Abstract
By the beginning of 1947, relations between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union had greatly deteriorated. In February 1946 George F. Kennan sent the ‘Long Telegram’ and just one month later, Churchill delivered his famous ‘iron curtain’ speech in Fulton Missouri. The idea of actively confronting the Soviet Union started to spread in the Truman Administration. At the same time, the economic crisis was forcing the British Government to revise its strategy in the Mediterranean; in February, it announced that it was no longer possible to maintain the presence of its army and the linked military aid to Greece and Turkey. In March 1947, Truman reacted and demanded $400 million from Congress for assistance to Greece and Turkey; in addition, he declared in what became known as the Truman Doctrine, that the US Government must contain the expansion of the Soviet power around the globe. Three months later, George Marshall, recently appointed as Secretary of State, announced the administration’s readiness to provide substantial assistance for a European Recovery Program.1 The purpose of the plan was to provide impetus for economic growth and to improve living conditions all over the world, starting in Europe, in order to prevent the expansion of Communism.2
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Notes
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© 2015 Pablo Del Hierro Lecea
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Del Hierro Lecea, P. (2015). Towards the Cold War: Spanish-Italian Relations and the Rising Tensions between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. In: Spanish-Italian Relations and the Influence of the Major Powers, 1943–1957. Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137448682_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137448682_4
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