Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974 (18 page)

It may be argued that the experience was cleansing for the Truman administration, at least in the long run. After all, Truman was now rid of Wallace, whose passionately held views were implacable, and could try to formulate more unified policies. When he finally relieved Byrnes in December, replacing him with Marshall, this unity indeed developed. But that was still several months away, and Truman, having jettisoned a dissenter, had henceforth to cope with a martyr of sorts who led the forces against containment over the next two years.

The episode, moreover, did not result in a reformulation of policy. Four days after Wallace's departure Truman received a lengthy digest of foreign policy options from advisers, including the man who was by then his top White House aide, Clark Clifford. Much of the report was temperate, holding out the hope that the United States might some day join the Soviet Union in a "system of world cooperation." But it concluded, as Kennan had in his Long Telegram, that the Soviets were strengthening themselves "in preparation for the 'inevitable' conflict, and . . . were trying to weaken and subvert their potential opponents by every means at their disposal. So long as these men adhere to these beliefs, it is highly dangerous to conclude that hope of international peace lies only in 'accord,' 'mutual understanding,' or 'solidarity' with the Soviet Union." It urged the United States to develop a strong military presence and to "confine" the Soviet Union. Armed with such a report, Truman might have used it to push for greater military appropriations. But he did not, for he still remained unsure what to do. He ordered all copies be put in the White House safe, where they remained for the rest of his administration.
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I
T HAPPENS OFTEN
in history that nations take bold moves only when external events force their hand. That happened to the Truman administration in early 1947, when Great Britain sent word that it no longer had the resources to maintain political stability in Greece and Turkey, areas that the British had until then considered parts of their sphere of interest. The specter of rising Communist influence, if not control, of the eastern Mediterranean suddenly loomed before American officials. Worst-case scenarios included the downfall of the pro-Western monarchy of Greece, then embroiled in civil war against Communist insurgents; renewed Soviet pressure on Turkey, a key buffer for Greece and the gateway to the Middle East; and even, perhaps, Soviet domination of Iran and the oil-rich nations surrounding it. At that time western Europe, struggling to recover from World War II, obtained 75 percent of its oil from the area.
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Truman's now more harmonious team of foreign policy advisers, led by Secretary Marshall and Undersecretary Acheson, quickly determined that the United States must step into Britain's shoes and provide military aid to Greece and Turkey. But the administration worried about Congress. In the Senate, where the major battle was expected, the key Democrat was Connally, ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee. Although Connally generally backed administration policies, he was not an altogether reassuring entity. He affected the manners and habits of the old school, including wide black hat, string tie, and oversized black jacket. His white hair curled over his collar. Though he had some sense of humor, he reveled in flattery, and he was easily caricatured. Some thought that the cartoonist Al Capp's Senator Throttlebottom was modeled after him.
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A much larger problem was the attitude of Republicans, who had swept to majorities in both houses in the 1946 elections. That made Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan head of the Foreign Relations Committee. Vandenberg, a senator since 1928, had been a prominent anti-interventionist prior to World War II. The war changed his mind, and he supported most administration foreign policies after 1945. But Vandenberg, too, was hardly easy to deal with. Vain and pompous, he needed even more flattery than Connally. Nor was it at all clear that Vandenberg could carry with him other Republicans, including the dominant GOP personality in the Senate, Robert Taft of Ohio. Many of these Republicans, especially those from the Midwest, opposed significant enlargement of American commitments in Europe.

Truman, recognizing trouble ahead, called key congressional leaders to a meeting at which they heard the administration's case. Marshall, grave and dignified, led off with an earnest but apparently unconvincing review of the situation. Acheson then jumped into action with a dramatic and deliberately florid statement of what was later to be known as the "domino theory" of foreign interconnection. "We are met at Armageddon," he began:

Like apples in a barrel infected by one rotten one, the corruption of Greece would infect Iran and all to the East. It would also carry infection to spread through Asia Minor and Egypt, and to Europe through Italy and France. . . . The Soviet Union was playing one of the greatest gambles in history at minimal cost. . . . We and we alone were in a position to break up this play.
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Acheson's peroration apparently stunned those present, Vandenberg included. He turned to Truman and told him there was "only one way to get" what he wanted: "That is to make a personal appearance before Congress and scare the hell out of the American people."
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This was good political advice, and Truman followed it. On March 12 he appeared before Congress and called for $400 million in military aid to Greece and Turkey. He justified this request in sweeping language:

I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.

I believe that we must assist free people to work out their own destinies in their own way.

