Inventing By John T. Correll t the Allied Big Three conference at By January 1946, US troops were Atlantic Ocean than it had been in 1939. Yalta in February 1945, President returning home from overseas at the rate The Baltic states seized by the Soviets in Franklin D. Roosevelt announced of 300,000 a month. The Russians, on 1940 were now “republics” in the USSR Athat US troops were unlikely to the other hand, maintained their military and the nations of eastern Europe were stay in Europe for more than two years strength. The Red Army in central Europe repressive Soviet satellite regimes. Never after the end of World War II. outnumbered the British, French, and before in their history had the Russians The war had forced the United States to Americans by 30 divisions to seven, with held a position of such opportunity. depart from its traditional foreign policy of more in reserve in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union, a wartime ally, was isolationism, but the nation had no inten- The line of Soviet occupation lay west not yet seen as an adversary. President tion of forming any peacetime alliances of the Elbe in Germany—the new frontier Harry S. Truman, like Roosevelt before or getting entangled in European politics. of the Soviet Union, 700 miles closer to the him, hoped to gain the support of USSR 62 AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2016 Premier Joseph Stalin for the new United A few days later, Canadian officials Nations, upon which the postwar peace disclosed the arrest of 13 persons in a USAF photo USAF was presumed to depend. spy ring operating out of Canada that Stalin, encountering only token ob- had obtained US atomic secrets through jection from the Americans and British espionage in New Mexico and passed when he reneged on his promise of free them to Moscow. elections in liberated Europe, pressed The situation was further inflamed by for further concessions. In western and clumsy Soviet efforts to intimidate Iran southern Europe, communist parties with and Turkey. The US, Britain, and Russia ties to Moscow promoted discontent and had agreed at Yalta to withdraw their forces disruption. from Iran when the war ended, but the Soviets defiantly delayed their departure. BREAKUP Stalin also demanded a military base in A series of events in 1946 drove a wedge Turkey from which the Soviet Union could between the Soviet Union and its former dominate the Dardanelles strait and project partners in the United States and Britain. power into the Mediterranean. A radio speech by Stalin Feb. 9 marked The pressure on Iran and Turkey did not the end of Soviet cordiality. end completely until the United States sent In a long-winded rant, he condemned ships to the area as a show of force and “monopoly capitalism” as the basic cause created the US Sixth Fleet as a permanent of the two world wars. He gave the Red presence in the Mediterranean. Army and the Soviet industrial base nearly In March, a conservative coalition won all of the credit for the defeat of Germany, elections in Greece by a landslide, but a virtually ignoring Allied forces and the communist faction instigated an insur- substantial aid given to the USSR. gency. It rapidly grew into a civil war, Stalin announced a new five-year plan to supported by the communist governments build on Soviet strength so that “our coun- in Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Albania. try will be insured against any eventuality.” Stalin kept his distance from the fighting Another member of the Politburo added, in Greece, but the Western powers did not “We must remember that our country make a sharp distinction between the So- continues to be in capitalist encirclement.” viet Union and international communism. Unbeknownst to the players on either Left: NATO aircraft in 1970. Clockwise from top, an RAF Javelin Mk 9, USAF F-105 side, events were aligning for the creation Thunderchief, Canadian CF-104 Starfighter, of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Belgian F-104G, French Mirage IIIC, West German F-104G, and Netherlands F-104G. Below: President Harry Truman signs the IRON CURTAIN North Atlantic Treaty in the Oval Office, On Feb. 22, two weeks after Stalin’s Aug. 24, 1949, flanked by representatives speech, Washington received early warn- of Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, and Portugal and US ing of Soviet intentions in the famous Secretary of State Dean Acheson and US 19-page “Long Telegram” to the Secretary Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson. of State from George F. Kennan, chargé d’affaires at the US embassy in Moscow. Kennan reported that the USSR did not want peaceful coexistence and was com- mitted to a “patient but deadly struggle for total destruction of rival power.” Kennan urged a policy of “containment,” which eventually became the cornerstone