Few figures had greater political prestige
at the end of World War II than General Marshall did.
[LAUGH] And he was soon given some of the most difficult tasks out there.
First to try to sort out the problem in China,
and second to try to sort out the problems with Germany.
He first tried in China, in 1946.
Here's Marshall meeting with the leaders of
the two sides, the Nationalist representative on
the left of your screen and on the right of your screen the representative
of the Chinese Communists, Zhou Enlai. The Marshall situation was pretty tough.
The Americans had a long association and
sympathy with the Nationalist government in China.
They're trying to help the Nationalist troops relocate and
fill the vacuum left by the departing Japanese occupiers.
And actually the Soviet government also had decent relations with
the Nationalist government that it thought would probably keep power.
But the Soviets were also divided helping their Communist friends try to
get a firm foothold in Manchuria as well, a lot of tension there.
Civil war clearly returning.
Marshall then tries to see if the two sides
will agree to share power somehow, in some combined government,
tries to work on the terms of how they can share power together.
He brings them together, he tries pretty hard
in a reasonably good faith. And finally concludes it won't work.
He ends up kind of blaming both sides. Neither side really wants to share power.
Both sides see this as a zero sum game that only one of them can win.
But Marshall also comes away, and this is important, with
a pretty negative image of the Nationalist government and its prospects,
a government that
he increasingly views as corrupt and
riddled with some pretty fundamental problems.
Though at that time, 1946, both the American and Soviet
governments thought the Nationalist government was going to control the game.
By the end of 1946, the Americans are looking at a situation: China, torn
by turmoil. Germany, they can't agree on how to administer the country together.
The
Germans are moving to the edge of starvation.
They've got to figure out some way
of organizing this economy, to get something going,
or else they'll either have to subsidize food for
all the Germans in a situation where some
of the Allied powers, like the British and French,
are themselves broke and having trouble feeding their own people.
