19. A COLD WAR DEVELOPS

POST-WAR EUROPE

CONTENTS

Truman takes on early global challenges

The mounting sense of a Soviet or
Stalinist danger

Crisis in Greece and Turkey ... and the
"Truman Doctrine"

Mounting problems in Western Europe ...
and the Marshall Plan

The Communist coup in Czechoslovakia

Helping Tito move out from under
Stalin's control

The Berlin Blockade (June 1948 – May
1949)

The ineffectiveness of the UN ... and the
Creation of NATO

TRUMAN TAKES ON EARLY GLOBAL CHALLENGES

Post-war expectations.

As we have already noted, Truman was very much like Churchill in his suspicions about unchecked power. Arriving abruptly on the diplomatic scene after Roosevelt's death in early 1945, with not a lot of prepping (while serving only briefly as vice president, he had been privy to almost none of the military-diplomatic proceedings going on within Roosevelt's Administration), he had at first wanted to trust Stalin. But he soon realized that this was not going to be possible, given the position in which the Russians found themselves in Eastern Europe, with the Red Army in occupation of nearly all of the Eastern half of Europe.

For Soviet Russia's Stalin, the matter of what happened after Germany was defeated was quite simple: the Soviet Red Army was in occupation of nearly all of Eastern Europe – offering Stalin and his people a sense of security that they had never felt since Russia began opening up to Western culture in the 1500s. There was no way, despite the promises he had made to Roosevelt to hold free elections throughout Eastern Europe, that Stalin (who personally was massively paranoid anyway) was going to allow any but the most Moscow-dependent – actually Stalin-dependent – regimes to be elected to high office in those countries that his Red Army at that point controlled directly. In one country after another Stalinist puppets would soon appear at the head of each of the new governments of Eastern Europe.

Truman could understand this Russian desire to keep as much land buffer between itself and the European West, which had been the source of endless attacks on Mother Russia, from either the French, the Germans or even the Poles. But Truman understood also that there was more than just a national security concern moving Stalin. Stalin had bigger dreams, to bring all the civilized world under a Godless International Communism directed from Moscow. Thus Truman was quick to realize that the agreements at Yalta were largely meaningless. Power – not promise – would be the rule of the day in Europe.

But convincing the American people of the dangers posed by an unchecked Soviet Union would be very difficult. During the war the American propaganda machine had built up in the American mind the closeness of America's special relationship with Uncle Joe Stalin. To convince the Americans now to take a firm stand against Stalin and his expansionist plans in Europe (given also the American dream at this point of putting all thoughts of war completely behind them) would be a Herculean task. Also, Americans were exhausted and looked forward greatly to getting their boys back home and returning things to normal in America as fast as possible.

Troubles in Iran

Tensions had arisen at the end of the war over the Soviet entrenchment in Iran. During the war the Americans had been transporting military supplies to Russia across Iran, to the distress of the Iranian Shah (king) who was a big Hitler supporter – and who because of it subsequently got removed from power by an occupying Russian and American military presence there. There was however an agreement between the Americans and Russians that this would be merely a temporary move and that full sovereignty would be restored to Iran after the war. However, as the war appeared to be finally coming to an end, the Soviets made a move to set up a Communist-governed Azerbaijan Republic in the northwestern part of Iran, an obvious move to leave a permanent Russian presence in the area. Such a position would give the Soviets not only easy access to the Persian Gulf and beyond that the Indian Ocean (such a warm-water port had long been desired by the Russians) but it would also put Soviet Russia in a position to dominate the major part of the oil flow out of the Persian Gulf that industrial Western Europe depended on.

Truman was quick to see the dangers posed by this move on Stalin's part. Truman consequently took the matter to the new United Nations Security Council, putting such pressure on Stalin that the Russians pulled out of Iran in early 1946 and Iranian troops moved in to retake the territory.

But it would be the last time that the Soviets would back down in the face of a Security Council decision going against them. The Soviets would soon become well-known for their ready use of the power reserved to the Big Five (the Permanent Members America, Britain, France, Russia and China) to veto any Security Council decision they disliked. From this point on, the hope that people had that this new United Nations Organization might be a vital support to world peace was now dead, as dead as a similar hope that had died with the post-Great-War League of Nations. Big Power tempers were rising fast – and subsequent crises would be dealt with in direct diplomacy among these powers, rather than through the UN.

