The Statesmanship of Harry S Truman

Abstract

President Truman's statesmanship consists in the fact that his administration's foreign policy fused moral principle and national self-interest and that his articulation of foreign policy educated citizens in the principles of the American regime and in the nature of the threat to it. The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan address vital strategic interests, but Truman's conception of the national interest contained a lucid sense of political meaning and purpose in his understanding that the perpetuation of freedom in America required a resolute defense of republicanism elsewhere in the world. Like Lincoln, Truman was committed to the prudent containment of an expansionist power, and for Truman, as for Lincoln, the survival of the Union meant above all the preservation of a regime devoted to the principles of the Founders. NSC-68 crystallized containment policy, uniting power with principle in a strategy that matched military means to political ends.