The Marshall Plan

by Benn Steil

  6 Communist demonstration against the Marshall Plan in Berlin. Visible part of the sign on the left reads “Create jobs through trade with the east!” Sign on the right says “Against the Marshall Plan. Creates unemployment, misery.”

  7 A large crowd in the Old Square of Prague listens to Communist Czechoslovak Prime Minister Klement Gottwald following the resignation of the coalition government’s non-Communist ministers, February 1948.

  8 A U.S. C-47 cargo plane with food and other relief supplies approaches Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport, breaking the Soviet blockade of overland routes into the western sectors, 1948.

  9 Mass anti-communist rally organized by Berlin’s democratic socialist parties, 1948.

  10 Marshall Plan aid shipment at the port of Rotterdam, c. early 1949.

  11 Secretary of State Dean Acheson signs the North Atlantic Treaty, NATO’s founding act, in Washington on April 4, 1949, a year and a day after President Truman signed the Marshall aid legislation. Standing beside him, from left to right: Vice President Alben Barkley, President Harry Truman, and State Department Treaty Advisor John Foley. In the background, from left to right: British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin, Norwegian Foreign Minister Halvard Lange, and Luxembourg Foreign Minister Joseph Bech.

  1 President Harry Truman delivers his famous “Truman Doctrine” address to a joint session of Congress on March 12, 1947, in which he states that U.S. help to “free peoples” fighting “outside pressures . . . should be primarily through economic and financial aid which is essential to economic stability and orderly political processes.” Behind him are President Pro Tempore of the Senate Arthur Vandenberg (R-MI) and Speaker of the House Joseph Martin (R-MA).

  2 Secretary of State George Marshall, just arrived from the Moscow Council of Foreign Ministers conference, talks with Under Secretary Dean Acheson at Washington Airport, April 26, 1947.

  3 Secretary of State George Marshall and Senator Arthur Vandenberg (R-MI) confer, February 26, 1948.

  4 Under Secretary of State Robert Lovett and Director of the Policy Planning Staff of the State Department George Kennan, September 6, 1947.

  5 Ambassador to the U.K. Lewis Douglas and Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Will Clayton, c. October 1, 1947.

  6 State Department Counselor Charles Bohlen.

  7 Military Governor for Germany General Lucius Clay (waving) with political adviser for Germany Ambassador Robert Murphy.

  8 Secretary of State James Byrnes and Ambassador to the Soviet Union (later special representative in Europe under the Marshall Plan) Averell Harriman leaving the Potsdam conference area, July 19, 1945.

  9 Ambassador to France Jefferson Caffery, c. 1945.

  10 Ambassador to the Soviet Union Walter Bedell Smith.

  11 Former Secretary of Commerce and 1948 Progressive Party candidate for president Henry Wallace, an opponent of the Marshall Plan, on his arrival at London Airport, c. 1950.

  12 President Truman, Secretary of State George Marshall, Director of the Economic Cooperation Administration Paul Hoffman, and Secretary of Commerce Averell Harriman discussing the Marshall Plan, November 29, 1948.

  13 Soviet leader Joseph Stalin (right) and Politburo member Andrei Zhdanov, October 11, 1945.

  14 Soviet UN Representative Andrei Vyshinsky (right) and British delegate Hartley Shawcross at a United Nations Organization conference held at the Palais de Chaillot, Paris, October 16, 1948.

  15 Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov arriving in Washington, D.C., March 31, 1945.

  16 Marshal Vasily Sokolovsky, chief of Soviet Military Administration in Germany from 1946 to 1949. (Photo c. 1941.)

  17 Secretary of State George Marshall and British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin at a United Nations Organization conference held at the Palais de Chaillot, Paris, October 16, 1948.

  18 British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin and French Foreign Minister Georges Bidault at the conference of the new sixteen-nation Committee of European Economic Co-operation, which is to prepare a Marshall Plan aid request, c. July 1947.

  19 Czechoslovak Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk, a supporter of the Marshall Plan who decried Stalin’s refusal to allow his country to participate.

