An interactive, overview of the Marshall Plan from WWII. If you are interested in the original version, with links and animations, please contact me and I'll get it to you.
By the end of this brief you should have a very clear understanding of the Marshall Plan, how it was more than a plan for economic aid to Europe, and how the plan relates to the primary topic of this class – Strategy. To get there I’m going to speak to these areas.
inviting twenty-two European nations to send representatives to Paris to draw up a cooperative recovery plan. which became the Committee of European Economic Cooperation (CEEC), meets in Paris. The Soviet Union declines to attend and pressures Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary into staying away. estimating needs and the cost of the European Recovery Program (ERP) over four years. It provides for the establishment of the Organization for European Economic Cooperation(OEEC) to coordinate the program from the European side. that authorizes the Marshall Plan. President Truman signs it the next day. Paul Hoffman of Studebaker Corporation is appointed Administrator of the Economic Cooperation Agency (ECA), the temporary American agency created to implement the plan. Averell Harriman is appointed special representative of the ECA in Europe. to determine national needs prior to passage of appropriations bill by U.S. Congress.
The Marshall Plan was more than economic aid; it was the Policy arm of America’s New National Security Strategy, which was not fully formulated. Soviet takeover of control at the outset generally followed a three stage "bloc politics" process: (i) a general coalition of left-wing, antifascist forces; (ii) a bogus coalition in which the communists neutralized those in other parties who were not willing to accept communist supremacy; and (iii) complete communist domination, frequently exercised in a new party formed by the fusion of communist and other leftist groups.
Truman signed the document, but still sent it back for detail revisions. He wanted to have exact figures, dollar amounts.
Will L. Clayton was one of 3 partners who built a $75 cotton merchandising company. He entered government work during WWI. He also worked in government during WWII, at the Import-Export Bank, where he worked to procure strategic materials for the US and keep them out of the hands of Germany.
“ At the bottom of the Kremlin's neurotic view of world affairs", Kennan argued, "is the traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity". Following the Russian Revolution, this sense of insecurity became mixed with communist ideology and "Oriental secretiveness and conspiracy". "the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies... Soviet pressure against the free institutions of the Western world is something that can be contained by the adroit and vigilant application of counterforce at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and manoeuvers of Soviet policy, but which cannot be charmed or talked out of existence.
It grew out of the Second Quebec Conference that began Sept 16 th 1944. The plan’s aim was to divide Germany among Allied Nations and reduce Germany to a “pastoral state.” Germany’s industrial capabilities were being piecemealed out to Allied Nations.
There were several adjustments made to the Morgenthau plan, namely further divisions of Germany and Austria (and their capitals) in to 4 occupation zones.
Most notable about this conference is that at the end of it, Truman made an ultimatum to Japan, which was refused. On 6 and 9 August, the US dropped Atom Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. This may have imbued a sense of fear in the Soviet Union.
Conditions set in the Potsdam Conference were not being carried through; it was a case of “who started it?” Either way, the Soviet Union was becoming less of an ally.
Churchill expresses concern in “Iron Curtain” speech with Truman present. From Churchill’s Speech: From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an "iron curtain" has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow. I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines.” The book ends of this speech were the two writings from Kennan.
Russia was taking control of these countries, not because it was very strong, but because it was very weak. It intended to exploit these countries economically.
By 1947, Britain was just about bankrupt. Despite continued Lend-Lease contributions and acquisitions of Germany’s industrial infrastructure, devastations of WWII grows; economy deteriorating, widespread famine, unemployment, homelessness. Recovery extremely slow if not going backwards.
Europe’s economic crisis was one thing, Britain’s inability to sustain military operations on the other side of the continent was another. The US was doubly concerned.
But we didn’t foresee the Soviet Union becoming a threat; they were a strong ally in 1945.
Outlined in a presidential speech to Congress, makes it U.S. policy to protect nations threatened by communism. Will L. Clayton was working tirelessly prior to this time to relieve arms trade barriers to European countries, in particular Greece and Turkey, in order to combat communism. Perhaps due to George F. Kennan’s view that
Former US Pres Hoover explained the importance of Germany’s recovery to Europe’s Recovery. It has been suggested that Herbert Hoover's March 1947 economic report helped end the execution of the Morgenthau plan, particularly through the paragraph which stated: "There is the illusion that the New Germany left after the annexations can be reduced to a 'pastoral state'. It can not be done unless we exterminate or move 25,000,000 people out of it.“ Clayton and General Luis D Clay, who expressed early fears of Spread of Communism in Eastern Europe.
In a speech at the Harvard commencement in 1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall calls for an American plan to help Europe recover from World War II.