Truman’s Policy of Containment: As related to the Individual and Socie

Truman’s Policy of Containment: As related to the Individual and Society Containment in foreign policy is known as the strategy suggested by George Kennan to prevent Soviet expansionism by exerting counter pressure along Soviet borders. The Truman Doctrine was the name given to a speech President Truman delivered to a joint session of Congress on March 12, 1947, in which he proclaimed a new policy and role for the United States in global affairs. Specifically, the president sought $400 million in economic and military assistance for Greece and Turkey, two strategic Mediterranean countries threatened by subversive forces supported by the Soviet Union, after the British said a month earlier that they could no longer provide the needed support. To justify aid for Greece and Turkey to a skeptical Congress, Truman placed the situation in the context of broader changes that he saw taking place in global politics. Truman felt that the peoples of a number of countries had totalitarian regimes forced upon them against their will. At the time the United States had made frequent protests against coercion and intimidation, in violation of the Yalta agreement, in Poland, Rumania, and Bulgaria, but those protests proved insufficient. Truman declared that the United States must now be willing â€Å"to help free peoples to maintain their free institutions and their national integrity against aggressive movements that seek to impose upon them totalitarian regimes.† The sweeping language of the speech and the worldwide commitment to assist any state threatened by totalitarianism gained it the status of a â€Å"doctrine† and a lasting policy for the United States. The speech became a declaration of Cold War. The i ssue was begin... ...hat they wanted to unlike the way it under a communist regime. As related to the humanities based theme of the individual and society Truman and his policy of containment helped improve the way we look at life and the status of the world at the time and now. Bibliography: - A Report to the National Security Council, April 14, 1950, p. 5. - Congressional Record, vol. 93, pt. 2, March 12, 1947, pp. 1980-81. - The Parenthetical Passages from Mr. X [George Kennan], â€Å"The Sources of Soviet Conduct,† Foreign Affairs (July 1947), pp. 566-82. - Kagan, Donald. The Western Heritage, 6th edition. pp. 1075-77. - Mansbach, Richard. The Global Puzzle. pp. 112-13. - 5 Apr. 1999. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/photos/av-photo.htm (20 Apr. 1999). - 31 Mar. 1999. http://www.earthstation1.com/Miscellaneous_wwII_pictures.html (20 Apr. 1999).