"Italy. 1947." "Two years since the war's end." "Poverty plagues much of the country fertile ground for communism, which promises a solution to economic ills and injustice." ""Life was extremely hard." "Besides the political tensions, there was always a sense of having to tighten your belt." "We were hungry." "We were always hungry."" "As membership of the Communist Party reaches 2 million," "America fears that Italy, and Western Europe, could fall to communism." ""The seeds of totalitarian regimes are nurtured by misery and want." "They spread and grow in the evil soil of poverty and strife." "They reach their full growth when the hope of a people for a better life has died." "We must keep that hope alive."" "May Day in Moscow, 1947." "The Red Army was the largest fighting force in the world." "Stalin had established control over most of Eastern Europe." "The Soviet Union offered an alternative model for society public ownership and a centrally planned economy;" "in contrast to the Western belief in a mixed economy and free trade." "There was great alarm at the deteriorating political and economic situation and fear that the domestic Communists in Western Europe would become so active and so disruptive that it would lead to economic collapse, which was probably going to happen anyway" "unless something was done, and this would give an opportunity to the Soviets to extend their influence in Western Europe." "In February 1947, a financial crisis forced the British government to tell Washington they were ending aid to Greece and Turkey." "The administration feared the eastern Mediterranean might fall to communism." "Truman used this opportunity to take the offensive." ""The free peoples of the world look to us for support in maintaining their freedoms." "If we falter in our leadership we may endanger the peace of the world and we shall surely endanger the welfare of this nation."" ""I was there in the balcony listening and I was struck by the absolute concentrated attention of the Congress." "On this occasion everyone in the hall realized that this was a major historical event."" ""I therefore ask the Congress to provide authority for assistance to Greece and Turkey in the amount of $400 million for the period ending June 30, 1948."" "Truman pitched the struggle for the first time as between freedom and tyranny, the West and the communists." "Truman had to persuade the often isolationist Congress to act." "The anti-communism of the Truman Doctrine did just that." ""The Truman speech reflected very clearly Truman's own character." "He liked to see issues very clearly and to come up with clean-cut answers."" "After five and a half years of a war to defeat fascism" "Europe was bankrupt." "Industry lay in ruins;" "homes were in rubble." "People struggled to survive." "The Communist Party, which had fought fascism, attracted new recruits." ""The appeal of communism to young people and to students was that of a hope that it was possible to create a classless society." "Many people believed that communism was going to create a better world, better than the one that existed before the war." "This was the only party that you could join if you wanted to change the world."" "The man called on by Truman to face the communist threat was the newly appointed Secretary of State," "General Marshall, the wartime military leader." "He would plan the United States' response." ""Marshall was an extraordinary man," "I've never known anyone like him." "He in many respects was a very austere, unapproachable man." "He never allowed anyone to call him" "George Marshall, including the president." "When the president asked him if he should, he said 'No," "General Marshall will do'." "He exuded leadership and character."" "In March, Marshall met Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov at a meeting in Moscow." "Britain and France were there too." "'The Big Four' tried to agree on the future of Germany." "Despite warm Russian hospitality, weeks of meetings got nowhere." ""Marshall made one last effort." "He had an interview with Stalin in the Kremlin." "And that interview convinced Marshall that what the Soviets were doing were stalling for time in order for the situation in Western and Central Europe to become more and more adverse so that popular unrest would become greater and greater" " the communists would grow in strength and that maybe communist regimes would be... would come to power in Western Europe without the Red Army having to invade."" "At the heart of Europe's problems lay the question of a defeated Germany." "Stalin wanted to keep Germany on its knees, concerned that otherwise it would rise up one day and threaten the Soviet Union again." "The Americans believed that Germany must get back on its feet, before there could be a full European recovery." "Marshall was now convinced of the need to act quickly." "On his return from Moscow, he instructed the State Department to begin preparing ideas for a European rescue plan." "Billions of dollars would be needed." "Would Congress approve this enormous cost?" ""The whole situation is critical in the extreme." "We happen to be, very fortunately for ourselves, the strongest nation in the world today, certainly economically."" "The urgency was such that Marshall rushed forward his plan." "He announced it at an awards ceremony at Harvard University." "There were no film cameras present." "Marshall proposed aid to Europe on a vast scale and invited the Europeans to respond." "Ernest Bevin, the British foreign secretary, immediately realized the importance of Marshall's speech." "He had always wanted to involve the Americans in European reconstruction." ""When Marshall made his big speech in Harvard," "Bevin seized upon it and