During this same period, Greece was in the middle of a civil war between the Greek Communist Party and the Greek royalist government. Britain had provided aid to Greece but in late 1946, they told American officials they could no longer help because of their own weakened economy. By early 1947, Truman’s administration recognized that if Greece fell to Communism, Turkey likely would too. So the American government decided to provide equal aid to both Turkey and Greece, in the hopes it would also help to relieve the long-standing tensions between the two nations as well.