Second Year (1949-1950): Toward Economic Growth ... - PDF, 101 mb

4
The Marshall Plan and Its Meaning
powers from going to the Moscow conference with substantial delegations,
determined to find if possible an honorable modus vivendi with
the USSR. Advisors to Marshall, in the American delegation, were John
Foster Dulles, Benjamin V. Cohen, and Ambassador Walter Bedell
Smith. Early progress on the agenda and procedural matters raised
cautious hopes, but the talks began to bog down when they reached
substantive issues.
The conference had been in session for more than a month when
Secretary Marshall was invited to confer privately, on April 15, with
Prime Minister Joseph Stalin. Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov
was present and a stormy session ensued. Marshall became convinced
that the Soviet government was stalling for time, that it was far from
being ready to cooperate in any reasonable scheme for lessening distress
and tension in Europe, and that it was in fact doing all it could to make
the existing situation worse. 1 He also recognized that time was running
against the forces of reconstruction in western Europe and that if anything
effective was going to be done there it would have to be startedand
started soon-by the Western powers. The forward thinking and
recammendations which had been developing in the Department of
State and elsewhere were soon brought into a new focus. Out of it
developed the proposal for a European recovery program.
Many Things to Many Men
Conceived in 1947 and launched in 1948, the Marshall Plan evolved
swiftly into a vast, spirited international venture. As the enterprise unfolded,
it became many things to many men. .
To millions impoverished by World War II it meant food, tools, a
chance to work, a source of new hope. Worried leaders in western
Europe saw in it an assurance of help on a scale that might enable them
to cope with their most urgent recovery problems. To the governments
of a number of war-torn nations outside Europe it meant assistance to-,
ward economic stability and new development.
Among the peoples who ultimately received Marshall aid, however,
fears and hopes were mingled. Some were uncertain of American intentions.
Some feared that by accepting new help they might jeopardize
their freedom of action and, possibly, be drawn into another world war.
Others welcomed the prospect of American aid as a potential factor in
world politics and as an acceptance of responsibility by the nation whose
resources and strength had figured so prominently in the victory of the
1 Interview, Washington, October SO, 1952.