June 5th, 1947: US Announcement of the Marshall Plan

The Marshall Plan, so-called after its architect, US Secretary of State General George C. Marshall, confirmed the United States' new role as self-appointed guardian angel of the Western world, bringing the strongest and wealthiest nation to the economic rescue of a still war-ravaged Europe two years after the Allied defeat of Germany.

The Plan, offering billions of dollars of aid in the form of grants and loans, was an acknowledgment on the part of the US that it had underestimated the extent of wartime damage in Europe. But it also marked a crucial further development in post-war US foreign policy which had taken to heart the notion that Communism must be contained in the belief that Stalin had embarked on a dangerous crusade that put the whole world at risk from contamination by the Red peril -- a fear of Soviet expansionism that would dominate East/West relations for over three decades.

With Britain, …

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Publication information: Article title: June 5th, 1947: US Announcement of the Marshall Plan. Contributors: Not available. Magazine title: History Today. Volume: 47. Issue: 6 Publication date: June 1997. Page number: 33+. © 2009 History Today Ltd. COPYRIGHT 1997 Gale Group.

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