
United States wanted proof from the countries that its financial aid was
being put towards the restructuring of their economies (Peduzzi
645) On April 3rd, 1948 the European Recovery Program passed in
Congress when the sixteen nations involved in this plan proposed a four
year recovery plan to be financed by the U.S. (Ferrell 177). The Marshall
Plan was a big step for the United
States in shedding its isolationist
emphasis. It required a commitment to help other nations and a main goal of
involvement in other nations. The end result of the plan was a positive
outlook for the future and for the European nations.
Under the Marshall Plan there were immediate signs of improvement of these
underdeveloped nations. Malnutrition in Europe was eased, factories were
restarted, new deliveries of fuel gave hope of heat, and every day 150
ships were either bringing cargo to Europe or unloading it on ports
(Jennings and Brewster 301) Countries such as Greece, Turkey, and other
areas of the Europe were helped greatly through this plan. In the years between 1948-1952, $13.5 million in funds, goods, and
trade benefits helped these struggling foreign nations (Tuleja).
After the success of the Marshall Plan the United States was able to see the
positive aspects of involvement with other countries and the isolationism
approach was no longer the only approach to foreign policy. The United
States were proud of the success attached to the Marshall Plan and a
feeling of savior that American business would change Europe from to make
it strong and healthy once again (Jennings and Brewster 302). Projects and
proposals such as the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan
created an opening for other plans similar to this and ultimately for the
creation of Truman’s Point Four program.
In Harry S. Truman’s inaugural address of January 20, 1949, he introduced his ideas
on foreign policy and let the country know his upcoming plans for his next
four years as president.
Roosevelt had been the leader of the free
world at war, when, after Pearl Harbor the
commitment of America
was relatively easy to sustain, and the acceptance of its leadership
automatic. Truman achieved the more difficult feat of being the leader of
the free world at peace, or something fairly near
to peace. (Jenkins 4)
Truman had this difficult
task in front of him as he approached his second term and his inaugural
address allowed him to present his policies in hopes that the country would
approve and that peace time would be achieved in a successful way. In his
speech he had four points that focused on his main goals of his foreign
affairs. The first point was to continue support to the United Nations and
to search for ways to strengthen the United States’ authority and
increase its effectiveness (Harry Truman 3) The second point was to
continue the programs for world economic recovery by supporting the
European recovery program and to also reduce the barriers to world trade
(3). The third point in Truman’s inaugural address was to strengthen free
nations against the dangers of aggression and to provide military advice
and equipment to these nations (3). Truman’s first three points were mostly
continuances of past policies and the strengthening of bonds already made.
The fourth point in his address was a new policy that introduced new ideas
and a plan for more involvement of the United States with foreign
nations.
The fourth point in Truman’s speech was the most unlike the foreign policy
of previous presidents although it was influenced by their lead and the
current situation of post war nations. “Fourth, we must embark on a bold
new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and
industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of
underdeveloped areas.” (4) Truman clearly stated the urgency and
desperation for his proposal of advancing other nations. “More than half
the people of the world are living in conditions approaching misery. Their
food is inadequate. They are victims of disease. Their economic life is
primitive and stagnant. Their poverty is a handicap and a threat both to
them and to more prosperous areas.” (4) The other areas of the world were
struggling with the post-war situation. Truman felt it was necessary for
the U.S.
to become involved and help as much as possible. Benjamin Hardy who was
from the State Department came up with the idea for the Point Four program
(Margaret Truman 401). Truman took this suggestion and applied some of his
own experiences with this type of strategy on a local level. Earlier in his
career he had witnessed a similar program on a domestic level called the
TVA, Tennessee
Valley
Authority, which brought prosperity to the underdeveloped valleys of Tennessee
(401). Truman was also an ex-farmer who had witnessed the rise in
productivity brought by the scientific and educational programs of the U.S.
Department of Agriculture which added to his anticipation for the Point
Four Program (401).
After Truman’s speech he waited to find the response of the world and his
fellow American citizens. Jacob K. Javits was a
Republican from New
York who expressed his views about
the speech and said, “I consider the proposal for extension of
technological help to other democratic nations represents one of the most
fruitful concepts for the future development of the world and for resisting
communistic influences.” (Trussell 5) Truman also
received supportive reviews from both political parties about his proposals
regarding the other nations of the world (1). The Congress also approved of
this program and in 1950, in the year following this speech, approved $35
million to begin the first part of the Point Four Program (Hamby 471).
Unfortunately the Point Four program ended in the middle 1950’s when the
Republicans took office (Margaret Truman 401). People in Indonesia, Iran, and Brazil were
taught improved methods on growing food, purifying their water, and
educating their children by over 2,000 Americans from hundreds of towns
before the Point Four Program was eliminated (401). The Point Four Program
was greatly influenced by previous doctrines providing help to other
nations such as the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. Truman took from
those successful attempts and created a major impact in the lives of the
people in other foreign nations.
