Foreign Policy and Affairs

At the time Truman was appointed the President, the WWII was at its conclusion. On May 7, 1945, the Allies defeated Germany in Europe, and Truman only had to deal with another opponent of the WWII in Pacific, Japan. Truman quickly learned the existence of Manhattan Project and ordered the dropping of atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945. The Japanese had casualty of 220,000 and surrendered couple days later on August 14.

Despite the end of WWII, the international conflict didn’t seem to cool down. Previously in the Yalta Conference, the Soviet Union promised that he would allow free elections to be held in Eastern Europe, however, at Potsdam Conference, Stalin declared to forbidden free elections in Poland and other Eastern European countries they occupied. Moreover, the Soviets desired to spread communism and refused to unite Germany. They created the Berlin Wall or the “Iron Curtain” and prevented East Germany from receiving supplies. These disagreements between U.S and Soviet Union eventually led to the “Cold War”

During the Cold War, Harry Truman introduced the Truman Doctrine, which stated that U.S would keep communism from expanding throughout the world. Truman’s main concern was to “contain” communism from spreading into Greece, Turkey, China, and Korea. He sent troops to defend the democracies in these nations. He also passed the Marshall Plan to assist the reconstruction of postwar Europe. 16 European countries that participated in the war including, Britain, France, Italy, West Germany, others were aided with approximately $13 billion. East Germany however, was blockaded and couldn’t receive aid due to Soviet control over them. Truman and the Allies successfully led a campaign known as Berlin Airlift to deliver food, medical, and other necessary supplies into East Europe by utilizing the aircrafts in 1948. Throughout the Berlin Airlift, 278,228 flights delivered 2,326,406 tons of supplies.

In addition, Harry Truman ensured peace between nations in North Atlantic by forming alliance called NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), and organized the meeting of the United Nations.