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The Marshall Non-Plan, Congress and the Soviet Union Author(s): William C. Cromwell Reviewed work(s): Source: The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Dec., 1979), pp. 422-443 Published by: University of Utah on behalf of the Western Political Science Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/447906 . Accessed: 13/12/2011 06:31
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THE MARSHALL NON-PLAN, CONGRESS AND THE SOVIET UNION

WILLIAM C. CROMWELL

The American University

ISTORIANS of the cold war generally agree that the Marshall Plan was

of pivotal significance in crystallizing the East-West conflict in Europe.L By the summer of 1947 the division of Europe was well advanced, though not necessarily irreversible. The allied control machinery for Germany remained formally in place though reduced to the performance of nominal functions. Four-power negotiations on the German peace treaty continued through 1947 despite growing signs of deadlock as a result of the Moscow Conference in March and April. The establishment of the Economic Commission for Europe in May 1947 provided an institutional basis for considering problems and approaches to recovery in a pan-European framework. In this setting, the Soviet refusal to participate in collective European planning to respond to the Marshall proposal, taking in its tow the East European countries as well, determined that U.S. recovery policy would henceforth proceed exclusively on a West European basis. The solidification of a West European approach toward recovery, including the Western zones of Germany, aroused Soviet concerns and contributed to the tightening of Eastern bloc discipline, the formation of the Cominform, the breakdown of the ministerial negotiations on Germany, and the full consolidation of Communist power in Czechoslovakia. Thus, as Hadley Arkes argues, "The Marshall Plan did more than any single measure to dissolve the ambiguity in EastWest tensions and consummate the Cold War."2 With regard to the issue of Soviet inclusion in the Marshall Plan, traditional and revisionist accounts differ essentially as to the assumed motivations of U.S. policy-makers as distinct from the formal appearance of the American offer of assistance to Europe. Traditional interpretations assume that the initial panEuropean scope of the Marshall proposal was a bona fide offer and that its rejection by the Soviet Union determined its subsequent West European configuration while establishing further responsibility in Moscow for the continent's division. Traditionalists acknowledge that key American policy-makers believed that the Soviet Union would not accept the plan, though this is not viewed as casting doubt on the sincerity of the American proposal. Joseph Jones recalls Dean Acheson's
and Dr. Francis 0. Wilcox for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article. Of course, all responsibility for the use and interpretation of material remains entirely my own. See Hadley Arkes, Bureaucracy, the Marshall Plan and the National Interest (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), p. 19; John Gimbel, The Origins of the Marshall Plan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1976), p. 4; Louis J. Halle, The Cold War as History (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), pp. 135-36: Adam B. Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence: The History of Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917-1967 (New York: Praeger, 1968), p. 437; Andre Fontaine, History of the Cold War: From the October Revolution to the Korean War, 1917-1950 (New York: Random House, 1968), p. 331; Thomas G. Paterson, "The Quest for Peace and Prosperity: International Trade, Communism, and the Marshall Plan," in Barton J. Bernstein, ed., Politics and Policies of the Truman Administration (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970), pp. 99-101; William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, 2nd rev. ed. (New York: Dell, 1972), pp. 208-9; Walter LeFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-1971 (New York: Wiley, 1972), pp. 47-55; Geir Lundestad, The American Non-Policy Towards Eastern Europe, 1943-1947 (New York: Humanities Press, 1975), p. 104; John L. Gaddis, "Containment: A Reassessment," Foreign Affairs 56 (July 1977), pp. 879-80; J. L. Richardson, "Cold-War Revisionism: A Critique," World Politics 24 (July 1972): 600-601. 'Arkes, Bureaucracy, The Marshall Plan and The National Interest, p. 19.
NOTE: I would like to express my appreciation to Dr. Robert L. Beisner, Dr. Forrest C. Pogue

The Marshall Non-Plan 423 view "that it would be a colossal error for the United States to put itself in a position where it could be blamed for the division of Europe [by offering to help rebuild only half of it] .... But there was a strong probability that the U.S.S.R. would never come in on a basis of disclosing full information about its economic and financial condition, which was necessaryif a common recovery plan were to work."3George Kennan records: "As for the Russians: we would simply play it straight. If they responded favorably, we would test their good faith by insisting that they contribute constructively to the program as well as profiting from it. If they were unwilling to do this, we would simply let them exclude themselves. But we would not ourselves draw a line of division through Europe."4 Charles Bohlen, Marshall's Special Assistant, corroborates Kennan's view, recalling that "we [Kennan and Bohlen] did not feel that the Soviet Union would accept American verification of the use of the goods and funds. Furthermore, we did not think the Soviet Union would be able to maintain its control over Eastern Europe if those countries were able to participate in the cooperative venture."5Walt Rostow asserts that "the way was left open for Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to join on a cooperative basis... [and] the withdrawal of Molotov from Paris was carried out in a manner which left Western consciences quite clear that an honest effort had been made and rejected."6 Most revisionistsview the Marshall Plan as a fuller elaboration of the Truman Doctrine and designed to erect an economic and political bloc to contain Soviet expansion and to curb the influence of Communist parties in West European countries.7Indeed, President Truman gave credence to this view through his later characterization of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan as "two halves of the same walnut."8 Thus, given this wider strategy and the improbabilityof Soviet acceptance, revisionists conclude that the offer to include the Soviet Union in the Marshall Plan was little more than diplomatic finesse. Some revisionists argue that the Marshall Plan was designed deliberately so that Soviet rejection would be assured, thereby satisfying the Administration'saim of sponsoring an exclusively West European aid program without incurring the political liabilities which this more narrow approach would have entailed. Thomas Paterson asserts that "the plan was presented in such a way that the Soviet Union and the East European countries could not participate... ."9 Richard Freeland's often astute analysis concludes: The Marshall Plan was a natural extension of the Truman Doctrine speech and was the key to American efforts to build an anti-Soviet bloc in westernEurope .... Marshall'sproposal was designed to appear to offer
8Joseph M. Jones, The Fifteen Weeks (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1955), pp. 252-53. See also Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation (New York: Norton, 1969), p. 232. 'George F. Kennan, Memoirs, 1925-1950 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967), p. 342; see also Eric Goldman, The Crucial Decade: America 1945-1955 (New York: Knopf, 1956), p. 74; Herbert Feis, From Trust to Terror (New York; Norton, 1970), pp. 242-43. 'Charles E. Bohlen, Witness to History, 1929-1969 (New York: Norton, 1973), pp. 264-65; see also Bohlen, The Transformationof American Foreign Policy (New York: Norton, 1969), p. 91. ' Walt W. Rostow, The United States in the World Arena (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960), pp. 211-12; see also Charles P. Kindleberger,"The Marshall Plan and the Cold War," InternationalJournal 23 (1967-1968): 377.
7See, for example, Thomas G. Paterson, Soviet-American Confrontation (Baltimore: John

Hopkins University Press, 1973), p. 212; Joyce and Gabriel Kolko, The Limits of Power (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), p. 363; D. F. Fleming, The Cold War and Its Origins, 1917-1960 (New York: Doubleday, 1961), I, 479; BartonJ. Bernstein,"Walter Lippmann and the Early Cold War," in Thomas G. Paterson, ed., Cold War Critics (New York: QuadrangleBooks, 1971), p. 44. 8 Jones, The Fifteen Weeks,p. 233. 9 Thomas G. Paterson, "The Quest for Peace and Prosperity: International Trade, Communism, and the Marshall Plan," in Bernstein,Politics and Policies of the Truman Admin98. istration, p.

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Western Political Quarterly participation to the U.S.S.R. and eastern Europe, and to ensure that they could not accept without adopting the multilateral economic policies that the Soviet Union had repeatedly rejected... the Administration took steps that appear to have been designed to foreclose even the remote possibility that the Soviets would accept Marshall'soffer.10

However, the ready plausibility of this thesis has led revisionist historians to oversimplify U.S. strategy during the formative stages of the Marshall Plan. Revisionists tend to blur the important distinction between the results of the Marshall Plan (which did indeed solidify the Western bloc) and the initial motivations of U.S. policy-makers who were influenced by more complex domestic and international considerations. The purpose of this study is to examine U.S. policy planning with respect to the issue of Soviet and East European participation in the Marshall Plan in order to ascertain whether or not a strategy of intended exclusion was in fact pursued despite appearances to the contrary. It will be confined to the germinal phase of U.S. planning prior to Secretary of State George C. Marshall's address at Harvard University on June 5, 1947, through the breakdown of the British-French-Soviet conference in Paris on July 2. During this period Administration officials shared a conviction that Soviet inclusion would pose an obstacle to the attainment of recovery objectives and to congressional approval, yet they were unwilling formally to exclude the Soviet Union because to do so would establish responsibility in Washington for the further division of Europe and would complicate West European acceptance in the face of expected Communist party opposition. The conditions for European acceptance of the Marshall Plan derived not from an intent to exclude Soviet participation - though they had this effect - but from a conviction that only a comprehensive and coordinated European approach would provide confidence of success and would meet with congressionalacceptance in view of the limited effectiveness of previous ad hoc and bilateral U.S. aid measures. Moreover, the Marshall Plan conditions were only loosely formulated at this critical stage, contrary to the assertions of some revisionist accounts"1which attribute an almost doctrinaire specificity to American recovery policy at this time which it only acquired weeks after the breakdown of the Paris conference. Whereas these revisionists err in their ascription of U.S. motives underlying the Marshall Plan conditions, they are essentially correct in their conclusion that the pan-European appearance of the Marshall proposal conflicted with the Truman Administration's priority emphasis on a West European recovery program. This conflict challenges the credibility of the Administration'spublic position on the scope of a European aid program, though it fails to substantiate that U.S. strategy deliberately sought to exclude Soviet participation.
"WE HAVE NO PLAN"

