President Truman's Containment Policy

After World War II, President Roosevelt assumed everything was neutral, however tensions rose with the Soviet Union which turned into a conflict known was the Cold War. The Soviet Union kept trying to spread their communist ideology to many countries to gain their power over the world, however with the tensions between, the United States believed they were the only country that could stop them. The American diplomat Kennan suggested to the current president, President Truman , that the containment policy should be taken into operation because the Soviet Union needs to be withheld. The containment policy was a policy that America adopted in mid-twentieth century, where they would prevent Soviet Union from gaining power and turning countries …show more content…
Truman started his operation of the containment policy through a speech, called the Truman Doctrine., where he talked about how we need to defend countries that are being oppressed from their freedom, and in the case of the Cold War, it was communism. In the Doctrine, Truman mentioned how Greece and Turkey were the first to ask for urgent assistance and to provide it, Truman asked for Congress’s support and with it, both countries freed themselves from the communists threats from Soviet Union, Later this policy becomes known as the Truman Doctrine. Around the same time, Western Europe was in chaos , trying to recover their economy, therefore communist was appearing utopian to them. Before things worsened, a Secretary of State, Marshall, created the Marshall Plan, in hopes to bring capitalism at a rise not a decline, and later vastly helped Western Europe. Truman sided with Marshall and convinced Congress to financially aid many Western European countries. In addition, it boomed the Western European countries’ economy because Marshall thought that for freedom from communism includes the emergence of political and social parts of a country where they can co-exist. As tensions kept rising, America was struggling to maintain the policy. China already had turned communist and now America had to prevent Korea from turning communist also. Using the help of the United Nations, …show more content…
Consumer culture became very relevant in America, since it was the key to the economy. Americans economic trend shifted to spending lots for comfortable living which showed the world that importance of capitalism is economic freedom. United States had its predominant industries, however, a new industry was rapidly expanding: entertainment. After the television being invented, it became a major part of the entertainment culture of America. Automobiles had become very common between Americans, due to the new Ford car that everyone loved. Other companies that grew in the consumer culture include Coca-Cola and Levi’s Jeans. It changed the perspective towards expenditure in America, as people were no longer worried about their debts since they were living with high quality products that they loved. In addition, the employment of women were rising and also their wages were augmenting as the economy grew. However with all the positive impact, racial segregation existed between the blacks and whites, even though everyone was considered equal. At the same time, as the Cold War was happening in the background, many were protesting against war in America. The culture of the 1950’s was a growing consumer market where many huge companies were growing, inventions being produced, economy growing, and expanding of civil rights of