The ensuing “Truman Doctrine” committed $400 million in aid to Greece and Turkey–a huge sum given Congressional fiscal conservatism at the time–and offered a precedent for further American assistance to any “free peoples” engaged in a struggle against “terror and oppression” and “the suppression of personal freedoms.” Truman’s Manichean worldview pitted the world in two, good against evil, for to American policymakers, Communism seemed everywhere on the march.
In February, for example, Britain’s decision to cease aid to Greek forces fighting a Communist insurgency prompted the Truman Administration to assume new responsibilities throughout all of Southern Europe. Quickly the lines in the sand were drawn even deeper as the Soviets and Americans clashed ideologically and militarily on a number of fronts. By 1947 it had become apparent to most observers that the world was splitting in two-East and West-leaving the inevitable conflict of the Cold War.
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