Most of the accounts of the origins of the Marshall Plan portray it as the result of a clear-visioned,well-orchestratedplanning effort within the Department of State culminating in Secretary Marshall's address at Harvard on June 5, 1947. Such a characterization requires considerable qualification. Marshall's speech followed a relatively brief if intensive germination period within the State Department which produced a few key recovery concepts but only tentative and admittedly inconclusive program plans. Indeed, as late as July 21, six weeks after the Harvard
'? Richard M. Freeland, The Truman Doctrine and the Origins of McCarthyism (New York: Knopf, 1972), pp. 167 and 169; see also LaFeber, America, Russia and the Cold War, 1945-1971 p. 48. " See Freeland, The Truman Doctrine and the Origins of McCarthyism, pp. 169-70; Paterson, Soviet-American Confrontation, p. 212; Kolko and Kolko, The Limits of Power, p. 363.

The Marshall Non-Plan 425 speech, a briefing paper prepared by George Kennan for Secretary Marshall's use acknowledgedthat "we have no plan."12 The first major European recovery planning undertaken by the Truman Administration was initiated in March 1947 with the appointment of an ad hoc Committee of the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee (SWNCC) which produced an interim report of recommendations on April 21. Described as "highly tentative in nature" and based on a "hasty analysis" of "information presently at hand." the report echoed themes of the Truman Doctrine in stressingU.S. aid purposes of "supportingeconomic stability and orderly political processes,opposing the spread of chaos and extremism, preventing advancement of Communist influence and use of armed minorities, and orienting other foreign nations toward the U.S. and the U.N."13 Though the Committee continued functioning for several months, Administrationplanning for European recovery assistance soon became centralized within the Department of State. On April 28, SecretaryMarshall returned from the Moscow Foreign Minister's Conference deeply disturbed over Europe's economic plight and convinced that the Soviet Union was determined to obstruct Four Power agreement on a German peace treaty. Though preliminary State Department planning for a European aid program was already underway by this time, it is clear that Marshall's experience at Moscow was pivotal in energizing his own leadership of these efforts.l4The next day Marshall summoned George Kennan, then lecturing at the National War College, and instructed him to organize the Policy Planning Staff and to submit recommendations for dealing with the European situation within two weeks. The first public indication of Administrationplanning for a program of European assistance came in Undersecretaryof State Dean Acheson's speech before the Delta Council in Mississippi on May 8.15Acheson vivdly portrayed the magnitude of the problem and the inadequacy of existing recovery efforts, yet he offered no specific program of American assistance. Acheson's speech was very much in the mold of the Truman Doctrine with its stress that free peoples who are seeking to preserve their independence and democratic institutions from totalitarian pressures would receive top priorityfor American reconstructionaid. Acheson's address was characterized by President Truman as "the prologue to the Marshall Plan,'16 yet some participants in the planning process, including Marshall himself, later discounted its significance.17 Marshall, only recently returned from the Moscow conference, had not been involved in the preparation of Acheson's speech. His later assertion that this speech and those of other State Department officials "did not represent 'trial balloons' or any sort of build-up for the ERP" (European Recovery Program) reflect his obsessionwith avoiding premature disclosure of the Administration'sthinking and thus a fractious public debate over a new aid program which Marshall fully expected. Also, largely for tactical reasons, Marshall sought to disassociate U.S. recovery policy from the anticommunist "Notes for Secretary Marshall, July 21, 1947. Recordsof the PolicyPlanningStaff, 1947to as Archives File, (referred hereafter NA). 1953,Box 33, Chronological 1947.National ' ForeignRelationsof the United States (referred hereafter FRUS), 1947, III. The as to D.C.: Government British Office,1972), Europe(Washington, Printing Commonwealth; E. 30, 1952 and February 1953 and Charles Bohlen,February 1953.HarryB. 18, 16, no. Price Oral HistoryInterviews:Marshall Plan, Box 1, TrumanLibrary; Telegram to 1405 from Marshall Acheson,April 16, 1947. President's Secretary's Box 129, File, Truman General C. Library. File,George Marshall, 15Department StateBulletin XVI, no. 411 May18, 1947): 991-94. of
'6Harry S. Truman, Years of Trial and Hope: Memoirs, II (New York: New American
17Price interview with

pp. 204, 217. 14 October with 1925-1950, 325. See alsointerviews GeorgeC. Marshall. Memoirs, Kennan, p.

Library, 1965), p. 137. "Memorandum P. October30. 1952; Charles Kindleberger, Marshall,

for the FilesOrigins of the Marshall Plan," July 22, 1948. FR US, 1947, III, 242.

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rhetoric of the Truman Doctrine, an approach that was not fully shared by Truman himself. The Policy Planning Staff was formally established on May 5 and benefited initially from the completed SWNCC interim report and a preliminary study prepared by a departmental Foreign Aid Committee.18Acheson has minimized the role of the Policy Planning Staff in developing the Marshall Plan, recalling that "it accomplished little more than reiteration that the crisis was immediate and desperate and called urgently for action."19Joseph Jones has noted that Kennan "confined himself to figuring out an approach to a plan for a plan."20Nevertheless, as will be demonstrated, Kennan and the Policy Planning Staff became central to the elaboration of the Marshall Plan concept, however general this concept remained even well beyond the delivery of the Harvard speech. Marshall himself, for example, credited Kennan as the major influence in developing the Administration's policy. "Kennan's memorandum was the most succinct and useful.... [It] was probably the nearest thing to the basis for the ERP proposals, particularly in regard to the important [sic] of 'how to do it.' "21 On May 23 the Policy Planning Staff (PPS) produced its first recommendation on U.S. recovery policy.22Described as "a general orientation" in its covering letter, the memorandum offered only "tentative views" on the recovery problem. Among the ideas suggested, three in particular were to reappear as prominent features of Marshall's speech at Harvard and become central to the Administration's strategy of devolution to Europe of responsibility for elaborating the recovery program. First, the PPS study stressedthe need to distinguish clearly between a program for the economic revitalization of Europe on the one hand, and a program of American support of such revitalization on the other.... The formal initiative must come from Europe; the program must be evolved in Europe; and the Europeans must bear the basic responsibilityfor it. The role of this country should consist of friendly aid in the drafting of a European program and of the later support of such a program at European request. Second, any European request for American aid must come as a joint one representing "an internationally agreed program ... from a group of friendly nations, not as a series of isolated and individual appeals." Third, a European recovery program must enable western Europe to acquire "a tolerable standard of living on a financially self-supportingbasis which must give promise of doing the whole job," and that this would be the last such program that the United States would be asked to support in the foreseeablefuture. Shortly after the PPS memorandum was completed, Undersecretary of State William L. Clayton produced his own analysis of the European situation based on direct observations from his travels since April in connection with his attendance at an international trade conference in Geneva.23The Clayton and PPS memoranda provided the discussion basis for a departmental meeting on May 28 to determine what further steps the Administration might take. The Clayton analysis was a dramatic statement of the structural dislocation in the European economy and a call for prompt American assistanceto avert disaster. However, in two important respects Clayton's approach did not fit the more cautious devolutionary strategy which was advocated by the PPS and accepted by
18 Jones, The Fifteen Weeks, p. 243. For text of the Foreign Aid Committeememorandumsee Joseph M. Jones Papers, Box 2, Folder-MarshallPlan Speech, Truman Library. 1 Acheson,Presentat the Creation,p. 228.
21

20 p. Jones,TheFifteenWeeks, 241.
Ibid., pp. 230-32.

Price interviewswith Marshall,October 30, 1952 and February18, 1953.

