The Free World

Posted by ESC on February 11, 2004

In Reply to: Leader of the Free World posted by Niel Young on February 11, 2004

: : : Hello,
: : : I'm an international studies student, and I'm doing a paper on Thomas Jefferson and his ideas of foreign policy. While reading an article on this subject, I found a statement about the United States being at the forefront of the free world and the president hence the Leader of the Free World. I guess it's not really a saying, but do you know who coined this now frequently-used phrase? Thanks.
: : : Mary Fran

: : I am away from my library right now. But I am confident that "free world" is covered in Safire's New Political Dictionary by William Safire (Random House, New York, 1993). I'll look this evening and post what I find.

: "Keep on rockin' in the free world" -- Niel Young

There is a long passage in this book. It says, in part:

FREE WORLD - "in the eyes of the Western democracies during the Cold War, any nation not under Communist domination. The 'free world' probably was in use as a phrase during both world wars, to describe the nations not under the German or Axis control, but it gained currency in the late nineteen forties and early fifties as realization of the Communist expansion dawned." From Safire's New Political Dictionary by William Safire (Random House, New York, 1993). Page 268.