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THE MARSHALL PLAN.   Term Paper ID:30219 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Analysis of the most significant effects of the United States' post-World War II European Recovery Plan (The Marshall Plan).... More...

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Paper Abstract: Analysis of the most significant effects of the United States' post-World War II European Recovery Plan (The Marshall Plan). Purpose of ERP to assist in the economic recovery of Western Europe. Argues that the plan was a blend of generosity and self-interest. Humane and economic aid, and combatting the Soviet threat Paper Introduction: The three most significant effects of the United States' European Recovery Plan (ERP), better known as the Marshall Plan, were the economic recovery of most of the nations of western Europe, the securing of these countries in an American sphere of influence where they were relatively safe from the threat of the USSR, and the establishment of the basis for European cooperation that eventually led to the European Union (EU), as it came to be called. Although the Marshall Plan is often hailed as one of the most generous international initiatives in history and is also sometimes derided as an attempt to establish American cultural and political hegemony, the truth about this undertaking falls in between these two poles. For, while it is true that American dominance (sometimes unwanted) in many spheres was, indeed, an important effect of the Marshall Plan and while it is equally Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Winston Churchill described postwar Europe as "a rubble heap,a charnel house, a breeding ground of pestilence and hate" (quoted inMaddox 9 ). Grants made up the largest portionof the aid, nearly 9 percent, and provided everything from goods such asfood, fertilizer, fuel and production equipment to financing for theupgrading of factories, mines, communications, and transportation systems.The ECA also managed an enormous flow of technical assistance andinformation. Marshall's discussion of the extent of the destruction was not at allexaggerated. Thus only 16 nations sent delegates to the July meeting of theMarshall Plan working conference--which was eventually named the Committeeof European Economic Cooperation (CEEC)--although every European nation butSpain (Franco's Nazi sympathies placed it outside the community) had beeninvited by Britain and France to attend. George C. As a whole the European nationsresisted the notion of international cooperation in economic matters. . Clearly the economicsurvival of Europe was imperiled and this increased the growing strength ofthe threat of Soviet domination in much of Western Europe, which Americanpolicy makers had come to regard as a threat to themselves as well. makes European society vulnerable to any and alltotalitarian movements" any attempt to influence the Soviet Union by givingit this kind of aid would be the end of the Marshall Plan with Americanlegislators (quoted in Kunz 163). TheAmerican supporters of the ERP found themselves with a report that"reflected both an absence of concerted self-help and mutual aid by theconferees and unrealistic ideas about resource availabilities in the UnitedStates and consumer needs in the participating countries" (Hogan 74). . But OEEC squabbling and the nations' continuing fear ofintegration made this difficult. In the course of the Plan's operation from 1948 through 1951 the ECA staffin Paris rose to over 6 Americans and 8 Europeans. As the ECA's Information Division at Rome summed up itsgoals the Marshall Plan aimed at "the mobilisation of the Italians aroundthe idea that only on the basis of a free economy can a strong, democraticand free Italy be constructed, together with a peaceful and prosperousEurope" (quoted in Ellwood 35). Yet confrontation was carefully avoided and inthe Harvard speech Marshall said that any nation willing to help inrecovery would receive full American cooperation but added that"governments, political parties, or groups which seek to perpetuate humanmisery in order to profit therefrom" would be opposed by the United States(quoted in Pogue 527). "The Marshall Plan Reconsidered: A Complex of Motives." Foreign Affairs 76 (1997): 162-7 .Maddox, Robert James. The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947-1952. Despite all its successes in the economic and political spheres,however, Marshall aid "was about hearts and minds, not just mouths andbellies" (Kunz 181). . The Act established the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA),which was separate from the State Department, and was to be headed byautomobile executive Paul Hoffman. Despitebeing resisted for so long this vital notion did have its origins in theERP. The great strength of the Communist Party in France meant thatBidault had to consider its feelings and this stricture resolved thedifficult