The European Recovery Program — Phase Two

Extract

On June 5,1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall delivered a brief address at a Harvard University commencement. A few sentences in the address were devoted to the problem of European recovery. These few sentences have had a profound effect, and it is difficult to measure the potentialities of events which they set in motion. Secretary Marshall spoke, as many before him had spoken, of “the visible destruction of cities, factories, mines, and railroads.” This was the story that had been told many times, the tragic story of bombed homes, smashed locomotives, shattered factories, blown bridges, and blocked canals. But he went on to point out that there was an even more serious destruction than this visible and easily understood physical destruction of war. More serious was the “dislocation of the entire fabric of European economy.” The rebuilding of the economic structure of Europe would take “a much longer time and greater effort than had been foreseen.”