bringing the French in at the same time, welcomed it." "And out of that they built up what became the European Recovery Program and the recovery of Western Europe."" "The Soviet economy also desperately needed investment to make up for the ravages of four years of war on Russian soil." "In theory, the Marshall Plan was open to both East and West." "But would Stalin participate?" ""Stalin was always suspicious and he wasn't keen on it from the very start." "He said: 'Just you watch it." "The situation is quite different from the wartime Lend-Lease American assistance to us." "With the Truman Doctrine in place as well, they don't really want to help us." "They just want to tear the people's democracies away from our sphere of influence, to win them over, to infiltrate them, to pull them away from the Soviet Union.'"" "In Paris, a Foreign Ministers' Conference opened to frame the European response to the Marshall Plan." "Despite Stalin's caution," "Molotov and a large Soviet delegation turned up at the conference table." ""Molotov listened to all the reports and proposals, although he felt it was clearly not that straightforward, that the aid would be tied up with certain conditions."" "Throughout the Cold War, spies were used by both sides." "At this critical point, spies in London were passing their Soviet controllers document after document." ""Dozens." "I mean all the diplomatic going in and out from the Foreign Office." "We had access to everything."" "After six days of meetings in Paris," "Soviet intelligence gave Stalin new information about the Marshall Plan." ""Our intelligence service knew everything." "They read all the documents which were produced by the United States, by the government of the United States, which were sent to almost all" "All European countries, including the government of the Soviet Union, but... and other documents which were not sent to the Soviet Union."" ""This information confirmed that America didn't really want us to participate in it." "They just made this demonstrative gesture in order not to scare away those already dealing with them." "Stalin abruptly told Molotov to pull out of the negotiations."" "As Molotov left the Paris meeting he accused the West of dividing Europe into two hostile camps." ""There never was any thought that the Soviets would actually join the Marshall Plan." "But it was a desirable step to persuade the world that we really were being altruistic here, this was not basically an anti-communist, anti-Soviet measure and should by some miracle the Soviets themselves join or some of their satellite countries," "we would have welcomed them in it." "But we didn't think that was a realistic possibility."" "In Prague, the Czechoslovaks discussed whether to join the Marshall Plan." "In the democratically elected government, third of the ministers were communists." ""The reactions were absolutely positive, even the communist ministers in the government, in the Czechoslovak government, agreed with our participation in Paris:" "that means to attend the conference to prepare the Marshall Plan." "The decision of the Czechoslovak government was absolutely unanimous."" "Stalin summoned the Czech prime minister," "Klement Gottwald, to Moscow." "With him came the foreign minister, Jan Masaryk." "They arrived on the afternoon of July 9 and waited." ""It was about 11 o'clock in the evening that means before midnight, somebody came that they should immediately go over to Kremlin." "But the principal, the question put before them, was that the Czechoslovak delegation shouldn't go over to Paris to attend to the conference on the Marshall Plan."" ""Stalin said:" "'If by 4 a.m. on the 11th July you have not refused to attend, then be prepared this will have serious consequences on our relations with you.'" ""Stalin was quite clear, quite rough and he gave the ultimatum of four hours to our delegation, to say their decision." "Finally the same government hich accepted unanimously they accepted the presence in Paris, rejected it." "As far as the Marshall Plan is concerned, there was no normal discussion." "There was practically only a quite clear order:" "you have to do it and if you do not do it so you are not our friends, you are betraying the union, Soviet Union and so on and so on." "So it was quite clear."" "When the Czech delegation left Moscow," "Gottwald read a prepared statement." "He couldn't hide his discomfort." "Jan Masaryk was shattered by the experience." ""When he came out from the plane, he said quite clearly, 'I was going to Moscow as the minister of a free state and I am returning as Stalin's slave."" "In September 1947, 16 European nations signed up for the Marshall Plan and requested $20 billion of aid." "The Western alliance began to take shape." "The battle lines of the Cold War were being drawn." ""The primary purpose was compassionate, good willed." "The notion that our former allies needed to have the help of the United States."" ""The policy of the Marshall Plan was seen in the Soviet Union as the Americans wanting to impose their influence over the countries to which they gave Marshall Aid." "The Soviet Union could not accept that, believing it to be an aggressive act on behalf of the Americans." "That is why the Marshall Plan was never accepted in our country."" "That September 1947," "Stalin revived the prewar Communist International as the Cominform." "Through it, Stalin planned to control the countries of the Eastern bloc." "He also instructed Communist parties in the West to take the initiative in seizing power." "In American propaganda, he Cominform was represented as a sinister, shadowy conspiracy of evil." "But its economic associate, Comecon, offered Russian aid to Eastern bloc countries sending