Evil Empire 19was to downplay the role of the accountant’s ledger, which was more overt
in an early draft of Truman’s speech. That draft argued that emergency
financial support for Greece (and Turkey) was now a requirement of
world capitalism: “Two great wars and an intervening world depression
have weakened the [capitalist] system almost everywhere except in the
United States. If, by default, we permit free enterprise to disappear in
other countries of the world, the very existence of our democracy will be
gravely threatened.” Acknowledging the less-than-compelling purchase
of this argument, Secretary of State Dean Acheson remarked derisively
that it made “the whole thing sound like an investment prospectus.”
Truman’s delivered address, by contrast, made use of the words “free”
and “freedom” twenty-four times in a few minutes, as if talismanic rep-
etition were enough to hinge the defense of private capital accumulation
to the maintenance of popular democracy the world over. Yet, despite the
inflated rhetoric, economic considerations remained the skeletal core of
the Truman Doctrine. Buried inside the address was the acknowledged
collapse of British imperial policy in the region, along with an “invitation”
from a dubiously democratic, right-wing Greek government for “financial
and other assistance” in support of “better public administration.” The
imperatives of democracy and self-government—preeminent political
values understood by the U.S. public—were subordinated to building
“an economy in which a healthy democracy can flourish.” In a final nod
to the bean counters, Truman noted that the amount he was requesting
was a mere fraction of what the United States spent during World War II,
and no less justified as “an investment in world freedom and world peace.”
The challenge for U.S. policy makers going forward was to reconcile
a lofty rhetorical and moral emphasis upon the principle of political self-
determination with the necessity of investing military force (i.e., “other
assistance”) whose paramount end was securing the market freedoms of
national and international capitalists. The teleological (and tautological)