MARSHALL PLAN

The Marshall plan started all with a speech that spoke about the defense of those small groups of people who fought against the repression of the communism. The objective of this speech was to convince the congress to give military and economical support to some nations sucha as greece so they could fight comunism.

Three months later Marshall, Truman's Secretary of State, announced details of what became known as the Marshall Plan or the European Recovery Program (ERP). Marshall offered American financial aid for a programme of European economic recovery. Ernest Bevin, the British foreign secretary, made it clear he fully supported the scheme but the idea was rejected by the Soviet Union. A conference was held in Paris in September and sixteen nations in Western Europe agreed on a four year recovery plan. On 3rd April, 1948, Harry Truman signed the first appropriation bill authorizing $5,300,000,000 for the first year of the ERP. Paul G. Hoffman was appointed as head of the Organization for Economic Cooperation (OEEC) administration and by 1951 was able to report that industrial production in Western Europe had grown 30 per cent since the beginning of the Second World War. The European Recovery Program came to an end on 31st December, 1951. It its three year existence, the ERP spent almost $12,500,000,000. It was succeeded by the Mutual Security Administration.

Vietnam War

The Vietnam war was the biggest conflict in the Cold War, and it started with the liberation of North Vietnam of the French, then the fight was between south Vietnam and North Vietnam, North Vietnam was communist an South Vietnam was capitalist. So the conflict ran out of proportions when the two most powerful countries of that time supported one of each sides. The CCCP or USSR supported north Vietnam and the USA supported south Vietnam.

This was the first war in which the USA surrendered, making the North Vietnam the winner, and with this win to take control of all Vietnam and giving an important impulse to the USSR in the Cold War history.