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The United Nations and the Marshall Plan
Having defeated one system of totalitarian tyranny, the United States and the Western Powers were
confronted by another system, ideologically opposed to fascism, yet even more totalitarian, and every
bit as militaristic: Communism. In an address at Westminster College in Fulton Missouri on March 5,
1946, Winston Churchill summed up the situation of postwar Europe: “From Stettin on the Baltic to
Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.”
There were two things keeping stability in Europe in the late 1940s. The first was the fact that
the United States had a monopoly on “the Bomb” and American Scientists and politicians believed the
Soviets were years away from developing a bomb of their own.
The second reason was the United Nations. The name came from what the powers allied
against the Axis had called themselves. The hope of Roosevelt and Churchill, and even slightly Stalin,
was to perpetuate an alliance or at least cooperation after WWII. In 1944, the allies had met to sketch
out plans for the new world body. The wartime allies including France would constitute a
peacekeeping (security) council, while the other nations of the world would play secondary roles. Any
permanent member of the Security Council could veto enforcement actions, but no member could veto
discussion and debate. In 1945, a formal United Nations charter was drawn up and adopted by 50
nations at the San Francisco Conference.
Even with the hope of the U.N. tensions were already building in Europe. In 1946, Stalin,
determined never again to leave his nation vulnerable to invasion, simply swallowed up his neighbors.
The “Iron Curtain” sliced Germany in two, dividing it into a Soviet zone and Western Zones
(controlled by the U.S., Britain, and France) and cut it off from the West, Poland, Hungary, part of
Austria, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania. Yugoslavia was behind the Iron Curtain, but its strong
Communist leader Josep Broz Tito kept it relatively independent. Czechoslovakia regained its
democracy after WWII and then fell under Soviet control by 1948. Nations bordering the Iron Curtain,
especially Italy, Greece, and Turkey were also in danger of Soviet domination, and the Communist
threat was not confined to Europe. In Asia at the end of WWII, China, Korea and Vietnam tottered on
the brink of communist domination.
In 1947, President Harry S. Truman proposed the “Truman Doctrine” warning the Soviet
Union, that the United States would act to halt the spread of Communism wherever in the world it
threatened democracy. Truman’s doctrine was based on the US policy of “containment” confronting
the Soviet Union whenever and wherever it sought to expand. The containment policy was dangerous,
which could have easily started a large scale war. With containment war did not come, not an all out
shooting war, but a Cold War, a chronic state of mobilization and hostility.
In 1947, President Truman appointed former General, George C. Marshall as US Secretary of
State. In June 1947, Marshall announced a plan to help Europe recover from the devastation of the war
by restoring “normal economic health in the world” which would give stability to Europe. The
Marshall plan was not aimed against any country, but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos”
but the plan was a peaceful way to contain Communism by enlarging the American sphere in Europe
and eliminating the conditions that cause dictators to rise. Great Britain and France oversaw the
creation of a Committee for European Economic Cooperation made up of 16 different countries. The
committee received 13 billion from Congress for rebuilding Europe. With the aid of the Marshall Plan,
Western Europe struggled back to its feet, forming new alliances with the U.S. and laying the
foundation for a grand military alliance NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, created in
April 1949.
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What were the two factors that were keeping Europe stable after WWII ?
What countries were under the control of the “Iron Curtain” ?
What was the Truman Doctrine ?
What was the purpose of the Marshall Plan ?
5. How did the Marshall Plan threaten the Soviet Union ?