From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 (99 page)

The administration also took a tough stand on Iran in the summer of 1946—the first full-fledged Cold War crisis. To the growing alarm of U.S. officials, the Soviets left occupation forces in Iran after the March deadline for withdrawal, demanded an oil concession, and backed a separatist movement in the northern province of Azerbaijan. Stalin's motives cannot be precisely divined. He certainly sought an oil concession to match those already given Britain and the United States. Following Germany's defeat, he probably hoped to reassert Russian power in a traditional sphere of influence. Fearing increased British and U.S. influence, he may also have been seeking a buffer to protect precious Soviet oil reserves in nearby Baku. He may have had designs on Azerbaijan, or he may simply have been seeking a bargaining chip for concessions on oil. Whatever the case, Truman and his advisers viewed Soviet actions as further evidence of an expansionist threat to a region now deemed vital to U.S. national security. They encouraged Iranian resistance to Soviet demands and backed Iran's appeals at the newly organized United Nations for withdrawal of Soviet forces.
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A Soviet retreat reinforced the administration's faith in the get-tough approach. In fact, the crisis was defused largely through the shrewd diplomacy of Iranian prime minister Ahmad Qavam. The sixty-eight-year-old Persian statesman began a long political career at age twelve. Described by a British official—with perhaps unintended praise—as "sly, intriguing and unreliable," he had mastered the art of protecting Iranian interests by
playing outside powers against each other.
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Qavam bolstered his bargaining position by enlisting U.S. support. He then cut a deal with the Soviets exchanging controlling interests in a joint oil company for a troop withdrawal. Once the troops were gone, he sent Iranian forces into Azerbaijan to crush the separatists. The Iranian parliament subsequently rejected the oil concession, leaving the USSR a victim of Persian chicanery.
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The Americans interpreted Soviet withdrawal as a result primarily of their own tough talk—Truman later falsely claimed to have issued an ultimatum. Engaging in some double-dealing of their own, they formed ties at Qavam's expense with the young and more pliable Shah Reza Pahlavi and gave Iran $10 million in military aid.

The U.S. handling of atomic energy in the spring of 1946 gave further evidence, as Byrnes put it, that American opinion was "no longer disposed to make concessions on important matters."
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Undersecretary of State Acheson, not yet a Cold Warrior, and old New Dealer David Lilienthal, working with scientists like J. Robert Oppenheimer, presented in March 1946 a remarkably internationalist proposal. The Acheson-Lilienthal plan would have established an international authority to control the extraction, refinement, and use of atomic materials. Plants would be made difficult to convert to military use and would be scattered so that no single nation could gain a dominant position. The plan was to be implemented in stages, during which time the United States would retain its monopoly. It sought security through international cooperation.

The Acheson-Lilienthal plan was out of fashion in Truman's Washington by the time it was completed. Already persuaded of the futility of cooperation with the Soviet Union, the president and other Americans were further alarmed by revelations of a Soviet spy ring seeking to steal atomic secrets in Canada. Congress toughened Truman's spine by imposing limits on international cooperation. By appointing elder statesman Bernard Baruch to head atomic negotiations, Truman sealed the demise of nuclear internationalism. A relentless self-promoter and ardent nationalist, the seventy-five-year-old financier was inalterably committed to U.S. control and believed that the United States must retain its monopoly until it got the treaty it wanted. He added tough provisions for inspections and penalties for violators—"sure and swift punishment," as he put it—neither subject to Soviet veto. Although he did not like Baruch, Truman went along,
affirming that "we should not under any circumstances throw away our gun until we are sure the rest of the world can't arm against us."
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When Baruch presented his proposal to the UN in June 1946, the Soviets countered with an even more unrealistic plan calling for outlawing atomic weapons, terminating ongoing programs, and destroying existing stockpiles. The Security Council eventually approved the Baruch Plan, the Soviet Union and Poland abstaining, but as Soviet-American conflict intensified there was no chance of agreement. Congress passed an additional act prohibiting exchanges of atomic "secrets" in the absence of international control. The two nations pressed ahead with their atomic projects.