  20 Konrad Adenauer, founder and chairman of the Christian Democratic Union and the first chancellor of West Germany.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I WAS FORTUNATE TO HAVE had so much able and energetic assistance in carrying out the research for this book. Andrew Henderson was my research associate here at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) for three years, and I could not be more grateful for it. He not only mined U.S. and German archives and countless books and articles for information, data, and quotations (breaking all-time CFR records for inter-library requests), but translated all my German material and acted as chief of staff for the interns and translators. His successor Alex Lloyd George took over in 2016 and skillfully shepherded the book through to production. Talented CFR analyst Emma Smith assisted with data, calculations, and formatting. Semester interns Jason Fauss, Jenny Samuels, Drew Leonard, John Dellamore, Christina Hong, Maxwell Schwartz, Nattakom Shrestha, Caitlin Jokubaitis, Collin Berger, William Bekker, Parul Aggarwal, Rui Yu, Michelle Nedashkovskaya, and Natalie Babjukova identified and reviewed source material, compiled economic and financial data, and checked facts. Michelle later became my translator for most of the huge mass of Russian-language material. Natalie translated segments of Czech books, and Michael Ivkov did the same for Serbian archival material he unearthed in Belgrade. My deepest thanks to all of them.

  Special thanks go to historian Svetlana Chervonnaya, who scoured government archives in Moscow and assembled thousands of pages of documents, notes, translations, and detailed commentary. She then critiqued every chapter of this book, including the endnotes. I could not have found a more able, meticulous, and generous Russian collaborator.

  I further had the sage guidance of a CFR study group of policy experts and scholars under the chairmanship of former World Bank president Robert Zoellick: Liaquat Ahamed, Graham Allison, David Baldwin, Gary Bass, Willem Buiter, William Drozdiak, Thomas Graham, James Hoge, Reuben Jeffery, Robert Jervis, Stephen Kotkin, Alex Raskolnikov, Nicholas Rostow, Adam Tooze, Lucio Vinhas de Souza, Susan Woodward, and Philip Zelikow. John Lewis Gaddis was also generous with his time, helping me to make sense of George Kennan and to organize my thoughts on the narrative. Two anonymous reviewers commissioned by CFR, and two by Luciana O’Flaherty at Oxford University Press, caught errors and prodded me to sharpen arguments. I am extremely grateful to all of them.

  At the end of the process, Ben Loehnen, my brilliant and brutal editor at Simon & Schuster, beat out of me any pretensions that I did not need editing. My agent, Andrew Wylie, was a source of inspiration and keen literary feedback. CFR president Richard Haass and director of studies Jim Lindsay made sure I cut no corners on analysis or clarity. Jonathan Tepperman gave me invaluable advice on sharpening the concluding chapter. Dave Collum proofed the text, including commas and en dashes. I thank them all warmly.

  Lastly, I would like to thank the Smith Richardson Foundation for so generously funding the research. I could not have undertaken the copious archival work and translations, in particular, without their support.

  Errors and other failings in this, the final product, are of course mine and mine alone.

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Acheson, Dean (1893–1971). American statesman. Under secretary of state, 1945–1947; secretary of state, 1949–1953. A principal architect of the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan.

  Adenauer, Konrad (1876–1967). German statesman. Founder and chairman of the Christian Democratic Union, 1946–1966; president of the West German Parliamentary Council, 1948–1949; first chancellor of West Germany, 1949–1963.

  Alphand, Hervé (1907–1994). French diplomat. Director-general of economic and financial affairs at the French Foreign Ministry, 1944–1950.

  Alvarez, Alberto (1905–1985). Cuban diplomat. Foreign minister, 1945
–1947. President of the United Nations Security Council during the Berlin blockade crisis, 1949.

  Asmus, Ronald (1957–2011). American foreign policy analyst and official. Deputy assistant secretary of state for European affairs, 1997–2000. Strong advocate of NATO expansion after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

  Attlee, Clement (1883–1967). British politician. Labour Party leader, 1935–1955; prime minister, 1945–1951.

  Auriol, Vincent (1884–1966). French Socialist politician. President, 1947–1954.

  Austin, Warren (1877–1962). American politician and diplomat. Senator (R-VT), 1931–1946; ambassador to the United Nations, 1946–1953.

  Baker, James, III (1930– ). American diplomat. Secretary of state, 1989–1992; White House chief of staff, 1981–1985, 1992–1993.