grain to Czechoslovakia after a bad harvest." ""Both Cominform and Comecon were a direct response to the Marshall Plan." "On the one hand, the Cominform would follow the political, ideological line the Soviet Union wanted to adopt in the socialist countries." "On the other hand, the aim of Comecon was to provide economic assistance in order to prevent these countries from being torn from our sphere of influence."" "February 1948:" "The communists reach for power in Czechoslovakia." "Workers' militias go on the march." "Non-communists are arrested." "Action committees take over the police and the labor unions." "President Benes capitulates." "The red flag flies in the center of Prague." "In just five days the communists took over Czechoslovakia's government." "Stalin's rule was imposed on the Czechs." "Two weeks later," "Jan Masaryk fell to his death from the window of his apartment in Prague." "The argument still rages:" "Did he despair and jump?" "Or was he pushed?" "Masaryk was the son of Thomas Masaryk, the founder of the Czech state." "His funeral symbolized the end of a free Czechoslovakia." ""After the death of the minister and there were really tens of thousands of people who were coming to say farewell to the minister, their last farewell." "They were crying, and flowers and so on and so on." "But the general persuasion was that this was really the end." "We felt it like that unfortunately."" "The Communist takeover in Prague shocked Washington." "There, the case for Marshall aid was still being argued before a partly isolationist Congress." "The Soviet Union and its agents have destroyed the independence and democratic character of a whole series of nations in Eastern and Central Europe." "It is this ruthless course of action and the clear design to extend it to the remaining free nations of Europe that have brought about the critical situation in Europe today." ""It was touch and go when both houses of Congress were finally considering the legislation." "Then the Czech coup occurred and that was the final straw because even the isolationists or most of them could see that the Russians were advancing westward with the takeover in Czechoslovakia and so on." "So it helped very importantly to pass the legislation."" "On April 3, 1948," "Congress approved $5 billion of Marshall aid." "The Marshall Plan was born from the need to feed the hungry, and to prevent communism spreading over Europe." "Twenty percent of the aid were loans;" "80 percent grants." "The first shipments were foods and fertilizers." "Next, machines to improve agricultural efficiency." "In the four years of the Plan, the Marshall agency spent $13.5 billion in 16 countries." ""Fewer people spent more money in that agency than ever before or since in the United States government." "It was an extraordinary performance."" "Europe's purchase of American goods and machinery redirected many Marshall aid dollars back into American industry, fueling a postwar boom." ""Most people I knew felt that the generosity of Americans was a self-serving one, in the sense that they thought of Europe as an outlet for their goods, as a market to export stuff and we thought that we could" "see that in the types of things that they wanted us to buy with the money that they lent us."" "One of the countries most in need of help was Greece devastated by the Nazi occupation years of civil war." "In the north, government troops still hunted out communist guerrillas." ""Greece of course emerged from the war in a terrible state." "Probably 2,000 of the nation's villages had been raided burnt to the ground by the reprisal raids of the Nazis." "The consequence of the civil war was to add to that terribly shredded kind of social fabric."" "During the four years of the Marshall Plan," "Greece received nearly $700 million of economic assistance." "Young Americans were thrust into positions of heavy responsibility." ""I was the youngest member of the Marshall Plan mission in Greece." "I arrived there at the age of 23, and to my astonishment a year later at age 24 there I was in charge of the Greek import program." "The range of projects which we engaged in were all over the map and all over every single sector of the economy." "And one could say that America fed and fueled and clothed the Greek nation."" "In the hill villages of northern Greece emerging from civil war, the Marshall planners came up with a scheme to meet a local need." ""During the war and during the civil war one of the major elements destroyed was the farm draft animals." "One of the decisions was to import that which we were accustomed to, which was the Missouri mule." "And the Missouri mule is not only cantankerous he's big."" "American mules arrived in Greece after a long sea voyage." ""The village leaders informed us about the mules." "We went down to the cooperative in Xanthi." "And that's where they gave us the mules."" "The farmers drew lots." ""You took a piece of paper with the number of the mule written on it." "Then you went to the overseer." "He looked at your paper and gave the mule with that number to you." "And then he said, 'Take it.'"" "The only problem was that the American mules were very much larger than the animals local farmers were used to." ""The mules were very good." "hey were a bit wild, but slowly we got them under control." "They were fat and big." "And we began to use the mules to plow."" ""They were very good." "They gave me a superb mule." "And we started to plow."" ""The American mules were best." "They were from the stable, well-fed and fat." "You could put 200 kilos on them and they could take it." "our own mules were small." "We were very thankful." "How could we not be thankful since we had nothing." "'Long live