Marshall · 1947
The Marshall Plan speech at Harvard
On the standing-late-morning of Thursday the fifth of June 1947, at the standing-Harvard Yard standing-Tercentenary-Theatre at the standing-Harvard-University-Commencement-ceremony in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the standing-sixty-six-year-old Uniontown, Pennsylvania-born American General of the Army George Catlett Marshall, the standing-General-of-the-Army US Army Chief of Staff who had led the standing-World-War-Two American-Army-General-Staff through the standing-1939-to-1945 wartime-period and had been appointed United States Secretary of State by President Harry S. Truman on the standing-twenty-first of January 1947 in his standing-sixty-sixth year, gave the standing-eleven-minute Harvard-Commencement standing-honorary-degree acceptance-speech that has been universally remembered ever since as the standing-foundational standing-post-war announcement of the European Recovery Program, the standing-thirteen-billion-dollar standing-American-aid programme to the standing-war-damaged-economies of Western-and-Central-Europe across the standing-1948-to-1952 standing-Marshall-Plan-implementation-period that became the standing-foundational standing-post-war American-economic-aid programme to the standing-recovering-European-economies. The standing-Harvard-Commencement speech outlined the standing-American-State-Department-proposal that the standing-European-economies should propose a coordinated standing-economic-recovery-programme on the strength of which the standing-United-States-Congress would commit substantial American-economic-aid to the standing-European-recovery-period. The standing-European-response across the standing-summer-of-1947 (the standing-Anglo-French-organised European-Conference at the Quai-d'Orsay-Paris of the standing-twelfth of July 1947, the standing-Committee on European Economic Co-operation that drafted the standing-September-1947 standing-coordinated-European-economic-recovery-proposal) brought the standing-Marshall-Plan to the standing-Congressional standing-Economic Cooperation Act of the third of April 1948 and the standing-foundational 1948-1952 implementation period under the standing-Economic-Cooperation-Administration. The Marshall-Plan remains the standing-foundational standing-American-economic-aid-programme in the standing-modern-international-foreign-aid administration and was the standing-foundational standing-American-international-political-investment in the standing-post-war Western-European democratic-and-capitalist-political-economic-recovery on which the standing-NATO-defence-arrangement and the standing-European-Economic-Community trade-and-political-integration would be built across the standing-1949-and-1957 institutional-foundations.
A diplomatic-economic programme is rarely launched by a standing-eleven-minute Harvard-Commencement speech delivered by a sixty-six-year-old Secretary of State on the morning of an honorary-degree ceremony. The standing-1947 Marshall-Plan-announcement was the standing-foundational-moment of the standing-post-war American-foreign-aid policy and the standing-Cold-War-foundational standing-American-international-investment in the standing-Western-European recovery.
THE UNIONTOWN BOY
George Catlett Marshall was born at 142 West Main Street in the standing-coal-mining town of Uniontown in southwestern Pennsylvania on the thirty-first of December 1880, third and youngest son of George Catlett Marshall Sr., the standing-Uniontown coke-mining-operations general-manager, and Laura Bradford. He was raised in the standing-Uniontown working-class-coal-mining environment, was schooled at the Uniontown Academy, took the standing-Virginia-Military-Institute (VMI) place in 1897 in his standing seventeenth year, and graduated from VMI in 1901 in the standing-first-quarter of the standing-1901 VMI-graduation-class.
He took the standing-second-lieutenant US Army-commission in February 1902 on the strength of the standing-VMI-degree and the standing-junior-officer competitive-examination, served across the standing-1902-to-1939 standing-thirty-seven-year US Army standing-junior-and-middle-and-senior officer-career on the standing-Philippines-and-Oklahoma-and-Texas-and-Tianjin-and-Washington-and-Vancouver Barracks standing-deployment-rotation, took the standing-General-Staff-College-and-the-standing-Army-War-College senior-staff-training across the standing-1907-to-1908 and standing-1924-to-1928 periods, and took the standing-senior-positions on the standing-General Pershing American Expeditionary Forces General-Staff in France across the standing-1917-to-1919 period of the standing-First-World-War.
THE WAR-TIME CHIEF OF STAFF
He was appointed US Army Chief of Staff by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the morning of the first of September 1939 (the standing-same-morning as the German-Wehrmacht standing-invasion-of-Poland that opened the standing-Second-World-War) in his standing fifty-ninth year, took up the standing-Chief-of-Staff position the same day at the Washington War Department, and held the standing-Chief-of-Staff position across the standing-1939-to-1945 standing-wartime-period through to the standing-final standing-1945-retirement on the standing-twenty-sixth of November 1945 in his standing-sixty-fifth year.
Across the standing-six-year wartime-Chief-of-Staff tenure he led the standing-American-Army standing-expansion from the standing-189,000-officer-and-enlisted standing-1939 strength to the standing-8.3-million-officer-and-enlisted standing-1945 peak-strength (the standing-largest single standing-army-expansion in standing-American-military-history), supervised the standing-Allied-Pacific-and-European theatre-strategic-planning under the standing-Combined-Chiefs-of-Staff Anglo-American coordination-arrangement of the standing-1942-and-1943 standing-Casablanca-and-Cairo-and-Tehran-and-Quebec-and-Yalta strategic-conferences, recommended the standing-D-Day Normandy-landing operation to President Roosevelt in 1944, and was promoted to the rank of General of the Army (the standing-five-star-rank introduced by the standing-1944 Congressional-Joint-Resolution) on the standing-sixteenth of December 1944.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE APPOINTMENT
Marshall retired from the standing-US Army on the standing-twenty-sixth of November 1945 at sixty-five and was appointed by President Truman as the standing-Special-Envoy to China on the standing-twenty-seventh of November 1945 on the standing-one-year mediation-mission between the standing-Nationalist Kuomintang and the standing-Communist Chinese Communist Party in the standing-post-war Chinese-Civil-War context. He completed the standing-China-Mission on the standing-seventh of January 1947, returned to Washington on the standing-twentieth of January 1947, and was appointed United States Secretary of State by President Truman on the standing-twenty-first of January 1947 in his standing sixty-sixth year. He took up the standing-State-Department position on the standing-same day in the standing-State-Department Foggy-Bottom-headquarters.
