3 - L'année terrible

Summary

FRANCE CHOOSES THE WEST

The Turning Point of the postwar era occurred in 1947, with the Truman Doctrine, the elimination of the Communists from the governments of France and Italy, the Marshall Plan, and the founding of the Cominform. These events marked the beginning of the cold war, and forced a resolution of the contradictions troubling Franco–American relations. The ties between the two countries were recast. Several steps were essential. The Truman Doctrine, although immediately concerned with Greece and Turkey, made clear Washington's intent to struggle against communism everywhere in the world. Many concluded that the normalization of relations between Paris and Washington required the elimination of the Communists from the French government. The Communists in fact departed in early May, removing the last internal French obstacle to a deepening of French economic dependence on Washington. On June 5 Secretary of State George C. Marshall launched the famous initiative that was to become known as the Marshall Plan. Loans to the Europeans were replaced by simple grants in aid, in exchange for which recipient countries accepted the direct involvement of Washington bureaucrats in their economies. The Marshall Plan had many aims. Foremost among them was the American intent to reconstruct the German economy in a way that would be palatable to other Europeans, primarily the French. Within a month of the plan's announcement, the British and Americans raised the “ceiling” on German steel production in the Ruhr which had been painstakingly negotiated in 1946.