On March 12, 1947, Democratic President Harry S. Truman addressed a joint session of the Republican-controlled Congress, requesting that $400 million in military and financial aid be appropriated to the struggling governments of Greece and Turkey. The president, seeking bipartisan support for a more interventionist foreign policy aimed at limiting the global influence of the Soviet Union, articulated what would become known as the Truman Doctrine, in which the United States pledged assistance to any democratic government threatened internally or externally by the forces of totalitarianism.