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

The Marshall Plan and Its Meaning
for the necessities of life. Discouragement and defeatism aggravated
economic difficulties and fostered political extremism. It was evident
that if recovery should be too long delayed, communism, in one country
after another, would win by default.
Committee of European Economic Cooperation (CEEC)
Preparations for the sixteen-power conference were made almost
literally overnight. A member of the British delegation,20 which under
the leadership of Sir Oliver Franks played a leading role, described
some years later the initial phase of the effort: "The Paris meeting was
set for a Wednesday. On Monday we began work. We saw Bevin that
evening. He simply said, 'You go to Paris and do your best.' It was
clear that we believed in the general idea of European cooperation,
but if you had asked Franks or the rest of us what we were going to
do in Paris, we couldn't have said.
"But when, previously, the exiled governments were in London, we
had worked together. Wartime and postwarcollaboration in Washington
and London was also important-through a lot of joint agencies.
There were people who, through this kind of effort, had known each
other well and worked together for over five years. That made a tremendous
difference in Paris, since the exercise called for dealing with
intimate data in an infinitesimal period of time-and with confidence.
Even though we had to guess at many of the figures, it was intelligent
guesswork based on a lot of experience with our own and others' economies.
The members of one group, which put in obviously inflated
estimates, were brought up short. It was a period of great certainty
in a governmental operation, with a sure touch. The British took the
lead, provided the mechanics, and drove everybody mad. We had to.
Franks was amazingly good where fairness and integrity were essential.
Monnet [Jean Monnetof France] also made an enormous contribution,
not only formally, but also in resolving matters behind the
scenes." 21
The conference began by setting up an interim Committee of Euro-
20 Unnamed by request. Interview, London, November 11, 1952.
21 Looking back upon this formative enterprise, Paul G. Hoffman said: "The
work of Oliver Franks at that time has never been adequately recognized. He was
the man of all people who laid down· the principles that should guide European
cooperation. The preparatory work of the American agencies and committees was
monumental. But it would have had no effect unless addressed to a program. The
framework for such a program was set by Franks and the CEEC." Interview, New
York, January 28, 1953.