Skip to main content

PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Politics & government fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about politics & government. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

12,754 published reviews in this topic

PolitiFactPolitics & government

Says "Harry Truman had the idea of (buying) Greenland

Publisher’s rating: Yes. New reasons today

Related reporting supports the claim that Truman was behind a U.S. proposal to buy Greenland. It says that in 1946, after the United States had taken responsibility for defending Greenland during World War II, Truman’s administration made Denmark a formal offer to purchase the island. Denmark rejected it. This directly supports the substance of the claim: the idea of buying Greenland was pursued during Truman’s presidency, not merely discussed in later accounts of Donald Trump’s interest. The reporting also gives detail about how the proposal came to light. The offer was secret when made, and the account says it was first made public in 1991 after documents had been declassified. It quotes a State Department official, John Hickerson, recalling a 1946 committee meeting at which he said that “practically every member” agreed the United States should try to purchase Greenland. The supplied excerpts do not provide the underlying documents or a fuller account of that meeting, so they support the existence of the proposal and its association with Truman, but do not establish that Truman personally originated the idea.