Cold War in Europe

Abstract

Abstract Kennan ’s ideas of 1947-1949 about waging the Cold War in Europe met with mixed results. He did succeed in helping to shape the Marshall Plan in three distinctive ways: the West Europeans assumed the major responsibility for devising a program of economic relief; the Soviets bore the embarrassment of refusing an offer of apparent American generosity and had to accept much of the onus for the partitioning of Europe; West Germany ’s economic and political rehabilitation was achieved within a framework of general European recovery. In Kennan ’s view, the Marshall Plan was, overall, the single most important step taken by the United States to promote a stable balance of power in posthostilities Europe.