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NOTE TO READERS
"Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations" has been retired and is no longer maintained. For more information, please see the full notice.

The Yalta Conference took place in a Russian resort town in the Crimea from February 4-11, 1945, during World War Two. At Yalta, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin made important decisions regarding the future progress of the war and the postwar world.

World Leaders at the Yalta Conference

The Allied leaders came to Yalta knowing that an Allied victory in Europe was practically inevitable but less convinced that the Pacific war was nearing an end. Recognizing that a victory over Japan might require a protracted fight, the United States and Great Britain saw a major strategic advantage to Soviet participation in the Pacific theater. At Yalta, Roosevelt and Churchill discussed with Stalin the conditions under which the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan and all three agreed that, in exchange for potentially crucial Soviet participation in the Pacific theater, the Soviets would be granted a sphere of influence in Manchuria following Japan's surrender. This included the southern portion of Sakhalin, a lease at Port Arthur (now Lüshunkou), a share in the operation of the Manchurian railroads, and the Kurile Islands. This agreement was the major concrete accomplishment of the Yalta Conference.

The Allied leaders also discussed the future of Germany, Eastern Europe and the United Nations. Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin agreed not only to include France in the postwar governing of Germany, but also that Germany should assume some, but not all, responsibility for reparations following the war. The Americans and the British generally agreed that future governments of the Eastern European nations bordering the Soviet Union should be "friendly" to the Soviet regime while the Soviets pledged to allow free elections in all territories liberated from Nazi Germany. Negotiators also released a declaration on Poland, providing for the inclusion of Communists in the postwar national government. In discussions regarding the future of the United Nations, all parties agreed to an American plan concerning voting procedures in the Security Council, which had been expanded to five permanent members following the inclusion of France. Each of these permanent members was to hold a veto on decisions before the Security Council.

Initial reaction to the Yalta agreements was celebratory. Roosevelt and many other Americans viewed it as proof that the spirit of U.S.-Soviet wartime cooperation would carry over into the postwar period. This sentiment, however, was short lived. With the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 12, 1945, Harry S. Truman became the thirty-third president of the United States. By the end of April, the new administration clashed with the Soviets over their influence in Eastern Europe, and over the United Nations. Alarmed at the perceived lack of cooperation on the part of the Soviets, many Americans began to criticize Roosevelt's handling of the Yalta negotiations. To this day, many of Roosevelt's most vehement detractors accuse him of "handing over" Eastern Europe and Northeast Asia to the Soviet Union at Yalta despite the fact that the Soviets did make many substantial concessions.

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Milestones: 1937-1945 - Office of the Historian

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NOTE TO READERS
"Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations" has been retired and is no longer maintained. For more information, please see the full notice.

With the Truman Doctrine, President Harry S. Truman established that the United States would provide political, military and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from external or internal authoritarian forces. The Truman Doctrine effectively reoriented U.S. foreign policy, away from its usual stance of withdrawal from regional conflicts not directly involving the United States, to one of possible intervention in far away conflicts.

The Truman Doctrine arose from a speech delivered by President Truman before a joint session of Congress on . The immediate cause for the speech was a recent announcement by the British Government that, as of March 31, it would no longer provide military and economic assistance to the Greek Government in its civil war against the Greek Communist Party. Truman asked Congress to support the Greek Government against the Communists. He also asked Congress to provide assistance for Turkey, since that nation, too, had previously been dependent on British aid.

At the time, the U.S. Government believed that the Soviet Union supported the Greek Communist war effort and worried that if the Communists prevailed in the Greek civil war, the Soviets would ultimately influence Greek policy. In fact, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had deliberately refrained from providing any support to the Greek Communists and had forced Yugoslav Prime Minister Josip Tito to follow suit, much to the detriment of Soviet-Yugoslav relations. However, a number of other foreign policy problems also influenced President Truman's decision to actively aid Greece and Turkey. In 1946, four setbacks, in particular, had served to effectively torpedo any chance of achieving a durable post-war rapprochement with the Soviet Union: the Soviets' failure to withdraw their troops from northern Iran in early 1946 (as per the terms of the Tehran Declaration of 1943); Soviet attempts to pressure the Iranian Government into granting them oil concessions while supposedly fomenting irredentism by Azerbaijani separatists in northern Iran; Soviet efforts to force the Turkish Government into granting them base and transit rights through the Turkish Straits; and, the Soviet Government's rejection of the Baruch plan for international control over nuclear energy and weapons in June 1946.