THE MOUNTING SENSE
OF A SOVIET OR STALINIST DANGER

Churchill's warning about an Iron Curtain falling across Europe

In March of 1946 Churchill (who at the time was largely unemployed politically thanks to the British voters) accompanied Truman to his native Missouri to receive an honorary degree from Westminster College. Here he delivered a speech, acknowledging the global responsibility that had now fallen on American shoulders.

What Churchill had to say on this matter would actually come to shock America – though certainly not Truman! Churchill pointed out that, thanks to Soviet control, an "Iron Curtain" had fallen across the middle of Europe, stretching from the Baltic Sea in the North to the Adriatic Sea in the South. And that behind that curtain, in the Soviet sphere of influence, were the numerous cities and peoples of Eastern Europe. In these societies, small Communist parties had succeeded, thanks to Moscow’s increasing control, in gaining such power as to be able to obtain totalitarian control over these cities and peoples.

He also raised the issue of exactly how this situation should be met – especially by the Americans, on whom so much responsibility for the welfare of the civilized world had fallen, reminding the Americans that the Russians admired strength and despised weakness and, although they did not exactly want war, they were certainly desiring the expansion of their power and the influence of their doctrines.

As he had done with his own people during the dark days of World War Two, he was calling now on America to take up the challenge facing the world. For if the West (under American leadership) did not act now in a show of strength, it would clearly be dragged into war a third time in the 20th century. America and Britain needed to stand together to block Stalin’s aggressions.

At the time, Churchill’s speech was received very negatively, not only by Stalin (of course!) but also by the American news media. Churchill was accused by numerous Americans of trying to stir up trouble between Russia and America, of grandstanding in order to bring himself back to political prominence (the same accusation made about him during the 1930s when he was trying to warn Britain of the dangers of Hitler’s rise to power in Germany).

But America would soon come to acknowledge the danger Churchill had been describing, using his term "Iron Curtain" as a key part of the vocabulary describing a rising East-West "Cold War."

For the time being, Truman had to go slow in getting America back in the business of global affairs. He personally was viewed widely by Americans simply as an accidental occupant of the White House, possessing no serious presidential stature before the American people. But he, with Churchill, understood that if America did not step up to the responsibilities laid at its feet because of the way the recent war turned out, the world would soon enough be facing a problem as big as the one Germany and Japan had just posed. He needed to stir America to action – though very carefully.

Containing Communism

Actually whereas the US State Department was still caught up in its dream of friendship with the Soviets, one of their members posted in Kiev, George F. Kennan, answered a request by the US Treasury Department to explain why the Soviets were not planning to work with the new World Bank (IBRD) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In his Long Telegram (February 1946) Kennan described in detail the Soviet anti-capitalist (and Russian nationalist) mindset, and called for the "firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies."

The report soon became the basis for a larger analytical study of Soviet Russian goals and strategies (September 1946), intended for the president's eyes only. But the Kennan report itself was so clear in its analysis and call for a strategic response that it was published in the July 1947 edition of Foreign Affairs under the authorship of "X." It had the effect not only of helping to awaken America to the need for vigilance against Soviet aggression but it also gave the resultant US policy its identifying label: "Containment" (of Communism).

Things begin to stir with Churchill's "Iron Curtain Speech" delivered to Americans in 1946

President Truman and former British PM Churchill arriving in Fulton, Missouri – March 5, 1946

Winston Churchill delivering his "Iron Curtain Speech" at Westminster College,
Fulton, Mo. – March 5, 1946

"From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an "iron curtain" has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow."

American diplomacy at the time was well served by a number of very capable and highly experienced "Wise Men"

Former General, now US Secretary of State George Marshall
Also part of the Truman "Wise Men"

Paul Nitze

Robert Lovett

John McCloy

Averell Harriman

US diplomat George Kennan who in his "Long Telegram" of 1946
advocated "containment" of an expansive Soviet Communism

This document, originally intended as a briefing paper for Secretary of the Navy Forrestal, was published in the July 1947 edition of Foreign Affairs under the authorship of "X" - which was quickly traced back to Kennan. But the article clarified the fact that indeed America was headed for a 'Cold War' with Russia.

