Just weeks after the communist coup in Czechoslovakia, the U.S. Congress approves the first $5 billion in Marshall Plan aid. Twenty percent of the aid is in loans, 80 percent in grants. The first shipments are food and fertilizer, followed by machinery.

In the four years of the plan, the Marshall agency spends $13.5 billion in 16 countries. In turn, Europe's purchase of U.S. goods and machinery brings many Marshall Plan dollars back into the American economy, fueling a postwar boom.

One of the European countries most desperate for aid is Greece -- devastated by years of Nazi occupation and civil war. One novel and successful program sent big U.S. mules to Greek farmers.
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