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    FACT CHECK: Did Harry Truman Really Try To Buy Greenland Back In The Day?

    The Truman administration saw huge strategic value in the island as a geographic bulwark against the Soviet Union. Ultimately, the U.S. got access to Greenland without needing to purchase it.
    by Philip Ewing Aug 22, 2019 3 minutes
    An airstrip constructed by U.S. Army engineers in Greenland, seen in 1944.

    President Trump defended the idea of buying Greenland — derided by critics within the United States and rejected by Denmark, which controls it — in part by saying the idea first came from President Harry Truman.

    Is that so?

    The short answer:

    Yes — but it's complicated.

    The long answer:

    Trump's acknowledgment that he really has been talking about the United States buying Greenland — and that he was offended when Denmark's prime minister called the idea "absurd" — were the jaw-dropping coda from an Aug. 16 report in The Wall.

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