CRISIS IN GREECE AND TURKEY
... AND THE TRUMAN DOCTRINE

Crisis and Greece and Turkey

A major problem was brewing at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, at Greece and Turkey. Failure to secure a path to the high seas across Iran brought Stalin to redirect his focus on gaining control of the Aegean Sea, bordered by Greece on the West and Turkey on the East. Such control would give his navy based in the Black Sea free access to the Eastern Mediterranean, and also a dominant position just above the Suez Canal, through which nearly all the trade between Asia and Europe passed. But the difference here was that the Russian troops (as elsewhere in Eastern Europe) were not in direct occupation of either Greece or Turkey. Stalin instead would have to work through local Communist organizations, which received direct orders from Stalin but did not enjoy the backing of Stalin's Red Army in implementing those orders.

Over the previous century (since the mid-1800s) the Turks had looked to the British for help in warding off Russian expansionist instincts. But by 1947 the British had backed off both militarily and financially in their assistance to the Turks. Churchill, still out of power, was hoping that America would now take up that role.

The Greek situation was a bit different. In Greece it was more the case of the Yugoslavian rather than the Russian Communists that were the immediate source of Greece's problems. Yugoslavia, under the presidency of the Communist leader, Marshal Josip Broz Tito, was sending financial and military aid next door (to the south of Yugoslavia) to the Greek Communist Party, which was trying to overthrow the Greek government elected in 1946. Here too the British had traditionally been the guarantor of Greek political stability. But by early 1947 Atlee's British Government was abandoning the traditional British role in Greece as well as Turkey – and everywhere else, for that matter. Again, Churchill urged Truman to take up Britain's traditional role of stabilizing the entire region (uncomfortably close to Britain's vital link to Asia through the Suez Canal). Truman understood clearly the dynamics of the situation.

The "Truman Doctrine"

Consequently, in March of 1947 Truman went before Congress to request financial and technical military assistance to the Turks and Greeks. He specified only a general threat to the independence of these countries by both outside powers and domestic insurrectionists that wanted to force free peoples to come under totalitarian governance (neither the Soviets nor Yugoslavs were mentioned by name). Truman stated that at this point only America had the power to help struggling nations achieve democratic stability and that America needed to act swiftly to make sure that no free people should ever fall under the power of totalitarian tyranny.
The Republican-controlled Congress finally in May agreed to fund his financial assistance program to both Greece and Turkey ($400 million), but held back on the sending of military assistance, for the time being anyway.

In any case the effort proved a success. Greece was able to head off the Communist uprising and Turkey felt encouraged enough by American backing that it refused to bend to Soviet pressures.

The Truman Doctrine – President Truman addressing Congress – March 12, 1947
Harry S. Truman Library and Museum

Greek women mourning the loss of their men and boys murdered by Communist guerrillas who came through their Macedonian town – many killed because they had been seen talking to American military advisers who had just come through the town – 1947

A Greek National Army patrol sweeping toward the Albanian frontier in search of Communist guerrillas – early 1948

Greek Commanders and Lt. General James A. Van Fleet, chief US military representative in Greece, standing over dead guerrillas near the Yugoslav border – May 1949

MOUNTING PROBLEMS IN WESTERN EUROPE
... AND THE MARSHALL PLAN

The effort to return Western Europe to normal life

Meanwhile, post-war Western Europe (Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, etc.) at first looked as if it were actually going to rebound fairly quickly in its social and economic life now that peace was at hand. There was much work to be done, requiring the labor of soldiers returning to peacetime life, thus preventing the danger of massive unemployment overwhelming their post-war recovery.

But what permitted this post-war economic rebound was the remainder of the financial credits held by the various Western governments, which by the end of 1946 or early 1947 were running out. Much of this government funding had ended up in America, to purchase from America basic capital goods needed to restore the destroyed infrastructure in housing, commercial and industrial buildings, rail lines and docks. Local currencies were traded for the dollars needed for these purchases. But by the winter of 1946-1947 Western European governmental financial reserves were drained dry. A huge dollar deficit developed, bringing the post-war economic revival in Europe to a halt.

Troubles in Western Europe

Workers were now being let go as businesses were forced to shut down, causing workers to take to the streets in protest, and driving many of them into the political arms of the fast-growing Communist Parties (in France and Italy especially).

