The Truman Doctrine began with Greece, but was later invoked in the Berlin Airlift and other interventionist and anti-communist activities on the part of the United States. "The very existence of the Greek state is today threatened by the terrorist activities of several thousand armed men, led by Communists, who defy the government's authority at a number of points, particularly along the northern boundaries," declared Truman in 1947, advocating his famous doctrine for the first time. (the Truman Doctrine, 1947) The Marshall Plan was not simply adopted for humanitarian reasons. At the time, the United States rightly feared that communism, given the terrible economic conditions of the time, could move westward and overtake a dispirited and desperate populace, much as Nazi German forces over swept the Weimar government during the German depression of the 1930s and the German humiliation after World War I, as imposed by the winning powers. Thus, the European...

The plan allowed money to be used to buy goods from the United States. The goods were shipped across the Atlantic on American merchant vessels. Yet despite or because of this self-interest, the Marshall Plan and the Truman doctrine proved feasible, and by 1953, after the United States had pumped in $13 billion, and Europe was standing on its feet again and more resistant to communist influences from within and abroad.
Works Cited

The Marshall Plan: 1947. The Congressional Record 20 Jun 1947. http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/57.htm

The Truman Doctrine. 1947. The Avalon Project. 1997. Yale School of Law. Last Modified 21 Jul 2005. http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/trudoc.htm