In light of the deteriorating relationship with the Soviet Union and the appearance of Soviet meddling in Greek and Turkish affairs, the withdrawal of British assistance to Greece provided the necessary catalyst for the Truman Administration to reorient American foreign policy. Accordingly, in his speech, President Truman requested that Congress provide $400,000,000 worth of aid to both the Greek and Turkish Governments and support the dispatch of American civilian and military personnel and equipment to the region.

Truman justified his request on two grounds. He argued that a Communist victory in the Greek Civil War would endanger the political stability of Turkey, which would undermine the political stability of the Middle East. This could not be allowed in light of the region's immense strategic importance to U.S. national security. Truman also argued that the United States was compelled to assist "free peoples" in their struggles against "totalitarian regimes," because the spread of authoritarianism would "undermine the foundations of international peace and hence the security of the United States." In the words of the Truman Doctrine, it became "the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."

Truman argued that the United States could no longer stand by and allow the forcible expansion of Soviet totalitarianism into free, independent nations, because American national security now depended upon more than just the physical security of American territory. Rather, in a sharp break with its traditional avoidance of extensive foreign commitments beyond the Western Hemisphere during peacetime, the Truman Doctrine committed the United States to actively offering assistance to preserve the political integrity of democratic nations when such an offer was deemed to be in the best interest of the United States.

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Milestones: 1945-1952 - Office of the Historian

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U.S. Embassy and Consulate in the Netherlands

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"Churchill's words won the war, Marshall's words won the peace."
Dirk Stikker, Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, 1948-1952

The Need

Europe was devastated by years of conflict during World War II. Millions of people had been killed or wounded. Industrial and residential centers in England, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Belgium and elsewhere lay in ruins. Much of Europe was on the brink of famine as agricultural production had been disrupted by war. Transportation infrastructure was in shambles. The only major power in the world that was not significantly damaged was the United States.

Aid to Europe

From 1945 through 1947, the United States was already assisting European economic recovery with direct financial aid. Military assistance to Greece and Turkey was being given. The newly formed United Nations was providing humanitarian assistance. In January 1947, U. S. President Harry Truman appointed George Marshall, the architect of victory during WWII, to be Secretary of State. Writing in his diary on January 8, 1947, Truman said, "Marshall is the greatest man of World War II. He managed to get along with Roosevelt, the Congress, Churchill, the Navy and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and he made a grand record in China. When I asked him to [be] my special envoy to China, he merely said, 'Yes, Mr. President I'll go.' No argument only patriotic action. And if any man was entitled to balk and ask for a rest, he was. We'll have a real State Department now."

In just a few months, State Department leadership under Marshall with expertise provided by George Kennan, William Clayton and others crafted the Marshall Plan concept, which George Marshall shared with the world in a speech on June 5, 1947 at Harvard. Officially known as the European Recovery Program (ERP), the Marshall Plan was intended to rebuild the economies and spirits of western Europe, primarily. Marshall was convinced the key to restoration of political stability lay in the revitalization of national economies. Further he saw political stability in Western Europe as a key to blunting the advances of communism in that region.

The European Recovery Program

Sixteen nations, including Germany, became part of the program and shaped the assistance they required, state by state, with administrative and technical assistance provided through the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA) of the United States. European nations received nearly $13 billion in aid, which initially resulted in shipments of food, staples, fuel and machinery from the United States and later resulted in investment in industrial capacity in Europe. Marshall Plan funding ended in 1951.

Results

Marshall Plan nations were assisted greatly in their economic recovery. From 1948 through 1952 European economies grew at an unprecedented rate. Trade relations led to the formation of the North Atlantic alliance. Economic prosperity led by coal and steel industries helped to shape what we know now as the European Union.
Source: George C. Marshall Foundation
The Netherlands and the Marshall Plan

The Netherlands received $ 1.127 billion in Marshall Aid. With $ 109 per capita, the Netherlands belonged to the group of countries in Western Europe that received the most Marshall aid.