question, for the Americans, of inviting the USSR and the easternEuropean nations under its control to join in the plan. In the United States thebattle to promote the Marshall Plan went well but passage of the billwithout crippling modifications was not ensured until the Communist coup inCzechoslovakia in February 19458. The British "were wary ofbecoming too tied economically to the Continent" and sought to remain apower somewhat apart with an intact "special relationship" with the UnitedStates while the French looked for "arrangements that would expedite theirrecovery at the expense of Germany, which they wished to keep weak" (Maddox91). As Marshall said, "Theinitiative, I think, must come from Europe [and] the role of this countryshould consist of friendly aid in the drafting . Other nations, of course, feared an organization that was under thecontrol of either France or Britain. aidwhich were made available for reconstruction and were dispensed by the ECA. These contentious issues soonled Hoffman to shift all responsibility for determining the allotment ofassistance to the ECA but the OEEC continued to operate and eventuallyformed the basis for today's Organization for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment. The genuine novelty ofsuch a concept--both of European unity and American financial support--ishard to understand from the vantage point of the next century. On the onehand, the complete withdrawal of the Soviet Union behind the "Iron Curtain"was only beginning to be understood and, on the other hand, most Europeansdid not conceive of the United States as a permanent ally, remembering thefiasco of the League of Nations and the rebirth of American isolationismafter World War I. France and England, for example, feared astrong OEEC. "The European Response: Primacy of Politics." Foreign Affairs 76 (1997): 171-84.Schmidt, Helmut. This review ofthe origins, purposes and effects of the Marshall Plan begins with adiscussion of the genesis of Marshall's ideas in the problems of Europeafter World War II that made humane and economic aid necessary and thenature of the Soviet threat that made a political strategy vitallyimportant. He wrote that, "they learned thatthis is a land of full shelves and bulging shops, made possible by highproductivity and good wages, and that its prosperity may be emulatedelsewhere by those who will work towards it" (quoted in Ellwood 34). Early in the administration of the ERP the CEEC was transformed intothe permanent Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) whichwas meant by the Americans to serve as the European administrative arm ofthe ERP. In 1946 President Truman had already acted on theperception of the growing threat of Communist subversion in Greece andTurkey and granted them loans in the amount of $25 million and $15 million respectively. Bythe time this initial CEEC conference ended the nations had basicallyassembled sixteen individual plans that called for $29 billion in Americanaid over four years and a continued deficit at the end of that period. Yet, as he notes, "the United Statesought not to forget that the emerging European Union is one of its owngreatest achievements: it would never have happened without the MarshallPlan" (221). Throughout Europe normal education and trainingfor work had so long been interrupted that many regions were totallyunprepared for reconstruction while in areas dominated by the Nazis, asHelmut Schmidt recalls, "ideas about economic and social conditions in theUnited States did not have a positive cast" (213). After this event "even such holdouts asthe isolationist Senator Robert Taft dropped their opposition" and EuropeanRecovery Act, somewhat reduced in size, was signed by Truman on April 3,1948 (Kunz 164). Although the French were well preparedfor the idea, which had been diplomatically hinted at prior to the publicspeech, his public posture quickly put Bevin, and England, at the head ofthe effort. Thus the "special character of the task"produced an ECA that "deliberately dissolved the distinction between thepublic and private spheres and did so as part of a strategy for advancingthe goals of American public policy" (Hogan 1 9). Although the Marshall Plan is often hailed as one ofthe most generous international initiatives in history and is alsosometimes derided as an attempt to establish American cultural andpolitical hegemony, the truth about this undertaking falls in between thesetwo poles. This is followed by an account of the goals, scope and methodsof American assistance and concludes with a discussion of their impact onthe formation of a united Europe. The European Recovery program was the most important facet of whathas been described as "one of the most pragmatically creative phases of[American] foreign policy history" and its eventual broad effects were, toa considerable extent, part of the original conception (Ellwood 33). The Marshall Plan assistance totaled$13.3 