MARSHALL PLAN

MARSHALL PLAN, formally called the European Recovery Program (ERP) even though it was later extended to Japan and (southern) Korea, was named after Secretary of State George C. Marshall, who announced it in a speech at Harvard University on 5 June 1947. The plan was unique, offering U.S. assistance for recovery efforts designed and implemented by the still war-ravaged nations of Europe.

Historians continue to argue the main thrust of the plan. The main arguments are that the plan was (1) humanitarian in seeking to ameliorate postwar economic suffering; (2) anti-communist in that it sought to rebuild the economies of western European countries to resist communism; and (3) designed to help the American economy since participating nations had to spend these dollar-denominated grants in the United States (and later Canada) for purchases of goods and services.

Regardless of the motives behind it, the ERP, which lasted from 1948 to 1952, was a phenomenal success. The Soviet Union and its eastern European satellites declined to participate, but the Marshall Plan provided approximately $13.5 billion in economic assistance to seventeen countries, including Great Britain, France, Italy, and western Germany, and resulted in a 25 percent increase in western European GNP.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Donovan, Robert J. The Second Victory: The Marshall Plan and thePostwar Revival of Europe. New York: Madison Books, 1987.

Killick, John. The United States and European Reconstruction, 1945–1960. Edinburgh: Keele University Press, 1997.

Schain, Martin, ed. The Marshall Plan: Fifty Years After. New York: Palgrave, 2001.

Charles M.Dobbs