Truman Doctrine
&
The Marshall Plan
•How did the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan
escalate the Cold War?
•Were their causes based on fear of the Soviets
or competition with the Soviets?
A) Truman Doctrine
• Reasons for its creation:
– Greece was fighting a war against the
Communists with help from Britain
– Britain could no longer support Greece (Feb
1947) and they withdraw troops
– Truman is fearful that without support, Greece
would fall to Communists
– Reaction to “salami tactics”/ collection of
states as buffer zones?
Speech 1947
“The gravity of the situation which confronts the world today necessitates my
appearance before a joint session of the Congress. The foreign policy and
the national security of this country are involved. One aspect of the present
situation, which I present to you at this time for your consideration and
decision, concerns Greece and Turkey. The United States has received
from the Greek Government an urgent appeal for financial and economic
assistance. Preliminary reports from the American Economic Mission now in
Greece and reports from the American Ambassador in Greece corroborate
the statement of the Greek Government that assistance is imperative if
Greece is to survive as a free nation.
I do not believe that the American people and the Congress wish to turn a deaf
ear to the appeal of the Greek Government. Greece is not a rich country.
Lack of sufficient natural resources has always forced the Greek people to
work hard to make both ends meet. Since 1940, this industrious, peace
loving country has suffered invasion, four years of cruel enemy occupation,
and bitter internal strife.”
Key Points of the Speech
• Help Greece for:
–
–
–
–
–
Defending freedom
Aiding a poor and weak military with money and military
Rebuilding their economy – self sustaining
Putting down “terrorist” communists
“There is no other country to which democratic Greece can turn.
No other nation is willing and able to provide the necessary
support for a democratic Greek government.”
“The free peoples of the world look to us for support in
maintaining their freedoms. If we falter in our leadership, we may
endanger the peace of the world. And we shall surely endanger
the welfare of this nation.“
– “We have considered how the United Nations might assist in this
crisis. But the situation is an urgent one, requiring immediate
action, and the United Nations and its related organizations are
not in a position to extend help of the kind that is required.”
Significance of the Truman
Doctrine
• Breaks the American tradition of isolationism
• Premise for the Marshall Plan
• Act of Collective Security (UN) – but issue of aid
never brought to the UN
• Enflames the fear of the spread of Communism
• Communists in Greece were not supported by
Stalin – supported by Yugoslavia
– Stalin recognized Britain’s position in Greece
Edvard Kardelj’s (communist leader in Greece)
answer when asked by Stalin if he believed in
the success of the Greek uprising:
“if foreign intervention does not grow and if serious
political and military errors are not made…”
Stalin interrupts:
“if, if… No, they have no prospect of success at all.
What do you think – that Britain and the US –
the US, the most powerful state in the world –
will permit you to break their lines of
communication in the Mediterranean?
Nonsense. And we have no Navy”
Stalin concludes that the Greek Civil war needs to
be “rolled up” (concluded)
Studies in the History of the Greek Civil War, 1945-1949
By Lars Bærentzen, John O
B) Marshall Plan
• Reasons for its creation:
– Europe entering another postwar
depression (unemployment and social
unrest)
• Protect against the spread of Communism
– Protect democratic/capitalist trading
partners so that the US itself would not
fall into a depression
– America was the only country able to
financially aid Western Europe
– Soviet sponsored coup in
Czechoslovakia takes over
George C. Marshall’s Speech 1947
“For the past 10 years conditions have been highly
abnormal. The feverish preparation for war and the more
feverish maintenance of the war effort engulfed all
aspects of national economies. Machinery has fallen into
disrepair or is entirely obsolete. Under the arbitrary and
destructive Nazi rule, virtually every possible enterprise
was geared into the German war machine.”
“The truth of the matter is that Europe's requirements for
the next three or four years of foreign food and other
essential products--principally from America--are so
much greater than her present ability to pay that she
must have substantial additional help or face economic,
social, and political deterioration of a very grave
character.”
Key Points
• Economic records of countries seeking aid
needed to be publicized
• Country seeking aid needed to submit a
plan
• Open to Soviet countries as well
Significance
“Churchill's words won the war, Marshall's words won
the peace.”
Dirk Stikker
Foreign Minister
The Netherlands, 1948-1952
“The Marshall speech … was greeted as a great act of
statesmanship and as an expression of what we felt
was genuine idealism on the part of the United
States.”
Halvard Lange
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Norway, 1946-1965
Significance
• Over $13 Billlion of aid given to western European
nations from 1948-1952
• Created strong trade markets for the US
• Communist countries invited to partake but Molotov
(foreign minister) refused
– Molotov Plan to counter
– Russia lacked funds to give aid and was instead a trade
agreement
• Strengthen Western Germany to defend against
Communism
• Stalin responds by not allowing coalition governments in
Soviet countries
Soviet Union Reacts
• Creation of the Cominform to organize
communist parties around the world
– Provoke strikes in non-communist nations
– Solidify existing communist countries
– Unsuccessful and is disbanded in 1956
• Comecon (council for Mutual Economic
Assistance)
– Trade networks made in Eastern Europe
– Forced to buy Soviet products
– Raw materials sold at high prices to Eastern Europe
while their goods were sold back to Russia at low
prices (ends in the 1970s)
A British cartoon of
June 1947 shows
Truman and Stalin as
two taxi-drivers trying to
get customers. The
'customers' are labelled
'Turkey', 'Hungary',
'Bulgaria', 'Austria'.