Molotov walks out of a meeting with representatives of the British and French governments, signaling the Soviet Union’s rejection of the Marshall Plan. Molotov’s action indicated that Cold War frictions between the United States and Russia were intensifying. On June 4, 1947, Secretary of State George C.

The Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery Program, was a U.S. program providing aid to Western Europe following the devastation of World War II. In addition to economic redevelopment, one of the stated goals of the Marshall Plan was to halt the spread communism on the European continent.

On April 3, 1948, President Truman signed the Economic Recovery Act of 1948. It became known as the Marshall Plan, named for Secretary of State George Marshall, who in 1947 proposed that the United States provide economic assistance to restore the economic infrastructure of postwar Europe.

The purpose of the Marshall Plan was to aid in the economic recovery of nations after World War II and to reduce the influence of communist parties within them.

President Harry Truman

Truman pledged that the United States would help any nation resist communism in order to prevent its spread. To help rebuild after the war, the United States pledged $13 billion of aid to Europe in the Marshall Plan.

The Marshall Plan […] consisted of aid both in the form of grants and in the form of loans. Out of the total, 1.2 billion USD were loan-aid. Payment for Marshall Plan goods, “counterpart funds”, were administered by the Reconstruction Credit Institute, which used the funds for loans inside Germany.

The whole of Germany had an aggressive bombing campaign to destroy its cities and invading armies from the west and east devastated the country’s communities. Twelve percent of the aid to West Germany went towards housing the nearly eight million refugees that had settled there after the war.

Britain actually received more than a third more Marshall Aid than West Germany This is utter myth. Britain actually received more than a third more Marshall Aid than West Germany – $2.7 billion as against $1.7 billion. She in fact pocketed the largest share of any European nation.

Why did France and Great Britain receive the most total aid from the Marshall Plan? They wanted to compete with the United States, not rely on them. Soviet Union wanted to spread communism while the United States wanted to rebuild all of Europe, meaning that the countries had self-determination.

Most of the resources and goods purchased with Marshall Plan funds came from the United States itself. This had obvious benefits for American exporters and domestic industries. Marshall Plan spending allowed the US to recover from a short-term economic slump in 1946-7 and enter a period of economic boom.

Advantages for the US and Europe. The Marshall Plan would run for four years and cost more than $US13 billion. This aid not only facilitated the recovery of Europe’s national economies, it had obvious advantages for the United States.