billion (or $88 billion in today's dollars) to sixteen countries inan almost bewildering variety of ways. Bevin too, for example, had held thatthe Marshall Plan was "the quickest way to bring down the iron curtain" andhe, like many European leaders was, therefore, surprised to see the Sovietsalmost immediately walk away from the pre-conference with Britain andFrance (quoted in Reynolds 175). The great difficulty was, however, that while it was clearlyunderstood by most members of Congress that, as Kennan put it, "economicmaladjustment . On the one hand they argued thatmeasures such as a currency clearing scheme and a customs union "wouldintegrate economies and create a market large enough to stimulate massproduction" (Hogan 87). . But this was not a principal concern of other nations, such as theBenelux and Scandinavian groups who "derived around one-fifth of theirnational income from Western European trade," and integration wasendangered by such conflicts (Reynolds 179). Germany was not officiallyrepresented but all the other nations that eventually received MarshallPlan assistance were present. Even those who favored StateDepartment administration of the ECA, such as Marshall himself, agreed thata novel fusion of efforts and interests between the private and publicsectors was inherent in the ERP. The French, who were the first to submit official plans to theAmerican government, insisted, however, that the meetings be held in Parisand that the Soviet Union be invited to participate. Essentially it was a rare blending ofgenerosity and self-interest in an intelligent political strategy thatserved the greater interests of Americans and Europeans. As former West German Chancellor Schmidt noted recently, Americanslook on the increasing integration of the EU with trepidation, suspecting,for example, "that a common EU foreign policy will weaken the hithertodominant American influence" (221). Yet,despite this bravado, it is apparent that the broader aims of the programhad an indelible effect. Despite the group's willingness to cooperategrounds for cooperation were hard to find. New York: Viking, 1987.Reynolds, David. But Marshall's proposalsrapidly changed many people's views of the situation. Thus anti-Soviet self-interest was a vital aspect of the Americanpolicy of the period, but the full extent of the doctrine's reach onlybecame evident with the Marshall Plan. Perhaps the aspect of the program that is mostcriticized in retrospect is its aim of "get[ting] as close as possible tothe people it was benefiting in order to channel attitudes, mentalities andexpectations in the direction Americans understood, in the direction ofmass-production for mass-consumption prosperity" (Ellwood 34). "Miles to Go: From American Plan to European Union." Foreign Affairs 76 (1997): 213-21. France and England survived the loss of theircolonial empires, the economic 'miracles' of Germany and Italy saw theformer Axis nations restored to membership in the European community, thespread of Soviet influence was halted with economic revival and theestablishment of NATO, all parties profited enormously from the economicexchange enabled by the Plan, and, perhaps most importantly, the EuropeanUnion owes its origins to the American idea of economic union. Because the need was so urgent, however, this planning was totake place even as the ERP went into action. In addition to already deplorable conditions harsh drought inthe summers of 1946 and 1947 severely reduced crops and the interveningwinter, with its immense blizzards and long frozen spells, "had paralyzedthe continent" as railroad cars froze to tracks and "coal supplies piled upat mineheads" (Kunz 162). . Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1987.Kunz, Diane B. "'You too can be like us': Selling the Marshall Plan." History Today 48(1 ) (1998): 33-39.Hogan, Michael J. At this point American strategists were divided between free-tradeand supranational control options. and of later supportof such a program [which] should be a joint one, agreed to by a number ofif not all European nations" (quoted in Pogue 213). In hismemoirs Hoffman described the great success of the Marshall Plan as one ofinstructing Europeans in these beliefs. "Lifeline to a Sinking Continent." American Heritage 48(4) (1997): 9 -93.Pogue, Forrest C. The American promoters of the Marshall Plan returned a modified formof the results, with a total of $17 billion over four years, and insistedthat the member nations begin planning for more extensive cooperation andintegration. . against the red tooth and claw of American capitalism andthe Communist dictatorship of Soviet Russia" (quoted in Reynolds 171).Many Europeans were like Bevin in seeing their best hope for the future ina kind of "'third force' strategy that would avoid close alignment witheither of the new superpowers" (Reynolds 171). It is now known that Moscow primarily"attributed the Marshall Plan to America's need to extend