‘The Marshall Plan’: World at a crossroads
It may be hard to imagine someone hurrying home to curl up with a work of political history, but Benn Steil’s fascinating new book, The Marshall Plan:
Dawn of the Cold War (Simon & Schuster, 404 pp., could change that. Steil, author of the acclaimed The Battle of Bretton Woods, has given us a thoroughly researched and well-written account of the crucial years of 1947-49 and formation of the Marshall Plan. That’s the American initiative that rebuilt Europe and placed a geopolitical check on Soviet influence after World War II.
Steil is a senior fellow and director of international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, and his expertise energizes his thoughtful and meticulous writing. A compelling cast of historical figures moves easily through a timeline of events and decisions that revitalized the continent and widened the bitter division between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.
Many Americans may think of the Marshall Plan, named after Gen. George C. Marshall, secretary of State under President Harry S. Truman, simply as humanitarian aid to Europeans. It was far more complex than that.
Truman let trusted subordinates craft the idea, and, aware of his conten- tious relationship with opposition Republicans, refused to have it named after himself. “Anything going up (to Capitol Hill) bearing my name will quiver a couple of times, turn belly up and die,” the Democratic president told an aide. “I’ve decided to give the whole thing to General Marshall. The worst Republican on the Hill can vote for it if we name it after the General.”
Though the U.S. and the Soviet Union were allies during the war, the two nations did not trust each other. By the war’s end, the Soviets made it clear they wanted to increase their domination across Europe, an expansion the U.S. and its European allies could not allow.
The Soviets suffered staggering losses in the war, and it wanted vast reparations from Germany. U.S. officials, however, remembered how the economic hardship imposed on Germany after World War I led to unrest and helped Hitler’s rise. They also believed crippling Germany would hobble Europe’s return to prosperity, and failing economies could lead to greater communist influence.
The plan was introduced by Marshall in a speech at Harvard University on June 5, 1947. It did not make much of an initial impact in the U.S., but European nations, clamoring for political change, reacted with enthusiasm. The result was a diplomatic balancing act in which the Truman administration got cooperation from Republican opponents, Britain, France and other allies, and promoted the plan to the American public. At the same time, it dealt with the Soviet Union, which sought to undermine the project for its own gain.
Most books on economic politics may be written for economists and other specialists. The Marshall Plan: Dawn of the Cold War, however, will appeal to history buffs and those seeking a definitive record of America’s first diplomatic confrontation with Soviet Russia in particular.