- FRUS, 1947, III, 223-30. 23

The Marshall Non-Plan 427 Marshall. On the one hand, Clayton argued forcefully for strong American leadership in the shaping of a European aid program asserting that "The United States must run this show" (emphasis in original). In fact, American desiderata on this issue remained only loosely formulated even weeks after the Harvard speech. Relatedly, Clayton argued that U.S. assistanceshould be based on a plan developed in Europe providing for an economic federation since recovery would not be possible if the European economy remained divided into small watertight compartments. Though this was by no means a novel idea, Marshall felt that the United States should not specify a particular form that European organization should take in response to any American offer of assistance. At this stage, such matters were to be left to the Europeans. This attitude is consistent with Marshall's opposition to a concurrent resolution then under ocnsideration by Congress declaring that the Congressfavors the creation of a United States of Europe.24The abusive treatment accorded to the "reactionary"United States of Europe idea by the Soviet press at this time provided another reason for not embracing a concept which could expose the Administration to charges of seeking to dominate Europe with an American organizational design. Marshall's address at Harvard on June 5 was based on a draft prepared by Charles Bohlen, which in turn drew heavily upon the Clayton and PPS memoranda. The Clayton analysis furnished the basis for Marshall's exposition on the nature of the European crisis whereas the PPS study provided the conceptual underpinningsfor the American responseto it. Much has been made of the so-called "conditions" associated with the extension of the American aid offer to Europe. Actually, as expressed in Marshall's Harvard speech, the only conditions stated were formulated in a highly general manner: the programmatic initiative for U.S. assistance must come from Europe; the response should be a joint one agreed to by a number if not all European countries; the response must include an assessment of the requirementsof the situation and the program must offer promise of a cure rather than a mere palliative; the U.S. role would be that of offering friendly aid in the drafting of a European program.25 The period from the Harvard speech to the British-French-Sovietconference in Paris (June 27-July 2) is important for what it reveals as to the relatively passive posture maintained by the United States toward developing a recovery plan and the insistence that the Europeans assume the initiative. Indeed, Marshall may well have chosen the Harvard commencement as a forum in order not to overdramatize his remarks. Acheson had advised against this choice because "commencement speeches were a ritual to be endured without hearing"26and adequate press attention could not be expected. A moderate exposure forum and a low profile speech are exactly what Marshall wanted. Apparently, neither U.S. missions abroad nor foreign missions in Washington were advised as to the importance of the speech and Marshall issued instructions prohibiting any advance publicity. So concerned was Acheson that the speech would not receive proper attention that he alerted three British press representativesin Washington as to its significance and urged them to transmit the text to their editors and have them send a copy to British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin with his (Acheson's) estimate of its importance.27 Earlier Acheson had informed British Minister John Balfour of the Administration's thinking about the recovery problem and he appears to have tried to prod
H. van der Beugel, From Marshall Aid to Atlantic Partnership (New York: Elsevier, 1966), p. 104. For text of Marshall's reply, see Department of State Bulletin XVI, no. 416 (June 22, 1947): 1213. 2FRUS, 1947, III, 239. 2 Acheson,Presentat the Creation,p. 232. 27Ibid., p. 234.
24Ernst

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Marshall into a more aggressive promotion of the new aid policy than Marshall was inclined to accept.28 It is important to consider whether there was more to the Marshall Plan at this stage than was apparent from the Secretary'slaconic and generally formulated remarks at Harvard. The evidence strongly suggests that there was not. Indeed, a week after the Harvard speech, in response to a suggestion from Kennan, Marshall sent cables to the U.S. ambassadorsin France, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands in which he summarized the main themes of the address and sought advice as "to what extent a European program is politically and technically feasible."29Noting that the State Department had undertaken its own study of the entire problem of European rehabilitation, Marshall requested the frank views of the ambassadorson points so basic as to reveal the still primitive stage of Washington's own field information about the recoveryproblem. The Policy Planning Staff confined itself largely to gathering data relating to Europe's economic situation and to developing a set of principles governing U.S. aid to Western Europe which were included in its May 23 memorandum previously discussed. In a memorandum to Acheson on May 16, Kennan conveyed that the PPS "feels that the working out of detailed plans for American aid to Western Europe must continue to be the responsibility of that [SWNCCJ committee,"30 though in fact the SWNCC did not play such a role and its final report, not completed until October, had little impact on the evolution of the Marshall Plan. The work of the Policy Planning Staff was sometimes outpaced by events and in any case its activities became progressivelymarginal as the devolutionarystrategy took hold and the planning focus increasingly shifted to Europe. At its fourth meeting on May 19,31the PPS adopted a work agenda for examining problems of individual countries which found France, Britain and Europe (?) scheduled for considerationin July and August. By this time, of course, European planning initiatives had become well advanced. On June 9 Kennan asked Willard Thorp, Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, to have prepared brief background studies on pivotal economic sectors which would lend themselves to treatment on an overall European basis, stressing "the overriding importance of getting into the Secretary'shands at a very early date a workable study of the main elements of the European reconstructionproblem .."32 Keenan acknowledged that "many of the questions may look so naively broad as to horrify the scholarly economist. If so, tell vorurpeople to disregard their consciences, take a deep breath, and let us have their best guess." By July 23, seven weeks after Marshall'sHarvard address, the PPS had completed what it still regarded as a "preliminary report" on the European recovery problem.33 The impression of a still inchoate American planning process for European recovery is reinforced by the Administration'sown public estimates and evidence of uncertainty. At a high-level staff meeting on June 5, the day of the Harvard speech, it was agreed that further public statements or special talks with Congresswould be premature at present because, as Acheson put it, "already our articulation has outrun our thinking."34 Reporting on SecretaryMarshall'snews conference of June 12, Reston wrote that he sought "to keep the discussion on the European aid James
2John Wheeler-Bennettand Anthony Nichols, A Semblance of Peace: The Political Settlement After the Second World War (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1972), pp. 569-70: FRUS, 1947, III, 232-33. "FRUS, 1947, III, 249-51. 80Ibid., p. 221. Records of the Policy Planning Staff, 1947-1953. Box 32, Minutes of Meetings, 1947, NA. "FRUS, 1947, III, 267-68. "Ibid., pp. 337-38, see also John Gimbel,The Originsof the MarshallPlan, p. 11. " Recordsof the Policy Planning Staff, 1947-1953.

The Marshall Non-Plan 429 program in the idea stage... no policy has been adopted other than to urge the European nations to get together and make suggestions that the United States can consider later in the year."35 On June 18, Undersecretary Clayton gave a news conference prior to his trip to London for talks with British leaders about the world dollar shortage. Though these talks included discussionsof the U.S. aid initiative, Clayton said he "did not expect to take up the matter [though] he would probably do a great deal of listening." Clayton said it was "very unlikely" that he would propose anything as to how the Europeans might respond to the aid project and he knew of no suggestionsthat had been already made or of any exchanges with the British on the subject. When asked about the political or economic safeliards associated with the Marshall plan, Clayton replied that "the truth of the matter was that there was no program, and if a program should develop it would be only after we heard from the European countries."86So concerned was the Administration with lowering its own public profile, that a State Department spokesman denied that Clayton had discussed with Marshall or Truman "anything that has specific relation to the Marshall proposal."87 On June 22 the White House released a statement from President Truman which acknowledged that "the results of current study and discussion about U.S. recovery assistance have not, however, been brought together and objectively evaluated in a form suitable for guidance in the formulation of national policy."38 On June 25 Secretary of the Treasury John Snyder created a flurry of concern in Europe by publicly discussing the Marshall speech in exceedingly modest terms: My interpretation is that he is asking them to make a self-inventoryto see what they can do for themselves .... He didn't say anything about letting the United States know how much is wanted. He said they should get together and make up their minds as to what they ought to do in their own countries. It was no more an offer of help than we have made all along.39 Though Snyder subsequentlyclarified his remarks,reconciling them with Marshall's Harvard speech, the episode created additional uncertainty as to the Administration's intentions. The Administration'sattitude with European governments provides additional evidence of its hesitancy and insistence that recovery planning be centered in Europe. On June 13, after listening to a twenty minute presentation by French Ambassador Henri Bonnet outlining his Government's initial reactions to the Harvard speech, Marshall explained that he "could say no more at this time" and that he "was impressed with the need for European countries to work together on the problem... ."4 As late as June 30 Marshall advised the British Ambassador that his Harvard remarks constituted something between a "hint" and a "suggestion" rather than a "plan."41It is clear that Marshall believed, probably correctly, that the more Washington said, the less Europe would do. During the period between the Harvard speech and the tripartite conference in Paris, U.S. consultations with Britain developed more intimately than with any other European country. At Acheson's staff meeting on June 5 it was agreed that Clayton would hold discussionson the recoveryproblem with governmental leaders
New YorkTimes, June 14, 1947.
"Lot 122, Box 27, REP Documents 4-5, NA.

New YorkTimes, June 14, 1947. FRUS, 1947, III, 265. " New YorkTimes, June 26, 1947. 4 FRUS, 1947, III, 253. 41 Memorandumof Conversation,Secretary Marshall and Lord Inverchapel, June 30, 1947. Matthews,File, Box 10. Memorandaof Conversation,1946-1947, NA.

