After World War II, in 1947, the United States proposed a plan to help European nations.U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall describes below why this plan was necessary.
"Europe's requirements for the next three or four years of foreign food and other essential products. . . are so much greater than her present ability to pay that she must have additional help or face economic, social, and political deterioration . . . 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.Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos.Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of a political and social condition in which free institutions can exist."
Excerpted from "European Recovery Program: Remarks by the Secretary of State at Harvard University, June 5, 1947, " U.S. Department of State, Office of Public Affairs, In Quest of Peace and Security, Washington Government Printing Office, 1951.
Why did Secretary of State Marshall propose the above plan in 1947?
- by withholding aid, the United States would defeat the Soviet Union
- fascism and communism were good systems of governments
- peace could occur only in a world of strong economies and well-fed people
- the United States should rebuild Europe so that Europe could become a part of the United States
- the Europeans would vote to locate the United Nations headquarters in the United States