March 12, 1947: President Harry S Truman speaks before a Joint Session of the U.S. Congress, announcing a joint aid package to Greece and Turkey, both then threatened by the specter of the extension of Communist ideology by the Soviet Union.
He said, "It must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." It was his belief that, because totalitarian regimes coerced free peoples, they automatically represented a threat to international peace and to America's national security. This became known as the Truman Doctrine.
This policy cannot be underestimated. As a student of history, Truman knew that the places now named Greece and Turkey had been trying to kill each other for over 3,000 years, since the Mediterranean coast of present-day Turkey was the front line of the Trojan War. (While it probably didn't happen the way the ancient Greeks said it did, archaeologists have discovered a considerable amount of evidence of a besieged city on the site where Troy is said to have stood.)
If both Greece and Turkey fell to Red influence, it would be a huge loss for the Western democracies. If one fell and the other didn't, it might well be even worse, especially due to religion: Turkey, though constitutionally having a secular government, has a population that is almost entirely Muslim; while Greece is 90 percent Greek Orthodox Catholic. Throw the hatreds of religious conflict into a political one, and a war would have been certain. With one country allied with the U.S. and the other with the Soviets, that's where World War III would have started. And the world was still weary from the effects of World War II.
So Truman had to support both countries this way, even though Greece was in the middle of a civil war in which the Communist troops had been making gains, and Turkey was not in one. Turkey was, however, across the Black Sea from the Soviet Union, and susceptible to naval attacks. To make matters worse, Greece's closest ally in the West, Great Britain, was nearly bankrupt after World War II, and couldn't keep its support going.
Two things came out of the Truman Doctrine: An expansion of the idea for Western Europe, which was named the Marshall Plan after its originator, Secretary of State George C. Marshall; and a military alliance of Western Europe, where "An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us." Founded in 1949, this was the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Having been so named for his Army directions in 1943, Marshall was named Time magazine's Man of the Year again in 1947.
The founding members of NATO, established on August 24, 1949, were America, Canada, Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Portugal. On February 18, 1952, with the Truman Doctrine having proven successful, and with both nations having participated in the United Nations' effort to protect South Korea during the Korean War, Greece and Turkey were admitted to NATO.
The word "Doctrine" had only been officially applied to the foreign policy of one previous President of the United States: James Monroe. The Monroe Doctrine, issued in 1823 by his Secretary of State -- and, as it turned out, his successor as President -- John Quincy Adams, forbade European powers from involving themselves in the affairs of any independent nation in the Western Hemisphere, though it did not affect those places that were still their colonies.
Theodore Roosevelt didn't have a Doctrine, but, in his State of the Union Message to Congress, delivered (by mail, not a live speech) on December 6, 1904, he added what became known as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine: He would not let one Latin American nation oppress another. Woodrow Wilson didn't have a Doctrine, but in his address (live) to Congress on April 2, 1917, he asked for a Declaration of War against the German Empire, coining the phrase, "The world must be made safe for democracy." In another address to Congress, on January 8, 1918, he outlined his "Fourteen Points" for the settlement of World War I.
The three Republican Presidents who followed the Democratic Wilson issued no Doctrines. Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover were so isolationist, each of them barely had a foreign policy at all. The next President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, didn't call his foreign policy guide a "Doctrine," but rather "Four Freedoms": He said the United States should seek the right of people to have freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion, freedom from want and freedom from fear, everywhere and anywhere in the world.
Some later Presidents have had their own Doctrines:
* Eisenhower Doctrine: On January 5, 1957, in response to the Suez Crisis in October 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower told Congress that a Middle Eastern country could request American economic assistance, or American military aid, if it was being threatened by "overt armed aggression from any nation controlled by international Communism."
* President John F. Kennedy never proclaimed one, but in his commencement address at American University in Washington on June 10, 1963, he spoke words that could, in hindsight, be called the Kennedy Doctrine: "What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana, enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave, or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope, and to build a better life for their children. Not merely peace for Americans, but peace for all men and women. Not merely peace in our time, but peace for all time."
President Lyndon B. Johnson made many big speeches, but none that can be said to have outlined a "Johnson Doctrine."
* Nixon Doctrine: On July 25, 1969, in a press conference in Guam, President Richard Nixon stated that each nation that was an ally of America was in charge of its own security in general, but America would act as a "nuclear umbrella" when requested. This was a hint of the "Vietnamization" policy that would change the running of the Vietnam War.