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from Britain, France, Italy and the Low Countries, though the available evidence suggests that these talks were actually confined to the British prior to the conference. Secretary Marshall approved a memorandum42which had been prepared for Clayton's guidance in his talks with European leaders that began in London on June 24. It reflected virtually no advance beyond the Harvard speech in the Administration's thinking about how to proceed with the European recovery problem. The memorandum stressed the need for cooperative European efforts and '"convincing reassurance" that any new aid would be more effective than that already extended. It sought reasons why previous U.S. aid had not been more effective and asked what measures the European governments had in mind "either jointly or separately" to remedy their difficulties. Though this formulation appeared not to foreclose separate national recoveryplans, the emphasis was on "joint or cooperative efforts" and "some degree of agreement" as providing greater confidence in the effectiveness of any U.S. assistance. However, the only specific "condition" cited was that any future aid "should really do its work of putting the economies of European countries on their feet." The tone of the memorandum seemed intended to place the Europeans on the defensive to justify why previous U.S. aid had produced such limited resultsand to explain how any future assistance would give promise of succcess. Clayton's press conference denial of intent to "take up" the matter of a European aid program in his talks with British leaders, despite the existence of a well-coordinated memorandum for holding just such talks, is a further indication of the Administration'sdesire publicly to minimize its own role following the Harvard speech. Clayton held wide-ranging talks with British leaders on June 24-26 which encompassed the European economic crisis, Britain's special needs, and the American approach to the European recovery problem. In response to British pleas for special aid consideration, Clayton countered that this "would violate the principle and that no piecemeal approach to the European problem would be undertaken,"43 that he saw no possibilityof interim arrangementsfor Britain as part of a European program. At the final meeting, as if to emphasize the still primitive stage of the Administration's thinking, Clayton remarked that "most of his views came out of his own head as he had only one talk with the Secretary and this concerned chiefly the coal problem. [He] did not want to give the impressionhe had laid out any well thought-out plan or scheme."44State Department consideration of the problem, Clayton averred, had been "meager indeed." Clayton was apparently successful in conveying this impression. Hugh Dalton, British Chancellor of the Exchequer and a participant in the talks, noted after a still later round of discussionswith Clayton that he was "indecisive and nervous."Dalton reflected: "It is surprisinghow many hours one can spend with people and yet reach no sharply outlined conclusions. Clayton has no plan .... 45 At the final discussion with Clayton, the British participants produced an aide-memoire which summarized their understanding of the American approach The statement was intended to provide guidance for toward European recovery.48 Bevin in the forthcoming tripartite conference in Paris. Though it entailed no U.S. commitment, Clayton "thought" that it reflected the Administration'sapproach to the European recovery problem. The memorandum elaborated the next steps to be taken in response to the Harvard speech, emphasizing the requirement for European initiative and a joint approach. First, the European countries were to prepare
4FRUS, 1947, III, 247-49. 43 Ibid., p. 272. 44 Ibid., p. 284. 45 Hugh Dalton, High Tide and After: Memoirs, 1945-1960 (London: FrederickMuller, Ltd., 1962), p. 256. Diary entry, July 28. 1947. "FRUS, 1947, III, 284-88.

The Marshall Non-Plan 431 a statement accounting for their current economic difficulties. Second, statements were to be prepared indicating the immediate and long-term needs and production capabilities of the European countries including prospects and plans for future output increases. Based on these statements, "comprehensive schemes" would be developed specifying Europe's overall needs, external assistance requirements, agreed economic objectives, and an estimate of the total recovery time involved. Whereas it was hoped that the recovery program would encompass all of Europe, it would be satisfactory were it to begin with the West European countries as a nucleus, with the understanding that other countries could join if they so desired. Apparently the only new element that emerged from the talks that could be construed as a "condition" was the American expectation that participating countries give assurances that they would "place their budgetary affairs in a manageable position as soon as possible, as an essential preliminarystep toward the stability and convertibility of their currencies." Yet Clayton conceded that the "memorandum contained some things which had not been discussed in Washington," and on the issues of budgetary management and immediate and long-term program phases it appears that Clayton succeeded in pushing the understanding beyond his own agreed instructions from Washington. Consistent with the devolutionary strategy, it was agreed that the talks would receive no publicity. In view of the forthcoming tripartite conference, the State Department announced that the "Government would studiously avoid any action that might be interpreted as attempting to influence the deliberations of the three Foreign Ministers."47The facts were otherwise. Clayton's talks with the British were of major importance in the evolution of the Marshall Plan because they advanced the Administration's strategy of insisting upon European initiative and helped produce the approach which would guide Bevin's diplomacy at the tripartite conference. Nevertheless, the talks were dominated by the efforts of British leaders to secure maximum advantage from the projected aid program. The substance of the talks, extensively recorded, reveals that little attention was given to the issue of Soviet participation and the discussion of U.S. aid conditions was not related to such a possibility.
ACCEPTANCE THE ISSUE OF DOMESTIC

The most important factor in the Administration's deliberations on plans for a European aid program was the problem of domestic acceptance. Marshall regarded this as the "cardinal consideration,"recalling that little attention was given to the European reaction since it was assumed that these countries were sufficiently desperate to accept any reasonable U.S. aid offer.48Marshall feared that any new Administration request for aid funds would be "ruthlessly repulsed."49Evidence was widespread that Congress was approaching its limits of tolerance in the funding of aid programs and that only a dramatically different approach would stand any chance of congressionalapproval.50The State Department's Division of Public Studies analyzed statements of members of Congress and other political leaders and found dissatisfaction with the limited results of past aid programs and strong
47

New York Times, June 26, 1947.

Price interviewwith Marshall,October 30, 1952. 49 4Harry B. Price, The Marshall Plan and Its Meaning (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1955), p. 25; see also Marshall'sspeech on the occasion of the second anniversaryof the Harvard speech in which he recalled anticipating "considerableimmediate opposition" in the U.S. to the Europeanaid idea. New YorkTimes, June 6, 1949. " Between July 1, 1945 and December 31, 1947 the U.S. Congressappropriatedforeign assistance totalling more than 18 billion dollars in loans, grants and propertycredits, over two thirds of which was allocated for Europe. FRUS, 1947, I, 1027; see James Reston in the New York Times, May 25, 1947; Freeland, The Truman Doctrine and the Origins of McCarthyism,pp. 101-82.

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sentiment that any new assistance must be based on a carefully developed plan "with convincing evidence that the end of American 'hand-outs'will be in sight."5l Widespread press and congressional sentiment for more comprehensive aid planning found frequent expression in support for a unified European approach in the belief that the elimination of national economic and trade barrierswas essential to full recovery and self-sustaining growth which would eliminate the need for further foreign assistance. This view was expressed most ambitiously by the resolution introduced in the House and Senate in March calling for the creation of a United States of Europe.52 UndersecretaryClayton was the most vigorous advocate of European economic integration within the Administration and in his talks with British leaders he sought to convey the impressionof influential support in Congress for this approach.5" However, at this stage Marshall was unwilling to be prescriptive on such an ambitious matter as integration, yet he was determined to maintain the initiative in developing U.S. aid policy without waiting for Congress "to beat me over the head."4 Acheson had been warned at a meeting with twelve Democratic senators that "if we attempted to confront them with a fait accompli, they would refuse to vote grants or credits."'5 Clearly, Marshall wished to avoid a public debate on the U.S. approach to the recovery problem before the Administration'sown views had more fully matured and before a European response was forthcoming. Thus, State Department planning prior to the Harvard speech was confined to a small group and there was no consultation abolut the Administration'splans with either congressional or foreign leaders. Marshall resisted disclosure of the Administration'sthinking and rebuked a State Department official for giving a speech on the subject for fear that it would spark premature public debate.56He insisted that no advance publicity be given his Harvard speech and many involved State Department officials, apparently includin' Kennan, were unaware of its timing or contents until it was actually delivered. Marshall's intent was to minimize the American role in developing a European recovery program and thus to avoid at the initial stages major public debate which would have focused attention on the United States rather than Europe. He sought to shift the issue from the American political arena to that of Europe, while suggesting only general guidelines to his European audience as to the approach which would maximize prospects for congressionalapproval. These guidelines were based not on any systematic consultations with members of Congress but on considered judgments of the congressionalmood drawn from recent public discussions. Even during the weeks following the Harvard speech, Marshall's consultations with Congress were confined to regular secret meetings with Senator Vandenberg which led to charges that he was neglecting to enlist bipartisan support for the Administration's new aid policy. Vandenberg, as the most prominent Republican foreign policy spokesman and Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, would be a crucial figure in the eventual congressional debate on U.S. aid appropriations. Yet facing skeptical Democrats and a Republican controlled
U.S. Aid to Foreign Countries, July 11, 1947. Division of Public Studies, Department of State. Lot 122, Box 27, REP Documents4-5, NA. avan der Beugel, From Marshall Aid to Atlantic Partnership,p. 100; for a summaryof press supprt for a unified approachto the aid problemsee pp. 101-3.
6FRUS,

Price, The Marshall Plan and Its Meaning, p. 21; see also Kennan, Memoirs, 1925-1950, pp. 325-26. mAcheson, Present at the Creation,p. 232; see also, FRUS, 1947, III, 232-33. For additional evidence that Congress might refuse support if not fully informed, see memorandum from Durward V. Sandifer to John Hickerson, Acting Director, Office of European Affairs, May 19, 1947. Matthews-HickersonFile, Box 3, Memoranda January-June " Priceinterview October 1952. withMarshall, 30,

1947, II,

281.

