MARSHALL, GEORGE C. 1880-1959

Army general, chief of staff, us. secretary
of state (1947-1949), u.s. secretary of defense
(1950-1951)

Important General and Statesman

Gen. George C. Marshall's bureaucratic career soared as America evolved from a largely isolated economic powerhouse to the world's military superpower and global policeman. Though he never came under fire himself, Marshall planned key offensives during World War I and trained the leading generals of World War II. As army chief of staff during the World War II, he shaped and managed all elements of global strategy and in the armed peace that followed shaped critical aspects of the postwar global economy in line with the goals of American internationalists. As the civilian secretary of state and later secretary of defense, Marshall served as one of the principal strategists of the Cold War. He became the only military man ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his organization of the postwar reconstruction of Europe, a program termed the Marshall Plan in his honor.

Rising in the Ranks

Marshall came of age at a time when the United States began to assume a prominent part on the world stage. Entering the Virginia Military Institute in 1897, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1902. From the beginning of his military career he showed outstanding talent and aptitude for strategy and command. During World War I he served as chief tactical officer under Gen. John J. Pershing, helping to plan the first American offensives in France and other important campaigns. As a result of his skills he was promoted to chief of operations of the First Army by the end of the war. He served as the executive officer of the Fifteenth Infantry Regiment in China, then became the chief of the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia. There he deeply influenced army doctrine and trained Omar Bradley, J. Lawton Collins, Joseph W. Stilwell, Matthew Ridgway, and Walter Bedell Smith—all of whom later were key commanders and planners in World War II.

War Strategist

War loomed on the horizon in the late 1930s, and in 1938 Marshall was called to Washington to help the nation prepare for its possibility. In April 1939 Marshall was named army chief of staff by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, becoming a four-star general in the process. He officially took office on 1 September 1939, the day Germany invaded Poland. At that time army forces included only 175,000 men, making it the nineteenth largest in the world. By 1943, under Marshall's command, the army numbered more than 8 million men and was the best-equipped and best-trained in the world. But his role was not confined only to strictly military matters. President Roosevelt quickly learned to appreciate Marshall's organizational skill and made him a key participant in strategic planning by including him at the major wartime conferences at Washington, Casablanca, Quebec, Tehran, Cairo, Malta, and Yalta. At the end of the war he accompanied President Truman at Potsdam. Marshall was the one who pushed for and won approval for the cross-channel invasion of France, and he appointed Dwight D. Eisenhower to command it.

Criticism

Marshall's career was not without controversy. His judgment was questioned after the 7 December 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the 1944 Normandy expedition seemed impossible to many on the general staff. His role in the decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan in 1945 was also criticized, as was his central position in the developing Cold War. But he was widely seen as a man of such unquestioned integrity and intelligence, with deep respect among his peers and subordinates, that he was able to weather such criticism.

The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan

Stepping down as chief of staff on 20 November 1945, Marshall immediately was sent by President Truman on a special mission to China to broker peace between the Chinese Nationalists and Communists. His efforts were unsuccessful, primarily because he failed to recognize that the Communists' political and military strength gave them little reason to compromise with the American military client Chiang Kai-shek. Communist suspicions of American intentions were in fact exacerbated, contributing to later Cold War animosity between the United States and China. In January 1947 President Truman re-called Marshall from China and appointed him secretary of state. He advised Truman to get tougher with Soviet premier Joseph Stalin and to militarize George F. Kennan's diplomatic containment policy. The Truman Doctrine, by which the United States took its first steps as global policeman, resulted from such advice. Along with other American geostrategists, Marshall worried about political instability in war-ravaged Europe, which could serve as a breeding ground for communism. Marshall believed that European industries had to be rebuilt in order to provide an alternative to Communist or Socialist reconstruction and create a market for American goods. Consquently, in June 1947 Marshall announced the European Recovery Plan, by which the United States would provide loans and grants to any nation in Europe. Marshall anticipated that recovery funds would be used to promote an American political and economic agenda in Europe. Most reconstruction monies were to be spent on American products and used to hire American firms. Europe was thus tied, if not integrated, into the American-dominated global economic system. As the arrangement rebuilt Western Europe, it also benefited many U.S. corporations. All Marshall Plan participants, moreover, were required to open their economies to inspection by U.S. experts and to accept American economic practices. American officials, for example, forbade the nationalization of key German and British industries and pressured the French and Italian governments to remove Communists from their ministries. Soviet-bloc countries refused these arrangements. The Soviets, moreover, were alarmed that aid was to be provided to Germany. The Marshall Plan thus also contributed to Cold War tensions.

Late Career

Marshall resigned in 1949 due to illness but was called out of retirement the following year to deal with the crisis of the Korean War as secretary of defense. He retired again in 1951 following attacks by Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, but he remained an active-duty general available for consultation by the government. In 1953 he became the only soldier ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which he received for the European Recovery Program. He died in Washington, D.C., on 16 October 1959 and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Source:

Ed Craig, General of the Army: George C. Marshall, Soldier and Statesman (New York: Norton, 1990).

