Original subtitles

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 deterioratin 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

E-mail: epsteyn@hotmail.com