What had changed most profoundly since the guns fell silent was the way Europeans saw themselves: they were no longer the center of the world. In Paris, Marxist author Jean-Paul Sartre presented a philosophical amalgam called existentialism that seemed tailored for postwar trauma. Sartre argued that the long spiritual progression of Western culture was exhausted: literary culture, along with fashion's haute couture, was about all that France-and, by implication, Europe-could now offer the world. If life was meaningless, Sartre argued, existentialism at least gave people a sense of dignity amid the degradation and absurdity.

In their eagerness to return to what people remembered as normality, few noticed the dimensions of onrushing economic disaster. Europe was not only incapable of resistance to the Soviets but was also engaged in a desperate ordeal for survival that had nothing to do with the communist threat. The U.S. had already poured more than $10 billion into Europe just to ward off freezing and starvation, but that amount barely sufficed. By 1947 it was clear that aid had to be linked to a long-range plan to make Europe economically self-supporting. Between 1948 and 1952,

The Marshall Plan was a bargain at the price; its achievement was nothing less than the salvation of Western Europe's democracies. Two years after the aid began flowing, overall European industrial production had risen 45% higher than in 1947 and 25% higher than in the last prewar year, 1938. Bevin called the plan "a lifeline to sinking men."

Europe's economic pulse revived from a flicker to a beat. American officials demanded economic cooperation: here is the pie, the recipients were told; you must cut it among yourselves. In the process of arguing over how to split the aid, old rivals bared their economic plans and secrets to one another.