President Truman announces his Point Four program

Years before a French political scholar coined the term “third-world,” referring to countries not aligned with the USSR or the West, both superpowers struggled to bring those countries into their sphere of influence. President Harry Truman, the first to take power after the start of the Cold War, made that struggle the centerpiece of what came to be known as the Truman Doctrine. He announced the best way to help contested countries swing toward the West is with technical and scientific development.

On this day, January 20, 1949, President Truman gave his inaugural address, mentioning the assistance program in the fourth point of his address. The program became colloquially known as the Point Four Program after that, although later President Eisenhower dropped that moniker in favor of a more official-sounding title.

Among the lasting legacies of the Point Four program was the establishment of the Peace Corps. The “Point Four Youth Corps” was proposed by a Wisconsin senator ten years after Truman’s speech, and renamed to “Peace Corps” in a State of the Union speech by President John F. Kennedy. He said in his speech “An even more valuable national asset is our reservoir of dedicated men and women…who have indicated their desire to contribute their skills, their efforts, and a part of their lives to the fight for world order. We can mobilize this talent through the formation of a National Peace Corps.”