ABSTRACT
Initial Soviet reaction to the Marshall Plan was cautiously positive, but in July 1947 Molotov, the Soviet Foreign Minister, speaking at Paris on instructions from Stalin, turned down the offer of US credit. The other east and south-east European states were obliged to follow suit. Andrei Vyshinsky, deputy Foreign Minister and Soviet spokesman at the United Nations, delivered this verdict at the UN on 18 September 1947. It was predictably hostile.
