U.S. - Soviet relations

Almost immediately, the Kennan telegram became required reading for the entire diplomatic and military establishment in Washington.

2.3 The Marshall Plan.

The chief virtue of the plan Marshall and his aides were Grafting was its fusion of these political and economic concerns. As Truman told a Baylor University audience in March 1947, "peace, freedom, and world trade are indivisible. . . . We must not go through the '3os again." Since free enterprise was seen as the foundation for democracy and prosperity, helping European economies would both assure friendly governments abroad and additional jobs at home. To accomplish that ^ goal, however, the United States would need to give economic aid directly rather than through the United Nations, since only under those circumstances would American control be assured. Ideally, the Marshall Plan would provide an economic arm to the political strategy embodied --in the Truman Doctrine. Moreover, if presented as a program in which even Eastern European countries could participate, it would provide, at last potentially, a means of including pro-Soviet countries and breaking Stalin's political and economic domination over Eastern Eu-rope.

On that basis, Marshall dramatically announced his proposal at Harvard University's commencement on June 5, 1947. "Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine," Marshall said, "but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. Its purpose should be revival of a working economy. Any government that is willing to assist in the task of recovery will find full cooperation ... on the part of the United States government." Responding, French Foreign Minister George Bidault invited officials throughout Europe, including the Soviet Union, to attend a conference in Paris to draw up a plan of action. Poland and Czechoslovakia expressed interest, and Molotov himself came to Paris with eighty-nine aides.

Rather than inaugurate a new era of cooperation, however, the next few days simply reaffirmed how far polarization had already extended. Molotov urged that each country present its own needs independently to the United States. Western European countries, on the other hand, insisted that all the countries cooperate in a joint proposal for American consideration. Since the entire concept presumed extensive sharing of economic data on each country's resources and liabilities, as well as Western control over how the aid would be expended, the Soviets angrily walked out of the deliberations. In fact, the United States never believed that the Russians would participate in the project, knowing that it was a violation of every Soviet precept to open their economic records to examination and control by capitalist outsiders. Furthermore, U.S. strategy was premised on a major rebuilding of German industry--something profoundly threatening to the Russians. Ideally, Americans viewed a thriving Germany as the foundation for revitalizing the economies of all Western European countries, and providing the key to prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic. To a remarkable extent, that was precisely the result of the Marshall Plan. Understandably, such a prospect frightened the Soviets, but the con-sequence was to further the split between East and West, and in particular, to undercut the possibility of promoting further cooperation with countries like Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

In the weeks and months after the Russians left Paris, the final pieces of the Cold War were set in place. Shortly after the Soviet departure from Paris the Russians announced the creation of a series of bilateral trade agreements called the "Molotov Plan," designed to link Eastern bloc countries and provide a Soviet answer to the Marshall Plan. Within the same week the Russians created a new Communist Information Bureau (Cominform), including representatives from the major Western European communist parties, to serve as a vehicle for imposing Stalinist control on anyone who might consider deviating from the party line. Speaking at the Cominform meeting in August, Andre Zhdanov issued the Soviet Union's rebuttal to the Truman Doctrine. The United States, he charged, was organizing the countries of the Near East, Western Europe, and South America into an alliance com-mitted to the destruction of communism. Now, he said, the "new democracies" of Eastern Europe--plus their allies in developing coun-tries--must form a counter bloc. The world would thus be made up of "two camps," each ideologically, politically, and, to a growing extent, militarily defined by its opposition to the other.

