e Truman gave to a joint session of congress. It was the response Truman gave to Britain, which delcared that they no longer could give military and economic aid to Greece.(9) In this speech Truman finally gave the Cold War official status, by stating the threat that the Soviet government had on national security. In Trumans actual words he said, I believe that 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.(10) Congress, knowing that Great Britain would no longer give aid the Turkey and Greece, realized that these nations would soon turn to communism. Thus, they decided to appropriate four hundred million dollars to help in the aid of Turkey and Greece.(11). To support Trumans policy Senator Author Vandenburg stated its time to scare the hell out of the American people with tales of communism on the march.(12) Thus, America was further contributed to cold war issues by committing to stop the spread of communism in areas of the world very remote from them. Americas next political actions further caused the Cold War to escalate. In 1947, George C. Marshall the Secretary of the state at the time gave a speech at Harvard university which reveled his plans for the an after war economy. Marshall asked that all of the countries of Europe communists and capitalists alike to draw up a plan for economic recovery from the war.(13) The Soviets refused to participate, because they saw it as America using money to buy its way into good terms with Europe. In the words of the Soviet foreign minister Molotov, the Marshall plan was nothing but a vicious American scheme for using dollars to buy its way.(14) In the end, the United States sent 13 billion over to Western Europe to support economic recovery.(15) The Soviet Union saw this as an American attempt to keep any of these countries from turning to communism, which would close them off as US marke...
