Abstract
Many accounts of the origins of the Truman Doctrine focus on the catalyst to the decision-making process — the delivery to Loy Henderson, director of the Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs (NEA), on 21 February 1947, of two British notes concerning the government’s inability to extend further financial aid and credits to Greece and Turkey after 31 March. These notes expressed the hope that the United States, which had previously indicated its interest in assisting the two countries, would find it possible to meet their needs.1 Most accounts then discuss in some detail the reactions of Henderson and Under Secretary of State Dean Acheson: their recognition that Britain’s situation was serious, their belief that its motives were sincere, and their conviction that the United States could either accept the responsibility implied in the memoranda or face the consequences of the widespread collapse of resistance to Soviet pressure throughout the Near and Middle East and large parts of western Europe not yet under Soviet domination.2
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
For Marshall’s presentation, see FRUS 5,1947,60–2; for Acheson’s, see Joseph Jones, 138–43; Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (New York, 1969), 219;
David S. McLellan, Dean Acheson: The State Department Years (New York, 1976) 115–18;
Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, Vol. 2, Years of Trial and Hope ( Garden City, N. Y., 1956 ) 103–4;
and Eric Goldman, The Crucial Decade — and After: America, 1945–1960 (New York, 1960) 59, who notes that as Vandenberg left the meeting, he remarked to Truman: ‘Mr. President, if that’s what you want, there’s only one way to get it. That is to make a personal appearance before Congress and scare hell out of the country’.
George Kennan, Russia Leaves the War (New York, 1967) vii–viii.
William Chafe, The Unfinished Journey: America Since World War II (Oxford, 1986) 55.
Walter LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945–1984, 5th ed. (New York, 1985) 6;
Martin J. Medhurst, ‘Truman’s Rhetorical Reticence, 1945–1947: An Interpretive Essay’, Quarterly Journal of Speech, 74, February 1988, 69, n. 46.
Charles E. Bohlen, Witness to History: 1929–1969 (New York, 1973) 83.
See Harish Kapur, Soviet Russia and Asia, 1917–1927: A Study of Soviet Policy towards Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan (Geneva, 1965) 93–107;
Louis Fischer, The Life of Lenin (New York, 1964) 420–1, 542; O.S.S./ State Department I & R Reports, 7 II: 5; FRUS 1946, 7, 816–17.
See Robert Beitzell, ed., Teheran, Yalta, Potsdam: The Soviet Protocols ( Hattiesburg, Miss., 1970 ) 231–2.
For the effect of the memorandum on Byrnes, see James F. Byrnes, Speaking Frankly (New York, 1947) 255, 284–97. See also S.D. 891.00/ 12–1145.
See Shahram Chubin and Sepehr Zebih, The Foreign Relations of Iran: A Developing State in a Zone of Great-Power Conflict (Berkeley, 1974) 37; and The New York Times 14 March 1946.
Hugh Dalton, High Tide and After: Memoirs, 1945–1960 (London, 1962) 105, 206;
Edward Francis-Williams, Ernest Bevin: Portrait of a Great Englishman (London, 1952) 165.
FRUS 1946, 7, 245, 255, 913–15; Sir David Kelly, The Ruling Few: The Human Background to Diplomacy (London, 1952) 328–9.
Joseph Jones, 78–85; G.D.N. Worswick and P.H. Ady, (eds), The British Economy, 1945–1950 (London 1952) 476–83; Kirk, 36; The New York Times, 21–23 February, 1947; Dalton, 187, 191–2, 203, 205.
Alan Bullock, Ernest Bevin: Foreign Secretary, 1945–1951 (New York, 1983) 156–7.
Acheson, 221; George Kennan, Memoirs, 1925–1950 (Boston, 1967) 331–3; Joseph Jones, 154–5; interview with Loy Henderson; for Kennan’s views on one of the drafts of the Truman Doctrine and for his own draft, see S.D. 868.00/3–647. See also Kennan’s correspondance with Henderson cited in n. 5.
Edgar Snow, Journey to the Beginning (New York, 1958) 357. See also Vojtech Mastny, ‘The Cassandra in the Foreign Commissariat: Maxim Litvinov and the Cold War’, Foreign Affairs 54, January 1976, 366–76, whose assessment of Litvinov’s statements during the war concludes that his interpretation was independent and fair: ‘his country’s striving for power and influence too far in excess of its reasonable security requirements was the primary cause of the conflict; the West’s failure to resist that effort early enough was an important secondary one’.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1993 Douglas Brinkley
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kuniholm, B.R. (1993). Loy Henderson, Dean Acheson, and the Origins of the Truman Doctrine. In: Brinkley, D. (eds) Dean Acheson and the Making of U.S. Foreign Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22611-5_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22611-5_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-22613-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-22611-5
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)