Truman Doctrine
&
Marshall Plan
February 21, 1947, the British Embassy informed
the U.S. State Department officials that Great
Britain could no longer provide financial aid to
Greece and Turkey (American aid was in many
ways a replacement for British aid)
 Secretary of State Dean Acheson realized that the
United States must step into the breach and
consulted Arthur Vandenberg, the Republican
chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee.

Truman Doctrine
Introduction
 At
a meeting with Truman and Vandenberg
in the White House, Acheson put the aid
request in the context of the larger struggle
by using a metaphor about how one or two
rotten apples could spoil a barrel
 Acheson oversaw the process of writing the
presidential speech to define the new
doctrine
Truman Doctrine
Introduction (cont.)
 In
Greece, the National Liberation Front, a
Communist-led insurgency, was rising
under the country’s worsening economic
and political conditions and the country
was in the midst of a civil war that started
in 1944
 In Turkey, a weak government faced Soviet
pressure to share control of the strategic
Dardanelle Straits
Truman Doctrine
Threats
Address before a joint session of Congress on
March 12, 1947
 Listed some of the problems Greece was facing,
such as a ruined infrastructure, thousands of
villages destroyed, inflation, and widespread
starvation
“The very existence of the Greek state is today
threatened by the terrorist activities of several
thousand armed men, led by Communists, who
defy the government's authority …”

Truman Doctrine
Truman’s speech
“Greece must have assistance if it is to become a
self-supporting and self-respecting democracy.
The United States must supply that assistance…
There is no other country to which democratic
Greece can turn.”
 Rejected assistance from the United Nations
because “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.”

Truman Doctrine
Truman’s speech (cont.)

“…the survival and integrity of the Greek nation
are of grave importance in a much wider
situation. If Greece should fall under the control
of an armed minority, the effect upon its neighbor,
Turkey, would be immediate and serious.
Confusion and disorder might well spread
throughout the entire Middle East.”
Truman Doctrine
Truman’s speech (cont.)




More was at stake than Greece and Turkey, for if
those two key states should fall, Communism would
likely spread south to Iran and as far east as India
Dean Acheson persuaded Congress to accept
responsibility for supporting countries under
communist pressure, or containment
The decision was supported by Senator Arthur H.
Vandenberg and the Republicans who controlled Congress
Truman signed the act into law on May 22, 1947, which
granted $400 million ($350 million to Greece and $50
million to Turkey) in military and economic aid
Truman Doctrine
Support & Passing
 military
and economic aid
◦ Economic aid: repairing the
infrastructure
◦ Military aid: military personnel
supervising and helping with the
reconstruction of these countries while
training soldiers
Truman Doctrine
In Practice
Shifted American foreign policy towards the
Soviet Union to a policy of containment.
 Was the first in a succession of containment
moves by the United States, followed by
economic restoration of Western Europe
through the Marshall Plan and military
containment by the creation of NATO in 1949.

◦ Governments in Western Europe with powerful
communist movements such as Italy and France
were given a variety of assistance and encouraged to
keep communist groups out of governments
Truman Doctrine
Effects
Often cited by historians as the start of the Cold
War.
 Also contributed to and became rationale for
America's first involvements in the Vietnam War

◦ Starting shortly after the outbreak of the Korean War,
Truman attempted to aid France's bid to hold onto its
Vietnamese colonies. The United States supplied French
forces with equipment and military advisors in order to
combat Ho Chi Minh and anti-colonial communist
revolutionaries
Truman Doctrine
Effects (cont.)
Break
Officially named the European Recovery Program (ERP)
 Primary plan of the United States for rebuilding the allied
countries of Europe and repelling communism after World
War II
 Named for United States Secretary of State George
Marshall
 Largely the creation of State Department officials,
especially William L. Clayton and George F. Kennan
 In operation for four fiscal years beginning in July 1947
 Some $13 billion of economic and technical assistance—
equivalent to around $180 billion in 2015—was given to
help the recovery of the European countries that had
joined in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development

Marshall Plan
Overview
 The
US hoped that it would not need to get
involved in Europe to help the countries
rebuild their economies and that the British
and French, with help from their colonies,
would quickly rebuild their economies
 By 1947, however, there was little progress,
and the situation was aggravated by a series
of cold winters
 High unemployment and food shortages led
to strikes and unrest in several countries
Marshall Plan
Leading up to/Before the Marshall Plan (cont.)
 In
European nations, the economies were
well below their pre-war levels agricultural production was 83% of 1938
levels, industrial production was 88%, and
exports only 59%
 The Iron Curtain cut off Western Europe
from Eastern Europe, not allowing for the
transfer of food from East to West
 There was a shortage of coal, leading to
hundreds of deaths by freezing
 The humanitarian desire to end these
problems was one motivation for the plan
Marshall Plan
Leading up to/Before the Marshall Plan (cont.)

