Volta
Politics12 March and 5 June 1947

Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan

Also called: European Recovery Program, Containment

The United States declared a policy of containing communism (the Truman Doctrine) and offered massive aid to rebuild Western Europe (the Marshall Plan). The Cold War began in earnest.

Poster promoting the Marshall Plan, a windmill made of the flags of the aided Western European countries — US Economic Cooperation Administration, 1950
Poster promoting the Marshall Plan, a windmill made of the flags of the aided Western European countries — US Economic Cooperation Administration, 1950

E. Spreckmeester (also credited as "I. Spreekmeester"), published Economic Cooperation Administration · Public domain · Source

In 1946 Churchill declared that “an iron curtain has descended” from the Baltic to the Adriatic. On 12 March 1947 President Truman asked Congress for aid to Greece, then fighting communist insurgents, and to Turkey, under Soviet pressure, pledging to support free peoples against communist expansion (containment).

On 5 June Secretary of State Marshall announced the European Recovery Program; from 1948 sixteen Western European countries received some 13 billion dollars over four years. The Soviet Union kept Eastern Europe out and answered with the Cominform (1947) and Comecon (1949). Europe was now split into two camps.

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States and rulers at the time
United States · led by — President Harry S. Truman
Greece
Türkiye

People

  • Harry S. Truman1884 – 1972

    leader · 33rd US president (1945–1953) who ordered the atomic bombings, set the policy of containment with the Truman Doctrine and sent US forces to the Korean War

  • George C. Marshall1880 – 1959

    leader · US Army Chief of Staff in the Second World War and Secretary of State (1947–1949) who proposed the European Recovery Program (Marshall Plan); Nobel Peace Prize 1953

  • Winston Churchill1874 – 1965

    related figure · British prime minister (1940–1945, 1951–1955) who led Britain’s resistance through the Battle of Britain and named the “Iron Curtain” in 1946

Before and after

Earlier
1946 US–Soviet Joint Commission
Later
1949 Founding of NATO

Themes that include this event

  • The Cold War1945 – 1991

    From Yalta to the dissolution of the Soviet Union — half a century in which two blocs led by the US and the USSR divided the world