The Marshall Plan enabled the receiving countries to import goods. The largest contributions for industry went to food production (for example, the flour factories of Koopmans in Leeuwarden), textile (TenCate in Nijverdal, Spanjaard in Borne and Van Heek in Enschede) and the aviation industry (KLM, Fokker). Steel producer Hoogovens in IJmuiden could purchase special equipment. In Geertruidenberg, Noord Brabant, the new Amer power plant was built to supply the nation with energy. ENCI (Eerste Nederlandse Cement Industrie) in Maastricht, was able to expand in order to keep up with increasing demands in the building industry. In total, half a million dollars were invested in the cement industry. Therefore, the production level could rise with 70 %. The Dutch State Mines were enabled to expand their chemical industries. The electrification of the Dutch railway system could grow rapidly.

Marshall funds were used for the reconstruction of houses in Limburg, Walcheren, de Betuwe, Arnhem, Nijmegen and Rotterdam (400 million guilders). A large number of smaller projects was also financed by the Marshall Plan, for example the repair of the port of Rotterdam, the construction of the Velsertunnel and other infrastructural works, and the expansion of the Delft Technical Hogeschool (now University), the Bouwcentrum Rotterdam and the Krasnapolsky Hotel in Amsterdam. Also, the the damaged Grand Hotel in Scheveningen was repaired with Marshall Aid. was In total, about 4,100 predominantly smaller companies, benefited from the Marshall Plan.

The Marshall Plan also had a major impact on Dutch agriculture. In the early years, the Marshall Plan was needed for the purchase of wheat and agricultural equipment. Marshall funds were spent on the repair of agricultural soil, the reclamation of land in the IJsselmeer and the mechanization and rationalization of agriculture. The showcase villages of Rottevalle (Friesland) and Kerkhoven Oisterwijk (Noord Brabant) were modernized with Marshall aid.

In order to stimulate tourism to the Netherlands, hotels were renovated with Marshall Aid, for instance four hotels in Arnhem and the Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky in Amsterdam, which opened in 1952.

About one percent of the money was used for Technical Assistance. Although that is not a lot financially, the activities that aimed to improve productivity in the Netherlands have been of great importance in the longer term. In the center of the Dutch productivity actions stood the "Contactgroep Opvoering Productiviteit" (COP), a cooperation between employers, employees, the Dutch government and specialized advisory and research organizations. The COP coordinated and stimulated the productivity actions in the Netherlands. Within that framework, more than 150 Dutch delegations, with more than 1,200 participants of various backgrounds in society, went on study tours to the United States.

The studies varied from a study on company organization, packaging methods and supermarkets, to technical education, improving the fruit production and artificial insemination in cattle. More than 100 study reports gave insights for those who stayed at home. Based on these studies, follow-up activities were organized such as conventions, courses and the founding of productivity centers for various branches of industry. Many American consultants also visited the Netherlands. This resulted in the development of a new industrial mentality in 1950s Netherlands, based on increase of productivity, efficiency and management.

A good example of "Marshall Plan in action" are Piet and Reinier Dobbelmann from a soap and toothpaste company in Nijmegen, who completed a study tour to the U.S. in 1948. Whilst in the U.S., they became enthusiastic about American machines, that they purchased with the aid of the Marshall Plan. This led to an enormous increase in productivity.

Source: De Marshall-hulp: Studiebrief 25 van de Atlantische Commissie, januari 1997; Het Marshallplan - NAIL Newsletter Special, 1997 - translation: U.S. Embassy, The Hague

Prime Minister Willem Drees wrote in 1954: "It has rarely occurred in history that an entirely new experiment in the way of international relations has enjoyed such demonstrable success as the Marshall Plan...
"Let us not forget the Marshall Plan, because it is a symbol of what the effect of real co-operation can be for peaceful purposes in the world."

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Europe was devastated by years of conflict during World War II. Millions of people had been killed or wounded. Industrial and residential centers in England, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Belgium and elsewhere lay in ruins. Much of Europe was on the brink of famine as agricultural production had been disrupted by war.