The plan also had a political motive. the communist parties of and were strong, and the united states decided to use pressure and money to keep communists out of the cabinets of those countries. when the plan was beginning, truman's secretary of state said: "these measures of relief and reconstruction have been only in part suggested by humanitarianism. your congress has authorized and your government is carrying out, a policy of relief and reconstruction today chiefly as a matter of national self-interest."