Before the United States even officially entered the second world war, they were already shipping badly needed supplies to Britain. That transfer of material continued with the Lend-Lease wartime program – the main recipient, Moscow, received tons of industrial materiel, weapons, ammunition, planes and tanks. Transfers of another form continued even after WW II, this time to help war-torn Europe rebuild – and resist those same Soviets they just helping the year before.

On this day, December 31, in 1951, six years after the beginning of the Marshall Plan, the U.S. Congress declared its end.

Greece and Turkey were the first recipients of Marshall Plan aid, to help their government combat the encroachment of communism – Britain had helped them the past, but pulled out to save funds for rebuilding at home. By the start of the 1950s and the outbreak of the Korean war, ironically most of the Marshall Plan funds went to help the receiving countries bolster their militaries. Any pretense of Plan’s use for anything other than countering Soviet influence was gone.