These were the kind of conditions that could produce some very dangerous political mischief, as the politics of the Great Depression had clearly demonstrated. In fact, the Communist Parties in a number of Western countries were quite large, constituting a third of the electorate in France and Italy, for instance. Part of this was the by-product of the Great Depression, part the friendly relations with Soviet Russia during the War, part of it Stalin's strong direction of Europe's Communist movements throughout Europe. After the war, under Stalin's direction, the French Communist Party under Thorez and the Italian Communist Party under Togliatti participated in the Leftist alliances with Socialist and Christian Parties. The right-wing parties, identified in France with the collaboration with the Nazis that took place during the Vichy regime and in Italy with Mussolini's Fascist regime, were largely discredited and were left out of all political affairs.

At this point it appeared that these countries with large Communist organizations might be headed toward Social Democracy (Marxism).

But by 1947 West Europeans were coming to an understanding of Stalin's intentions to bring all of Europe under Soviet mastery through his control of the large Communist movement in the West, through workers' strikes which – though initially supposedly addressing the problems of rapidly rising inflation and massive unemployment – soon gave the appearance of being designed mostly to paralyze the struggling economies of Western Europe. When in France (May 1947) the Communists were then excluded from the coalition government governing the country, the workers' rebellion grew even more radical. Meanwhile the street violence in Italy was growing.

At this point Truman began to send aid secretly to the anti-Communist labor unions and political party organizations both in France and Italy.

Stalin responded to this challenge coming from America with the resurrection of the old Comintern – the Communist International organization which had been dissolved during World War Two as a sign of Soviet good will toward Russia's Western allies – making its new appearance in October of 1947 as the Cominform (Communist Information Bureau), an alliance of Communist Parties around Europe, all under Stalin's direction. Cominform membership included also the huge French and Italian Communist Parties. Stalin clearly intended to take a stronger hand in reshaping post-war Europe, West as well as East.

In Western Europe there is also a decided political shift to the Left following the war. Worse, Leftist parties (principally the French and Italian Communist Parties) seem to be taking orders from Stalin directly. In France, the Communists under Maurice Thorez are demonstrating significant political gains

French Communist leader Maurice Thorez (right), Vice Premier in post-war France – Dec. 1946

The same movement to the Left is strongly registered in Italy

Italy's postwar political coalition – and rivals: Christian Democrat Alcide de Gasperi (rear left), Socialists Pietro Nenni (third from left) and Communist Palmiro Togliatti (right) – Rome, December 1945

The long winter of discontent: 1946-1947. Citizens of Krefeld Germany protesting, in demand for food and fuel (March 1947)
Bundesarchiv 183-B0527-0001-753

In the Eastern European countries under direct Soviet military occupation, there is no question about whether their future is "Communist" or not. Tragically, Truman must simply leave those living under Soviet occupation to their sad fate.

A Polish soldier oversees Polish elections – January 1947

The Marshall Plan

But Truman was as determined that Stalin should not be able to do that. Truman was keenly aware of the immense financial crisis Europe was facing – with all of its dangerous political implications as it found itself running out of the funding needed to get healthy economies back up and running again. Truman thus worked out a plan to help Europe with its dollar shortage, by simply extending huge dollar grants to the European countries to help get them back on their feet. These were not loans. They were outright financial gifts, ones that would be given freely as the European countries submitted to America well-designed proposals for reconstruction. If these programs seemed doable, then America would provide the financing for the programs.

Thus it was that Truman's secretary of state (former general), George Marshall, announced this plan at a Harvard commencement speech in early June of 1947. And so it was also that the world came to learn of the famous "Marshall Plan."¹

All European countries (including even former enemies Germany and Italy) were invited to participate in the Plan. But the Russians saw this as a move that would put America at the center of the European recovery. Consequently, Russia announced that it would not be participating. It also became quite clear that neither would they let any of the East European countries under their control participate in the Marshall Plan.

Thus sixteen countries of West Europe gathered in Paris in July of 1947 to discuss the Marshall Plan, offering the Europeans billions of dollars in grants – under the condition that they work together to determine the way the funds were to be distributed. This was one of the big objectives of the Plan, to get the Europeans to rebuild Europe jointly, and not just separately as competing nations. Indeed, the whole European side of the Plan was put under the multinational Organization of European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), thus helping to birth a new European unity movement.

¹Truman himself called for the Plan to go under Marshall's name, knowing that Marshall had a much better standing than he did with the frugal Republicans of Congress, who would have to approve the huge spending that the Plan called for.