1947,NA.

The Marshall Non-Plan 433 Congress dedicated to cutting taxes and reducing government spending, Marshall sought to continue to delay major public debate until a European initiated plan had materialized. Vandenberg succeeded in influencing President Truman to appoint three bipartisan advisory committees to examine the impact of all aid programs on the U.S. economy, informing the White House that "he would not touch the plan until this had been done."57Repeatedly, Vandenberg sought to persuade the Administration to present Congress with a "total balance sheet" of prospective U.S. aid obligations (not just Europe), warning that Congress would be unlikely to consider any regional appropriation request unless proposed in the context of Since the Administration's priorities were clearly total global aid requirements.58 focused on a West European recovery program, Vandenberg's warning constituted an additional reason for avoiding public debate at this stage. Because of the unpredictable congressional response to any new large aid program request, Marshall declined to commit the Administration beyond a willingness to consider a European proposal. This approach placed additional pressure on the Europeans while increasing the Administration'sflexibility in dealing with Congress in responding to any European initiative. Rather than adopting the role of advocate of the European cause before Congress before a clear plan had developed, Marshall chose a more passive role which would position the Administration to mediate between the Europeans and Congress at a later stage. Thus, beyond the general guidelines of the Harvard speech, elaborated by Clayton in his talks with the British, there was not much "friendlyaid" from the Administrationin the drafting of a European program until well after the tripartite conference in Paris. It is clear that the Administration'sconcern for the problem of domestic acceptance, not the desire to exclude the Soviet Union, was the principal motivation for Marshall's Harvard speech guidelines and their subsequentelaboration by Clayton with British leaders. On both a practical and political level, as Kennan later explained, the condition of adopting a jointly agreed European plan was intended to compel the Europeans to make the hard choices involved in reconciling competing national aid requirementsinto a collective program request. If this task fell to Washington, the Administrationwould be compelled to make politically unpopular choices which would enable European governments to blame the United States for any aspects of the program which displeased sections of their electorate.59Furthermore, the Administration doubted the prospects for success of any recovery concept based merely on a collection of uncoordinated national programs. American policymakers believed that the European economy as a whole possessedserious structural weaknesseswhich derived from its excessive fragmentation, exchange barriers,and protected markets that prevented the unleashing of competitive economic forces on a continental scale which would provide a viable basis for recovery and self-sustaining. growth. Any European plan would have to offer promise of full recovery, or as Senator Vandenberg later put it, the aim was to get Europe "off the dole." Reflecting the extensive support in Congressfor a continental scaled recoveryeffort, this was the principal rationale for the new approach to the aid problem most likely to gain American acceptance. It was the British, not the Soviet Union, who first felt the weight of the Administration's insistence upon a collective European approach to the aid problem. In response to persistent British pleas for a special aid program separate from a collective European plan, Clayton stated that "the administration could not go to Congress regarding new proposals for any one European country. It was made clear that U.S. plans contemplate no piecemeal assistanceand that only an inclusive
5Arthur

69Kennan, Memoirs, 1925-1950, p.

Mifflin, Houghton 1952),p. 376. 69Letter fromVandenberg Marshall, to NA. June24, 1947.840.50Recovery/6-2447,
337; FRUS, 1947, III, 235.

H. Vandenberg, Jr., ed. The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg (Boston:

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program... would have any chance of adoption by Congress."6 Clayton informed the British that "even a non-piecemeal approach would be hard to sell to the U.S. public and Congress and he frankly saw no possibility of interim arrangementsfor the U.K. as part of the European approach."6' There is no small irony in this, because the separate national approach that Clayton denied to the British was to be the basis of the Soviet position at the tripartite conference which Bevin then rejected as incompatible with American desiderata. Clayton's meeting with British leaders is highly significant because it reveals the Administration'sfirm commitment to a collective European approach for domestic reasons, quite apart from the issue of Soviet participation which did not figure importantly in this decision. As will be seen below, the Administration's devolutionary strategy enabled it to avoid a painful dilemma. If its proposed aid program were seen as intended to encompass only Western Europe, it would greatly complicate the issue of European acceptance while increasing Washington's responsibilityfor solidifying the division of Europe. Yet if the program were directed to all of Europe, and the Soviet Union and its satellites accepted, the sheer magnitude of aid required would virtually assure congressional rejection. The Administration sought to avoid being whipsawed between conflicting domestic and international pressuresboth of which contained elements that argued for and against Soviet inclusion.
THE ISSUE OF SOVIETPARTICIPATION

The main strands of Administration thinking which shaped the Marshall Plan were strongly influenced by the aim of containing Soviet influence in Europe and elsewhere which had increasingly characterized U.S. policy since the early part of 1946.62However, for both domestic and international reasons, the Administration sought to avoid identifying the Marshall Plan with the containment policy, though its tactical behavior in fact facilitated their convergence. At no time did the Administration take steps to ease the path for Soviet acceptance, nor did it take measures intended to make such acceptance more difficult. The Marshall Plan "conditions," such as they were, were not formulated in order to set barriers to Soviet participation, though they had this effect. On the other hand, one finds almost entirely missing any serious conviction by U.S. policy-makers that the Marshall Plan might represent a major opportunity to reduce East-West tensions What one finds by organizing economic recovery in a pan-European framework.63 instead is a tacit acceptance of East-West hostility, the division of Europe and of containment as virtual givens of the situation in mid-1947, though the Administration's views had not yet fully gelled domestically and even less so in Western Europe. Thus the issue of Soviet and East European participation in the Marshall Plan was not approached in a spirit of serious intent to ameliorate the cold war but as a tactical question of maneuvering for advantage within an assumed cold war setting.
60Telegram no. 3473 from Clayton and Douglas to Marshall, June 25, 1947. 840.50 Recovery/6-2547, NA. ~ FRUS, 1947, III, 272. 2John L. Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1947 (New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1972), chapt. 9. An exception to this general view was expressedby Walt W. Rostow, Assistant Chief of the Division of German and AustrianEconomic Affairs. On June 10, 1947, Rostow suggested to Acheson that "if and when we crystallizea new stage in our Europeanpolicy, we shoot for the optimum objective; namely, a Europe united on economic matters, within a frameworkof agreement with the Soviet Union on security matters." Lot 122, Box 27 REP Documents 4-5, NA. This is particularly ironic in view of the anti-Soviet image Rostow has acquired in the hands of some revisionistwritings on this period. See David Horowitz, The Free World Colossus, rev. ed. (New York: Hill and Wang. 1971), pp.
69-72.

The Marshall Non-Plan 435 Nevertheless, the State Department sought to disassociateU.S. recovery policy from the anticommunist extravagances of the Truman Doctrine which had produced adverse domestic and international reactions that could imperil acceptance of any major new U.S. aid initiative. It is clear that this was a central preoccupation of U.S. policy planners throughout the summer of 1947. Charles Bohlen recalled that he and Marshall had believed "that there was a little too much flamboyant anti-Communism in [Truman's March 12] speech."64The PPS study recommended that steps be taken "to remove in particular two damaging impressions [of the Truman Doctrine] which are current in large sections of American public opinion": namely, that the "United States approach to world problems is a defensive reaction to communist pressure" and the U.S. interest in economic recovery is only a by-product of this reaction; and that "the Truman Doctrine is a blank check to give economic and military aid to any area in the world where communists show signs of being successful." In a similar vein Charles P. Kindleberger, a participant in the State Department's planning on the European recovery problem, recalled that the Truman Doctrine "was making heavy weather of it, both on Capitol hill and in the country as a whole because its negative, retaliatory, counter-punchingfeatures were disliked."65 Former Vice President Henry Wallace, then threatening to lead a third party movement for the 1948 elections, was a vigorous critic of the Truman Doctrine and reported that European leaders with whom he had recently talked felt that the Administration was "psychopathic on the subject of Communism."66Wallace argued that the Truman Doctrine was driving Europe into the arms of Russia and he welcomed the apparent pan-European scope of Marshall's aid proposal as an opportunity to reverse the deterioration of East-West relations. In May, Wallace proposed a five-year world recovery program costing $10 billion a year, at least half of which would be allocated for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.67 Wallace's influence on the Administration's thinking is uncertain, though U.S. Ambassador to Britain Lewis Douglas, a close ally of Clayton, later cited the Wallace proposal in connection with the decision to include the Soviet Union in the Marshall aid offer.68 State Department perceptions of foreign reaction to the Truman Doctrine also figured prominently in the decision to cast the U.S. aid initiative in a more positive light. Joseph Jones expressed alarm at the "indications of suspicion and skepticism with which foreign peoples are beginning to view American aid."69 The State Department's Foreign Aid Committee assessedEuropean reaction to the Truman Doctrine and opined that "the critical voters in Western Europe cannot be attracted to an anti-communist crusade and strongly resist the idea of choosing sides for an ideological war. ... An attempt to base our European program on an exclusively western bloc would have similar effects."70George Kennan's comments on a draft of a speech to be delivered by President Truman in September provide a highly revealing explanation of the Administration'sstrategy:
8Bohlen, Witness to History, 1929-1969, p. 261.

wMemorandumfor the Files - Origins of the Marshall Plan, July 22, 1948. FRUS, 1947, III, 242. For similar impressions,see James Reston in the New York Times, May 9, Walter Lippmann in the Washington Post, May 10, 1947; Arthur Krock in the 1947; New YorkTimes, May 13, 1947. 'New YorkTimes, June 12, 1947. Jones, The Fifteen Weeks,p. 233. 68Ellen Garwood interview with Lewis Douglas, October 30, 1958. Ellen Clayton Garwood Papers,Box 1, Truman Library. ' Memorandumdated May 20, 1947. Joseph M. Jones Papers, Box 2, Marshall Plan Speech, Truman Library. 70 Report of Foreign Aid Committee,June 12, 1947. Joseph M. Jones Papers, Box 2, Marshall Plan Speech, Truman Library.