The US was the only major power whose
infrastructure had not been significantly harmed
1. Entered war late
2. Suffered limited damage to its own territory
3. Gold reserves and massive agricultural and
manufacturing base were still intact
4. The war years were a period of fast economic growth

The long-term health of the U.S. economy was
dependent on trade; continued prosperity
required markets to export surplus goods
◦ Marshall Plan aid would largely be used by the
Europeans to buy manufactured goods and raw
materials from the US
Marshall Plan
Leading up to/Before the Marshall Plan (cont.)
 Another strong
motivating factor for the
United States was the beginning of the Cold
War, though when it was implemented it
was not yet an overriding concern
 In both France and Italy, the Communist
party had seen significant electoral success
in the postwar elections
 To George Kennan, the Marshall Plan was
the centerpiece of the new doctrine of
containment
Marshall Plan
Leading up to/Before the Marshall Plan (cont.)
 Long
before Marshall’s others had
suggested European reconstruction:
◦ US Secretary of State James F. Byrnes
presented an early version of the plan
during a speech given on September 6,
1946
◦ Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson
had made a major speech on the issue,
which was mostly ignored
Marshall Plan
Early Ideas
Germany had long been the industrial giant of
Europe, and its poverty held back the general
European recovery
 Continued scarcity in Germany also led to
considerable expenses for the occupying powers
 The above factors, combined with widespread
public condemnation of the early plans after their
leaking to the press, led to the rejection of
previous plans
 By April 1947, Truman, Marshall, and Acheson
were convinced of the need of the substantial
quantities of aid from the United States

Marshall Plan
Rejection of Early Ideas
In his speech to the graduating class of Harvard
in 1947, Secretary of State George Marshall
outlined the U.S. government’s preparedness to
contribute to European recovery
 The speech contained virtually no details or
numbers; its most important element was the call
for the Europeans to meet and create their own
plan for rebuilding Europe, and that the U.S.
would then fund this plan

Marshall Plan
George Marshall’s Speech
When British Foreign Secretary Ernest
Bevin heard Marshall’s speech, he
immediately contacted the French Foreign
Minister Georges Bidault to begin preparing
a European response
 They agreed that it would be necessary to
invite the Soviets as the other major allied
power
 Marshall’s speech had explicitly included an
invitation to the Soviets, feeling that
excluding them would have been too clear a
sign of distrust

Marshall Plan
Soviet Rejection



Stalin was at first cautiously interested in the plan
and felt that the USSR would be able to dictate the
terms of the aid
He sent foreign minister Molotov to Paris to meet with
Bevin and Bidault
However, both the British and French were not
genuinely interested in Soviet participation, and they
presented Molotov with conditions that the Soviets
could never accept
◦ Most important condition was that every country to join the
plan would need to have its economic situation independently
assessed,
◦ Any aid be accompanied by the creation of a unified
European economy
Marshall Plan
Soviet Rejection (cont.)
Molotov left Paris, rejecting the plan
On July 12, a larger meeting was convened in
Paris, with every country of Europe (with the
exceptions of Spain, Andorra, San Marino,
Monaco, and Liechtenstein) invited
 Stalin saw the Plan as a significant threat to
Soviet control of Eastern Europe and believed
that economic integration with the West would
allow these countries to escape Soviet domination
 Czechoslovakia and Poland agreed to attend, but
later declined to attend after Stalin talked to them
 The other Eastern European states immediately
rejected the offer and Finland also declined in
order to avoid antagonizing the Soviets


Marshall Plan
Soviet Rejection (cont.)
 16
nations met in Paris to determine what
form the American aid would take, and how
it would be divided
 Each nation had its own concerns
◦ France - Germany not be rebuilt to its previous
threatening power
◦ Benelux countries (Belgium, the Netherlands,
and Luxembourg) – felt their prosperity
depended on the revival of the German economy
Marshall Plan
Negotiations
– insisted that their
long-standing trading relationships with the
Eastern Bloc not be disrupted and that
their neutrality not be infringed
 Britain – insisted on special status,
concerned that if it were treated equally
with the devastated continental powers it
would receive virtually no aid
 Americans – pushed the importance of free
trade and European unity to form a
bulwark against communism
 Scandinavian nations
Marshall Plan
Negotiations (cont.)





Agreement was eventually reached and
the Europeans send a reconstruction plan
to Washington
They asked for $22 billion in aid
Truman cut this to $17 billion in the bill he
presented to Congress
The plan met sharp opposition in
Congress, mostly from the isolationists
who were weary of massive government
spending
Prominent men who opposed the plan
include Robert A. Taft (R) and Henry A.
Wallace (D)
Marshall Plan
Negotiations (cont.)
 The
opposition was greatly reduced by the
shock of the overthrow of the democratic
government of Czechoslovakia in
Febraury1948
 Soon after a bill granting an initial $5
billion passed Congress with strong
bipartisan support
 Congress would eventually donate $12.4
billion in aid over the four years of the plan
Marshall Plan
Negotiations (cont.)


Truman signed the Marshall Plan into law on April 3,
1948, establishing the Economic cooperation
Administration (ECA) to administer the program
In the same year, the participating countries (Austria,
Belgium, Denmark, France, West Germany, Great
Britain, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the
Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey,
and the United States) signed an accord establishing a
master coordinating agency, the Organization for
European Economic Cooperation (later called the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development, OECD)
Marshall Plan
Implementation
Marshall Plan
Expenditures
 The
Marshall Plan ended in 1951; any
effort to extend it was halted by the
growing cost of the Korean War and
rearmament
 Republicans hostile to the plan had
also gained seats in the 1950
Congressional elections
Marshall Plan
End