The Marshall Plan to Aid Europeans in Building a Stable Europe

US Secretary of State (former General) George C. Marshall explains to Congress details of the European Recovery Program (popularly named the "Marshall Plan" after him) in January 1948

Marshall Plan food shipments arriving in Europe

Paid by funds from the US Marshall Aid Plan, Berliners are employed to clear rubble and begin reconstruction

Marshall Plan aid working to rebuild West Berlin

French farmer using a US tractor sent under the Marshall Plan

Hungry Greek children waiting for their rations of powdered milk – 1948

A Dutch street before and after with the help of Marshall Plan assistance
U.S. International Communications Agency

Hamburg apartment buildings in 1943 and again in 1951 – with the help of Marshall Plan assistance
National Archives

THE SOVIETS TIGHTEN THEIR GRIP ON EASTERN EUROPE ... AND TAKE OVER CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Electric cable being shipped by Finland to Russia – 1948 – part of a $300 million reparations obligation imposed on the Finns by the Soviets

The Communist coup in Czechoslovakia

But if Truman was having difficulty in awakening America to the growing danger to Europe and the West coming from Moscow, an event that took place in early 1948 helped him immensely. Czechoslovakia, or at least the Czech or western portion of the country, had long been identified with the modern Western culture of Europe. It had been a stable democracy before the war, and with its former president, Edvard Beneš, back in the presidency after the war, it appeared as if Czechoslovakia would retake its important place in Western society.

But a number of major problems threatened that possibility. First was the presence of the Russian Red Army on the borders of the country, in a position to easily overrun Czechoslovakia if Stalin decided to do so. Secondly, the Communist Party in the 1946 elections had gained 38 percent of the vote, making it the largest of the parties in the country, though by no means itself a majority party. It had been given a number of seats on the national cabinet (though not a majority of them), but most importantly the premiership (Gottwald) and the head of the armed forces and the national police. This would prove to be most strategic for the Communists. Thirdly, the Czechoslovak cabinet was talking openly about the possibilities of participating in the Marshall Plan, something that Stalin opposed strongly. And fourthly, President Beneš was a person who by natural temperament placed kindly cooperation above all other considerations in the running of his presidency (he had cooperated with Chamberlain back in 1938 in agreeing not to use his army of forty well-armed and well-trained divisions to oppose Hitler’s taking of Czechoslovakia’s Sudeten borderlands – a huge mistake!). And fifthly, the Communists looked like they were going to lose a lot of seats in the coming mid-1948 elections because of a national backlash against their abuse of their police powers (bullying political opponents, Nazi style).

As 1948 approached, the Communists knew that they needed to do something bold before they got scooted out of power. An intervention by the Red Army would likely only backfire against them. So instead they intensified the use of their police powers, removing the last of the non-Communist police officials (despite the outcry of the country). At this point (February 1948) a number of the non-Communist cabinet ministers offered their resignations, hoping that it would force Beneš to finally take a firm stand against the mounting Communist agitation in the government – and in the streets. But Beneš, fearful of a Soviet military intervention, accepted the resignations of the non-Communists and, under pressure from Gottwald, appointed Communists in their place. Then the Communist-directed police and military began the roundup of non-Communist officials. Other cabinet members either resigned or bowed to Communist authority, except Foreign Minister Masaryk, who was found dead three floors below an open window – declared by the authorities to be a suicide (actually records opened with the fall of Russias Soviet government in the early 1990s revealed that in fact he had been thrown out the window). Thousands of people were arrested, thousands more fled the country. Then what was left of Czechoslovakian government lined up behind the Communists, calling for the creation of a new Constitution (May) – which the voters then approved by an 89 percent favorable vote (like Hitler's plebiscites!). A vote at the end of May gave the Communists an absolute majority in the parliament, and soon sole rights to exist as a political party. At the beginning of June, Beneš resigned as president, his place was taken by Gottwald, and in September Beneš died, bringing symbolically Czechoslovakia's democratic era to an official end. It would be forty years before Czechoslovakia would see national freedom again.