President Gerald R. Ford had no doctrine.
* Carter Doctrine: In his State of the Union Address on January 23, 1980, President Jimmy Carter told Congress that America would use military force, if necessary, to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf. This was in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the previous month.
In a sentence written by his National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter said, "An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."
Carter ended up not using his Doctrine, but both George Bushes, father and son, did.
* Reagan Doctrine: Another policy issued in a State of the Union Address before a Joint Session of Congress. On February 6, 1985 (which happened to be his 74th birthday, and Congress sang "Happy Birthday" to him as he came in), President Ronald Reagan said, "We must not break faith with those who are risking their lives -- on every continent, from Afghanistan to Nicaragua -- to defy Soviet-supported aggression, and secure rights which have been ours from birth."
Unfortunately, his implementation of that doctrine involved, in Afghanistan, selling weapons to groups who later formed al-Qaeda and the Taliban; and, in Nicaragua, giving the anti-Communist, and fascist, Contra rebels money from the sale of military weapons to Iran, which was done in exchange for the release of some hostages. This became the Iran-Contra Scandal, and it could have led to an impeachment inquiry for Reagan.
* Clinton Doctrine: President Bill Clinton never used the phrase himself. But, in The Nation on April 1, 1999 -- and not as an April Fool's joke -- Michael T. Klare used the phrase to describe Clinton's handling of the Serbian invasion of Kosovo, which was similar to his intervention against Serbia for its war crimes during the Bosnian Civil War, something Clinton felt he had to do in light of his failure to do anything to stop the genocide in the civil war in Rwanda in 1994.
Clinton did make a statement in early 1999 that could accurately describe what Klare called his doctrine: "Genocide is, in and of itself, a national interest where we should act," and, "We can say to the people of the world, whether you live in Africa, or Central Europe, or any other place, if somebody comes after innocent civilians, and tries to kill them en masse because of their race, their ethnic background or their religion, and it's within our power to stop it, we will stop it."
* Bush Doctrine: Unlike his father, President George H.W. Bush, President George W. Bush had a docrtine. On September 17, 2002, a little over a year after the 9/11 attacks, this phrase was used by his Vice President Dick Cheney, in a document titled The National Security Strategy of the United States, to describe the Administration's policy, that America had the right to secure itself against countries that harbor or give aid to terrorist groups.
* Obama Doctrine: After hearing the phrase used very loosely for the 1st 6 years of his Presidency, President Barack Obama said in an interview with New York Times foreign policy columnist Thomas L. Friedman on April 5, 2015, "You asked about an Obama Doctrine, the doctrine is: We will engage, but we preserve all our capabilities."
Donald Trump never issued a "Doctrine," nor had one issued on his behalf. This was odd, because it was the kind of thing one would expect from such an ignorant blowhard: A big, bold statement with his name attached to it.
He did tell the audience at a rally, "I'm a nationalist," and he and his supporters frequently used the phrase, "America First" -- a phrase he proved to be a lie in the way he caved in to Vladimir Putin of Russia, Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey, and Kim Jong Un of North Korea, all dictators (or, in Netanyahu's case, nearly so) that he admired as "strong men," wishing that he had their kind of power.
In his 1st year in office, January 20, 2021 to March 12, 2022, President Joe Biden has not officially announced a Doctrine, either.
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March 12, 1947 was a Wednesday. Mitt Romney was born on this day. He was the Republican Party's nominee for President in 2012. Before that, he served as Governor of Massachusetts; after it, he was elected U.S. Senator from Utah. He had also organized the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was in the off-season. This was the 1st season of the Basketball Association of America, which became the National Basketball Association in 1949. Two BAA games were played that night. The Boston Celtics beat the Toronto Huskies, 69-57 at the Boston Garden. And the Cleveland Rebels beat the Detroit Falcons, 89-81 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. Of these, only the Celtics would still be playing the next season.
Two games were played in the NHL. The New York Rangers lost to the Detroit Red Wings, 4-2 at the old Madison Square Garden. And the Boston Bruins beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 8-3 at the Chicago Stadium. Clare Martin had 2 goals. Bill Cowley had a goal and 4 assists. Bill Gadsby had 2 goals for the Hawks. The Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs were not scheduled.