Given its economic potential and its pivotal role in Europe, Germany could not but be a crucial issue in the emerging Soviet-American conflict. During 1945–46, the former allies had attempted sporadically to negotiate a peace treaty, but their actions increasingly spoke louder than their words. Occupation commander Gen. Lucius Clay admitted that the Soviets had kept most of their agreements and that France had been far more obstructionist. But the Soviets' vengeful treatment of Germans, their promotion of leftist political parties in their occupation zone, their incessant demands for additional reparations, and their insistence on sharing the precious resources of the Ruhr industrial area reinforced already well formed U.S. suspicions. Fearing that an impoverished Germany would delay European recovery, the United States stopped reparations from its own zone and announced plans to merge the three Western occupation zones, provoking loud Soviet protests.

By September 1946, the former allies had reached an impasse that would leave Germany—and especially divided Berlin—a Cold War hot spot for the next quarter century. In a much publicized speech at the Stuttgart Opera House, Byrnes curried German favor by pledging that the United States would not seek vengeance against its former enemy and did not want Germany to become a pawn in the emerging inter-Allied struggle. He denounced at least by implication Soviet efforts to shape politics in their occupation zone, opposed additional reparations and reparations from current production, and denied Soviet access to the Ruhr. To assuage German fears that a frustrated United States might leave Europe, he emphatically vowed: "We will not shirk our duty. We are not withdrawing. We are here to stay." The Stuttgart speech represented an important turning point in the origins of the Cold War. It made clear U.S. abandonment of a punitive policy and commitment to a strong, democratic Germany.
Although designed in part as a message to France, it also drew a clear line against presumed Soviet expansionism.
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A crisis over Turkey in the fall of 1946 provoked the first of numerous war scares. Following threats against Turkey and troop movements in the Balkans, Moscow in August demanded revision of the Montreux Convention governing the Dardanelles and the Bosporus, the straits providing access from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. The proposals would have given the Soviet Union bases along the straits and joint control with Turkey over access. A Georgian by birth, Stalin came naturally by his hatred of Turkey; his demands reflected ancient Russian interest in the straits. There is no reason to believe that at this point he contemplated invading Turkey, but he was willing to indulge in brinkmanship. United States officials attributed to him more sinister designs. Relying on superficial historical knowledge and dubious analogy, Truman had long since concluded that Stalin sought to grab the straits as a springboard for further expansion. Recently devised U.S. war plans highlighted the essentiality of the straits to control of the Mediterranean. Newly converted to the hard line, Acheson portrayed Turkey as the "stopper in the neck of the bottle" and issued extravagant warnings of a Soviet threat to Greece, Turkey, and the Middle East, even India and China. If necessary, he concluded, the USSR must be checked by force.
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Yugoslav downing of an unarmed U.S. C-47 transport overflying its territory heightened tensions. "We might as well find out whether the Russians were bent on world conquest now as in five or ten years," Truman affirmed.
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The United States firmly resisted revision of the Montreux Convention. The Truman administration emphatically rejected Soviet demands for joint control of the straits. Backing up its strong words, it pressed Britain to assist Greece and Turkey in fending off the Soviet threat, making clear it would fill the breach if necessary. It dispatched an armada of eight warships, including the legendary battleship
Missouri
and the newly christened aircraft carrier
Franklin D. Roosevelt,
to the Mediterranean. The Joint Chiefs of Staff developed the first war plan for conflict with the USSR. Even without Western backing, Turkey would have fiercely resisted Soviet demands. The crisis fizzled out amidst Soviet-Turkish disagreement over whether talks on the straits should include the United States and Britain. As with Iran, it ended in net strategic gain for the United States. The Soviets withdrew substantial forces from the Balkans. The
United States established a new Mediterranean command of twelve warships, giving it naval supremacy in the region. The Turkish affair of late 1946 persuaded many U.S. officials that Stalin would not be content with a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and reinforced their view that it was necessary to demonstrate a willingness to go to war.
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The Clifford-Elsey report of September 1946 codified in one eighty-two-page document ideas that had been circulating in Washington for weeks. In a fit of pique, Truman in July asked Clark Clifford and George Elsey, two young White House staffers, to document recent Soviet violation of agreements. They produced much more, a lengthy assessment of Soviet intentions and capabilities phrased in the most ominous tones along with a clarion call for U.S. rearmament and the containment of Soviet expansionism. Their analysis borrowed heavily from Kennan's Long Telegram and drew ideas from hardliners like Leahy and Forrestal. It was phrased in the black-and-white terms Truman preferred. Ignoring cases where the Soviets had kept agreements and the ways in which U.S. actions might have alarmed Moscow, the authors compiled a legal brief to justify actions most U.S. officials now agreed must be taken. The Soviets were committed to expansion and sought world domination, Clifford and Elsey insisted. They would use any means, including political subversion and military force, to achieve their goals. Soviet expansionism posed a grave threat to U.S. vital interests across the world. There was no point in further negotiation; it was futile and even dangerous to seek cooperation. The Soviets understood only tough talk and military power. The United States must therefore maintain a high state of military readiness, acquire overseas military bases, expand its nuclear arsenal, and be prepared to use force if necessary. It must assist "democratic" countries threatened by Soviet expansion. A failure to act resolutely, as with the Western democracies in the 1930s, would encourage further aggression. Considered too hot to release to the public or even circulate within the government, the report was kept locked in a White House safe until discovered many years later. It was the first major government attempt to analyze Soviet behavior and recommend a proper U.S. response.
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The firing of dissident Secretary of Commerce Henry Wallace just two weeks before delivery of the Clifford-Elsey report solidified the Cold War consensus. For years Wallace had been the torchbearer for American
liberals. After most other New Dealers had left office or jumped aboard the Cold War bandwagon, he kept the faith, privately and publicly pleading for cooperation with the Soviet Union and questioning the get-tough approach. On September 10, Wallace met with Truman to go over an upcoming speech. The two subsequently differed over what took place, Wallace claiming, and Truman denying, that the president had cleared the secretary's draft. That speech departed sharply from what had become the conventional wisdom, urging Americans to examine how their actions might appear to other nations. Like Kennan, Wallace harked back to Russian history to explain Soviet insecurity, but he drew very different conclusions, warning of their sensitivity to U.S. moves they viewed as provocative. He sharply criticized U.S. atomic policy and the get-tough approach. "The tougher we get, the tougher the Russians will get," he averred. The speech caused a furor and immediately put Truman on the spot. Indulging his penchant for writing letters he later—in most cases wisely—declined to mail, the president privately denounced Wallace as one of the "parlor pinks" and "soprano-voiced men" who constituted a "sabotage front for Uncle Joe Stalin."
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Pressed by now hard-liner Byrnes, he demanded Wallace's resignation and got it. Wallace's firing removed from the executive branch the last dissenter from Cold War orthodoxy for many years to come.

