Czechoslovakia. That little country, with the plaque of Woodrow Wilson. That little country which had shown the world Hitler’s intentions. That little country where my father fought in WWII and his buddy in the trenches next to him was killed. “With invaluable assistance from Soviet actions in Czechoslovakia, the Administration…” got the Marshall Plan.
I love the way the political battles of the Dems v. the ‘Pubs echo today over, big government intervention, billions of dollars in aid, interventionism, isolationism, and the public and political will to put troops on the ground or enact a draft.
Here you have, as we just had in 2010 , a Republican take over of Congress in mid-term elections, blocking legislation, like the Marshall Plan (or in 2011 raising debt cielings) , fear of pulling “British chestnuts out of the fire” in Greece, and then you have the coup in CZ.
The militarization of the Truman Doctrine needs some examination as does the role of the CIA. What does the CIA do in Italy? Can you think of another country, maybe outside of the current discussion, where the CIA has done something similar?
So where does the fault lie for the emergence of the Cold War? Is it Truman? Is it Stalin? Is it Fear? What do you think?
I think the reason the CIA emerged as a newimportant tool is because it had the authority to act on missions abroad without having to have congressional approval, such as the Marshall Plan. Where the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan needed to be voted on by the Republican controlled congress, the CIA reports directly to the President, meaning that Truman was free to undertake his own agenda with them. The CIA helped the anti-communist Italians win the election, by giving a few million dollars to support them, against the well funded Russian backed communist party. Another country where I can think of that the CIA intervened is in Iran. The Iranians nationalized the oil companies, which prompted the US to intervene and stage a coup d’etat, installing a friendly government.
With the liberal help of Ambrose and Brinkley it is easier to see that the republicans are at fault for Truman’s hard effort to convince the help of freedom. I found that when the Cold War started Russian actions were viewed as both in response to fear of a powerful west and at the same time in attempts to take what they could from what was available. It’s interesting to see that the domino theory was indeed the idea of a not so well recognized by dean Acheson, and later accredited to other symbolic figures.
When I investigated the CIA invention I found that the office of strategic services proposed it actually several months earlier to Roosevelt, however I still seem to be confused as to why Truman so desperately approved it.
The CIA gave money to anti-communists in Itlay, allowing them to win the election. As Xander said, the CIA conducted a similar operation in Iran, though in that case, they deposed a communist and inserted a western-friendly dictator. This last reading clearly showed the historical problem of republicans blocking liberal agendas in congress. It makes me wonder how events would have conspired had the bill passed in in $16 billion entirety. Could this successful leverage in Europe have further restrained Soviet influence? I don’t know. And, here again is the question of fault for the Cold War. I’m sure truman could take some blame here and there, but I truly think that Stalin must take most of the blame. His whole plan was essentially world domination, something that anybody in affected or threatened. countries would contest.
The CIA was able to operate without the guidence or approval of congress. The decisions that were made were the decisions of the president, meaning that they could do all that they want without congress knowing or debating on, whether to approve the decisions or not. The CIA was able to pay some anti-communist people or in other words United States friendly people to help elect a United States friendly leader in Itay. As said by Xander and by Stephen the same sort of thing happened in Iran where the United States got a friendly leader put into power in Iran.
To put a fault on someone for the emergence of the cold war is completely impossible, there can only be contributions to the emergence of it. I mean it was just the ideas of communism that scared the United States in trying to protect others and making the Soviet Union creating these conflicts with us.
I feel like WWI and WWI, the Cold War does not have one person who was responsible for “starting it”. I don’t think one could blame Truman, Stalin, or fear alone. I feel like a combination of the above at the right time was the formula for this very tense and fear filled era. While I don’t believe that the United States made favorable decisions during the Cold War I’m no fan of Stalin. My issues with Stalin are probably the same as anyone else’s, I don’t like that he killed millions of people. My biggest issue with Truman was that he used the ethical value of freedom that seems to be a reason to attack anyone in this country as an excuse. We attacked Iraq in the name of freedom as well, but how much freedom did we really bring the Iraqi’s? Ask this guy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPEX0PnV-LU . How free did we make Eastern Europe feel when we came and “gave them freedom”? I can tell you Iran was not happy to receive our gift of freedom. What were Truman’s real incentives? To stamp out communism, to protect the “democracies of the West”? According to A/B, it was certainly not to bring Eastern Europe aid to recover from the war.
I think that the causes of the Cold War are clearer than we might think. The massive retaliation of the US and the detached sense of morality Stalin had laid the foundations for the conflict, but in the end it was the actions of the Soviets and Americans that spoke louder than words. The conflict in Greece and the Truman doctrine contributed to the fear that the Russians would control the Dardanelles. Maybe if the US hadn’t come to Greece’s aid, they would have. I think that the creation of the CIA caused a sort of spy war between the two countries. Italy and Iran set the precedent for the type of secret wars the US will (and did) carry out for years.