What was the 1946 Truman offer for Greenland and how did Denmark respond?
Executive summary
In 1946 the Truman administration formally proposed buying Greenland — most often reported as an offer of $100 million in gold — driven by Cold War strategic concerns about Arctic bases and air routes; Denmark declined the overture and insisted Greenland was not for sale, instead preserving sovereignty while negotiating U.S. basing and defence arrangements in subsequent years [1] [2] [3].
1. The offer on the table: $100 million in gold and strategic motives
Records assembled from U.S. government memos and later archival releases show American planners in 1946 recommended acquiring Greenland by purchase, and Secretary of State officials raised the matter with Denmark, with a reported price frequently cited as $100 million in gold; the Joint Chiefs’ planning and strategy committee argued Greenland was strategically indispensable and “completely worthless to Denmark,” prompting proposals both for outright purchase and for land swaps involving Alaskan territory [1] [4] [2].
2. How Washington framed the case: bases, air routes and the emerging Cold War
The U.S. rationale was explicitly military and geopolitical: Greenland sits astride polar air routes between North America and the Soviet Union and offered staging and early‑warning advantages for any future conflict; internal State Department and War Department correspondence urged prompt action to secure military rights or even ownership to support air counteroffensive and base operations [1] [4].
3. The diplomatic exchange and Denmark’s immediate response
When U.S. Secretary of State James Byrnes raised the proposal, Danish officials made clear they were not inclined to sell; although contemporaneous reporting notes no dramatic public signing of a rejection on the spot, Copenhagen responded by rejecting the transaction in principle and emphasizing that Greenland was not an economic asset to be traded away, framing the relationship as one of heritage and sovereignty rather than simple commerce [5] [6] [3].
4. Why Denmark said no: sovereignty, self‑determination and political context
Danish foreign minister Gustav Rasmussen and other officials countered U.S. characterizations that Greenland was ‘worthless’ and stressed that monetary considerations did not determine Denmark’s ties to Greenland; historians also note the broader political instincts in Copenhagen — a desire to preserve territorial integrity and to respect the status of Greenlanders — influenced the refusal even as Denmark accepted security cooperation [5] [7].
5. The deal that followed: bases and defence without a sale
Rather than a transfer of sovereignty, the two countries moved toward arrangements that protected American strategic access while leaving Greenland under Danish rule: the U.S. retained and later expanded airbases established during World War II, and a formal “Defence of Greenland” framework and subsequent NATO-era agreements (including the 1951 arrangements that enabled bases such as Thule) institutionalized U.S. military presence without purchase [7] [8] [9].
6. Competing interpretations and gaps in the record
Contemporary and retrospective accounts agree on the broad outline — a 1946 U.S. purchase proposal and Danish rejection — but differ on tone and emphasis: U.S. memos stress strategic urgency and even contemplate swaps of Alaskan districts [1], while Danish and later Nordic commentators stress sovereignty and the symbolic meaning of Greenland to the Danish realm [5]. Declassified documents surfaced decades after the fact, and while multiple news outlets and think tanks summarize the offer as $100 million in gold, scholars caution that archives show a mix of proposals (purchase, swaps, expanded basing) rather than a single, neatly packaged treaty offer, and the full range of diplomatic exchanges is not exhaustively presented in the cited reporting [7] [10].