of US doctrine in the Cold War. Kennan’s telegram was not public knowledge but the “Iron Curtain” speech by former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on March 6 in Fulton, Mo., made headlines around the world. “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has de- scended across the continent,” Churchill said. “Behind that line lie all the capitals National Archives photo by Abbie Rowe Abbie by photo Archives National of the ancient states of Eastern Europe. AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2016 63 Library of Congress photo National Museum of the US Air Force photo Above: Ernest Bevin, Britain’s foreign Secretary of State James F. Byrnes said. to participate in the cooperative rebuilding secretary and the man who originally proposed NATO. Above right: US transport “I want no misunderstanding. We will not of Europe. After extensive debate in 1947, aircraft unload at Tempelhof Airport shirk our duty. We are not withdrawing. it was signed into law in April 1948. during the Berlin airlift. We are staying here, and will furnish our The Russians, who wanted to keep tight Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, proportionate share of the security forces.” control of their puppet states, complained Belgrade, Bucharest, and Sofia, all these that the Marshall Plan would lead to famous cities and the populations around THE US TAKES A HAND the Americanization of Europe. In Italy them lie in what I must call the Soviet The new US policy began to take shape and Turkey, local communists obediently sphere, and all are subject in one form or in 1947 with the “Truman Doctrine” and staged strikes and street demonstrations another, not only to Soviet influence but to the Marshall Plan. to support Soviet objections. a very high, and in some cases, increasing Speaking to a joint session of Congress Eventually, 16 European nations and the measure of control from Moscow.” in March, Truman called for economic and three western zones in Germany received Churchill did not mention a European military support for Greece and Turkey but Marshall Plan aid amounting to more military alliance, only a continuance of the went beyond that to state a broad principle. than $12 billion, but the Soviets would “special relationship” between the United “It must be the policy of the United States not allow their client states to receive any States and Britain, but what he meant was to support free peoples who are resisting such assistance. well understood. attempted subjugation by armed minorities The Europeans were alarmed enough There was an immediate backlash from or by outside pressures,” he said. about their security to make two regional various members of Congress and liberal Truman’s message was lamented both defense agreements, the Dunkirk Treaty groups still enchanted with Stalin and the by isolationists and pro-Russia liberals. between Britain and France in 1947 and the Soviet Union. Secretary of Commerce The Progressive Citizens of America said five-nation Brussels Treaty in early 1948. Henry A. Wallace, who had been vice Truman’s speech “announces the end of These arrangements were insufficient in president from 1941 to 1945, denounced an American policy based on one world” scope to deal with the growing problem the speech as “an attack on a former ally.” and “threatens the peace of the world.” of the Soviet Union. Truman had accompanied Churchill to However, Truman was strongly rein- Missouri and was present for the speech but forced by Sen. Arthur H. Vandenberg (R- BEVIN’S PROPOSAL took political cover by refusing to comment Mich.), a former isolationist and chairman The proposal that led directly to the on what Churchill had said. Before the of the Senate Foreign Relations Commit- North Atlantic Treaty Organization was year was out, however, the United States tee. The Truman Doctrine was approved by made in January 1948 by Ernest Bevin, came reluctantly to the understanding lopsided votes in both houses of Congress. the foreign secretary in Britain’s postwar that a return to the isolationist past was The European Recovery Plan, known Labour government. no longer possible. to history as the Marshall Plan, originated Bevin, a former truck driver and trade In September 1946, the United States with George C. Marshall, the Army Chief union leader, had gone to work at age 11 canceled the plan for US troops to leave Eu- of Staff during the war who became Sec- and had little formal education, but is rope. “Security forces will probably have retary of State in January 1947. It offered widely regarded as one of the most able to remain in Germany for a long period,” major economic aid to nations that agreed foreign ministers of the century. 64 AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2016 “I believe the time is ripe for a a draft treaty for a North Atlantic alliance.