Truman Doctrine & Marshall

Plan

The Truman Doctrine

• Stated that “it must be the policy of the

United States to support free peoples

who are resisting attempted subjugation

by armed minorities or by outside

pressures.”

• This basically said that we would help

anyone out who was trying to resist

communism

Truman Doctrine– This speech was given on March 12, 1947

when Harry Truman was asking for $400

million in economic and military aid to

Turkey and Greece to prevent them from

falling to the influence of communism.

– Congress agreed and spent the money

– This greatly reduced the risk of a communist

takeover of these two countries

The Marshall Plan– Europe was in economic ruin

– Factories were destroyed, London only had

enough coal to heat homes for a few hours a day,

and people were starving to death in Berlin

– Bridges, roads and rail systems were destroyed

and the Communist parties in France and Italy

were flourishing.

Marshall Plan• U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall

called for a program of massive aid to rescue

western Europe from disaster

– Marshall laid out his plan at Harvard’s graduation

ceremony in 1947 stating “Our policy is directed not

against country or doctrine, but against hunger,

poverty, desperation, and chaos.

– Aid was offered to all European countries including

the Soviet Union. The Soviets rejected it saying it was

an “imperialist scheme”

The Berlin Blockade

– The United States, Britain, and France unified West Germany and organized a government while the Soviets opposed the unification of West Germany

– In April of 1948 the Soviets began to restrict traffic into West Germany and in June they stopped traffic altogether.

• This was in the hope of the Allies either giving up Berlin or the plan to unify West Germany

• The Allies didn’t budge saying that if Berlin fell to Communism the rest of Europe would be next.

The Berlin Airlift

– The Allies used planes to deliver

over 5,000 tons of food and

equipment to West Berlin during

the blockade

– On May 12, 1949, after lengthy

talks the Soviets lifted the

blockade

NATO

– On April 4, 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty

was signed into an outright military alliance.

• Countries in the agreement were: USA, Canada,

England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands,

Luxembourg, Denmark, Iceland, Italy, Norway,

Portugal, Greece and Turkey

• This alliance stated that an attack on any one of

these countries would be a direct attack on all of

these countries.