Point Four Program
Encyclopedia
The Point Four Program was a technical assistance program for "developing countries" announced by United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 President Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...

 in his inaugural address on January 20, 1949. It took its name from the fact that it was the fourth foreign policy
Foreign policy
A country's foreign policy, also called the foreign relations policy, consists of self-interest strategies chosen by the state to safeguard its national interests and to achieve its goals within international relations milieu. The approaches are strategically employed to interact with other countries...

 objective mentioned in the speech.

Background

Following the Second World War, the United States found itself in a Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

 struggle against the USSR. The Truman administration came up with the idea for a technical assistance program as a means to win the "hearts and minds" of the developing world. By sharing US know-how in various fields, especially agriculture, industry and health, officials could help "third world" nations on the development path, raise the standard of living, and show that democracy and capitalism could provide for the welfare of the individual.

In his inauguration speech on January 20, 1949, President Truman stated the fourth objective of his foreign policy as follows:

"we must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas.
More than half the people of the world are living in conditions approaching misery. Their food is inadequate. They are victims of disease. Their economic life is primitive and stagnant. Their poverty is a handicap and a threat both to them and to more prosperous areas.
For the first time in history, humanity possesses the knowledge and skill to relieve suffering of these people.
The United States is pre-eminent among nations in the development of industrial and scientific techniques. The material resources which we can afford to use for assistance of other peoples are limited. But our imponderable resources in technical knowledge are constantly growing and are inexhaustible"


This was not a call for economic aid--on the order of the Marshall Plan--but for the US to share its "know-how" and help nations develop with technical assistance.

According to the US Secretary of State Dean Acheson
Dean Acheson
Dean Gooderham Acheson was an American statesman and lawyer. As United States Secretary of State in the administration of President Harry S. Truman from 1949 to 1953, he played a central role in defining American foreign policy during the Cold War...

, it was the initiative of the then legal counsel to the president Clark Clifford
Clark Clifford
Clark McAdams Clifford was an American lawyer who served United States Presidents Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter, serving as United States Secretary of Defense for Johnson....

, who suggested to president Truman to initiate an assistance on a worldwide basis, and to include the issue in his inaugural address. According to Robert Schlesinger
Robert Schlesinger
Robert Schlesinger is opinion editor at U.S. News and World Report, a liberal blogger on and the Huffington Post, and writes a biweekly column for U.S. News. He is the youngest son of the late historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and the youngest brother of Stephen Schlesinger. His first book,...

's book, White House Ghosts, it was Benjamin H. Hardy who first came up with the concept. After the suggestion was as good as lost in the foggy miasma of the State Department's bureaucracy, Hardy decided to bring the idea to the attention of Truman aide, George Elsey. Elsey and Clifford went on to herald the abstraction into policy. Hardy eventually left the Department of State and became the new Technical Cooperation Administration's Chief Information Officer.

Implementation of the program

In order to implement the program, on February 9, 1949 a new committee was established within the Department of State, known as the Technical Assistance Group, under the chairmanship of Samuel Hayes. The program was approved by the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

 on June 5, 1950 in the Foreign Economic Assistance Act, which allotted to the program a budget of $ 25,000,000 for fiscal year 1950/51. Describing the new program, Truman noted that, "Communist propaganda holds that the free nations are incapable of providing a decent standard of living for the millions of people in under-developed areas of the earth. The Point Four program will be one of our principal ways of demonstrating the complete falsity of that charge."

Following Congressional approval, on October 27, 1950, the Technical Cooperation Administration (TCA) was established within the Department of State to run the Point Four program.

The program was carried out with the countries whose governments concluded bilateral agreements with the US government regarding aid under the program, and the TCA established field missions within those countries, which worked to improve agricultural output and distributed technical know-how on improving the economy in general. The first government to do so was the government of Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

, on October 19, 1950.

Point Four Program was different from other programs in that it was not confined to any specific region; it was extended to countries such as Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 and Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

. Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...

 discarded the Point Four name in favor of simply referring to it as a technical assistance program, and reorganized the TCA into the Foreign Operations Administration (its successor agencies include the International Cooperation Administration
International Cooperation Administration
The International Cooperation Administration was established by the U.S. State Department Delegation of Authority 85, June 30, 1955, pursuant to EO 10610, May 9, 1955. The predecessor to this administration was the Foreign Operations Administration . Both oganizations coordinated foreign...

and the present-day Agency for International Development).

Legacy of the program

Point Four Program was the first US plan for international economic development.

For further reading


External links

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