The Growth of American Power Through Cold and Hot Wars 309Vittles,” the U.S. sent over 2 million tons of supplies–food, medicine and other
essentials–into Berlin until, in May 1949, Stalin lifted the blockade. This point
is vital. Throughout the early Cold War years–during a dispute over Iran in
1946, in Greece, and now in Berlin–Stalin retreated whenever faced with
American power. Though we use the term “the Cold War” to describe U.S.-
Soviet tensions until the 1990s, it is not incorrect to suggest that the U.S. had
achieved success in that conflict in Europe as early as 1949, when Stalin basi-
cally waved the white flag in Berlin. From that point on, though the Soviet
Union would sponsor rebel groups elsewhere [as would, in far greater number,
the United States], it would not be adventurous in American-controlled or
influenced parts of Europe; it would maintain its position and assert control,
at times rigidly, in the East, but otherwise never challenged U.S. hegemony
there.
The “war scare” that the Berlin Crisis brought on, along with another cri-
sis over the overthrow of a moderate government in Czechoslovakia that
would bring the Communists to power in Prague, had another purpose, this
one domestic and economic. While Truman and his supporters claimed the
FIGuRE 6-5 A crowd in Berlin watch as an American plane lands with sup
at the Tempelhof Airport with food and other supplies, 1948