The Unknown Cold War. Film 2. The Truman Delay

This film looks at the final months of the Second World War and shows how Harry Truman’s presidency changed the dynamic between the United States and Soviet Union.

Truman’s predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had been elected four times and was widely popular with the American public. When Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, Vice President Truman stepped into the Oval Office.

FDR’s successor took a much tougher stance towards Moscow from the start, having made his position on the USSR clear in the very beginning of WW2: “If we see that Germany is winning, we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I do not want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances.”

Under Truman, the relationship between the two powers soured. After the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Soviet scientists pushed ahead with their own nuclear program, determined to protect their country and create strategic balance.

Truman’s foreign policy centred on containing the Soviet Union and pushing back against communism. The Truman Doctrine became a key pillar in that approach and later contributed to the founding of NATO.

Watch “The Unknown Cold War. Film 2. The Truman Delay” on RTD website and on RT’s live feed. The time of the broadcast is available on RT’s schedule page.