Containment and The Truman doctrine
the Marshall Plan
On June 5, 1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall gave a speech at Harvard University to the graduating class. In the speech, he discussed the need to rebuild Europe after it has been ravaged by war. His speech led to the creation of the Economic Cooperation Act in March 1948, nicknamed the Marshall Plan after George C. Marshall. The act was a European recovery program that gave $13 billion to recover war-torn Europe from the United States. The western Europeans were pleased with the plan, but the Soviets and eastern Europeans disagreed. They were invited to receive money, but they disagreed. They thought it was a capitalist-imperialist plan to buy support of the smaller European countries. The Soviet Union disagreed with the ideals of the Marshall Plan, but they could not retaliate because they could not financially compete with the United States.
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