Marshall, George C. (1880–1959), World War II army chief of staff; secretary of state, 1947–49; Korean War secretary of defense.Marshall is considered the creator of the World War II U.S. Army, the organizer of Allied victory, and the architect of key U.S. Cold War policies. In 1953, he received the Nobel Peace Prize for the European Recovery Program (Marshall Plan) that bears his name. He is the first professional soldier to be so honored.

Born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, Marshall graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 1901 and in 1902 was commissioned a second lieutenant. Throughout his early military career, he exhibited extraordinary ability as a staff officer. Consequently, he was given responsibilities far beyond his rank and deeply impressed his superiors—most notably Gen. John J. Pershing, who assigned Marshall to his World War I staff and became his mentor and supporter. Marshall played a major role in planning the St. Mihiel and Meuse‐Argonne offensives, and developed an exceptional reputation for organizing and operating within Allied commands. During the interwar years, he developed a similar reputation for working with civilians. As head of the Infantry School at Fort Benning (1927–32) he also trained what would become the U.S. High Command in World War II. Promotion during this time was slow, however, and only in 1936 did he obtain his first general's star. Yet in 1939 President Franklin D. Roosevelt selected him over numerous senior officers to be the new army chief of staff.

In 1939–41, Marshall focused his energies on the creation of a large, modern army to meet the threat posed by Axis military victories. In the process he developed an extraordinary reputation with Congress for honesty as well as military expertise, and he became the administration's most convincing military advocate on Capitol Hill. Largely as a result of his efforts, the army expanded from 175,000 in 1939 to 1.4 million in 1941. Plans were also completed for additional expansion to 8 million and for a global strategy of alliance with Britain to defeat Germany before Japan, if and when the United States officially entered the war. Marshall was far less successful in halting Roosevelt's proclivity to overcommitment, however, particularly in the Far East, and over whether scarce resources should be allocated to the U.S. Army or to potential allies under the Lend‐Lease Act and Agreements.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Marshall became the leading figure in the newly formed U.S. Joint and Anglo‐American Combined Chiefs of Staff and gradually emerged as Roosevelt's chief military adviser. He attended all Allied wartime summit conferences and played a major role in the creation of the joint and combined chiefs and in the application of the unity of command principle to all U.S. and British ground, naval, and air forces. He also strongly promoted a cross‐Channel invasion over British‐supported Mediterranean operations, but he lost that debate and was forced to acquiesce in the 1942–43 North Africa Campaign and the 1943 invasion and conquest of Sicily and Italy. In return, Marshall won presidential and British support for the 1944 cross‐Channel assault that would culminate in the decisive invasion of Normandy. Although it was expected he would command that operation, Marshall was not selected because he had become indispensable in Washington and because he refused to request the position. For such self‐denial as well as for his accomplishments, Marshall was selected Time magazine's “Man of the Year” in 1944, and Congress awarded him a fifth star and the title “General of the Army.”

After World War II, Marshall served as special presidential emissary to China in an unsuccessful effort to avert civil war, and then as Truman's secretary of state from 1947 to 1949. In this position he played a major role in defining, implementing, and winning bipartisan support for an activist Cold War policy of containing Soviet expansionism, most notably in the European Recovery Program (Marshall Plan), and won a second “Man of the Year” award as well as a Nobel Prize. He played a major role, too, in the formation of West Germany and NATO. As secretary of defense (1950–51), he rebuilt U.S. military forces during the Korean War and took a key part in the controversial relief of Gen. Douglas MacArthur. For this, as well as his Asian policies while secretary of state, he became a target of attacks by Senator Joseph McCarthy and his associates.

Despite those attacks, Marshall's reputation continued to grow after his death in 1959. In addition to his extraordinary accomplishments, he was one of the foremost defenders of civilian control of the military, a key definer of the army's proper role in a democratic society, and a model of both personal integrity and selfless public service. For all of this he is widely considered one of the world's greatest soldier‐statesmen.
[See also Civil‐Military Relations: Civil Control of the Military; World War II: Military and Diplomatic Course; Joint Chiefs of Staff.]

Bibliography

Forrest C. Pogue , George C. Marshall, 4 vols., 1963–87.
Larry I. Bland, ed., The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, 3 of 6 vols., 1981–91.
Thomas Parrish , Roosevelt and Marshall: Partners in Politics and War, 1989.
Mark A. Stoler , George C. Marshall: Soldier‐Statesman of the American Century, 1989.
Edward Cray , General of the Army: George C. Marshall, Soldier and Statesman, 1990.
Larry I. Bland, ed., George C. Marshall: Interviews and Reminiscences for Forrest C. Pogue, 1991.

Mark A. Stoler