Download The Marshall Plan The Need Europe was devastated by years of

The Marshall Plan
The Need
Europe was devastated by years of conflict during World War II. Millions of people had been killed or
wounded. Industrial and residential centers in England, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Belgium and
elsewhere lay in ruins. Much of Europe was on the brink of famine as agricultural production had been
disrupted by war. Transportation infrastructure was in shambles. The only major power in the world that
was not significantly damaged was the United States.
Aid to Europe
From 1945 through 1947, the United States was already assisting European economic recovery with direct
financial aid. Military assistance to Greece and Turkey was being given. The newly formed United
Nations was providing humanitarian assistance. In January 1947, U. S. President Harry Truman appointed
George Marshall, the architect of victory during WWII, to be Secretary of State. Writing in his diary on
January 8, 1947, Truman said, “Marshall is the greatest man of World War II. He managed to get along
with Roosevelt, the Congress, Churchill, the Navy and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and he made a grand record
in China. When I asked him to [be] my special envoy to China, he merely said, ‘Yes, Mr. President I'll
go.’ No argument only patriotic action. And if any man was entitled to balk and ask for a rest, he
was. We'll have a real State Department now.”
In just a few months, State Department leadership under Marshall with expertise provided by George
Kennan, William Clayton and others crafted the Marshall Plan concept, which George Marshall shared
with the world in a speech on June 5, 1947 at Harvard. Officially known as the European Recovery
Program (ERP), the Marshall Plan was intended to rebuild the economies and spirits of Western Europe,
primarily. Marshall was convinced the key to restoration of political stability lay in the revitalization of
national economies. Further he saw political stability in Western Europe as a key to blunting the advances
of communism in that region.
The European Recovery Program
Sixteen nations, including Germany, became part of the program and shaped the assistance they required,
state by state, with administrative and technical assistance provided through the Economic Cooperation
Administration (ECA) of the United States. European nations received nearly $13 billion in aid, which
initially resulted in shipments of food, staples, fuel and machinery from the United States and later resulted
in investment in industrial capacity in Europe. Marshall Plan funding ended in 1951.
Results
Marshall Plan nations were assisted greatly in their economic recovery. From 1948 through 1952 European
economies grew at an unprecedented rate. Trade relations led to the formation of the North Atlantic
alliance. Economic prosperity led by coal and steel industries helped to shape what we know now as the
European Union.
Truman Doctrine
In a dramatic speech to a joint session of Congress, President Harry S. Truman asks for U.S. assistance for
Greece and Turkey to forestall communist domination of the two nations. Historians have often cited
Truman's address, which came to be known as the Truman Doctrine, as the official declaration of the Cold
War.
In February 1947, the British government informed the United States that it could no longer furnish the
economic and military assistance it had been providing to Greece and Turkey since the end of World War
II. The Truman administration believed that both nations were threatened by communism and it jumped at
the chance to take a tough stance against the Soviet Union. In Greece, leftist forces had been battling the
Greek royal government since the end of World War II. In Turkey, the Soviets were demanding some
manner of control over the Dardanelles, territory from which Turkey was able to dominate the strategic
waterway from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.
On March 12, 1947, Truman appeared before a joint session of Congress to make his case. The world, he
declared, faced a choice in the years to come. Nations could adopt a way of life "based upon the will of the
majority" and governments that provided "guarantees of individual liberty" or they could face a way of life
"based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority." This latter regime, he indicated,
relied upon "terror and oppression." "The foreign policy and the national security of this country," he
claimed, were involved in the situations confronting Greece and Turkey. Greece, he argued, was
"threatened by the terrorist activities of several thousand armed men, led by communists." It was incumbent
upon the United States to support Greece so that it could "become a self-supporting and self-respecting
democracy." The "freedom-loving" people of Turkey also needed U.S. aid, which was "necessary for the
maintenance of its national integrity." The president declared that "it must be the policy of the United States
to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside
pressures." Truman requested $400 million in assistance for the two nations. Congress approved his request
two months later.
The Truman Doctrine was a de facto declaration of the Cold War. Truman's address outlined the broad
parameters of U.S. Cold War foreign policy: the Soviet Union was the center of all communist activity and
movements throughout the world; communism could attack through outside invasion or internal
subversion; and the United States needed to provide military and economic assistance to protect nations
from communist aggression.
Not everyone embraced Truman's logic. Some realized that the insurgency in Greece was supported not by
the Soviet Union, but by Yugoslavia's Tito, who broke with the Soviet communists within a year.
Additionally, the Soviets were not demanding control of the Dardanelles, but only assurances that this
strategic waterway would not be used by Russia's enemies-as the Nazis had used it during World War II.
And whether U.S. assistance would result in democracy in Greece or Turkey was unclear. Indeed, both
nations established repressive right-wing regimes in the years following the Truman Doctrine. Yet, the
Truman Doctrine successfully convinced many that the United States was locked in a life-or-death struggle
with the Soviet Union, and it set the guidelines for over 40 years of U.S.-Soviet relations.