ABSTRACT
American President Harry Truman, who won re-election in 1948, managed to turn Cold War tensions to his own advantage when he helped create the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949. In early 1949, after close consultation with Senate leaders, the president asked for a military alliance between the United States and Western Europe. In October 1949 Congress rebuffed Truman when he attempted to go beyond New Deal initiatives in agricultural policy, federal aid to education, and civil rights. In 1949 Truman proposed the Brannan plan for agriculture, named after Secretary of Agriculture Charles Brannan from Colorado. With the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, however, the Truman administration became a victim of its own policies. In the years from 1947 to 1952 the Truman administration had built up Western European economic and military strength through the Marshall Plan and NATO.