I believe that our help should be primarily through economic and financial aid which is essential to economic stability and orderly political processes.
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Privately Truman was jubilant to have acted boldly at last. The next day he wrote his daughter Margaret, "The attempt of Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, et al., to fool the world and the American Crackpots Association, represented by . . . Henry Wallace, Claude Pepper and the actors and actresses in immoral Greenwich Village, is just like Hitler's and Mussolini's so-called socialist states. Your pop had to tell the world just that in polite language."
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Truman's speech set off impassioned debate. Critics of the new policy included many Republicans as well as people on the left who followed Wallace. They blanched at the cost, which was in fact high—1 percent of the total federal budget of nearly $40 billion—and which was expected to escalate as subsequent requests came in. Opponents complained that the United States was assuming the imperialist interests of Great Britain, that Truman was exaggerating and distorting the internal problems of Greece and Turkey, that the program bypassed the United Nations, and especially that it seemed so vast and unlimited. Did Truman have in mind
all
"free people?" Critics on the left demanded to know why the United States sought to provide military (as opposed to economic) aid, and why it should go to a monarchy in Greece and a dictatorship in Turkey. Fiorello La Guardia, the liberal former mayor of New York City, declared that it was not worth a single soldier to keep the Greek king on the throne. Wallace pronounced that the aid would lead to a "Century of Fear."
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Truman, however, had succeeded in seizing a political middle ground between anti-interventionists, most of whom were on the right, and Wallaceites on the left. Anti-Communists in both parties swallowed their reservations and generally supported the President. Many were liberals who were then in the process of joining the newly formed Americans for Democratic Action, which became an important pressure group for liberal programs at home and anti-Communist policies abroad.
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Vandenberg and most East Coast Republicans also backed the President. All these supporters were convinced, given the history of Soviet-American tensions over the previous eighteen months, that Communism posed a real threat in the eastern Mediterranean and that it was time to act. Congress gave the plan resounding majorities in May, 67 to 23 in the Senate and 284 to 107 in the House.

The Truman Doctrine was not by itself a turning point in American foreign policy. That had already occurred, in early 1946, when Truman had embarked, however uncertainly, on a policy of containment. Still, the Truman Doctrine was a highly publicized commitment of a sort the administration had not previously undertaken. Its sweeping rhetoric, promising that the United States should aid all "free people" being subjugated, set the stage for innumerable later ventures that led to globalistic commitments. It was in these ways a major step.

Equally important was the other half of American foreign policy ventures in 1947, the so-called Marshall Plan of economic aid to western Europe. In announcing the plan at Harvard University's commencement in June, the Secretary spoke as usual in a soft, almost inaudible fashion. He scarcely looked up at his audience. But his call was bold, offering American assistance to all of Europe, including the Soviet Union. Marshall emphasized that the goal was humanitarian:

Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine, but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. . . . At this critical point in history, we of the United States are deeply conscious of our responsibilities to the world. We know that in this trying period, between a war that is over and a peace that is not yet secure, the destitute and oppressed of the earth look chiefly to us for sustenance and support until they can again face life with self-confidence and self-reliance.
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Humanitarian concerns indeed formed part of the motivation behind the Marshall Plan. The winter of 1946–47 had been the worst in memory for western Europeans. Blizzards and cold in Great Britain, France, and Germany had brought commerce and transportation virtually to a standstill, creating frightening shortages of winter wheat, coal, and electricity. The gears of Big Ben froze, and England at one point was but a week away from running out of coal. People were cold, hungry, and desperate. In May 1947 Churchill described Europe as "a rubble-heap, a charnel house, a breeding ground of pestilence and hate."
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The Marshall Plan, however, had bigger ambitions than the relief of destitution, important though that was. Indeed, the United States had already spent large sums of money on postwar European relief and recovery, funneling much of it through such international agencies as the World Bank and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. Marshall and others thought that aid on a much vaster scale was necessary to rebuild the economies of European nations and in the long run to promote the economic and political integration of western Europe. Supporters of the plan were frank at the time in stressing that the money would not go "down a rathole." On the contrary, the aid would give the Europeans the means not only to rebuild themselves but also to buy American goods. The Marshall Plan, in short, would abet American prosperity as well as European recovery.
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Strategic motives also drove Truman and his advisers. They worried especially that Europeans might turn to Communism, which seemed to thrive on economic discontent. France already had Communists in the Cabinet, including the Ministry of Defense. Italy seemed even more unstable. Economic aid to Europe was therefore a political complement to the military aid of the Truman Doctrine. Provided directly by the United States, not by an international agency, it could be directed in ways suitable to American political interests. It would hold off the Communist threat and create an integrated trading bloc, including a revived western Germany, that would serve as a beacon of the blessings of capitalism and free markets.

Marshall made it clear that the United States required joint proposals of needs from the European countries, as part of a European Recovery Plan (ERP). At first the Soviets seemed ready to take part, and Foreign Minister Molotov and aides appeared at a conference in Paris to make known their desires. At the last moment, however, Molotov received a telegram from home and marched his delegation out. Although it is not wholly clear why Stalin refused to take part, two concerns may have moved him. First, he knew that the Soviet Union would not get very much in the way of needed short-term credits through ERP. Second, the Soviets would have been required to share information about their resources and to relinquish some of their control over economic management. Skeptics who doubt the humanitarian rationale behind the Marshall Plan think that American planners deliberately included these requirements with the expectation that the troublesome East bloc would stay out of the planning. Perhaps, perhaps not—it is still hard to say—but the offer had been made and could hardly have been withdrawn if the Soviets had accepted it. Their refusal made the ERP a much more attractive proposition to the American people and to the Congress. In this sense Stalin was short-sighted to reject it.
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Western European nations, by contrast, eagerly embraced Marshall's offer. In late August they came in with a proposal for $29 billion spread over four years. This was an enormous, politically unacceptable sum, and American officials pared it down to $17.8 billion. Even this was an extraordinary amount of money, especially to budget-conscious Republicans (and many Democrats) who were then trying to cut federal spending and taxes. Some conservatives and isolationists derided the plan, calling it a "sob sister proposal" and a "European TVA." Wallace was ambivalent—after all, this was economic, not military aid, and it could do much to reduce suffering. But he cooled to the idea, proclaiming that ERP meant Erase the Russian Peril and that the Marshall Plan ought to be known as the Martial Plan.
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