Armed Czech Workers' Militia who bullied non-Communists into submission marching through Prague in celebration of the new Communist government ruling Czechoslovakia

Pro-Western Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk honored by floral wreath and minute of silence by Communist Premier Klement Gottwald (left) and Defense Minister Ludvik Svoboda

HELPING TITO MOVE OUT FROM UNDER STALIN'S CONTROL

Despite the "Red Scare," East-West ideological lines have not yet hardened in America to the point where Truman can't help Communist leader Tito stay free of Stalin's control

Helping Tito's Yugoslavia preserve its independence

Westerners were shocked by the Communist takeover in formerly free Czechoslovakia ... including finally the Americans. Truman of course was not. Nor did he come to the same sense of alarm as did the newly awakened Americans. In America the Czechoslovakian crisis succeeded in reviving an old Red Scare, one that would shape nearly all understandings of America's role in the world for the next generation.

Truman saw things a bit differently. He certainly understood the challenge that Marxist ideology posed to the values of Western democracy. But he was more interested in how this challenge directed political behavior of specific societies, in particular Stalin's Russia. Truman was more interested in power politics than in grand ideology. He was thus able to carry off a highly advantageous diplomatic move, one that within a couple of years would have been impossible, given the rising ideological mood of America. This diplomatic move concerned Tito's Yugoslavia.

During World War Two Josip Broz Tito had headed up a huge military unit of Communist Partisans that gave the Germans a massive amount of trouble in Yugoslavia. In early 1945, as a full German defeat looked increasingly likely, Tito took charge of a new provisional government debating the question of forming a new republic or continuing the monarchy under the young King Peter II. In elections held in November of 1945, the pro-monarchists largely boycotted the event, delivering a huge victory to Tito's pro-Republicanists – dominated heavily by the Communists, who had achieved a very high moral standing among Yugoslavia's various ethnic groups because of their dedication to ousting the Germans from the land.

Though Tito was a loyal Stalinist, he was also an independent thinker, and had specific plans of his own for Yugoslavia. Those plans included incorporating all of the Trieste territory to the northwest of the country (including shooting down American planes supplying Trieste with aid) plus building his own diplomatic alliance with the Greek Communists to the south. This upset Stalin greatly because he was afraid that Tito's activities would call forward a strong American response (which it did), Stalin having come to appreciate the strengths of the new American leader, Truman.

Tito also had his own ideas of how he wanted to unite economically the ethnically divided Yugoslavia.

Such independent-mindedness annoyed Stalin greatly, as he wanted all Communist organizations to function under his sole authority. Problems between Tito and Stalin thus began to develop.

Ultimately, Tito refused to attend the second meeting of Stalin's new Cominform held in June of 1948, expecting to be verbally attacked by Stalin. Stalin was furious at this affront and called for Tito's expulsion from the Cominform, Stalin expecting his personal disapproval to be the undoing of the independent-minded Tito. When expulsion did not seem to have the desired effect, Stalin took up his more usual program of seeking to eliminate any who dared to oppose, or even question, him. None of Stalin's efforts succeeded however. Tito in turn now went after any supposed Stalinists in his own country, arresting thousands.

This turn of events opened the way for Tito to access America's Marshall Plan (1951). Receiving American financial (and also some military) support did not exactly align Tito with the growing Western diplomatic alliance headed up by America. But it effectively made Yugoslavia an openly neutral or non-aligned country in the Cold War. Indeed, Tito went on to be one of the key leaders of an international movement – at the time principally among Asian states – which declared itself to be aligned with neither the West nor the East. These non-aligned countries saw themselves as comprising a new "Third World."

Truman was not looking for Yugoslav loyalty in his swing of economic support behind his former adversary. What Truman did achieve through this support of Communist Yugoslavia was keeping Stalin from acquiring Yugoslavia as another satellite state, one particularly that might have given Stalin the opportunity to extend his political reach all the way to the Adriatic Sea just opposite Italy and thus also a position on the Mediterranean Sea, a goal long sought by the Russians. In supporting the Communist Tito, Truman had contained Stalin. That loomed in importance much larger in Truman's mind than the idea of opposing Communism, no matter where it showed its head, for such ideological crusading would have helped drive Tito back into Soviet hands, the very thing sought by Stalin.

This was cool-headed thinking on the part of Truman, something unfortunately that would be lost on the vast majority of Americans – who at this point were beginning to see things in absolute Black-White (or Red-White!) dimensions.

