The Cold War controversy was initially publicly ignited by Churchill's public speech at Westminster college on March 5, 1946. Churchill stated that, "From what I have seen of our Russian friends and allies during the war, I am convinced that there is nothing they admire so much as strength and there is nothing for which they have less respect than military weakness."

Truman was urged by his cabinet not to endorse Churchill's statements, but Truman, being bitter from Stalin's broken promise of letting the Polish people determining their own form of government that he promised at the meeting at Potsdam, Truman publicly endorsed the speech. Truman was also wary if Stalin's comments in his Febr

7. Truman, Harry S. Memoirs: Years of Trial and Hope. New York: Doubleday and Company, 1956.

Truman made a mistake as he deliberately showed that he wanted to help and beef up United States allies Western countries only. Stalin responded with his COMECON, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, his own recovery plan for Eastern Europe. Not only did the Marshall Plan heighten tensions between the United States and Russia, it heightened tensions between Western and Eastern Europe as well.

2. Feinberg, Barbara Silberdick. Harry S. Truman. New York: Impact Biography, 1994.

At first, Truman tried to avoid the inevitable conflict with Stalin, but due to these events Stalin apparently struck a nerve, and Truman shed the American isolationist policy that they contained for almost 200 years. America and Russia couldn't co-exist as world powers as they were soon to find out.

Truman and Stalin showed off their muscle as they competed for power in Germany. In the spring of 1948, the Soviet Union slowed down Western European recovery by flooding the economy with counterfeit money. It was obvious that Stalin felt threatened by the Western-Eastern conflict that was rising. The Soviet Union and the United States argued as to how to control Germany after the war, so they divided it into two different parts: West Germany, controlled by the Western Europeans and East Germany, controlled by Communist Russia. Stalin wanted to slow the recovery even more, so the Soviets occupied Berlin and closed it off, making all Americans have to be checked at the border, also all cargo and trains had to be checked. Stalin did this in order to apply the Soviet currency in Berlin to counter the Western circulation of the Deutsche Mark. Stalin ordered a blockade of all highway, rail, and water traffic to Berlin. The citizens of Berlin began to starve due to the lack of resources brought in. Truman saw this as a golden opportunity to show Berlin that the United States was an ally and came up with the Berlin Airlift. The Airlift consisted of 2,243,315 tons of food and coal at a total cost of $224 million. Truman stated to the American public that, "The Berlin blockade was a move to test our capacity and will to resist. This action and the previous attempts to take over Greece and Turkey were part of a Russian plan to probe soft spots in the Western Allies' positions all around the perimeter." (Feinberg-p.92)

The U.S. and Britain responded to Russia with disapproval messages and the U.S. sent a naval task force to the Mediterranean to enforce the U.S. disapproval. Stalin backed down and decided it wasn't worth the trouble, but the Turks fearing an invasion from their borders were forced to maintain a big army they could barely afford. The first American-Russian direct competition happened in late 1946.

Truman was hesitant to shed the United States isolationist policy but felt it was necessary. In his memoirs Truman admitted, "I know that George Washington's spirit would be invoked against me, and Henry Clay's, and all the other patron saints of the isolationists. But I was convinced that

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