Word: western
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...carried clearly across the Seine to the Hotel de Tabac, where an OEEC committee had been wrangling over a plan to loosen Europe's currency restrictions. Quickly, the committee reached a tentative agreement. If the details could be successfully worked out and agreed on, the plan would permit Western Europe's nations to buy more easily from each other, thereby relieving some of the strain on the U.S. economy...
Hoffman briskly nailed down the Communists' long-standing charge that ECA was a U.S. plot to divide Europe, by urging "the greatest possible stimulation of trade" between Western and Eastern Europe (except for military items). He underlined his point by allotting ECA dollar credits for purchases in Czechoslovakia and Finland. Asked about Polish coal and Yugoslav lumber, Hoffman answered: "We want you to buy in Europe, whether or not it's behind the Iron Curtain...
...both sides entered what was bound to become a new phase of East-West relations in Europe, the crisis crystallized the strengths and weaknesses of both. The Yalta-Potsdam comedy was played out. With or without another top-level conference between Russia and the Western powers, the old agreements, long since dishonored by the Communists, would be replaced by a more realistic pattern. What that pattern would be depended on how much strength, cooperation and purpose the Western nations could generate in the next few months...
...readjustment of Western policy would have to start with a clear understanding of what Russia was now trying to do in Europe. The Kremlin had two main objectives: 1) to wipe out or reduce U.S. power on the Continent, and 2) to stop Western Union. On objective No. 1 the Russians' Berlin crisis had backfired. By committing itself to the relief of Berlin the U.S. had committed itself more deeply than ever to the defense of Europe. The very vulnerability of the U.S. military position in Berlin taught the lesson of how necessary it was to have force...
...When the Western Union nations met last week at The Hague (see below), they were frightened, divided and frustrated. Talk of impending war reminded them of how weak they were. This fear could be turned into an asset by the anti-Communist nations if it gave to Western Union a sense of urgency, if it could be quickly translated into a real political, military and economic program for a Western Union which would be far stronger than the sum of its parts...