The Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan: Cold War Origins

The Crisis of 1947 and Truman's Foreign Policy

By 1947, President Truman's foreign policy was foundering. His secretary, Henry Wallace, had been outspoken in his criticism of the Baruch Plan and the policy of “getting tough” with the Soviets; later, he became a prominent leader of the left. The 1946 elections returned a Republican Congress bent on cutting costs and “bringing the boys home.”

The British Withdrawal and the Truman Doctrine

On February 21, 1947, the British government announced that its economic difficulties would force it to suspend economic and military aid to Greece and Turkey. If those countries succumbed to Communist influence, the Mediterranean and the entire Middle East might follow.

Truman, his new Secretary of State George C. Marshall, and Marshall's deputy resolved at once that the United States must step in. Truman asked for $400 million in aid for Greece and Turkey. The Truman Doctrine thus propounded a universalized American commitment to contain the spread of Communism.

Mobilizing American Might

The mobilization of American power for this task followed swiftly:

• June 1947: At Harvard University, Marshall called for a massive program of foreign aid to help European states recover.
• July 1947: George Kennan educated the public on “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” and outlined the strategy of containment in the journal Foreign Affairs.
• National Security: The National Military Establishment Act of 1947 created a permanent Joint Chiefs of Staff, the U.S. Air Force, and the CIA.

The Marshall Plan for European Stability

The Marshall Plan was born in the State Department in response to the fact that Western Europe was making little progress toward stability:

• Britain: Exhausted and committed to the Labour government's welfare programs.
• France: Charles de Gaulle's postwar government quickly gave way to a Fourth Republic.
• Italy: Communists threatened to gain power by parliamentary means.

Marshall put forward a plan for cash grants to a joint European economic council “to assist in the return of normal economic health, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace.”

Soviet Opposition and European Recovery

Marshall aid was offered to all of Europe, including the Soviet bloc, but Stalin denounced the plan as a capitalist plot. He reinforced his attack on the Marshall Plan by reviving the Communist International. Ultimately, the new hope kindled in Western Europe by the Marshall Plan helped secure the defeat of the Communists in the 1948 Italian elections and stabilized politics elsewhere in Western Europe.