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The Most Noble Adventure

God bless America

Greg Behrman
Aurum, 464pp, £25,

Margaret MacMillan

Wednesday, 11th June 2008

Margaret McMillan on the new book by Greg Behrman

Contrary to what one might expect, there was opposition, and not just from the Communists, in Europe too. The American insistence that the Europeans work together to divide up and administer the funding ran up against deeply entrenched national interests. The British, for example, did not want to move away from the sterling area and what was left of their empire. And for all Europeans, the German question, albeit in a new form, was a supremely difficult one. Without Germany, as Kennan so rightly said, there could be no real European recovery, but that meant putting the war so recently concluded behind. Fortunately there was both the willingness on the European side and the leadership of men such as Bevin and Monnet to produce much-needed compromise and co-operation.

The Committee on European Economic Co-operation was set up mid July 1947; by the end of September, working at incredible speed, it had detailed plans ready. Once Congress had approved the first tranche of aid in the spring of 1948, the taps were opened. At any one time there were at least 150 Marshall Aid ships carrying everything from food to trucks to Europe. Hundreds of European productivity teams made their way to the United States to learn the American technical and managerial knowhow. The Plan was key in getting production going again and in breaking bottlenecks. By the end of 1948, European production levels had exceeded pre-war ones. Equally important Europeans now had faith in the future; tellingly they started to have more babies.

It is hard not to compare the Marshall Plan with the current mismanagement and corruption in American aid to Iraq. The former had sensible aims: it made a difference; and it showed the United States acting as a great power.

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