COLD WAR: MARSHALL PLAN, 1947-1952 {PART 3 OF 24} (TV)
Summary
The third in this twenty-four-part documentary series examining the events of the Cold War, from 1917 to the early 1990s. This series consists of interviews and archival footage, accompanied by historical narration by Kenneth Branagh. This episode focuses on the period between 1947 and 1952, during which Europe was divided in two by the Marshall Plan and the Cominform. World War II left Europe ravaged and poverty stricken, and, as U.S. State-Department economist Theodore Geiger explains, officials of the U.S. government worried that impoverished European nations would be receptive to Stalin's Communist Party and its plans for ecomonic reform. George Elsey, aide to President Harry S. Truman, discusses Truman's foreign-aid plan to stabilize Europe against the spread of communism. Secretary of State George Marshall met with Russian, French, and British leaders to discuss the rebuilding of Europe. All believed that the Soviet Union intended to take advantage of the vulnerability of European nations so Marshall formed a plan to counteract the influence of the Soviet Union by offering millions of dollars in aid to those same nations. Yuri Modin of Soviet Intelligence recalls the espionage that confirmed Joseph Stalin's suspicions about the Marshall Plan's aim to lure Western Europe away from Soviet influence, and Soviet foreign minister Vladimir Yerofeyev explains why Stalin summoned foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov back from the conference at which European nations had assembled to respond to the Marshall Plan. Czechoslovak foreign minister Antonin Sum states that his country was enthusiastic about the Marshall Plan until Stalin urged Czechoslovakia to denounce the plan and to ally itself with the Soviet Union. Dmitri Sukhanov of the Politburo Secretariat states that the Soviet government viewed the Marshall Plan as an aggressive and divisive act, to which Stalin responded with a revival of international communism--the Cominform--and his own economic plan to provide aid to the Eastern bloc. In 1948, the Soviet Union took control of Czechoslovakia, making the struggle between East and West tangible, and prompting the U.S. to expedite the Marshall Plan. A discussion follows of the foreign aid provided to Europeans by the U.S.; Parisian student Marianne Debouzy concludes that the plan was self-serving because it created new markets for American goods and boosted the U.S. economy. Struggles between the United States and the Soviet Union were played out in individual Western Europe nations: France was torn apart by strikes until the U.S. threatened to cut its aid, Yugoslavia was expelled from the Cominform and became allied with the West because Stalin considered President Marshal Tito too independent, and the conflict came to a head in Italy during the 1948 general elections. Italy boasted a large communist party so the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency performed its first covert operation to help defeat the left-wing popular front and support the Christian Democratic Party. Giulio Andreotti of the Christian Democratic Party discusses the campaign in which Italian-Americans wrote anti-communist letters to Italian relatives; Mark Wyatt describes some of the methods used by the CIA; Padre Lucio Migliaccio of the Church Civilian Committees discusses the role of the Catholic Church and Pope Pius XII in turning the public away from the Communist Party; communists Giuseppe and Lina Mainardi discuss the suffering of Italian communists as the tide turned against them; and Giovanni Agnelli, Chairman of Fiat, recalls the powerful image of the U.S. at the time. Commercials deleted.
Cataloging of this program was possible by The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, 1999.
This selection from the Alan Gerry Cable Collection has been made available by the Gerry Foundation, Inc.
Details
- NETWORK: CNN
- DATE: October 11, 1998 8:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:46:37
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:58483
- GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: Marshall Plan; Cold War; U S S R - Foreign relations - U S; U S - Foreign relations - U S S R; France - Foreign relations - U S; Italy - Foreign relations - U S; U S S R - Foreign relations - Czechoslovakia; U S S R - Foreign relations - Yugoslavia; U S - Foreign relations; She Made It Collection (Pat Mitchell)
- SERIES RUN: CNN - TV series, 1998-1999
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Pat Mitchell … Executive Producer
- Jeremy Isaacs … Executive Producer
- Vivian Schiller … Senior Producer
- Martin Smith … Series Producer
- Taylor Downing … Producer, Writer
- Isobel Hinshelwood … Series Associate Producer
- Alison McAllan … Series Associate Producer
- Gillian Widdicombe … Production Executive
- Ted Turner … Series Concept by
- Karin Steininger … Editor
- Svetlana Palmer … Research
- Steve Bergson … Film Research
- Carl Davis … Music by
- Kenneth Branagh … Narrator
- Giovanni Agnelli
- Giulio Andreotti
- Marianne Debouzy
- George Elsey
- Theodore Geiger
- Giuseppe Mainardi
- Lina Mainardi
- George Marshall
- Lucio Migliaccio
- Yuri Modin
- V.M. Molotov
- Pius XII, Pope
- Joseph Stalin
- Dmitri Sukhanov
- Antonin Sum
- Josip Broz Tito
- Harry S. Truman
- F. Mark Wyatt
- Vladimir Yerofeyev