credits to adollar-less world so as to sell its surplus production" and this was a verycommon claim that was voiced in Britain and France as well (Reynolds 174).But Stalin also decided that the ERP was intended both to establishAmerican influence in western Europe and to "detach Eastern Europe from theSoviet sphere" and he not only ruled out Moscow's participation in thegeneral conference but forbade the Soviet-controlled nations from attendingas well (Reynolds 175). Theguiding notions of the ERP were first put forward by Secretary of StateGeorge C. According to Ellwood, today's European historiography "emphasises thecapacity of the governments of the era to elude, neutralise or ignore theAmerican exhortations" and points out how few of the ECA's reformist,modernizing methods of economic control were ever enacted (37). Britain still demanded a global political role based on thesize of its economy and the parts of its empire it still retained and bothnations were far more interested in retaining important roles in globaltrade. Marshall at the 1947 Harvard commencement exercises where hespoke of the need for an initiative that would assist Europe in itseconomic recovery. He went to the heart of theproblem, however, when he said that such "visible destruction was probablyless serious than the dislocation of the entire fabric of European economy"that had taken place to such an extent that "the breakdown of the businessstructure of Europe during the war was complete" (quoted in Pogue 526). The European nations also provided counterpart funding whichconsisted of local currency set-asides totaling the equivalent of U.S. Works CitedEllwood, David. Early advice fromGeorge Kennan had convinced Marshall and President Truman that the Sovietswould participate in international organizations "only to gain advantage orto inhibit the work of such groups" and Marshall's subsequent trip toRussia strengthened his belief that the USSR would never providesubstantive cooperation in any effort that worked against their imperialistaims in Europe (Pogue 155). Marshall: Statesman 1945-1959. Marshall spoke at length of the physical facts ofEuropean distress such as the loss of life, destruction of cities andfactories, and shortages of food and coal. This ability to adapt to the peculiar needs of the situation was oneof the great achievements of the ERP in that it reflected not just thedesire to assist Europe to assist itself but also served American economicand geopolitical interests fully. But Marshall also stressed that such a plan would not rely on aunilateral program devised by the United States. For, while it is true that American dominance (sometimesunwanted) in many spheres was, indeed, an important effect of the MarshallPlan and while it is equally true that the program was not merely anexample of disinterested generosity, neither of these statements explainsthe essential nature of the ERP. The three most significant effects of the United States' EuropeanRecovery Plan (ERP), better known as the Marshall Plan, were the economicrecovery of most of the nations of western Europe, the securing of thesecountries in an American sphere of influence where they were relativelysafe from the threat of the USSR, and the establishment of the basis forEuropean cooperation that eventually led to the European Union (EU), as itcame to be called. His "Truman Doctrine," which called for "helpingfree people to work out their destinies in their own way," meant givingeconomic and military aid to those nations threatened by the USSR (Pogue167). On the other hand, some argued for theliberalization of trade and the "integrat[ion] of national stabilizationalong functional lines," which seemed to require the supranational controlthat was, for the moment, anathema to all the European parties (Hogan 87).The eventual American policy proved to be a combination of free-trade andcontrol ideas that facilitated the principal American goals of productionand integration. Indeed only a year earlier Ernest Bevin, the British ForeignSecretary, had spoken of Great Britain as "the last bastion of socialdemocracy . The choice of Hoffman reflected abelief among many influential people that the ECA, which had to deal withproblems such as "stabilizing currencies and exchange rates, revivingindustry, liberalizing trade, and [thereby] fostering integration andboosting productivity," needed experts in economic and business affairs andneeded autonomy from the state Department's overriding concern with thecontainment of Communism (Hogan 1 6). Butthe American-held belief in the intrinsic connection between modernproduction, free trade, and political liberty was the broader and moreimportant message. Indeed Bevin himselfimmediately saw the implications of the deliberately vague Harvard speechand within two weeks had rushed off to Paris to consult with the Frenchforeign minister Georges Bidault. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.