An unusual request reached President Truman’s desk in December 1948. It was written by the executive director of CARE, the humanitarian agency responsible for getting food aid to Europeans in the wake of World War II. 

Truman's speech to Congress in which he laid the foundations of the Truman Doctrine by stating that the United States would support Greece and Turkey in order to prevent them from under the sway of the Soviet Union. This speech is often cited as the beginning of the Cold War, and US containment policy.