Kissinger: What We Can Learn Today From the Marshall Plan - Newsweek

In June 1947, Gen. George C. Marshall—revered as the “organizer of victory” and Army chief of staff during World War II and now five months into his tenure as President Harry S. Truman’s secretary of state—addressed the commencement audience in Harvard Yard.

Describing the devastation of Europe’s economies and societies, Marshall pledged the United States would do “whatever it is able” to help rebuild the continent and restore its “normal economic health,” without which there could be “no political stability and no assured peace” throughout the world.

His speech marked a historic departure in American foreign policy.

Marshall invoked no self-deprecating anecdotes or poetic metaphors to illustrate the importance of the occasion. Not for him were adjectives to describe the attributes the graduating students were expected to display. Duty was its own justification; it could only be impaired by embellishment.

After a brief preface recalling that, as the graduates knew well, “the world situation is very serious,” Marshall outlined “the requirements for the rehabilitation of Europe.” Rarely looking up from the text he had carried to the podium in his jacket pocket, he offered a revolution in American foreign policy in the guise of a practical economic program.

Toward the end of the speech, he apologized for entering into a “technical discussion” that had likely bored his listeners. Indeed, commencement attendees, including Harvard President James B. Conant, would later confess they had not immediately understood the historical significance of what Marshall had outlined. He had in fact proposed a new design for American foreign policy.  - Read More at Newsweek

Kissinger: What We Can Learn Today From the Marshall Plan

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