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AP U.S. History Exam 1.45 169 Views
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AP U.S. History Exam 1.45. How did the United States both follow and violate the Truman Doctrine with its Cold War actions in Latin America?
Transcript
- 00:00
[ musical flourish ]
- 00:04
And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by overthrow,
- 00:07
the underestimation of one's outer strength.
- 00:12
All right, give this excerpt a read.
- 00:13
[ mumbles ] Truman Doctrine.
Full Transcript
- 00:17
All right, and the question:
- 00:19
How did the United States both follow and violate the Truman Doctrine
- 00:22
with its Cold War actions in Latin America?
- 00:24
And here are your potential answers.
- 00:26
[ mumbles ]
- 00:31
All right, well, during the Cold War, the U.S. made some
- 00:33
pretty, uh, interesting choices in how it dealt with
- 00:36
political instability in Latin America.
- 00:38
So let's see how the U.S. managed to simultaneously
- 00:41
play by and break the rules of the Truman Doctrine
- 00:44
in their adventures south of the border.
- 00:47
During the Cold War in Latin America did A -
- 00:49
the United States offer economic support to countries not
- 00:53
threatened by outside forces?
- 00:55
Well, actually, the U.S. sent significant financial aid only to
- 00:58
countries they believed were threatened by outside forces,
- 01:01
so that knocks out A and D.
- 01:03
Did the U.S. overstep its mission because B -
- 01:07
extensive military aid was sent to countries
- 01:10
fighting off communist threats? Hmm.
- 01:12
Well, most of the country's military resources were
- 01:14
pretty tied up in Asia at the time, so our efforts were primarily
- 01:18
economic ones.
- 01:19
So that eliminates B.
- 01:21
Which means that the U.S. both followed and violated the Truman Doctrine
- 01:24
in Cold War Latin America because C -
- 01:26
communist leaders were overthrown and replaced by dictators
- 01:30
in a series of CIA-led coups.
- 01:33
The main policy of the Truman Doctrine involved
- 01:35
"supporting free peoples who are resisting
- 01:38
attempted subjugation."
- 01:41
But the U.S. often assisted those free peoples
- 01:43
by overthrowing their country's leadership and installing
- 01:46
hand-picked dictators. [ chuckles ]
- 01:48
So C is the right answer.
- 01:50
Unfortunately, these U.S.-backed leaders sometimes sparked as many problems
- 01:53
as the leftists who preceded them,
- 01:55
creating a pretty charged climate
- 01:57
for those clinging to power. [ groaning ]
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