Activity 2 - Marshall Plan Poster

Activity 2 - Marshall Plan Poster

1. What are the main colors used in the poster?

2. Is the message in the poster primarily visual, verbal, or both?

3. Who do you think is the intended audience for the poster?

4. What does the Government hope the audience will do?

5. What Government purpose(s) is served by the poster?

6. The most effective posters use symbols that are unusual, simple, and direct. Is this an effective poster?

F.U.N Facts About Harry S Truman =P

~ first president to use air travel within the country
~ proposed a 182 cent per hour wage increase to settle the labor dispute between U.S. Steel and the United Steel Workers union

~The middle initial "S" in Truman's name is not an abbreviation and has no significance.His parents could not seem to agree on whether to honor his paternal grandfather Anderson Shippe Truman or his maternal grandfather Solomon Young. The letter S was the result of a compromise, since both names contain the letter

~His vice precidential acceptance speech was less than a minute

~The President's personal office is called the oval office. Any plane he flies on is called Air Force One, and any helicopter is called Marine One.

~read every book in the library of his hometown in Lamar Missouri

~most famous quote " the buck stops here"

~At the age of 92, back in Independence, Truman's mother broke her hip when she tripped in her kitchen and the President flew out to see her. Looking up at him from her bed of pain as he walked into the room she said: "I don't want any smart cracks out of you. I saw your picture in the paper last week putting a wreath at the Lincoln Memorial."









References : www.littleknownfactsshow.com/presidents.html

Quotes from Harry Truman

"A man cannot have character unless he lives within a fundamental system of morals that creates character."


"In the simplest terms, what we are doing in Korea is this: We are trying to prevent a third world war."


"If there is one basic element in our Constitution, it is civilian control of the military."


"Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima...The force from which the sun draws its powers has been loosed against those who brought the war in the Far East."



"Within the first few months, I discovered that being a President is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep on riding or be swallowed."


"The Soviet Union does not have to attack the United States to secure domination of the world. It can achieve its ends by isolating us and swallowing up all our allies."


"It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours."








from http://americanhistory.about.com/cs/harrystruman/a/quotetruman.htm

What was the Marshall Plan?

The European Recovery Programme (nicknamed the ‘Marshall Plan’) was set up because the economic infrastructure of Europe had been destroyed by the Second World War and because this – and the coldest winter on record – had by 1947 reduced the people of Europe to starvation. Also, in response to Soviet ‘salami tactics’, Congress had in March 1947 decided to ‘support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.’

Returning from a fact-finding mission, a shocked General George Marshall told Truman that all of Europe would turn Communist unless the European economy could be jump-started.So Truman agreed.

Marshall announced his Plan, not in Congress, but to students at Harvard University on 5th June 1947. He explained his idea in simple terms: the European economy had been destroyed because the Nazis had reorganised it to support their war effort.

The United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace. Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist.

The British foreign secretary Ernest Bevin called the Plan ‘a lifeline to sinking men, bringing hope where there was none’ and by 12 July he had organised a meeting of European nations in Paris, which asked for $22 billion of aid. Stalin was invited but – seeing the Plan as a US plot to undermine the Soviet Union – he forbade Cominform countries to take part.

Marshall Aid had a huge effect on Europe; the years 1948-1952 were a time of massive economic growth. It also stopped the spread of Communism – one of the hungry teenage boys in Germany who was given soup by American trucks driving onto his schoolyard was Helmut Kohl: who grew up to be the first Chancellor of a free and unified Germany.

Activity 1---The Truman Doctrine

"At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life. The choice is too often not a free one. One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression. The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio, fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms. I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way. I believe that our help should be primarily through economic stability and orderly political process."


-- President Harry S. Truman, March 12, 1947 in an Address Recommending aid to Greece and Turkey.


Discussion Questions


1. Who is Truman addressing?


2. What is Truman asking for?


3. What are the first and second "ways of life" that Truman refers to?


4. Who is President Truman referring to when speaking of the two different "ways of life"?


5. Give a modern day example of a country that lives by the first "way of life".


6. Give a modern day example of a country that lives by the second "way of life".


7. How are the conditions in these two countries different today?

Truman Doctrine

With the Truman Doctrine, President Harry S. Truman established that the United States would provide political, military and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from external or internal authoritarian forces. The Truman Doctrine effectively reoriented U.S. foreign policy, away from its usual stance of withdrawal from regional conflicts not directly involving the United States, to one of possible intervention in far away conflicts.

The Truman Doctrine arose from a speech delivered by President Truman before a joint session of Congress on March 12, 1947. The immediate cause for the speech was a recent announcement by the British Government that, as of March 31, it would no longer provide military and economic assistance to the Greek Government in its civil war against the Greek Communist Party. Truman asked Congress to support the Greek Government against the Communists. He also asked Congress to provide assistance for Turkey, since that nation, too, had previously been dependent on British aid.

At the time, the U.S. Government believed that the Soviet Union supported the Greek Communist war effort and worried that if the Communists prevailed in the Greek civil war, the Soviets would ultimately influence Greek policy. In fact, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had deliberately refrained from providing any support to the Greek Communists and had forced Yugoslav Prime Minister Josip Tito to follow suit, much to the detriment of Soviet-Yugoslav relations. However, a number of other foreign policy problems also influenced President Truman's decision to actively aid Greece and Turkey.

In light of the deteriorating relationship with the Soviet Union and the appearance of Soviet meddling in Greek and Turkish affairs, the withdrawal of British assistance to Greece provided the necessary catalyst for the Truman Administration to reorient American foreign policy. Accordingly, in his speech, President Truman requested that Congress provide $400,000,000 worth of aid to both the Greek and Turkish Governments and support the dispatch of American civilian and military personnel and equipment to the region.

Truman justified his request on two grounds. He argued that a Communist victory in the Greek Civil War would endanger the political stability of Turkey, which would undermine the political stability of the Middle East. This could not be allowed in light of the region's immense strategic importance to U.S. national security.

Truman also argued that the United States was compelled to assist "free peoples" in their struggles against "totalitarian regimes" because the spread of authoritarianism would "undermine the foundations of international peace and hence the security of the United States" In the words of the Truman Doctrine, it became the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.