To assure that no one misunderstood, Russia moved quickly to impose a steel-like grip on Eastern Europe. In August 1947 the Soviets purged all left-wing, anticommunist leaders from Hungary and then rigged elections to assure a pro-Soviet regime there. Six months later, in February 1948, Stalin moved on Czechoslovakia as well, insisting on the abolition of independent parties and sending Soviet troops to the Czech border to back up Soviet demands for an all new communist government. After Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk either jumped or was pushed from a window in Prague, the last vestige of resistance faded. "We are [now] faced with exactly the same situation . . . Britain and France faced in 1938-39 with Hitler," Truman wrote. The Czech coup coincided with overwhelming approval of the Marshall Plan by the American Congress. Two weeks later, on March 5, General Lucius Clay sent his telegram from Germany warning of imminent war with Russia. Shortly thereafter, Truman called on Congress to implement Universal Military Training for all Americans. (The plan was never put in place.) By the end of the month Russia had instituted a year-long blockade of all supplies to Berlin in protest against the West's decision to unify her occupation zones in Germany and institute currency reform. Before the end of spring, the Brussels Pact had brought together the major powers of Western Europe in a mutual defense pact that a year later would provide the basis for NATO. If the Truman Doctrine, in Bernard Baruch's words, had been "a declaration of ideological or religious war," the Marshall Plan, the Molotov Plan, and subsequent developments in Eastern Europe represented the economic, political, and military de-marcations that would define the terrain on which the war would be fought. The Cold War had begun.

Chapter 3: The Role of Cold War in American History and Diplomacy.

3.1 Declaration of the Cold War.

In late February 1947, a British official journeyed to the State Depart-ment to inform Dean Acheson that the crushing burden of Britain's economic crisis prevented her from any longer accepting responsibility for the economic and military stability of Greece and Turkey. The message, Secretary of State George Marshall noted, "was tantamount to British abdication from the Middle East, with obvious implications as to their successor." Conceivably, America could have responded quietly, continuing the steady stream of financial support already going into the area. Despite aid to the insurgents from Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, the war going on in Greece was primarily a civil struggle, with the British side viewed by many as reactionary in its politics. But instead, Truman administration officials seized the moment as the occasion for a dramatic new commitment to fight communism. In their view, Greece and Turkey could well hold the key to the future of Europe itself. Hence they decided to ask Congress for $400 million in military and economic aid. In the process, the administration publicly defined postwar diplomacy, for the first time, as a universal conflict between the forces of good and the forces of evil.

Truman portrayed the issue as he did, at least in part, because his aides had failed to convince Congressmen about the merits of the case on grounds of self-interest alone. Americans were concerned about the Middle East for many reasons--preservation of political stability, guar-antee of access to mineral resources, a need to assure a prosperous market for American goods. Early drafts of speeches on the issue had focused specifically on economic questions. America could not afford, one advisor noted, to allow Greece and similar areas to "spiral downward into economic anarchy." But such arguments, another advisor noted, "made the whole thing sound like an investment prospectus." Indeed, when Secretary of State Marshall used such arguments of self-interest with Congressmen, his words fell on deaf ears, particularly given the commitment of Republicans to cut government spending to the bone. It was at that moment. Dean Acheson recalled, that "in desperation I whispered to [Marshall] a request to speak. This was my crisis. For a week I had nurtured it."

When Acheson took the floor, he transformed the atmosphere in the room. The issue, he declared, was the effort by Russian communism to seize dominance over three continents, and encircle and capture Western Europe. "Like apples in a barrel infected by the corruption of one rotten one, the corruption of Greece would infect Iran and alter the Middle East . . . Africa . . . Italy and France." The struggle was ultimate, Acheson concluded. "Not since Rome and Carthage has there been such a polarization of power on this earth. . . . We and we alone are in a position to break up" the Soviet quest for world domination. Suddenly, the Congressmen sat up and took notice. That argument, Senator Arthur Vandenberg told the president, would be successful. If Truman wanted his program of aid to be approved, he would--like Acheson--have to "scare hell" out of the American people.

By the time Truman came before Congress on March 12, the issue was no longer whether the United States should extend economic aid to Greece and Turkey on a basis of self-interest, but rather whether America was willing to sanction the spread of tyrannical communism everywhere in the world. Facing the same dilemma Roosevelt had confronted during the 1930S in his effort to get Americans ready for war, Truman sensed that only if the issues were posed as directly related to the nation's fundamental moral concern--not just self-interest-- would there be a possibility of winning political support. Hence, as Truman defined the question, the world had to choose "between alternative ways of life." One option was "free," based on "representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, and free-dom of speech and religion." The other option was "tyranny," based on "terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio, . . . and a suppression of personal freedoms." Given a choice between freedom and totalitarianism, Truman concluded, "it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities."