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Western Political Quarterly We have been able to enlist [in the aid program] the help and support of 16 European nations only because the original suggestion scrupulously refrained from alluding to any element of conflict between the U.S. and Russia or of opposition to Communism. The fact is that many of the countries of Europe are only too anxious to work on our side, but they simply cannot do this if the issue is outwardly recognized as one between the U.S. and Russian Communism.... This is a vital fact of present European politics. The moment we place our demands in the framework of a Russian-American conflict we paralyze the will of practically every country on the European continent.71

The Administration's policy on the issue of Soviet and East European participation in the Marshall plan remained close to the approach advanced in the PPS memorandum of May 23. It is worth noting that this paper, as well as other planning documents, repeatedly employed "western Europe" as the term of reference for any U.S. aid program. Regarding the issue of European initiative, the PPS memorandum stated: Presumably an effort would first be made to advance the project in the Economic Commissionfor Europe, and probably as a proposal for general European (not just western European) cooperation; but then it would be essential that this be done in such a form that the Russian satellite countries would either exclude themselves by unwillingness to accept the proposed conditions or agree to abandon the exclusive orientation of their economies. It is noteworthy that the memorandum mentioned only "the Russian satellite countries" and not the Soviet Union. In a later personal memorandum to Robert Lovett, then Marshall'sSpecial Assistant,Kennan proposed that the East European countries be included in the aid program if they were prepared to contribute their own resources,provide complete information about their own economies, and give assurances that their own increased production would be permanently available to all European countries.72 Clayton's memorandum of May 27 discussed a European aid program and made no specific mention of the Soviet Union or East European countries in that context. Yet it is clear from its contents and other evidence of Clayton's views that he was thinking primarily, if not exclusively, in terms of Western Europe. Eastern Europe figured in Clayton's thinking only marginally. He believed that Western Europe was economically essential to Eastern Europe, though the reverse was not the case. Though West Europe needed coal and grain products from Eastern Europe, these commodities would be exported westward in any case because of the East European countries' need to earn foreign exchange to finance their import requirementsfrom the West. Clayton doubted that the Soviet Union could counteract this economic "suction" from the West and felt that this would serve to weaken the Russian position in Eastern Europe.73As for the Soviet Union itself, Clayton believed that Russia was self-sufficientin food, fuel, and fiber and thus did not need immediate subsistence aid. With regard to credits for the purchase of capital equipment for reconstruction, Clayton felt that this would require a " Kennancomments fifth draftof a speechto be delivered President Trumanto the on by of for Peace and Security, Conference the Maintenance Continental Inter-American Box 36, Record 2, September 1947. Recordsof the PolicyPlanningStaff, 1947-1953, in NA Copies,1947-1950, (emphasis original). ' Kennan of to memorandum Lovett,June30, 1947.Records the PolicyPlanning Staff,1947File, 1953,Chronological 1947,NA.
" FRUS, 1947, III, 235 and 270; see also Geir Lundestad,The AmericanNon-PolicyTowards

1943-1947(NewYork:Humanities Eastern Press,1975), pp. 398-99. Europe,

The Marshall Non-Plan 437 "radical change in the Russian position regarding European recovery and other related matters."74 Apparently the first formal consideration of Soviet participation in a recovery program occurred at a State Department staff meeting on May 28 which included Marshall, Acheson, Clayton, Kennan and other involved officials. Though no conclusive decisions were reached, there "was general agreement... that the plan should be drawn with such conditions that Eastern Europe could participate, provided the countries would abandon near-exclusiveSoviet orientation of their economies."75Though Marshall said little at this stage, there was a general consensus that the U.S. aid proposal should include the Soviet Union, though concern was expressed that this might be fatal to congressional approval because of the huge sums involved. Kennan suggested that Russia be treated as both a donor and recipient country, contributing her own resources to the program while benefiting from it.76Thus the Administration'sfinal position was to keep open the possibility of Soviet and East European participation but only on the basis of the collective European approach that it deemed essential to the plan's domestic acceptance and successful implementation. There is no evidence that the issue of Soviet and East European participation played an important role in the Administration'sadoption of the collective approach. The inconsistency between the Administration's West European programmatic emphasis and the formally pan-European scope of its initiative is explained by its assumption of Soviet rejection of the plan. Despite the Administration's desire to appear open to Soviet participation in its recovery initiative, the skeletal nature of Marshall's remarks at Harvard left doubts abroad as to what European countries were to be included. Given the sensitive nature of the Soviet relationship to any recovery program, Britain and France delayed a formal response to the Harvard speech until Marshall's press conference on June 12 clarified that Europe meant everything west of Asia.77 Still, doubts persisted. Some French officials suspected that "the aim was to open to Russia a door that Washington felt sure she would not enter."78 President Truman did not help the State Department's effort to recast the image of the Administration's new aid approach. In a speech in Ottawa on June 11, Truman declared that the United States intends "to support those who are determined to govern themselves in their own way and who honor the right of others to do likewise.... We intend to aid those who seek to live at peace with their neighbors, without coercing or being coerced, without intimidation, or being intimidated."79Since on the same day the United States charged the Soviet Union with "a most flagrant interference in Hungarian affairs" and denounced the arrest of Bulgarian opposition leader Nikolai Petkov, it was difficult to see how the Soviet Union would qualify for U.S. support. Faced with conflicting signals from Washington, Europeans wanted to know if the Marshall proposal of aid to all of Europe had replaced the Truman Doctrine concept of aid only to those countries that resisted Communist pressure. Despite apparent contradictions in the Administration's position, the State Department's external handling of the issue of Soviet and East European participation remained consistent with the devolutionary strategy and the desire to preserve a European-wide aid concept appearance pending the crystallization of a European response. An important aspect of this was the role, if any, that the U.N. Economic Commission for Europe could be expected to play in the aid program. letterto Marshall, 1947, III, 291; Clayton June 19, 1947.840.50Recovery/6-1947. NA. "FRUS, 1947, III, 235. a Jones, The Fifteen Weeks,p. 253. "New YorkTimes, June 13 and 16, 1947. 7Ibid., June 18, 1947. TO Departmentof State BulletinXVI, no. 416 (June 22, 1947): 1213.
74FRUS,

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The ECE had been established, at U.S. initiative, to coordinate European approaches to economic recovery. With its European-wide membership it seemed a logical vehicle for developing a collective European initiative as suggested in Marshall's Harvard address. Moreover, the Administration did not wish to provoke criticismby seeming to bypassa U.N. agency. However, State Department attitudes toward the ECE turned increasingly negative as a result of its first inconclusive meeting in May which a U.S. observer blamed "almost exclusively" on the obstructionist and delaying tactics adopted by the Soviet delegation.80As early as June 5, Kennan felt that "the U.S.S.R. record in ECE to date is sufficientlydamaging as almost to justify our withdrawal now."8l Clayton felt that the ECE was "completely unuseable" because the Soviet Union could be expected to block all constructive progress.82 Similar views were held by the Policy Planning Staff and by the U.S. Ambassador in Moscow, Walter Bedell Smith.83 Outwardly at least, Marshall remained more open-minded with respect to a possible role for ECE, though he shared "the fear that effective and prompt action might be very difficult there."84Despite serious misgivings about the ECE held by State Department officials, Marshall maintained the view that the Europeans should determine what role, if any, the ECE should play while being prepared to act outside it should delays or obstructions in ECE so warrant. Despite France's conciliatory public attitude toward the Soviet Union, as early as June 12 Foreign Minister Georges Bidault privately "expressed strong French opposition to the idea of utilizing ECE" as an agency for implementing a Bevin was even less inclined toward conciliating the European recovery program.85 Soviet Union. Recalling the six weeks of futile negotiations in Moscow on the German problem, he informed the House of Commons that he was not going to pursue the same protracted discussionswith the Soviet Union regarding European recovery as had been done with the German negotiations. Announcing that speed would be his guiding principle, Bevin declared: "I shall not be a party to holding up the economic recovery of Europe by the finesse of procedure, or terms of reference, or all the paraphernalia which may go along with it."86Privately, he was more blunt. Clayton and U.S. Ambassador Douglas reported that Bevin was convinced that "material aid was the quickest way to 'break the [iron] curtain' and if Europe was given economic assistance [the] USSR could not hold its satellites."87 On June 17 Bevin met with Bidault in Paris to discuss their respective positions towards Marshall'sHarvard speech. In agreeing to consult with Bevin, Bidault took care to notify Moscow of France's readiness to discuss the Marshall initiative with the Soviet Government as well. Bevin initiated the talks, somewhat to the embarrassmentof Bidault, who wished to avoid the impression that Britain and France were coordinating their positions prior to involving the Soviet Union. The
'8 Memorandum to Mr. Clayton on First Session of the Economic Commission for Europe,

