George Catlett Marshall As Chief Of Staff example essay topic

George Catlett Marshall George Catlett Marshall served as a representative of the public service from 1939 to 1951, proposed the Marshall Plan, and was awarded the Nobel Prize. From 1924 to 1927, Marshall served in China and then successively as instructor in the Army War College in 1927, as assistant commandant of the Infantry School from 1927 to 1936. In 1936, Marshall was appointed commander of the Fifth Infantry Brigade. I July of 1938, Marshall accepted a position with General Staff in Washington, D. C (The Nobel Foundation 1).

In September of 1939, President Roosevelt named George Catlett Marshall as Chief of Staff, which he took command of the army and its air forces on the day war began in Europe (Perkins 210). He became General of the Army in 1944. George Catlett Marshall built and directed the largest army in history. He became responsible for the building, supplying and recruiting over eight and a half million soldiers (The Nobel Foundation 1). Winston Churchill pronounced him "the true organizer of victory" for his work as trainer, planner, and strategist. Shortly after the war ended, Marshall decided to resign.

He resigned in November of 1945 (Foner and Garraty 702). After his career in military ended, he pursued a diplomatic career. Marshall was sent to China to make peace between the Nationalists and the Communists, but the mission failed. On January 21, 1947, Marshall was named secretary of state (Luce 24). In 1950, after the outbreak of the Korean War, President Truman asked Marshall to return to the government as the head of the Department of defense. Page 2 In that year, Marshall increased the size of the army, promoted a plan for the universal military training, and helped to develop the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Foner and Garraty 703).

As Marshall's position as chief of staff, he urged military readiness prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. From 1941 he was a member of the policy committee that supervised the atomic studies engaged in by American and British scientists (The Nobel Foundation 1). President Harry Truman had many big decisions to make. Those decisions would greatly affect Americans and people around the world.

In one of the most important of Truman's decisions, he persuaded the American people to act generously to the defeated nations. What he had in mind had never been done before in the history of the world. President Truman knew how defeated people feel after a war. He knew that his Confederate ancestors carried hate in their hearts all their lives. He knew that Germany's anger after World War I had helped bring about a second world war (Adams 30). On June 5, 1947, at Harvard University, Marshall gave his proposal of the plan, which was the European Recovery Program.

This plan was later called the Marshall Plan (Brain-Juice, Inc. 1). This Plan was a team effort, developed by Page 3 General Marshall and by Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson, Minister to Russia George F. Kennan, President Truman, and others in his administration. The U.S. offered the USSR the ability to participate in funding of the plan, but the USSR withdrew, as the Americans hoped would happen. The Marshall Plan ended up supplying 13 billion dollars of aid over a period of nearly four years, and helped Western Europe climb out of the economic ruin that resulted from World War II. Similar to the Truman Doctrine, the plan marked the United States' willingness to step into the role of world superpower by assuming care for several smaller countries.

After a terrible war, President Truman was asking the winning nation to help everyone recover, including the losers. President Truman said: "You can't be vindictive after a war. You have to be generous. You have to help people get back on their feet... People were starving, and they were cold because there wasn't enough coal, and tuberculosis was breaking out. There had been food riots in France and Italy...

We were in a position to keep people from starving and help them preserve their freedom and build up their countries, and that's what we did". This plan aid was offered to all of Europe's Nations. The U.S. money rebuilt steel mills in Belgium, ceramics factories in France, railroads in Germany, and bridges and buildings in many places. Sixteen nations accepted the Marshall Plan. Prosperity began returning to the free nations of Europe. The United States also benefited from this plan (Adams 31).

Page 4 Marshall retired for the last time in September of 1951, after nearly fifty years of military and civilian public service (Luce 23). Marshall was central in the information of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Perkins 211). Marshall was also twice named Time Magazine's "Man of the Year" but in December of 1953, George Catlett Marshall was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in recognition of his contributions to the economic rehabilitation of Europe. Marshall was the first and only soldier to win that honor (Brain-Juice, Inc. 1).

Often unfriendly and serious in manner in wartime, Marshall was remembered by friends as a man of warmth and compassion and of the absolute integrity (Foner and Garraty 703). In closing, George Catlett Marshall was an outstanding man. He was an Army General, Chief of Staff of the Army Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense. He also served the United States and the worlds as a soldier and a statesman (The Army Times 16). "There has rarely been a more disinterested public servant than Marshall. His judgments were sound rather than brilliant, but his record of achievement stands almost unequaled.

Primarily a military man, he served with immense distinction in other fields, and he had much to do with bringing out many of the distinguished soldiers of the war period", says Dexter Perkins (Perkins 211). He was not only loved and respected by our nation and world, but also by his family and friends. Before Marshall's death in Washington, D.C., on October 16, 1959, Winston Page 5 Churchill paid him the following tribute: "During my long and close association with successive American administrations, there are few men whose qualities of mind and character have impressed me so deeply as those of General Marshal. He is a great American, but he is far more than that.

In war he was as wise as understanding in counsel as he was resolute in action. In peace he was the architect who planned the restoration of our battered European economy and, at the same time, labored tirelessly to establish a system of Western defense. He has always fought victoriously against defeatism, discouragement, and disillusion. Succeeding generations must not be allowed to forget his achievements and his example" (The Nobel Foundation 1).