Title: Why Marshall Plan was so important | Op-eds – Gulf News
Headings: Why Marshall Plan was so important
Why Marshall Plan was so important
Content: Officially known as the European Recovery Programme and passed by the US Congress in March 1948, the Marshall Plan provided unequal sums of money to an impoverished Western Europe, stopping a humanitarian disaster and helping spur long-term economic recovery. Speaking to his Harvard audience about the deprivation and wanton suffering in Europe, Marshall came to the crux of his speech: “ It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace.” On this, the 70th anniversary of a momentous US foreign policy milestone, here’s why the Marshall Plan had such an enduring legacy for US-European relations: n 1. Europe was still a mess. The war may have ended in May 1945, but Europe remained in tatters in spring 1947. The US had already provided vast sums of aid, but it was not creating the recovery needed. As one historian said, “Production had stalled, trade languished, and Europeans lacked the dollars to purchase urgently needed American goods. Acute shortages of food and fuel were exacerbated by a crippling summer 1946 drought and a bitterly cold winter.”