In addition to linking evil to poverty, Truman also employs the evil variant that appeared in Roosevelt's second inaugural address, positing evil as something in the future, something to be resisted or overcome through the power of the people. His State of the Union address in 1950, aluding to scientific, technological, and, presumablYi military developments associated with "opening the secrets of nature," announces, "Man must create the moral and legal fram.ework for the world which will insure that his new powers are used for good and not evil. In shaping the outcome, the people of the United States wil play a leading role:' Like Roosevelt's speeches, Truman's establish a fitting rhetorical habitat for evil. Povercy, economic inequalicy, and the unchecked pursuit of profit are matters appropriately designated evil. At the same time, evil also appears as the object of a project for the future, one associated with the moral strength of democratic governance.
Nevertheless, along with the political climate, the discursive environment of the late 1940s was changing. One site where the change can be detected is in a speech Truman gives before a joint session of Congress in 1947. In that speech, Truman requests economic assistance for Greece and Turkey (and elaborates what would become known as the Truman Doctrine) . 27 He also uses the term evil and suggests a vision of the world as split between freedom and oppression. Rather than explicitly tied to Sovi�t communism, however, evil remains articulated with poverty. Truman asserts: '�t the present moment in world history nearly eve.ry nation .must choose between alternative ways of life. The choice is too often not a free one:' On one side is a way of life based on the wil of the majority and "distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual libercy, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression:' On the other side is a way of life that "relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio, fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms:'28 Despite this characterization of Soviet communism, Truman refrains from referring to either the regime or the ideology as eviL Instead, evil retains its link with economic deprivation: "The seeds of totalitarian regimes are nurtured by misery and want. They spread and grow in the evil soil of poverty and strife:' Evil flourishes in fetid zones of neediness, brutality, and despair. With this variation in the rhetorical environment established, Truman's image of the conflict in Korea as an "evil war by proxy" in his 1951 State of the Union address is not surprising.29
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