By 1947 the United States found itself in a
Cold War struggle against the
USSR. With White House assistants
Clark Clifford and
George Elsey and State Department official Ben Hardy taking the lead, 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 after countries from the Middle East, Latin America, Asia and Africa had complained about the emphasis on European aid by the U.S. By sharing American know-how in various fields, especially agriculture, industry and health, officials could help "
third world" nations—i.e., those not aligned with
NATO nor the Soviets—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" Truman denied that this was a colonial venture to dominate other countries. Rather, he insisted, "The old imperialism—exploitation for foreign profit—has no place in our plans. What we envisage is a program of development based on the concepts of democratic fair-dealing. All countries, including our own, will greatly benefit from a constructive program for the better use of the world’s human and natural resources." 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. There was bipartisan support, led by Republican Congressman
Christian A. Herter of Massachusetts. Point Four was the first global U.S. foreign aid program, yet it drew some inspiration from the nation's wartime
Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (OCIAA), which extended technical assistance to Latin American countries.
Nelson Rockefeller, the administrator of the OCIAA, strongly supported the establishment of Point Four in congressional hearings. According to the US Secretary of State
Dean Acheson, it was the initiative of the then legal counsel to the president
Clark Clifford, 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's book,
White House Ghosts, it was Chief Public Affairs Officer 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==