May 29, 1947. Records of the Office of European Affairs, 1934-1947, Files of John Hickerson, Box 3, Memoranda January-June, 1947, NA. See also Memorandum to Kennan from Wayne G. Jackson, Special Assistant to the Director for Economic Affairs, June 12, 1947, supra. 8 Minutes of Staff Meeting, June 5, 1947. Records of the Policy Planning Staff, 1947-1953, Box 32, Minutes of Meetings, 1947, NA. n Ibid. "Memorandum from Kennan to Lovett, June 17, 1947. Records of the Policy Planning Staff, Box 9, Economic Policy, NA; Telegram from AmbassadorSmith to Marshall, June 23, '1947.FRUS 1947, III, 266. 4Telegram from Marshall to Douglas, June 20, 1947. FRUS, 1947, III, 264; see also Memorandum of Conversation between Marshall and British AmbassadorInverchapel, June 30, 1947. Matthews File, Box 10, Memorandaof Conversation,1946-47, NA. "Telegram no. 2322 from Caffery to Marshall, June 12, 1947. 840.50 Recovery/6-1247. NA. wHansard, ParliamentaryDebates. Fifth series, vol. 438, cols. 2337, 2339 (June 19, 1947). "Telegram no. 3473 from Clayton and Douglas to Marshall,June 25, 1947. 840.50 Recovery/ 6-2547, NA.

The Marshall Non-Plan 439 French Communist party, only recently ejected from the Government coalition, remained a powerful and troublesome political force and could be expected to exploit any suggestion that the Soviet Union was being left out of preliminary planning for a European response to Marshall's Harvard address. Given France's domestic situation, American officials believed that vigorous French leadership in shaping a European initiative could not be expected which influenced the Administration's decision to focus its consultations on the British. The Bevin-Bidault talks produced agreement that the Soviet Union should be invited to join further deliberations and that the initiative in developing comprehensive programs should be taken by the three major European powers. A premature news release also reported agreement on the fomation of ad hoc committees on coal, food, steel, and transport to be coordinated by a steering committee, though this was later repudiated by the French Foreign Ministry. Indeed, U.S. Ambassador to France Jefferson Caffery reported to Washington that "Bevin and Bidault drew up also a tentative agenda to be studied secretly by their experts without waiting for Molotov's reply."'8Thus, though such agreements in fact had been reached, clearly the French wanted to avoid the impression of having taken organizational initiatives without the Russians. Somewhat blandly and unconvincingly, the French maintained that the result of two days of talks with the British, including officials from six different departments of the British Government, had been to invite the Soviet Union to participate in a tripartite conference in Paris on June 27 to develop a European response to the Marshall initiative.89 The timing of the Paris conference was probably influenced by the ECE, scheduled to reconvene on July 5, by which time the Soviet position on the Marshall proposal would be clarified. If the ECE were to meet first, it might be difficult to avoid consideration of the proposal in that body which could indefinitely prolong the formulation of a European response. Bevin and Bidault told U.S. Ambassador Caffery separately that they hoped the Soviet Union would not cooperate and in any event they would "go ahead with full steam even if the Soviets refuse to do so."90The communique issued following the talks called for the preparation of comprehensive programs for economic recovery by all willing European countries in conjunction with the appropriate U.N. organs, yet privately Bevin and Bidault had a greed that the initial steps must be taken outside the ECE. If Russian cooperation was secured, the ECE would be associated with the work in an appropriate manner at a later stage.91It is worth noting that Bevin and Bidault had determined to proceed without the Soviet Union, should this become necessary, prior to receivingo explicit assurance from Clayton that this course would be satisfactory. It is beyond the scope of this study to examine in detail the deliberations of the British-French-Sovietconference in Paris from June 27 to July 2. It will suffice to show that after the first day the conference did not develop as a substantive negotiation but rather as a politically neessary way-station, to be endured as briefly as circumspection would permit, toward the elaboration of a Western recovery program. The initial and essentially exploratory Soviet position at the conference was no doubt influenced by the generality of their information about the American of proposal, itself a restult the Administration'sdeliberatelycryptic position pending the formulation of a European initiated plan. Yet at the outset, and not without reason, Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov was openly suspiciousof prior U.S.-Britishto no. NA. Telegram 2456,June20, 1947,Caffery Marshall. 840.00/6-2047, 9o fromCaffery Marshall, to Telegram June18, 1947.FRUS,1947,III, 260. fromInverchapel Marshall, to 91 Letter June19, 1947.FRUS,1947,III, 263.
Newv York Times, June 19, 1947.

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French collusion and he queried Bevin and Bidault closely as to their talks in Paris and whether they had received additional information from the U.S. Government about the aid plan beyond that contained in Marshall's Harvard speech. Bevin and Bidault maintained that they had received no further "official" information from Washington on the matter, thereby assuming the fiction that Clayton's important discussions with the British had been unofficial, despite the agreed aidememoire that issued from those talks. Bevin and Bidault also denied that their own recent talks had produced anything more important than a decision to invite Molotov to participate in tripartite discussions,despite the fact of their agreement on a tentative agenda, the setting-up of committees, and the adoption of a joint position toward the Soviet Union and the ECE. As early as June 16 a key editorial in Pravda speculated, closely proximating the PPS memorandum of May 23, that the U.S. strategy was to appear to offer aid to all of Europe and to allow the Soviet Union and countries of Eastern Europe to exclude themselves by refusing to accept the proposed conditions.92If this is what Molotov was expecting, the disingenuous denials of prior official Western consultations and planning could only have fed his suspicions. In the opening round of tripartite talks, Molotov seems to have taken the British and French disclaimersat face value and proposed that additional information be sought from Washington as to how much aid could be expected and whether Congresswould approve the amount. Bevin was adament in opposing this approach, arguing that the American political system precluded any commitment of the Executive Branch as to what the Legislative Branch would do and that it was up to them to develop a plan for consideration by the U.S. Government. Bidault, still contriving to be openly conciliatory, agreed with Bevin though he suggested that the three governments might seek additional information as to American ideas on the formulation of a European plan. Bevin opposed this, arguing that U.S. assistance should be sought only in the final stages after the Europeans themselves had developed a proposal. After this opening skirmish, the conference proceeded steadily downhill. Though Molotov was persuaded to abandon his proposal for an inquiry as to how much aid the U.S. was prepared to give, a major substantive difference became apparent at the second meeting which eventually caused the collapse of the talks. In line with the earlier Bevin-Bidault agreement and Clayton's talks with the British, Bidault put forward a proposal for the establishment of a steering committee and six ad hoc subcommittees in the areas of agriculture, power, transport, iron and steel, raw materials, and balance of payments.93 Representatives of Britain, France and the Soviet Union would comprise the steering committee and the ad hoc committees would include the three major powers plus three other European countries most interested in a particular functional sector. Each participating country would be expected to furnish the steering committee with a balance sheet of its economic situation including its past recovery efforts and problems, production targets, and requirementsfor external assistance. The ad hoc committees would then draw up comprehensive programs designed to bring about the greatest possible development of European production in the respective sectors. Finally, the steering committee would put together a final report before September 1 to be forwardedto the U.S. Government. At the second meeting, Molotov opposed the French proposal on grounds that inquiries into the resources of the European countries and an attempt collectively 9Telegramno. 2185 fromKohlerto Marshall, June 17, 1947.JosephM. Jonespapers,Box Truman Plan Library. 2, Marshall Speech, and 99 text of the Frenchproposal otherdocuments For relatingto the tripartite conference, of of of Ministers France, see the French Yellow BookDocuments theConference Foreign the United Kingdom,and the U.S.S.R.,held in Parisfrom the 27th June to the 3rd and July,1947etc. (London:Hutchinson Co., 1947?).

