President Truman's Message to Congress, March 12, 1947 (p. 2)

[President Truman's Message to Congress; March 12, 1947; Document 171; 80th Congress, 1st Session; Records of the United States House of Representatives; Record Group 233; National Archives.]

On March 12, 1947, President Truman issued a recommendation urging Congress to provide military and financial support to the countries of Greece and Turkey so that those countries could remain free from communist rule. Truman stated, “The seed of totalitarian regimes are nurtured by misery and want. They spread and grow in the evil soil of poverty and strife. They reach their full growth when the hope of a people for a better life has died.” Truman believed that the free peoples of the world looked to the United States for support in maintaining their freedoms and that American failure to respond endangered the peace of the free world.

 

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