George C. Marshall and the Marshall Plan: A Model of Transformational Diplomacy

Tom Callahan, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs
Remarks at the George C. Marshall International Center, Dodona Manor
Leesburg, Virginia
June 02, 2005

It is truly an honor to join you in paying tribute one of America’s greatest servants (for George Marshall indeed considered himself a servant to his country). I wish to thank the George C. Marshall International Center at Dodona Manor, as well as the United States Diplomacy Center, for allowing me to be here with you today.

Let us consider the extraordinary vision and commitment to duty of George C. Marshall. He assumed command of the army and its air forces on the day war began in Europe. He increased his combined forces from 200,000 to more than 8.5 million men. He fought the Axis powers with everything he had and bore witness to terrible losses before eventually defeating them. Winston Churchill pronounced him "the true organizer of victory" for his work as trainer, planner, and strategist.

With the end of the war, these peaceful grounds of Dodona Manor must have called to Marshall, then in his sixties, like a Siren. How easy and eminently reasonable it would have been pass on to others the burden of responsibility for rebuilding Europe and dealing with the emerging Soviet threat. But that was not George C. Marshall.

In his typically plain-spoken manner, he once said, "When a thing is done, it’s done. Don’t look back. Look forward to your next objective."

That ability to focus on the challenges of the future rather than dwelling on the battles of the past was an important element of this man’s extraordinary talent.

My father was a Marine in World War II, serving most of the war at Guantanamo Bay. My Uncle Frank was also a Marine in the Pacific Theater, where he survived five battle landings, including Guadalcanal. Sons of Irish immigrants, they entered the Corps right out of high school and had little experience. My father and my uncle were good, kind men, but they were ordinary men — they refused to buy a German or Japanese car for decades after the war.

Let us consider George Marshall and his ability to look forward. As Secretary of State just two years after the war, Marshall attended a conference in Moscow with British, French, and Soviet counterparts. He saw the growing economic collapse of Europe and the obvious intent of Soviet Russia to benefit from that collapse. He returned to Washington looking forward to his next objective: it was nothing less than preventing Europe’s economic, social, and political deterioration by creating a European program with massive assistance from the United States. One year later, in April 1948, President Truman, a Democratic president, signed the Foreign Assistance Act, passed by a Republican controlled Congress, to establish what became known as the Marshall Plan.

Secretary Rice has spoken often of what she calls "transformational diplomacy" – the effort of diplomacy not just to monitor, report, and cajole, but actually to transform societies into more functional, democratic, and responsible members of the international community. The exhibition on display here today, "The Marshall Plan: The Vision of a Family of Nations," offers a living demonstration of transformational diplomacy. Part of the Department of State’s mission, through the office of the United States Diplomacy Center and its efforts to create a new Visitor Center and Museum of American Diplomacy, is to share that vision with the public.

Last week, I greeted an important 22-year veteran of the U.S. Congress at the C Steet entrance of the State Department to escort him to a breakfast meeting with the Secretary. He looked up at the building and said, "You know, I’ve never actually been in here before."

The Visitor Center and Museum — to be located in the George C. Marshall wing of the Department and will open to the public in 2008 — will be a wonderful place to share with the public – including our esteemed colleagues in the Legislative Branch – and cultivate a deeper understanding of how diplomacy has shaped our nation and affects every person, every day. The irony of Marshall’s direction to "Look forward to your next objective" is that the clarity of our vision can be improved by examining the lessons of the past. Marshall, an avid student of history, knew this well. As Mark Twain said, "History doesn’t repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes."

We are faced today with challenges perhaps more diffuse but no less threatening than the Soviet expansionism of Marshall’s era. In his State of the Union Message, President Bush spoke of the unprecedented efforts we have undertaken since September 11, 2001 with allies and friends around the world to defeat terrorism. The President spoke of the significant progress we have made confronting the enemy abroad, removing many of al-Qaida’s top commanders, cutting off terrorist finances, and putting pressure on states that sponsor or harbor terrorists or seek to proliferate weapons of mass destruction. But in the long term, as President Bush said, "The only force powerful enough to stop the rise of tyranny and terror, and replace hatred with hope, is the force of human freedom."

George C. Marshall, I believe, would agree. And were he still with us, I suspect that he would once again heed the call of duty, leave his beloved Dodona Manor, and find a way to serve the cause of freedom with his extraordinary energy, diligence, and skill.