(zaman.com) - The United States saved Turkey and Greece from communism in the post World War II era in Europe, US President George W. Bush defended.
At the commencement ceremony at the US Military Academy at West Point, Bush compared counter-terrorism to the Cold War period and spoke about Turkey, too, reports Trend.
He said the Soviets, making progress in spreading communism during the years that followed World War II, threatened Turkey and Greece in 1947. The terms President Harry Truman set a doctrine and saved these two countries from communism, Bush said. Truman based US foreign policy on the fight against communism, Bush recalled. And Truman called for military and economic aid to Athens and Ankara in his congressional speech. With this new doctrine, Bush elaborated, and with the aid to back it up, Greece and Turkey were saved from communism, and the Soviet expansion into Southern Europe and the Middle East was stopped.
Truman, reading aloud the message dated 12 March 1947 to be remembered after his name, advised giving support to free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by outside pressures, called for economic aid of $400 million to Turkey and Greece and an aid of $100 million began to be given to Turkey on May 22.
The doctrine, officially declaring the world separated into two blocs after the war and the Soviet-American struggle that continued until 1990, had been the first step of the Cold War.