One World Into two

Atlantic Charter The United States and Britain’s Atlantic Charter called for economic collaboration between the two countries and for guarantees of political stability after the end of the war and also supported free trade, national self- determination, and the principle of collective security. What else? Imperial preference system?

Post war issues (boundaries) 1942 Molotov meeting in Washington 4 policemen

Casablanca Churchill and Roosevelt Stalin busy with Stalingrad Unconditional surrender – problematic- why?

Teheran Post war boundary Baltic States? Poland? How did Britain and Russia view the Atrlantic Charter Events in Italy and Teheran brought into open the dilemmas that would wreck the post-war peace

Yalta

UN – 4 great powers dominate Far east question Japan Polish-Soviet Border Polish government – Symbol of Russian-American Conflict Dismemberment of Germany?

Final plans were laid for sledge-hammering the buckling German lines and shackling the beaten Axis foe. Stalin agreed that Poland, with revised boundaries, should have a representative government based on free elections-a pledge that he soon broke.

Holocaust What is the issue in terms of priorities?

Truman What was Truman’s dilemma -

Stalin Traditional westward policy Eastern and central europe

Potsdam/China and the Bomb

The Truman Doctrine and Containment The Truman Doctrine required large-scale military and economic assistance to prevent communism from taking hold in Greece and Turkey, which in turn lessened the Communist threat in the entire Middle East. The Marshall Plan brought relief to devastated European countries, ushering in an economic recovery that made them less susceptible to communism and opening these countries up to new international trade opportunities. This appropriation reversed the postwar trend toward sharp cuts in foreign spending and marked a new level of commitment to the Cold War.

For the next forty years, the ideological conflict between capitalism and communism determined the foreign policy of the United States and the Soviet Union and, later, China. The United States pursued a policy designed to contain Communist expansion in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

As tensions mounted, the United States increasingly perceived Soviet expansionism as a threat to its own interests, and a new policy of containment began to take shape, the most influential proponent of whom was George F. Kennan.

was an American advisor, diplomat, political scientist, and historian, best known as "the father of containment" and as a key figure in the emergence of the Cold War. He later wrote standard histories of the relations between Russia and the Western powers.

American reaction resulted in the Truman Doctrine, which called for large-scale military and economic assistance in order to prevent communism from taking hold in Greece and Turkey which in turn lessened the threat to the entire Middle East, making it an early version of the “domino theory.”

The resulting congressional appropriation reversed the postwar trend toward sharp cuts in foreign spending and marked a new level of commitment to the Cold War. The Marshall Plan sent relief to devastated European countries and helped to make them less susceptible to communism; the plan required that foreign-aid dollars be spent on U.S. goods and services

The Marshall Plan met with opposition in Congress until a Communist coup occurred in Czechoslovakia in February 1948, after which Congress voted overwhelmingly to approve funds for the program.

The Marshall Plan (from its enactment, officially the European Recovery Program (ERP)) was the primary plan of the United States for rebuilding the allied countries of Europe and repelling communism after World War II. The initiative was named for United States Secretary of State George Marshall and was largely the creation of State Department officials, especially William L. Clayton and George F. Kennan

Map of Cold- War era Europe showing countries that received Marshall Plan aid. The red columns show the relative amount of total aid per nation.

The reconstruction plan was developed at a meeting of the participating European states in July The Marshall Plan offered the same aid to the Soviet Union and its allies, if they would make political reforms and accept certain outside controls. In fact, America worried that the Soviet Union would take advantage of the plan and therefore made the terms deliberately hard for the USSR to accept.

Over the next four years, the United States contributed nearly $13 billion to a highly successful recovery; Western European economies revived, opening new opportunities for international trade, while Eastern Europe was influenced not to participate by the Soviet Union.

The United States, France, and Britain initiated a program of economic reform in West Berlin, which alarmed the Soviets, who responded with a blockade of the city. Truman countered the blockade with airlifts of food and fuel; the blockade, lifted in May 1949, made West Berlin a symbol of resistance to communism.