Marshal Tito (Josip Broz) - Communist, but anti-Soviet, President of Yugoslavia
Library of Congress

THE BERLIN BLOCKADE (1948-1949) MAKES THE RUSSIAN COMMUNIST CHALLENGE IN EUROPE OBVIOUS TO ALL

The Berlin Blockade and Airlift (June 1948-May 1949)

Stalin's expectations at war's end were that the Western occupation of parts of the Berlin capital city would not last more than a year or two. But it became increasingly clear over the next couple of years that the French, British, and Americans were planning to stay in place in Berlin until the country was fully reunited and all German occupation zones were vacated by the wartime Allies. Annoyed by this resistance, Stalin began to put pressure on Berlin by ceasing to deliver agricultural goods to the city, which in turn caused the Allies to suspend the shipment from their zones of German industrial machinery to the Russians. Meanwhile Berliners in the municipal elections were turning sharply against the Communists, concerning Stalin greatly. Stalin knew that somehow the Western Allies had to be driven from Berlin.

To make matters worse for Stalin, the Western Allies were holding talks in early 1948 about uniting their three German occupation zones into a single political unit, thus creating a Federal Republic, complete with its own currency, the Deutsche Mark, this new Germany also eligible to receive Marshall Plan funding.

This was the signal for Stalin to shut down the West’s access to Berlin by way of the rail, highway, and canal routes which passed through the Soviet-controlled East German zone. The program started off sporadically at first, the Soviets probably testing the resolve of the Western Allies. But the Allies responded by airlifting supplies into Berlin. Then the Soviets eased off their restrictions, for a while at least, although they harassed the flights in and out of Berlin (causing a major mid-air crash in April). Finally in late June with the introduction of the new Deutsche Mark (in West Berlin as well as the rest of the country) the Russians acted to shut down completely all land access into Berlin, leaving only air access to Berlin – but estimating that any such continuing air supply to Berlin would prove financially ruinous to the Western Allies. On this point they miscalculated greatly the resolve of Truman not to be bullied out of Berlin. Berlin and its outcome thus became a symbol of strength and determination, for both sides of this new contest.

Militarily the Westerners were vastly outnumbered. Soviet military forces positioned in the Soviet zone numbered about 1.5 million. In Berlin itself there were only less than 23,000 Western troops, and in West Germany as a whole less than 100,000. If the Russians decided to simply grab Berlin, there would have been no way of stopping them. But that would have constituted an act of war, and the fact that America now had numerous quite deliverable atomic bombs – and a president proven willing to use them – caused Stalin to head off any idea of a shooting war. The idea of shooting down unarmed supply planes was for the same reason something Stalin knew he could not let happen. But he believed that he could simply wait out the Westerners, resulting in their eventual loss of Berlin, and in the process gain a great symbolic victory. This would then ultimately impress all of Germany with the idea of who truly ruled in central Europe. Winter was coming and surely the very expensive airlift would have failed by then.

But the Western airlift by the Americans and the British was an impressive display of Western resolve, and Western power. Through the winter the airlift continued, bringing in more food and fuel than had been brought to the city previously by the land routes! Also a December 1948 municipal election boycotted by the Communists led to a complete victory for the pro-Western candidates, effectively ending the idea of an all-Berlin city government – the Communists responding by setting up a government of their own in the Soviet sector of Berlin. Like Germany, Berlin was now divided into two cities, East and West Berlin. Movement between the two sectors still continued (ending only with the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961). But there was now truly an East Berlin and a West Berlin.

The Soviets were gaining nothing by this maneuver, instead throwing a lot of political advantage to the West. The French, British, and American sectors found good reason to put aside any tactical disagreements and work together more closely. The blockade also inspired the rapid development of the German Federal Republic. And it impressed the Germans very favorably toward their French, British and American occupiers who appeared to them more as their deliverers rather than their occupiers. On the other hand it made the Russians appear more to be the oppressors of Germany.

And it stirred great sympathy from the Americans for their former German enemies.

Finally in May of 1949, the Soviets indicated a willingness to end the blockade. The two sides met and the blockade was lifted. But the bringing of supplies into Berlin by air continued, just in case. By July the Allies had built up a 3-month reserve of supplies in Berlin just to send a message to the Soviets to not ever again try to squeeze the Westerners out of Berlin.

