And the Marshall Plan, to us, meant a general who had turned into a secretary of state, and that the secretary of state saw the necessity of the reconstruction of these European countries that had suffered so heavily.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
It never occurred to me that we would have as grandiose a program as the Marshall Plan, but I felt that we had to do something to save Europe from economic disaster which would encourage the Communist takeover.
The Europeans had made two promises to the United States if Marshall Plan help was forthcoming. The first promise was maximum self-help on the part of every country; and second, maximum mutual aid.
While the Marshall Plan was important for Europe's recovery, Europe's prosperity was really built on economic integration and policy coherence.
The magic was in the Marshall Plan itself. It provided an opportunity for appealing and constructive work. In a sense, the mission chiefs were given the opportunity to help act as architects for the new Europe that was envisioned.
And I don't say that we didn't expect it, but we were pleasantly surprised to see the generosity of their foreign policy; and the generosity of their foreign policy at that moment was expressed through the Marshall Plan.
Yet the whole preamble of the second authorization act for the Marshall Plan showed the direction Congress was ready to take about breaking down barriers within Europe.
If he had listened to some of his advisors and had tried to make the Marshall Plan a political dumping ground for unqualified politicians, it couldn't have been a success.
That was the principle of reparations to which President Truman agreed at Potsdam. And the United States will not agree to the taking from Germany of greater reparations than was provided by the Potsdam Agreement.
One of those promises was to limit the size of government and to have the government serve the people - and not the other way around.
The Marshall Plan was after destruction, and the U.S. came to our help and obviously this was very, very important for the future of Europe. I think now we have all the capabilities of doing it on our own and, in a sense, we have to.