Cold War Resistance by Marc Landas

Author:Marc Landas [Landas, Marc]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS037070 History / Modern / 20th Century, HIS036060 History / United States / 20th Century, HIS015000 History / Europe / Great Britain
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press

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Since the end of the war, the Truman administration tried to hinder exports to the Soviet bloc. The First and Second Decontrol Acts allowed the government to control local scarce commodities. After experiencing a degree of success, the administration established an interagency committee to formalize the classification of exported materials according to a three-tier system, depending on their war-making potential. It would soon learn that manipulating American exports was easy enough. Controlling the trade of its allies was an entirely different story.5

As fate would have it, Congress was in the process of legislating a bartering chip (or sledgehammer, depending on one’s point of view). Officially known as the European Recovery Program, it would be better known as the Marshall Plan and provide $12 billion of aid in the form of grants, which Western European countries could use to rebuild their shattered economies. A body called the Economic Cooperation Administration was created by the Economic Cooperation Act to administer the Marshall Plan.6

Before final passage through Congress, an amendment was added that “barred any country receiving US aid if it exported any product to a non-participating European country which might contain a US-supplied commodity that would ordinarily be refused a US export license.”7 An ad hoc subcommittee composed a list of possible exports to be restricted. It consisted of four classes, with class 1 being all military goods and equipment that could be used to manufacture weapons. The next class, 1A, was composed of semi-military items; class 2, indirect military significance such as trains and mining equipment. Class 3 was composed of textiles, clothing, or office equipment, and class 4 included everything else. American officials would strategically alter the list’s contents and categorization to their advantage.8

The Podibielniak countercurrent extractor fell under class 1A, while antibiotics fell under class 2.9 This system provided the framework for withholding both items from countries the United States deemed hostile.

The American officials’ European counterparts would propose lists of their own that usually omitted exports essential to their economies, much to Washington’s frustration. Even Great Britain, arguably its closest ally, refused to unconditionally limit its trade with the Soviet Union.10

After Chiang’s defeat, the State Department recommended placing a trade embargo on China, one designed to prevent it from becoming “an adjunct of Soviet power.”11 Once again, U.S. desires ran contrary to those of its treaty-bound NATO allies, which had their own vision of what should and should not make it to Chinese shores. In Washington’s eyes, this situation would not do. In particular, the United States demanded that London curtail all goods contained on Washington’s versions of the class 1 and class 1A lists. At some point or another, most European trade passed through Hong Kong, then a colony of the British Empire, and the British made money off all of it . The British were concerned that if they abandoned that trade, it would simply be picked up by another European country and be lost permanently. Eventually, they’d learn that their fears were well-founded.12

The other

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