America.'" "Industrial Europe faced other problems." "France, 1947." "Workers at the Renault factory near Paris went on strike." "When communist ministers backed them, they were expelled from the government." "Several months of disruption followed." "Strikes spread." "In the fall, 3 million workers took to the streets." ""We had a lot of sympathy for the strikers because we felt that they were poorly paid and we felt that the government wouldn't do anything for them unless they put pressure on the government."" "Ministers feared civil war." "The United States made it clear to Paris that there would be no Marshall aid to French industry until the government had the communist threat under control." "Acts of sabotage culminated in the derailing of an express train causing 20 deaths." "The strikers lost popular support." "The disruption ended." "The French Fourth Republic would now receive Marshall aid:" "$2.7 billion of it." "Yugoslavia had gone communist at the end of the war, without help from Moscow." "The Yugoslav leader, Tito, became an ally of Stalin." "But it was an uneasy alliance." ""Tito, in Stalin's view, was acquiring more and more an independent position in various ways including international affairs." "Tito didn't consult or seek advice from Stalin in advance." "He was moving further and further away from the socialist direction."" "The split came in 1948 when Stalin expelled Tito from the Cominform." "Following the rift," "Tito turned to the West." "After a series of disastrous harvests," "Tito requested American economic assistance." "In 1950, he signed an agreement with the United States government." "Yugoslavia emerged from behind the Iron Curtain." "American agents distributed more than $150 million worth of aid." ""This was not totally an altruistic effort." "The United States had enormous self-interest in the success of the Marshall Plan." "Otherwise it wouldn't have been undertaken." "America had a vital stake in the recovery of Western Europe." "If the United States had allowed Europe to collapse," "it would have cost us much more than what we spent on the Marshall Plan." "We were doing well by doing good."" "But as well as 'doing good,'" "Washington was preparing other tactics." "In Italy by 1948, the Communist Party, led by Togliatti dominated the left-wing Popular Front." "The Christian Democrats, led by De Gasperi, ran the government." "In April, the first general election since the war raised expectations of a communist victory through the ballot box." ""I expected the Popular Front, the union of all the parties of the left, to win the election." "This union of the left had to get together to counterbalance the Christian Democrats" "and the forces of the right."" "Some Italians feared a communist victory." ""That election could have been a touch-and-go election between Italy staying on one side of the world or the other side of the world." "First of all, I think, it would have been a tragedy for Italy, but I think it would have been a tragedy for Europe, it would have been a tragedy for the Mediterranean, and should have been a setback for America."" "In the United States a campaign was orchestrated to persuade Italian-Americans to write to relatives urging them not to vote Communist." "Ten million letters were sent." ""Dear cousin Maria," "Have you thought what a communist victory would mean for Italy?" "It would be terrible..."" ""Italy would be ruled direct from the Kremlin." "Look what happened in Czechoslovakia."" ""You must realize how serious the situation is." "You should see what the papers are saying here."" ""Listen to us." "I urge you not to vote communist in the elections." "Your cousin, Luigi."" ""It was a very intelligent initiative because it got through to the families directly." "After half a century of emigration there were hundreds of thousands of Italian families in America." "So to receive a letter of encouragement from them, a letter stating that they shouldn't vote for the Communist Party, well, that was very influential."" "Letter writing was not enough." "The newly created CIA decided to take the offensive." ""What the CIA needed was authority to develop a program of covert action." "Gen. Marshall knew that the situation in Italy was critical." "The largest communist party in the world outside of the Soviet empire." "Not having an organization and knowing that the State Department could not achieve the things that he knew had to be done, he personally said, 'We must explore the means of getting authority to carry out a covert action program that would challenge" "this tremendous communist threat."" "This led to a debate within the young CIA." "Did it have the legal authority to carry out covert operations?" "CIA lawyers studied the wording of the new National Security Act." ""If the president of the National Security Council, the head of the National Security Council is the president of the United States, and if he specifically directs the CIA under Hillenkoetter to carry out operations to help democratic parties," "and if the Congress that was put in, if the Congress gives the money to support such a thing, then the authority is there and that was the green light."" "The CIA then intervened." "It began covert operations in support of anti-communists and of the Christian Democrat Party." ""I was in that branch of the" "CIA at the time that had to rush into the breach without training in covert action." "And we had bags of money that we delivered to selected politicians to defray their political expenses, their campaign expenses for posters, for pamphlets."" ""Personally, I'm not aware of that." "It was spoken of but I don't know anything about it because I was never directly involved in party affairs."" "The church