The Marshall Plan Was Proposed at Harvard
On this day · 5 June 1947
In an understated eleven-minute commencement speech, a U.S. general sketched the blueprint that would rebuild a shattered continent.
On June 5, 1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall rose at Harvard University’s commencement and, in roughly eleven minutes, outlined a vast American program to rebuild a war-ravaged Europe. He framed it not as charity but as enlightened self-interest, warning that economic collapse would breed political chaos.
The address was deliberately low-key. Marshall asked Harvard not to bill it as a major speech, and even the assembled crowd of 15,000 did not grasp its weight. Yet his core idea was bold: European nations should draft a joint recovery plan, and the United States would help finance it.
“Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos.”
The proposal became the European Recovery Program, channeling roughly $13 billion to participating nations between 1948 and 1952. It is widely credited with reviving Western European economies, anchoring postwar alliances, and reshaping the global economic order for decades to come.
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