  Barbour, Walworth (1908–1982). American diplomat. Chief, Division of South European Affairs, State Department, 1947–1949; consul in Moscow, 1949–1951.

  Barkley, Alben (1877–1956). American politician. Congressman (D-KY), 1913–1927; senator, 1927–1949, 1955–1956; Senate majority leader, 1937–1947; vice president, 1949–1953.

  Baruch, Bernard (1870–1965). American financier, philanthropist, and official. Wartime adviser to FDR; U.S. representative to the United Nations Energy Commission, 1946.

  Bell, Elliott (1902–1983). American journalist and political operative. Economic adviser to Thomas Dewey; New York Times editorial board member, 1941–1942.

  Bender, George (1896–1961). American politician. Congressman (R-OH), 1939–1953; senator, 1953–1957. Derided the Marshall Plan as wasteful foreign aid.

  Beneš, Edvard (1884–1948). Czechoslovak statesman. President, 1935–1938, 1945–1948. Reestablished the independent state of Czechoslovakia after World War II and led the country until shortly after the February 1948 Communist coup.

  Beria, Lavrentiy Pavlovich (1899–1953). Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet official. People’s commissar/minister of internal affairs, 1938–1953. Led the secret police for nearly two decades. Supervised the Soviet atomic bomb project. Arrested and executed after Stalin’s death in 1953.

  Berman, Jakub (1901–1984). Polish Communist politician with close ties to the Kremlin.

  Bevin, Ernest (1881–1951). British trade unionist and statesman. Foreign secretary, 1945–1951. Stalwart anticommunist Labour Party member and leading European advocate of the Marshall Plan and NATO.

  Bidault, Georges (1899–1983). French statesman. Foreign minister, 1944–1946, 1947–1948; prime minister, 1946, 1949–1950. A centrist founder of the Christian Democratic MRP party, he was instrumental in launching the Marshall Plan and NATO.

  Bilbo, Theodore (1877–1947). American politician. Senator (D-MS), 1935–1947. Faced repeated charges of corruption.

  Bissell, Richard, Jr. (1909–1994). American economist and official. Senior executive of the Economic Cooperation Administration, 1948–1952. Wrote the influential bipartisan President’s Committee on Foreign Aid (Harriman Committee) report on the Marshall Plan. Later worked for the CIA.

  Bloom, Sol (1870–1949). American politician. Congressman (D-NY), 1923–1949; chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 1939–1947, 1949.

  Blücher, Franz (1896–1959). West German politician. Vice chancellor, 1949–1956; minister for Matters of the Marshall Plan, 1949–1953; minister for Economic Cooperation, 1953–1956. One of the founders of the classical-liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP).

  Blum, Léon (1872–1950). French statesman. Prime minister, 1936–1937; presided as president over the all-Socialist caretaker cabinet that installed the Fourth Republic, 1946–1947.

  Blunt, Anthony (1907–1983). British art historian and member of the “Cambridge Five” group of double agents who spied for the Soviets.

  Bodrov, Mikhail Fedorovich (1903–1988). Soviet diplomat. Chargé in Prague, 1946–1948; ambassador to Bulgaria, 1948–1954.

  Bogomolov, Alexander Efremovich (1900–1969). Soviet diplomat. Ambassador to France, 1944–1950.

  Bohlen, Charles (1904–1974). American diplomat. State Department counselor, 1947–1949, 1951–1953; ambassador to the Soviet Union, 1953–1957. Soviet specialist and George Marshall’s translator in Moscow. Led the drafting of Marshall’s June 1947 Harvard speech.

  Bonnet, Henri (1888–1978). French diplomat. Ambassador to the United States, 1944–1954.

  Bradley, Omar (1893–1981). American military leader. Chief of staff of the Army, 1948–1949; first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1949–1953.

  Bramuglia, Juan Atilio (1903–1962). Argentine diplomat. Foreign minister, 1946–1949. President of the United Nations Security Council during the Berlin blockade crisis, 1948.

  Bridges, Henry Styles (1898–1961). American politician. Senator (R-NH), 1937–1961. Argued that financial aid to Europe was wasteful and counterproductive.

  Brook, William Arthur Darville (1901–1953). British Royal Air Force officer.

