46 Facts About Marshall Plan

1.

Marshall Plan was an American initiative enacted in 1948 to provide foreign aid to Western Europe.

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2.

The Marshall Plan proposed the reduction of interstate barriers and the economic integration of the European Continent while encouraging an increase in productivity as well as the adoption of modern business procedures.

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3.

Marshall Plan aid was divided among the participant states roughly on a per capita basis.

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4.

The Plan was largely the creation of State Department officials, especially William L Clayton and George F Kennan, with help from the Brookings Institution, as requested by Senator Arthur Vandenberg, chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

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5.

Marshall Plan spoke of an urgent need to help the European recovery in his address at Harvard University in June 1947.

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6.

The purpose of the Marshall Plan was to aid in the economic recovery of nations after World War II and secure US geopolitical influence over Western Europe.

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7.

Phrase "equivalent of the Marshall Plan" is often used to describe a proposed large-scale economic rescue program.

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8.

Secretary Marshall Plan became convinced Stalin had no interest in helping restore economic health in Western Europe.

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9.

The Marshall Plan was replaced by the Mutual Security Plan at the end of 1951; that new plan gave away about $7.

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10.

The Marshall Plan was one of the first elements of European integration, as it erased trade barriers and set up institutions to coordinate the economy on a continental level—that is, it stimulated the total political reconstruction of Western Europe.

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11.

Belgian economic historian Herman Van der Wee concludes the Marshall Plan was a "great success":.

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12.

Marshall Plan was particularly discouraged after personally meeting with Stalin to explain that the United States could not possibly abandon its position on Germany, while Stalin expressed little interest in a solution to German economic problems.

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13.

Marshall Plan offered American aid to promote European recovery and reconstruction.

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14.

Marshall Plan was convinced that economic stability would provide political stability in Europe.

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15.

Marshall Plan offered aid, but the European countries had to organize the program themselves.

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16.

Marshall Plan's speech had explicitly included an invitation to the Soviets, feeling that excluding them would have been a sign of distrust.

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17.

Marshall Plan directed that—in negotiations to be held in Paris regarding the aid—countries in the Eastern Bloc should not reject economic conditions being placed upon them.

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18.

Marshall Plan quickly realized that this would be impossible after Molotov reported—following his arrival in Paris in July 1947—that conditions for the credit were non-negotiable.

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19.

Marshall Plan participants were not surprised when the Czechoslovakian and Polish delegations were prevented from attending the Paris meeting.

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20.

Marshall Plan accused the United States of attempting to impose its will on other independent states, while at the same time using economic resources distributed as relief to needy nations as an instrument of political pressure.

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21.

The Marshall Plan was described as "the American plan for the enslavement of Europe".

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22.

Marshall Plan said the Plan was hostile to the Soviet Union, a subsidy for American exporters, and sure to polarize the world between East and West.

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23.

However, opposition against the Marshall Plan was greatly reduced by the shock of the communist coup in Czechoslovakia in February 1948.

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24.

However, before the Marshall Plan was in effect, France, Austria, and Italy needed immediate aid.

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25.

Marshall Plan money was transferred to the governments of the European nations.

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26.

Marshall Plan aid was mostly used for goods from the United States.

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27.

The European nations had all but exhausted their foreign-exchange reserves during the war, and the Marshall Plan aid represented almost their sole means of importing goods from abroad.

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28.

At the time the United States was a significant oil producing nation—one of the goals of the Marshall Plan was for Europe to use oil in place of coal, but the Europeans wanted to buy crude oil and use the Marshall Plan funds to build refineries instead.

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29.

Marshall Plan urged that the United States play a large role in improving European productive efficiency by providing four recommendations for the program's administrators:.

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30.

The Marshall Plan money was a gift and carried requirements that Britain balance its budget, control tariffs and maintain adequate currency reserves.

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31.

American goals for the Marshall plan were to help rebuild the postwar British economy, help modernize the economy, and minimize trade barriers.

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32.

Marshall Plan was implemented in West Germany, as a way to modernize business procedures and utilize the best practices.

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33.

The Marshall Plan made it possible for West Germany to return quickly to its traditional pattern of industrial production with a strong export sector.

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34.

Marshall Plan aid was divided among the participant states on a roughly per capita basis.

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35.

Germany, which up until the 1953 debt agreement had to work on the assumption that all the Marshall Plan aid was to be repaid, spent its funds very carefully.

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36.

Marshall Plan aid allowed the nations of Western Europe to relax austerity measures and rationing, reducing discontent and bringing political stability.

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37.

The trade relations fostered by the Marshall Plan helped forge the North Atlantic alliance that would persist throughout the Cold War in the form of NATO.

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38.

The Marshall Plan, linked into the Bretton Woods system, mandated free trade throughout the region.

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39.

Marshall Plan money was in the form of grants from the U S Treasury that did not have to be repaid.

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40.

USSR did establish COMECON as a riposte to the Marshall Plan to deliver aid for Eastern Bloc countries, but this was complicated by the Soviet efforts to manage their own recovery from the war.

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41.

France, which received billions of dollars through the Marshall Plan, similarly saw its average income per person return to almost pre-war level by 1949.

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42.

We argue that the Marshall Plan did play a major role in setting the stage for post-World War II Western Europe's rapid growth.

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43.

The Marshall Plan gave another $13 billion, equivalent to about $100 billion in 2010 value.

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44.

Criticism of the Marshall Plan became prominent among historians of the revisionist school, such as Walter LaFeber, during the 1960s and 1970s.

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45.

Noam Chomsky said the Marshall Plan "set the stage for large amounts of private U S investment in Europe, establishing the basis for modern transnational corporations".

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46.

Marshall Plan has been recently reinterpreted as a public policy approach to complex and multi-causal problems in search of building integrated solutions with multilevel governance.

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