The Marshall Non-Plan 441 to develop a European recovery plan would constitute an unacceptable infringement of national sovereignties. In Molotov's view, the response to Marshall's proposal should take the form of a collection of statements of requirements for recovery by the individual European states. Cooperation was to be limited to giving joint consideration to these statements rather than developing a coordinated recoveryplan as outlined in the French proposal. On June 29, Bevin presented an abbreviated version of the French proposal and advised Washington that he had told the conference that this represented his "final approach" and that he "was not prepared to consider any modification on this issue."94On July 1, Bidault presented a second proposal, essentially similar to the first, but which emphasized that national sovereignties would be fully respected in the development of the aid plan. Apparently nervous that Bidault would waver, Bevin persuaded him not to make further attempts at agreement. Bevin and Bidault viewed the Soviet position as incompatible with their understanding of American expectations and no serious attempt was made to reach a compromise position. Washington officials were kept fully inforned of the proceedings, though there is no evidence of American intervention to influence the deliberations. There was no need. The devolutionary strategy had produced a convergence of U.S. and British-Frenchviews on how next to proceed so that the desired public posture of U.S. waiting and European activism was preserved and the assumed and preferred outcome of Soviet self-exclusion was achieved. Bevin could hardly contain his satisfaction, confiding to Marshall that he "had anticipated and even wished for" the breakdown of the conference, given his "certainty that Molotov had come to Paris to sabotage our efforts."95 It is important to note that the Administration's devolutionary strategy did not immediately change after the issue of Soviet participation had been resolved. Following the breakdown of the tripartite conference, a second meeting was held in Paris beginning July 12 including those European governments which were prepared to cooperate in responding to the Marshall initiative. On the eve of this conference, Marshall advised Clayton, who was then in Europe, that "at this stage we should not become involved in drawing up the European program or in the Paris Conference machinery... when the outlines of a European program are visible and the request for friendly aid takes a definite form, we must of course be prepared to give our help."9"Though U.S. Ambassador Caffery was expected to keep the State Department fully informed, he was to "in no sense act as a 'conference observer'." Marshall recalled being "subjected to heavy pressure" from Clayton and Douglas to let them advise the Europeans on developing a recovery program, leading him to issue "'an almost arbitrary,military-typecommand' that they were not to participate with the Europeans in the formulation of this plan."97 By this time, of course, the question of Soviet participation was no longer at issue. This and similar evidence argues compellingly that the question of Soviet participation was not the governing consideration in the Administration'sdevolutionary strategy.
CONCLUSION

The evidence developed in this study substantiates the revisionist view that the offer to include the Soviet Union and East European countries in the Marshall Plan was a tactic of Western diplomatic finesse and not intended as a serious
94Telegramno. 3637 from Douglas to Marshall, July 2, 1947. 840.50 Recovery/7-247, NA. "FRUS, 1947, III, 303. " Telegram from Lovett (approvedby Marshall) to Clayton, July 11, 1947. 840.50 Recovery/ 7-1147, NA. "T Price interviewwith Marshall,October 30. 1952.

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demarche for East-West negotiations. Yet this conclusion fails to explain other central aspects of U.S. strategy. Revisionists err in assuming that because Soviet participation in the European recovery program was neither expected nor desired, the Marshall Plan conditions were developed in order to assure this result. However the Marshall Plan conditions, such as they were, were a product of the Administration's domestic dilemma of securing congressional support for a new aid program. The devolutionary strategy and the requirement for a collective European plan (which had the effect of Soviet exclusion) were adopted for the purpose of avoiding premature domestic debate and to maximize prospects for congressional acceptance should such a plan be forthcoming. The record of U.S.-British consultations prior to the tripartite conference and Clayton's rejection of the British appeal for a bilateral aid program demonstrate this as the major concern of U.S. policy-makers.Moreover, even after the tripartite conference had resolved the issue of Soviet participation, the Administration continued a basically passive posture until a West European program began to assume concrete form. Thus Marshall's Harvard address was a highly contingent policy initiative. The Administration expected an inhospitable response from Congress to a new aid program request and sought to minimize its domestic difficulties by outlining a recovery concept likely to enhance prospects for domestic acceptance. Yet, beyond the requirement for European initiative and a convincing, collectively developed plan, the outline was more suggestive than didactic in nature. The new approach succeeded in buying time for the Administration while the Europeans considered their response. Meanwhile, the Administration needed to do nothing further but continue focusing the spotlight on Europe. Marshall calculated that the more Washington seemed prepared to "run the show," the less initiative would be forthcoming from Europe. The Administration chose to commit itself to nothing more than the consideration of a European proposal, should such be produced, and thus it was able to avoid a premature domestic politicization of the aid issue. If the European governments were unable or unwilling to assume the required initiative, the Policy Planning Staff believed "that will mean that rigor mortis has already set in on the body politic of Europe... and that it may be already too late for us to change decisively the course of events."9 In effect, the Administration was reserving its final position on the aid issuepending the outcome of European deliberations. Thus the adoption of the devolutionary strategy was largely separate from the issue of Soviet participation. The pan-European form of the Marshall proposal was intended to answer criticism of the Truman Doctrine, to avoid U.S. responsibility for the further division of Europe and to meet the exigencies of European domestic politics which virtually dictated a European-wide aid program appearance. Equally clear, however, was the Administration's apprehension that a new aid program request to Congress, problematical in any case, would likely be rejected if it included the Soviet Union. In effect, the Administration felt compelled to put forward an aid concept that it believed to be inherently unworkable, though it viewed this as a minimal risk because of the assumed probability of Soviet rejection. And British and French leaders, working in liaison with State Department officials, proved far more attentive to meeting U.S. conditions for an aid program than with attempting to conciliate the Soviet Union. In light of these factors, the tripartite conference in Paris assumes the character of diplomatic theater with the principal actors playing out prepared roles and scripts. The Western authorship of the script created an unpromising negotiating climate with the Soviet Union in Paris, though this in itself did not foredoom the talks. The Paris conference collapsed because both sides had already at least tacitly conceded the division of Europe and had determined upon a solidification of posi"FRUS, 1947, III, 227.

The Marshall Non-Plan 443 tions within their respective zones of primary influence as the chief policy aim. Neither side was prepared to risk a weakening of its position within its zone for the uncertainties and vulnerabilities of a major inter-zonal collaboration venture. Western recovery prioritization emerges clearly in the case of the United States, Britain and France. The issue of Soviet and East European participation was relegated to a secondary plane of tactical management so as to minimize domestic repercussionsfrom an aid program confined to Western Europe and to establish responsibility in Moscow for the further hardening of Europe's division. Because Washington's strategy had this result, it is tempting to conclude that U.S. policy was determined by this purpose throughout. But such was not the case. The Marshall Plan "conditions" were developed largely in response to U.S. domestic imperatives and not in order to exclude the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was faced with constraints equally compelling as those of the Western powers. Kennan, Clayton and Bevin conceded that East European participation in the Marshall Plan would undermine Soviet political and economic control over its satellite states. If even Western officials acknowledged this probability, how much more sensitive to it must have been the Soviet leadership.During the Paris conference, Bidault told Ambassador Caffery that Molotov was "obviously embarrassed"because "his hungry satellites are smacking their lips in expectation of getting some of your money."99 Poland and Czechoslovakia had expressed interest in Marshall aid participation prior to the Paris conference. After the conference, Kennan observed to Marshall that the Russians had been "smoked out in their relations with satellite countries" and that "maximum strain"had been placed on those relations.1'0Such attention as U.S. policy-makersgave to this issue presupposed that participating East European countries would be expected to give up the exclusive Soviet orientation of their economies and share their resources as part of a general European recoveryprogram. It is hard to imagine the Soviet Union participating or allowing participation in a program with such attendant risks. If U.S. aid could be obtained based merely on the submission of separate national requirements,then so much the better. But the requirementfor a collective determination of aid requirementsand a sharing of resources to accelerate recovery implied a willingness to divulge sensitive economic data and to internationalize recovery plans which posed unacceptable dangers to the East European system that Moscow was still in the process of consolidating. Molotov's behavior at the Paris conference was as programmed to fit existing Soviet priorities as was the equally firm stance of the Western powers committed to their own. The diplomacy of the origins of the Marshall Plan was the product of decisionmakers who already held firmly congealed views as to their countries' priorities and the probable limits of East-West negotiation. The question of "blame" in such a setting is essentially beside the point. In his perceptive analysis of the origins of the cold war, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., speculated: "The question remains whether it was an instance of Greek tragedy- as Auden has called it, 'the tragedy of necessity,' where the feeling aroused in the spectator is 'What a pity it had to be this way'- or of Christian tragedy,'the tragedy of possibility,'where the feeling aroused While in the is 'what a pity it was this way when it might have been otherwise.' "101 literal sense any historical "it" might have been otherwise, and one instinctively rejects the rigid determinism of "tragedy of necessity," nevertheless the latter characterization most aptly portrays the locked-in nature (even if by one's own images) of East-Westrelations during this initial phase of Marshall Plan diplomacy.
8Ibid., p. 301.

Kennan notes for Marshall,July 21, 1947. Records of the Policy Planning Staff, 1947-1953, '?? Box 33, ChronologicalFile, 1947, NA. 'o' Arthur Schlesinger,Jr., "Originsof the Cold War," Foreign Affairs46 (October 1967): 52.