In this work, Denise M. Bostdorff considers President Truman’s address to a joint session of Congress on March 12, 1947. She focuses on the public and private language that influenced administration perceptions about the precipitating events in Greece and Turkey and explores the news management campaign that set the stage for Truman’s speech. Bostdorff even examines how the president’s health may have influenced his policy decision and how it affected his delivery of the address and campaign for congressional approval. After a rhetorical analysis of the Truman Doctrine speech, the book ends with Bostdorff’s conclusions on its short- and long-term impact. She identifies themes announced by Truman that resound in U.S. foreign policy down to the present day, when George W. Bush has compared his policies in the war on terror to those of Truman and members of his administration have compared Bush to Truman. This important work is a major contribution to scholarship on the presidency, political science, and public rhetoric.

In this work, Denise M. Bostdorff considers President Truman’s address to a joint session of Congress on March 12, 1947. She focuses on the public and private language that influenced administration perceptions about the precipitating events in Greece and Turkey and explores the news management campaign that set the stage for Truman’s speech. Bostdorff even examines how the president’s health may have influenced his policy decision and how it affected his delivery of the address and campaign for congressional approval. After a rhetorical analysis of the Truman Doctrine speech, the book ends with Bostdorff’s conclusions on its short- and long-term impact. She identifies themes announced by Truman that resound in U.S. foreign policy down to the present day, when George W. Bush has compared his policies in the war on terror to those of Truman and members of his administration have compared Bush to Truman. This important work is a major contribution to scholarship on the presidency, political science, and public rhetoric.

Project WhistleStop features an image of the text of a speech by U.S. President Harry S. Truman (1884-1972) asking the U.S. Congress to pass the Truman Doctrine. The doctrine, established in 1947, stated that the United States was obligated to support people who were resisting subjugation. The document was an indication of the beginning of the Cold War. The U.S. Department of Education sponsors the WhistleStop project.

Miracle of ’48: Harry Truman’s Major Campaign Speeches and Selected Whistle-stopsis the first published collection of the public addresses Harry Truman made as he crisscrossed the United States from New York City to Los Angeles to Independence, Missouri in 1948. Edited by veteran political journalist Steve Neal, and complemented by a foreword from presidential historian Robert V. Remini, this volume captures the infectious spirit and determination of Truman’s message to the American people. In an era when policy issues were paramount and televised debates were a thing of the future, Truman boldly stated his case directly to the American people, and they responded. “Senator Barkley and I will win this election and make these Republicans like it,” he declared in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. “Don’t you forget that. We will do that because they are wrong and we are right.” From the start of his “non-political” western tour in Crestline, Ohio, through his victory celebration in his hometown of Independence, the plainspoken Truman waged the good fight against all odds, never mixing his words or apologizing for his aggressively honest tactics. In blaming the GOP for a decline in farm prices, he alleged that the 80th Congress had “stuck a pitchfork in the farmer’s backs.” Truman is now regarded as among our greatest presidents and the populist message of his ’48 campaign is still as compelling and relevant today as it was over half a century ago. “The political history of the United States reveals many unusual developments,” General Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote Truman after the 1948 election, “but certainly at no point does it record a greater accomplishment than yours, that can be traced so clearly to the stark courage and fighting heart of one man.”

Harry Truman is famous for his plain speaking, and his presidential rhetoric is evaluated in this reference in terms of his most important speeches relating to the Cold War, the Korean War, and themes that helped him win a remarkable election victory in 1948. This in-depth analysis of his major presidential speeches, collection of his most important addresses, chronology of speeches during his presidency, and bibliography will give students, scholars, and professionals in communications and mass media, political science, and American history new insights into this interesting president and important period in American history. Professor Ryan examines Presidents Truman's speeches and addresses from 1945 to 1953, closely showing how his Truman Doctrine speech and Inaugural Address sounded the leit motifs of Manichaean, SuperNation rhetoric that innervated the Cold War. His rhetoric on the Korean War burdened his presidency because it held to an early military definition of the war. His exchanges with General Douglas MacArthur were oblique rather than frontal attacks, which presented further problems. His whistle-stop election campaign against Thomas E. Dewey and his valedictory address are used also to assess his rhetorical themes and expression and their effectiveness. The chronology and bibliography are framed also to help researchers dealing with materials in a presidential library.