Drawing on the "worst case" scenario implicit in Kennan's telegram, Truman, in effect, had presented the issue of American-Soviet relations as one of pure ideological and moral conflict. There were some who criticized him. Senator Robert Taft, for example, wondered whether, if the United States took responsibility for Greece and Turkey, Americans could object to the Russians continuing their domination over Eastern Europe. Secretary of State Marshall was disturbed at "the extent to which the anticommunist element of the speech was stressed." And George Kennan, concerned over how his views had been used, protested against the president's strident tone. But Truman and Acheson had understood the importance of defining the issue on grounds of patri-otism and moral principle. If the heart of the question was the universal struggle of freedom against tryanny--not taking sides in a civil war-- who could object to what the government proposed? It was, Senator Arthur Vandenberg noted, "almost like a presidential request for a declaration of war. . . . There is precious little we can do except say yes." By mid-May, Truman's aid package had passed Congress over-whelmingly.

On the same day the Truman Doctrine received final approval, George Marshall and his aides at the State Department were busy shaping what Truman would call the second half of the same walnut-- the Marshall Plan of massive economic support to rebuild Western Europe. Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium--all were devastated by the war, their cities lying in rubble, their industrial base gutted. It was difficult to know if they could survive, yet the lessons of World War I suggested that political democracy and stability depended on the presence of a healthy and thriving economic order. Already American officials were concerned that Italy--and perhaps France--would suc-cumb to the political appeal of native communists and become victims of what William Bullitt had called the "red amoeba" spreading all across Europe. Furthermore, America's selfish economic interests demanded strong trading partners in Western Europe. "No nation in modern times," Assistant Secretary of State Will Clayton had said, "can long expect to enjoy a rising standard of living without increased foreign trade." America imported from Europe only half of what it exported, and Western Europe was quickly running out of dollars to pay for American goods. If some form of massive support to reconstruct Europe's economy were not developed, economic decay there would spread, unemployment in America would increase, and political insta-bility could well lead to communist takeovers of hitherto "friendly" counties.

3.2 Cold War Issues.

Although historians have debated for years the cause of the Cold War, virtually everyone agrees that it developed around five major issues:

Poland, the structure of governments in other Eastern European countries, the future of Germany, economic reconstruction of Europe, and international policies toward the atomic bomb and atomic energy. All of these intersected, so that within a few months, it became almost impossible to separate one from the other as they interacted to shape the emergence of a bipolar world. Each issue in its own way also reflected the underlying confusion and conflict surrounding the competing doctrines of "universalist" versus "sphere-of-influence" diplomacy. Ex-amination of these fundamental questions is essential if we are to comprehend how and why the tragedy of the Cold War evolved during the three years after Germany's defeat.

Poland constituted the most intractable and profound dilemma facing Soviet-U.S. relations. As Secretary of State Edward Stettinius observed in 1945, Poland was "the big apple in the barrel." Unfortunately, it also symbolized, for both sides, everything that the war had been fought for. From a Soviet perspective, Poland represented the quin-tessence of Russia's national security needs. On three occasions, Poland had served as the avenue for devastating invasions of Russian territory. It was imperative, given Russian history, that Poland be governed by a regime supportive of the Soviet Union. But Poland also represented, both in fact and in symbol, everything for which the Western Allies had fought. Britain and France had declared war on Germany in September 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland, thus honoring their mutual defense pact with that victimized country. It seemed unthinkable that one could wage war for six years and end up with another totalitarian country in control of Poland. Surely if the Atlantic Charter signified anything, it required defending the right of the Polish people to determine their own destiny. The presence of 7 million Polish-American voters offered a constant, if unnecessary, reminder that such issues of self-determi-nation could not be dismissed lightly. Thus, the first issue confronting the Allies in building a postwar world would also be one on which compromise was virtually impossible, at least without incredible diplo-matic delicacy, political subtlety, and profound appreciation, by each ally, of the other's needs and priorities.

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