Truman’s placement of the Point Four Program into the foreign policy of the
United States
led the way for future polices relating to the cooperation and aid to other
nations. In the Spring of 1949, shortly after Truman’s inaugural speech,
the U.S., Canada, Britain, France, and eight other countries came together
to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called NATO (Hamby
471). This bond created a documented cooperation and promise for a
future of united countries instead of disputing ones. NATO was also the
first military alliance of the United States in a time of
peace and also their first political alliance in a century and a half that
was made with a European power (Peduzzi 646).
This alliance was inspired by the success of the Point Four Program which
required good relations with various other countries.
The President after Truman was Dwight D. Eisenhower. His foreign policy
components were very different from that of Truman. He made a drastic
change and focused on resorting to nuclear warfare and did not rely on
alliances and positive relationships with the other countries. Proposals
such as his plan for “massive retaliation” which threatened the use of
nuclear weapons displayed this extreme transformation from Truman’s era
(Editors of American Heritage 921). The next President to resort back to a
foreign policy much like that of Truman was the next Democratic President,
John F. Kennedy. He created an organization called Peace Corps which
originated from Truman’s Point Four Program.
(Margaret Truman 401). The ideas for this proposal were influenced by prior
policies of foreign aid introduced in this program. The Peace Corps was set
up for volunteer workers to be sent to underdeveloped countries to help out
(Editors of American Heritage 943). This program of the Peace Corps remains
a very visible reminder of Truman’s approach to foreign policy as a way to
help the other nations of the world, years after his idea was conceived.
Based on his changes in American foreign policy, people adjusted their
opinions of Truman. For example, at the Potsdam
Conference in July 1945, Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain
and a World War II ally, admitted his very low regard for Truman (864).
Later, after Truman’s administration was over, Churchill stated to him
“you, more than any other man, saved Western Civilization.” (864) Churchill
distinguished Truman as a great leader who was able to save the Western
Civilization with his foreign policies which included the Point Four
Program. “Truman’s containment policy had worked well in Europe.
The Marshall Plan and its extension, Point Four, were rebuilding the
Western democracies.” (863) Truman was able to aid in the post war reform
of the West into a successful and prospering nation.
Truman’s inaugural address was interpreted in Washington as one
of the most ambitious statements on foreign policy that had ever been made
by an American President (Beston 1). Truman had a
long lasting effect on the United
States and its foreign policy and no
other subsequent President returned to the former isolationist approach. He
received praise by many colleges and universities by receiving twenty-two
honorary degrees (Ferrell 244). Truman is regarded by various historians to
be the eight or ninth greatest President in the history of the country
(Margaret Truman 580). Based on the initial and introductory policies of
Theodore Roosevelt and the state of the nations in post World War II Harry
Truman was forced to make crucial foreign policy decisions which ultimately
ended with the implementation of his Point Four Program.
This proposal of Truman led the way for future actions taken to open up the
United States
involvement and aid to other nations of the world.
Works
Cited
Beston,
James. “Speech Seen as Aid to Western World.” New York Times 21
Jan. 1949
Editors of American
Heritage, The Magazine of History. The American Heritage …..Pictorial
History of the Presidents of the United States. Volume 2.
1968, 923 V.11
Ferrell, Robert H., Truman a
Centenary Remembrance. New
York, Viking Press, 1984, …..Chatham
Library, 921
Hamby, Alonzo L. “Truman,
Harry S.” The World Book Encyclopedia 1997 ed., 031 …..V.19
Jenkins, Roy. Truman. New York,
Harper & Row Publishers, 1986, Brooks Library 92
Jennings, Peter, and
Todd Brewster. The Century. New
York, Banton
Doubleday
Dell
…..Publishing Group Inc. 1998
Peduzzi,
Kelli,
America in the 20th
Century, 1940-1949. New
York, Marshall Cavendish
…..Corporations, 1995, 973.9, V.5
Truman, Harry S. “Inaugural
Address, Thursday
January 20th, 1949” …..http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/P/ht33/speeches/truman.htm
Truman, Margaret. Harry
S. Truman. New York.
William Morrow and Company Inc. …..1973, Chatham Library 921
Trussell,
C.P. “Praise in Congress, Members Hail Truman’s Bold Stand, But are Wary on
…..New Aid” New York Times 21
Jan. 1949. 1+5
Tuleja,
Tad, “Marshall Plan”, New York,
The Stonesany Press, Inc. and the New York
…..Public Library, electric library
Weisberger,
Bernard A. “The Plan the East Rejected” American Heritage Apr. 1990
26+ 28
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