Truman's Point Four and the 1950s

Historical contextualization

- He was the 33° President of the United States from April 12, 1945 to January 20, 1953.

- Served as vice president during the brief second presidential term of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January–April 1945).

- Different course than Roosevelt, who was heir to a wealthy New York family and educated in the most elite institutions in the country. While Truman was son of a Missouri cattle dealer and worked as a car insurance salesman. To this day is the only president of the United States without a university education.

(1884-1972)

- Profound change in US relations with the USSR: Truman severed ties with Stalin, who had been Roosevelt's ally in his fight against Nazi Germany. After the end of World War II, Truman stopped sending materials to the USSR and did not offer it a share in the technology, as Roosevelt had intended.

Apostilles

- Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Truman concluded that only the bombing of a city would make an adequate impression. He followed certain criteria: it had to be a city that had suffered little damage from conventional bombing; it had to be a city primarily engaged in military production; and it had not to be a city of traditional cultural importance to Japan, since the aim was not to destroy Japanese culture or the Japanese people but to destroy Japan's ability to wage war.

Finally, on 6 August 1945, the world's first atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima.

Apostilles

- Truman Doctrin: The so-called "Truman Doctrine", announced by the President in 1947, was the formulation of this worldview: "The United States must support free peoples who are resisting subjugation by armed minorities or external pressures. (...) I believe that our assistance should be primarily economic and financial, which is essential to stability" ("frighten the American people").

- In other words: a world impoverished by six years of war was fertile ground for communism, so the US had to spend money to make sure that countries around the world did not go over to Moscow's side.

Apostilles

Apostilles

Apostilles

- "Marshall Plan" or European Recovery Programme: it offered economic aid to all European countries that accepted the control and integration mechanisms put in place by the United States. The programme had three objectives:

1) to prevent the insolvency of European countries, which would have had negative consequences for the US economy;

2) to improve social conditions in order to prevent the spread of communism;

3) to strengthen democratic regimes willing to support US policy on the international stage.

President Truman's Point Four (Inaugural Adress on January 30, 1949)

Beginnings (1947-1953)

Beginnings (1947-1953)

- Break-up of the old alliance in 1947: the United States committed itself to European reconstruction and took on the role of gendarme of the capitalist order.

- In Western Europe, the Communists in France and Italy captured a significant share of votes in the first post-war elections and joined coalition governments in the first post-war elections.

- The USSR controlled the basic levers of power in the Eastern European countries. The Information Office of the Communist and Workers' Parties (Kominfonn) was set up.

Beginnings (1947-1953)

- In West Germany, the three occupying powers (France, Britain and the United States) unified the military-controlled regions and local authorities were granted increasing autonomy.

- Stalin closed the communication routes between Berlin and the outside world.

- Berlin, which was in the Soviet zone, was divided into four sectors, which the Western powers were unwilling to abandon.

Beginnings (1947-1953)

- In May 1949, the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany (BRD) was officially decreed, covering all areas occupied by the Western powers, including West Berlin.

- In October of the same year, the creation of the German Democratic Republic (DDR), consisting of the five states occupied by Soviet troops, was announced.

This division lasted until 1990.

- Baime, A. J. (2017). The accidental president: Harry S. Truman and the four months that changed the world. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

- Béjar, M. D. (2019). Historia del siglo XX: Europa, América, Asia, África y Oceanía. Siglo XXI Editores.

- - Hernández-Echeverría, C (2020). De Roosevelt a Truman: perfilando la Guerra Fría, available on https://www.lavanguardia.com/historiayvida/historia-contemporanea/20200412/48395517677/truman-roosevelt-iigm-conferencia-postdam-bomba-atomica-guerra-fria.html

- Verplaetse, J. G. (1950). El punto cuatro del Presidente Truman. Cuadernos de estudios africanos, (9), 97.