Dissemination of Anti-Communist Discourse in the Post War United States: A Case Study of Foreign Affairs Magazine

In liberal democracies, it is generally believed that policies are made in accordance with public opinion. Foreign policy decisions are no exception. While pursuing a certain path, decision-makers often have future elections in mind. As a result, public opinion becomes a determining factor in foreign policy-making processes. This paper, however, takes a different perspective. It argues that the media, particularly in the form of think-tank articles written by experts with years of government and private expertise, may facilitate public compliance with official policies via efforts to ensure public consent with the application of a common discursive framework. On that basis, this study explores textual relationships in the legitimation processes of formal foreign policy declarations of the US presidents via articles published in Foreign Affairs magazine. This study’s research design discusses intertextual links between the Truman Doctrine and selected articles from Foreign Affairs magazine within an anti-communist framework. It is concluded that the articles from Foreign Affairs magazine are intertextually linked to the Truman Doctrine, lending legitimacy to official US foreign policy actions among the American public both before and after the doctrine's announcement.