too, mounted a powerful campaign against the communists." ""Pope Pius XII was very concerned about the Communist Party not so much about their politics, he was concerned about their doctrine" "and, as pope," "Pius XII had to be concerned about what was happening in Italy at the time."" "A network of election committees was created." "They worked in close parallel to the organization of the Catholic church." ""I can say that all the parties envied our electoral structure and especially the creation of election posters." "In the rural areas there were no cinemas, it was unthinkable at that time." "So we had this idea." "We sent some lorries out into towns and villages and we projected the films at night, electioneering films." "When we showed those films, everybody used to rush to the squares where the films were projected." "They were always very crowded."" ""They unleashed this tremendous campaign against the left, against the communists, against the socialists, and they told the most terrible lies about them," "things out of this world." "The church had a great influence over the people because 90 percent of them were Catholics and members of the church."" ""At that particular time, I was a practicing Catholic." "I was extremely rigorous about attending Mass." "I never missed it." "One Sunday I went to Mass and the priest was preaching from the pulpit and he said one sentence which struck me very deeply at the time." "I still remember it." "He said that the war against the communists was a holy war."" "Pope Pius XII and the Catholic church had supported the fascists throughout their decades of rule." "But the Vatican totally opposed communism." "Just days before the election," "Pius XII excommunicated many members of the Italian Communist Party." ""When I heard about it, I was terribly upset." "To begin with, there was the fact that at the time" "I was engaged to my fiancee." "We were getting married the next year and this meant we couldn't get married in church."" ""Pope Pius XII excommunicated us" "communists, and the friends of communists."" ""Not being able to marry in church meant I couldn't wear a white dress and have all the flowers, have the music playing." "My uncle, who had been like a father to me when I was a child, couldn't even take me to the altar." "Not to mention that as a Catholic," "I very much believed that my marriage had to be blessed by the priest who represented Christ on earth, and this was what I believed in."" ""You know that Pius XII in one of his speeches said you are either for Christ or against Christ." "And the Communist Party was against Christ." "They were clearly atheists." "So, it was the duty of the pope and of the church to protect their people." "So there was no other protection on the part of the church but to organize all the Christian movements to oppose the Communist Party."" "On April 18, 1948," "Italy went to the polls." "The Christian Democrats won a landslide victory." "Italy would remain a member of the Western alliance." "The communist share of the vote was almost halved." ""I cried so much." "We'd worked so hard to win this battle." "It had been such an effort." "I remember crying and crying and crying."" ""The victory was even greater than we had expected." "It was the only time when we, on our own as Christian Democrats, had an absolute majority in Parliament."" "The CIA, too, drew its conclusions from the election victory." ""Well it was very gratifying." "We didn't know at that time that we had carried out the first political action, covert political action program in the history of American intelligence, that would be followed by many, many, many more."" "Now that Italy had elected to stay in the western bloc, the United States released a flood of Marshall Aid." "In Turin, the Fiat motor company received giant new assembly line machines from Detroit and Pittsburgh." "Fiat was re-equipped with some of the most sophisticated machinery in Europe." "Fiat's recovery would fuel the revival of Italian industry." ""In Europe and in Italy especially, we thought of America as all powerful." "They had 50 percent of the world GNP." "They had all the modern technology." "They'd beaten the Nazi system." "And I don't say that you'd expected it but you were pleasantly surprised to see the generosity of their foreign policy" "And the generosity of their foreign policy at that moment was expressed through the Marshall Plan."" "The Marshall Plan also demonstrated the United States' desire to secure Europe's future." "The message was:" ""Modernize your economies, and you too can be like us"." ""The Americans were trying to impose" "American ideas, American organization into Europe." "There was a feeling that if the European economies were to be rebuilt if Europe was to be competitive in the world economy again, it would have to imitate American production methods," "American management methods and so on." "And many European businessmen were eager to do this." ""In those years, I mean the immediate postwar years, the whole of Europe was in a recession, so first of all it helped us step out of a recession, it gave a certain amount of speed to the economy." "But that was the first step." "The second real step was that it approached this European community on the whole, it brought us toward NATO and it brought the European countries closer to each other and to the United States."" "The Marshall Plan set out to build a European consumer society." "The United States wanted a free enterprise Western bloc, peaceful, united and tied to American trade and capital." "The Soviet Union was forced to build its own rival bloc." "The people of the socialist countries would eye the West for 40 years and wonder." "Subtitles by Juan Claudio Epsteyn"