9781422282861

IN THEIR OWN WORDS U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of . . . conditions in which free institutions can exist.

— From a speech at Harvard University, June 5, 1947.

The Marshall Plan was put to work in Germany in the postwar years, as symbolized by this worker in West Berlin.

Marshall Plan American policy makers feared that if the United States did not take a more active role in rebuilding Western Europe, the Soviets would control all of Europe. As Stalin slowly consolidated power over Poland, the Balkans, East Germany, and other Eastern European nations, U.S. secretary of state George Marshall unveiled an economic plan to rebuild Western Europe. In March 1948, Congress passed the Economic Cooperation Act—the Mar- shall Plan—earmarking $12 billion to reconstruct Europe. The plan jumpstarted industrialization and stimulated the U.S. economy by establishing new overseas markets for American-made products. Eventually, sixteen nations participated in the Marshall Plan, receiving nearly $13 billion in aid and allowing their economies to grow quickly. Just as importantly, the Marshall Plan stopped the communists from expanding westward.

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CHAPTER 1