A bus used as a roadblock across a major highway from the West into Berlin

The Berlin Airlift – 1948 – 1949
United States Air Force

The Berlin Airlift – 1948 - 1949

US planes airlifting supplies into Berlin during the blockade of the city by Stalin

Unloading US planes at Tempelhof in Berlin
United States Air Force

US C-54 cargo planes at snow-covered Wiesbaden Air Base during the Berlin airlift – March 1949
United States Army

THE INEFFECTIVENESS OF THE U.N. ... AND THE CREATION OF NATO

The increasingly apparent ineffectiveness of the new United Nations

So much had been said at its birth in the last days of the war – about the way the new United Nations Organization was going to help establish a secure and lasting international peace – that expectations ran high in America that finally a formula for preventing the further outbreak of war (of which Americans had experienced two in just that many generations) was now no longer a serious danger. Yet, the major crises that America already found itself facing in the days and months since the end of the war in no ways seemed to have involved the United Nations in a constructive way. Was the United Nations just another one of those fancy dreams sold to the American people by Idealists, Idealists that had no serious grounding in political reality? Was the United Nations all just a waste of time and money?

How much Truman had really expected by way of Russian cooperation in the functioning of the United Nations is hard to say – though it probably was not much. Americans, however, became increasingly incensed that the Soviets kept vetoing measures in the United Nations Security Council (the only part of the United Nations where forceful international policies could be ordered). Each Soviet veto was viewed by the Americans as a measure of depravity of the Soviet position.

Actually, it was the natural response of a major power that sensed that the vast majority of the members of the United Nations were for the most part American allies of one sort or another and thus pretty much lined up against Soviet political interests everywhere. The Soviets might have wanted to pull out of the organization altogether but did not, figuring that it was better to stay in the organization where the Russians at least had veto power, than to leave the organization to the Americans to rally the rest of the world in opposing Soviet political interests. Thus the vetoes.

But this meant that American diplomacy would have to look elsewhere than the United Nations in order to build a world of peace along lines more favorable to the interests of America and its West-European allies.

The creation of NATO

Thus, on April 4th, 1949, some twelve nations met in Washington, D.C. to sign the North Atlantic Treaty, a military treaty that bound together the members of this treaty on a one-for-all / all-for-one basis: America, Canada, Iceland, Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Portugal, Italy, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. For America this was a first: a peacetime military alliance binding the country to the defense of Europe (actually the defense of any member, including Canada and Iceland). What inspired this was a combination of actions already taken among some of the European nations themselves, plus the crisis of the Berlin Blockade.

The British, French, Dutch, Belgians, and Luxembourgers had already entered into a similar military agreement in March of 1948 (the Treaty of Brussels), although that agreement was designed as much as a mutual defense against a revived Germany as it was an anti-Communist or anti-Soviet alliance. Then in September of 1948 the treaty members set up an actual joint military command structure, the Western Union Defense Organization.

A second piece in the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty was the political groundwork laid out at home to get America to join a peacetime military alliance. Here is where the Berlin Blockade was of great assistance in the effort. But it is important to note that by 1948 Arthur Vandenberg, the Republican Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (which must confirm all American treaties), who had once been an ardent isolationist, had become an equally ardent internationalist, supporting strongly the idea of American leadership in a post-war Free World. Talks between Vandenberg and Marshall's Assistant Secretary of State Dean Acheson and Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett early in 1948 had touched on the idea of a North Atlantic military alliance. Vandenberg agreed to put the matter before the U.S. Senate in May of that year, in the form of a resolution, to be debated and hopefully supported by the Senate, clearing the way for America to enter just such an alliance. And indeed in June the Senate overwhelmingly (eighty-two to thirteen) approved the Vandenberg Resolution. And thus resulted the gathering in April of 1949 in D.C. of the representatives of the twelve nations to sign the North Atlantic Treaty.

Very soon a crisis which broke out the following year (1950) in far off Asia – the Korean War – pushed the Alliance to take the next step and put into place an actual organization integrating the contributions by the member nations to the various military commands, so as to give the Alliance great strength of unity. Thus out of the North Atlantic Treaty quickly came the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Immediately work began to put together a number of military divisions (the plan was originally for ninety-six such divisions, but dropped down in target to thirty-five divisions) soon to be headed up by General Eisenhower as NATO's Supreme Allied Commander, working out of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers of Europe (SHAPE). The organization itself would be headed up by a NATO secretary general – the first being Churchill’s primary wartime military assistant, Lord Ismay.

Go on to the next section: Post-War Asia

Miles H. Hodges

19. A COLD WAR DEVELOPS POST-WAR EUROPE

Miles H. Hodges

19. A COLD WAR DEVELOPS

POST-WAR EUROPE