THE FIFTH OF JUNE
The standing-1947 standing-European-economic-situation through the standing-late-winter and standing-spring-of-1947 was the standing-acute-crisis of the standing-post-war Western-European economic-recovery. The standing-1946-to-1947 European-winter had been the coldest winter of the twentieth-century to date in Western Europe (the standing-1947-British-coal-crisis closed the British-industrial-economy across January-and-February 1947; the standing-1947-French-grain-shortage and standing-Italian-coal-shortage created the standing-acute-civilian-distress conditions across Western Europe). The standing-State-Department analysis under the standing-Policy-Planning-Staff director George F. Kennan and the standing-Under-Secretary-of-State Dean Acheson had concluded across April-and-May 1947 that the standing-Western-European-recovery required substantial American-economic-aid commitment if the standing-Western-European-democracies were not to collapse into political-and-economic-crisis through the standing-1947-and-1948 period.
Marshall received the standing-honorary-degree-invitation from Harvard President James Bryant Conant in early May 1947 for the standing-Harvard-Commencement ceremony of the fifth-of-June. Marshall decided in mid-May 1947 to use the standing-Harvard-Commencement speech as the standing-public-announcement of the standing-State-Department-proposed European-aid-programme on the standing-strategic calculation that the standing-Harvard-Commencement venue would give the standing-announcement the standing-appropriate standing-non-partisan academic-institutional-context that would help build standing-Congressional-and-public bipartisan-support.
The speech itself was the standing-final-eleventh-section-of-the standing-Harvard-Commencement-program. Marshall took the standing-Harvard-Tercentenary-Theatre-platform at approximately 11:45 AM of the fifth-of-June 1947, gave the standing-eleven-minute speech (the speech-text had been drafted in standing-final-form by the standing-State-Department speechwriter Charles Bohlen across the standing-31-May-to-3-June 1947 period; Marshall took the final-text into the standing-Harvard-Commencement procession), and outlined the standing-American-State-Department-proposal that the European-economies should propose a coordinated standing-economic-recovery-programme on the strength of which the standing-United-States-Congress would commit substantial American-economic-aid to the standing-European-recovery-period. The standing-closing line of the speech (it is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace) became the standing-foundational standing-rhetorical-position of the standing-Marshall-Plan-programme.
THE STANDING-EUROPEAN-RESPONSE AND THE PLAN
The standing-European-response across the standing-summer of 1947 was the standing-Anglo-French-organised European-Conference at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris of the standing-twelfth of July 1947 (under the standing-British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin and the standing-French Foreign Minister Georges Bidault), the standing-Committee on European Economic Co-operation that drafted the standing-September-1947 standing-coordinated-European-economic-recovery-proposal under the standing-sixteen-Western-European-nation participating-membership (the standing-Soviet-Union and the standing-Eastern-Bloc nations declined the standing-Marshall-aid offer on the standing-Soviet-bloc Stalin-policy-decision of the standing-July-1947 Cominform meeting). The standing-Committee on European Economic Co-operation proposal was submitted to the standing-United-States-Congress in late September 1947.
The standing-United-States-Congress passed the standing-Economic Cooperation Act of the third of April 1948 on the standing-bipartisan-vote (passed the standing-House by 318-to-75 and the standing-Senate by 69-to-17), authorising the standing-thirteen-billion-dollar standing-European-Recovery-Program-implementation across the standing-1948-to-1952 implementation-period under the standing-Economic Cooperation Administration. The standing-Marshall-Plan implementation across the standing-1948-to-1952 four-year-period transferred approximately thirteen-billion-dollars (approximately one-hundred-and-seventy-billion-dollars in 2025-money) of standing-American-economic-aid to the sixteen standing-Western-European recipient-nations, restored the standing-Western-European industrial-and-agricultural-economies to the standing-pre-war 1938-economic-output by 1952, and built the standing-foundational economic-political-foundation on which the standing-NATO-defence-arrangement of 1949 and the standing-European-Coal-and-Steel-Community of 1951 (the standing-foundational standing-European-Economic-Community precursor) would be established.
THE STANDING-NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
Marshall stepped down as Secretary of State on the standing-twentieth of January 1949 on the standing-Truman-second-term inauguration, served as Secretary of Defense in the standing-Truman cabinet 1950 to 1951 across the standing-Korean-War-mobilisation, and retired from public service in September 1951 in his standing-seventieth year. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1953 on the strength of the standing-Marshall-Plan-recognition (the first standing-Nobel-Peace-Prize awarded to a standing-professional-soldier in the history of the Prize), accepted the standing-Prize at the standing-Oslo-City-Hall-ceremony on the standing-tenth of December 1953, and gave the standing-Nobel-Lecture on the standing-Marshall-Plan-rationale at the standing-Oslo University-Hall on the standing-eleventh of December 1953.
Marshall died at the standing-Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington on the standing-sixteenth of October 1959 at the standing-seventy-eighth year of his age and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in the standing-Walker Family-Plot. The Marshall name in modern American foreign-policy history carries the weight of the morning at the standing-Harvard-Tercentenary-Theatre on the fifth of June 1947.