How do you assess President Truman’s role in the causes of the Cold War? 

A clue: You should consider the  influence of the president’s advisers in addition to his own view of  communism and Stalin. You should especially compare Truman with Franklin  Roosevelt. Many believe that the Cold War could have been avoided had  Roosevelt been alive. Of course, you should examine the Soviet side,  too, to put Truman’s Cold War policy in context. More broadly, you  should address ideological differences and the developments during World  War II and in the latter half of the 1940s, including the historical  context on both the U.S. and Soviet sides such as the Monroe Doctrine  and German invasion of Russia through Eastern Europe.