620Chapter 31
Truman Doctrine: The United States would “support
free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by
armed minorities or by outside pressures.” The Truman
Doctrine of aid to threatened countries blended with
the Marshall Plan for aid in economic recovery; human-
itarian assistance and military assistance were inter-
twined instruments of the cold war. American aid con-
tributed significantly to the victory of the Greek
monarchy over Communist guerrilla forces in 1949.
The most dramatic American intervention in the
early days of the cold war came in the Berlin Airlift of- To protest the increasing merger of the British
and American zones of West Germany (dubbed “Bizo-
nia” in 1946), the Soviet Union began to interfere with
western access to Berlin and in July 1948 sealed off the
city by closing all land access through the Soviet zone
of East Germany. The United States considered open-
ing the route to Berlin by force but instead chose “Op-
eration Vittles”—daily flights of assistance to sustain a
city of two million. The Berlin Airlift delivered more
than eight thousand tons of food and supplies daily,
with British and American flights landing every five
minutes around the clock until the Soviet Union lifted
its blockade in the spring of 1949.
NATO and the Warsaw Pact: Containment
and Confrontation
The Truman Doctrine and the policy of the “contain-
ment” of Communism within the countries where it had
been established soon prompted military alliances.
Britain, France (where the government was doubly ner-
vous because French Communists won more than
25 percent of the votes, making it the largest party in
Parliament), and the Benelux states had signed a defen-
sive treaty in March 1948. The blockade of Berlin and
the Czech coup of 1948 led to the expansion of this al-
liance in 1949 into the North Atlantic Treaty Organiza-
tion (NATO). Italy, Portugal, Norway, Denmark,
Iceland, Canada, and the United States joined the orig-
inal Allies in a twelve-member alliance that stationed
American forces throughout Europe. Greece and
Turkey were added to NATO in 1949. When a reunited
West Germany joined the alliance in 1955, the Soviet
Union countered by forming the Warsaw Pact, an al-
liance linking the USSR, East Germany, Poland,
Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Al-
bania. Members of the Warsaw Pact pledged to re-
spond to aggression against any member; although
such preparations never led to war between NATO and
Warsaw Pact nations, this proviso was used by the
USSR to send troops into member states where the
Communist government was being challenged.
Throughout the cold war, NATO and the Warsaw Pact
kept large armed forces facing each other, with thou-
sands of American and Soviet troops stationed in alliedDOCUMENT 31.1
Churchill: An “Iron Curtain”
in Europe, 1946
A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately
lightened, lighted by the Allied victory. Nobody
knows what Soviet Russia and its communist inter-
national organization intends to do in the immedi-
ate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their
expansive and proselytizing tendencies.
I have a strong admiration and regard for the
valiant Russian people and for my war-time com-
rade, Marshal Stalin. There is deep sympathy and
good-will in Britain—and I doubt not here also—
toward the peoples of all the Russias.... We un-
derstand the Russian need to be secure on her
western frontiers by the removal of all possibility
of German aggression. We welcome Russia to her
rightful place among the leading nations of the
world....
It is my duty, however... to place before you
certain facts about the present position in Europe.
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, Bel-
grade, Bucharest, and Sofia, all these famous cities
and the populations around them lie in what I
might 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.
Police governments are pervading from
Moscow.... The communist parties, which were
very small in all these eastern states of Europe,
have been raised to preeminence and power far be-
yond their numbers and are seeking everywhere to
obtain totalitarian control.
Churchill, Winston. Speech at Fulton, Missouri, March 5,- Current History, April 1946, pp. 358–361.