Containment

CHAPTER 2 · 1947–1949 · The Cold War, 1945–1991

In February 1947, bankrupt Britain hands Washington a letter: it can no longer fund the Greek government’s civil war against communist partisans, or prop up Turkey. Truman’s answer generalizes the moment into a doctrine — support for “free peoples resisting subjugation” — and $400 million flows to Athens and Ankara. Then comes the masterstroke: the Marshall Plan, $13.3 billion (roughly 5% of one year’s US GDP) to rebuild all of Europe, enemies included. Look at the map’s logic: containment’s first weapons are money and wheat, not divisions.

The turn: Berlin, 24 June 1948 — the gates close.

This chapter is one scene of an interactive atlas: the map repaints as the dates advance, campaigns draw themselves, and every chapter argues its causes and consequences — then a field exam asks you to prove it on the map.