Why Harry Truman Matters Today

SAVING FREEDOM
Truman, the Cold War, and the Fight for Western Civilization
By Joe Scarborough

Anyone who has watched cable information packages is aware of the medium requires even difficult points be boiled down to suit on a chyron. For United States overseas coverage, such simplification typically leaves speaking heads debating whether or not a call or proposal quantities to some new presidential doctrine, akin to the one named after Harry Truman, who in March 1947 committed the United States to assist “free peoples” in opposition to the unfold of Communism.

In an earnest, partaking new e-book, “Saving Freedom,” Joe Scarborough, the eponymous host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” reveals readers why and, most essential, how Truman set a precedent for all his successors — and cable information chatter — greater than seven a long time later. If the story of the thirty third president’s dedication, which at first aided solely peoples in Greece and Turkey, is acquainted, Scarborough’s concentrate on Truman and different elected officers is just not. By crediting wily politicians for America’s Cold War coverage as a substitute of the smart males within the authorities’s paperwork, Scarborough reminds readers that lengthy telegrams like George Kennan’s and coverage memorandums from the State Department don’t make profitable doctrines; politicians do.

At first, “Saving Freedom” looks like different books concerning the days earlier than the time period “Cold War” was coined, not to mention capitalized. It begins on Feb. 21, 1947, the day when the British Foreign Office alerted the American State Department that it may not afford to assist the Greek and Turkish governments, each struggling below strain from Communist-leaning parts. “Saving Freedom” then introduces the characters acquainted to any readers on the origins of the Cold War: Secretary of State George Marshall, Under Secretary of State Dean Acheson and Kennan, whose well-known telegram ignited Washington’s reconsideration of the Soviet Union.

But in contrast with the books by and about these behind-the-scenes gamers, Scarborough’s stars are Truman and different politicians like Senator Arthur Vandenberg, a onetime isolationist and Republican from Michigan. The creator’s affinity for politicos is sensible. After all, he was one, having served six years in Congress. As such, he demonstrates knowledgeable appreciation for Truman’s success in what the president known as the “greatest selling job” of any chief govt. He persuaded a suspicious Republican Congress and hundreds of thousands of exhausted Americans to assist not simply overseas assist, but in addition the Marshall Plan and NATO alliance (which, regardless of Scarborough’s disappointing lack of consideration to both, did much more to tie the previous isolationist nation to Europe than Truman’s doctrine).