Now fully agreed in their assessment of the danger and the urgency of a U.S. response, Truman and his advisers moved decisively after 1947 to take up what Acheson called "a novel burden far from our shores."
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They revamped the national security bureaucracy. Focusing on the eastern Mediterranean and Western Europe, they developed large-scale and unprecedented economic aid programs to combat ongoing insurgencies and clear up breeding grounds of economic want in which they believed Communism flourished. They intervened politically in various parts of the world where U.S. influence had been slight. Most remarkably, they formed an alliance with the Western European nations that involved binding commitments to intervene militarily, the first such obligations since the French alliance of 1778. If it did not quite match up to the Book of Genesis, as Acheson claimed, it was nonetheless revolutionary in conception and consequences.

The administration first addressed the personnel and institutional problems that had afflicted policymaking since the end of the war. The independent and unpredictable Byrnes resigned in late 1946, and Truman named the illustrious George C. Marshall to succeed him. The president had enormous regard for the general—"What I like about Marshall is he's a man," he once affirmed, the highest praise one gentleman of that era could lavish upon another.
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A person of vast experience, good judgment, and towering prestige, Marshall could shield the State Department from partisan attack and could be counted upon to work closely with the president, areas where Byrnes had conspicuously failed. Indeed, under Marshall's firm leadership and orderly administrative style, the State Department enjoyed a rare period of preeminence in the making of U.S. foreign policy.