  Brown, Clarence (1893–1965). American politician. Congressman (R-OH), 1939–1965. Opposed foreign aid in Europe in favor of domestic tax relief.

  Brown, Winthrop (1907–1987). American diplomat and official. Chief, Division of Commercial Policy, State Department, 1945–1948; director, Office of International Trade Policy, State Department, 1948–1950. Worked alongside Will Clayton.

  Bruce, David (1898–1977). American diplomat. Economic Cooperation Administration mission chief in France, 1948–1949; ambassador to France, 1949–1952.

  Bruins, John (1896–1954). American diplomat. Counselor in Prague, 1946–1948.

  Brzezinski, Zbigniew (1928–2017). American security expert and official. National security adviser, 1977–1981. Supported NATO expansion in the 1990s.

  Bukharin, Nikolai Ivanovich (1888–1938). Russian Bolshevik economist, revolutionary, and Communist Party theoretician. Drafted the Soviet constitution of 1936. Arrested in early 1937; tried and executed in March 1938.

  Burgess, Guy (1911–1963). British intelligence officer. Member of the “Cambridge Five” group of double agents who spied for the Soviets.

  Byrnes, James (Jimmy) (1882–1972). American diplomat. Secretary of state, 1945–1947. Replaced by George Marshall in January 1947 after relations with Truman grew strained.

  Caffery, Jefferson (1886–1974). American diplomat. Ambassador to France, 1944–1949. Played an important role in the diplomacy behind the Marshall Plan’s implementation.

  Cairncross, Sir Alec (1911–1998). British civil servant. U.K. Treasury economist in Berlin, 1945–1946; director of economics, Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, 1950–1951.

  Carter, Marshall (Pat) (1909–1993). American military officer. Top aide to George Marshall.

  Catroux, Georges (1877–1969). French general and diplomat. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, 1945–1948.

  Celler, Emanuel (1888–1981). American politician. Congressman (D-NY), 1923–1973. Argued that financial aid to Europe promoted socialism.

  Chataigneau, Yves (1891–1969). French diplomat. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, 1948–1952.

  Chernyshevsky, Nikolai Gavrilovich (1828–1889). Nineteenth-century Russian philosopher, democratic revolutionary, publicist, and writer.

  Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975). Chinese and Taiwanese military leader and statesman. President of China, 1928–1949; president of Taiwan, 1950–1975.

  Chuikov, Vasily Ivanovich (1900–1982). Soviet military commander. Succeeded Marshal Sokolovsky as commander in chief of the Group of Soviet forces in Germany, 1949–1953.

  Churchill, Sir Winston (1874–1965). British statesman. Prime minister, 1940–1945, 1951–1955; Conservative Party leader, 1940–1955. Led Britain through World War II before losing the premiership to Clement Attlee in 1945. Coined the term “iron curtain” in a 1946 speech that highlighted the division of Europe into Western and Soviet spheres.

  Clay, Lucius Dubignon (1897–1978). American general and statesman. Deputy military governor for Germany, 1945–1947; military governor
for Germany, 1947–1949. Accomplished military administrator who orchestrated the Berlin airlift.

  Clayton, William (1880–1966). American cotton baron and diplomat. Assistant secretary of state for economic affairs, 1944–1946; under secretary of state for economic affairs, 1946–1948. Passionate proponent of free multilateral trade and West European integration. A leading architect of the Marshall Plan.

  Clementis, Vladimir (1902–1952). Czechoslovak Communist politician. Deputy prime minister, 1945–1948; foreign minister, 1948–1950. Replaced Jan Masaryk as foreign minister in the aftermath of the February 1948 Communist coup.

  Cleveland, Harlan (1918–2008). American diplomat and official. Department chief of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration’s Italian mission, 1946–1947; department assistant administrator, Far East Program Division, Economic Cooperation Administration, 1949–1951; assistant director, Mutual Security Agency, 1952–1953.

  Clifford, Clark (1906–1998). American lawyer and political operative. Assistant naval aide to the president, 1945–1946; naval aide to the president, 1946; special counsel to the president, 1946–1950. Speechwriter and close adviser to Truman.

  Clinton, Bill (1946– ). American Democratic statesman. President, 1993–2001. Initiated NATO enlargement in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union.