Title: Constitutional Rights Foundation
Headings: Articles
Articles
BRIA 20 3 a The Marshall Plan for Rebuilding Western Europe
The Idea of the Marshall Plan
Making the Marshall Plan
Selling the Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan in Action
Did the Marshall Plan Succeed?
For Discussion and Writing
For Further Information
Cold War
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Marshall Plan
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Truman Doctrine
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Greek Civil War
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GlobalSecurity:
Czechoslovakia
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George C. Marshall
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Harry S. Truman
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George Kennan
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Dean Acheson
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Content: Making the Marshall Plan
Marshall even invited the Soviets to participate. But Kennan predicted that the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries under its control would refuse to join. He believed that Stalin, the Soviet dictator, would never go along with an American-inspired plan that required the free exchange of economic information. As predicted, the Soviets refused Marshall’s invitation to help develop a plan to rebuild Europe. They charged that his plan was a scheme to dominate Europe economically. Under Soviet control, the Eastern European nations also declined to participate. In July 1947, 16 Western European nations met in Paris to put together an economic recovery plan. But the Americans soon became disappointed about the direction of the planning. Rather than a unified plan for Europe as a whole, each country was developing its own “shopping list.” In addition, the French argued that western Germany, occupied by Britain, France, and the United States, should remain economically weak and not receive much Marshall Plan aid.