A Great American

When speaking of people deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize, few would consider a soldier of war. I will give you General George C. Marshall. I bring up his moral character at a time when that term has lost so much of its meaning. Marshall won the 1953 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to rebuild Western Europe after World War II. His Marshall Plan provided massive economic aid for both our allies and Germany and Italy. George C. Marshall is the only career soldier honored for his lifelong military and diplomatic contributions to peace. He, unlike another American figure who can’t understand why he hasn’t been likewise honored, actually made the world a better place.

It was Gen. Marshall who engineered the expansion of our pre-war American military from fewer than 200,000 men to over 8 million soldiers. He was also the chief architect of Operation Overlord, the Allied strategy that made D-Day possible. He recommended Dwight D. Eisenhower to be Allied Supreme Commander while he managed the global allocation of resources that ensured troops and landing craft went to Europe and not secondary theatres.

Not many alive today remember that Teheran was the site of the clandestine meeting between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin in November of 1943. Teheran was chosen because Stalin refused to travel by air. They had wanted to commit to the invasion of Western Europe, select a date, and it was assumed that Gen. George Marshall would be the Supreme Allied Commander.

Marshall refused to lobby for his appointment and told Roosevelt that he must decide. Roosevelt decided that Marshall was irreplaceable in Washington and was needed to manage the global war effort, so the job went to Eisenhower. It was Marshall who telegrammed Stalin to inform him of the Eisenhower decision.

It was George Marshall who, in his capacity as the current Secretary of State, proposed the European Recovery Program that would later be called the Marshall Plan. He made the announcement on June 5, 1947. The United States committed $13 billion ($140 billion in today’s dollars). He unveiled the conceptual framework for the aid package during a Harvard commencement speech when he said, "Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine, but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos."

Marshall understood what desperation could produce. After World War I, the Treaty of Versailles burdened Germany with punitive reparations, and from that economic collapse the Third Reich emerged. He was determined not to let history repeat itself. This is the type of understanding and compassion that wins Nobel Peace prizes. Someone might want to pass this tidbit along to that certain someone who thinks just telling people you deserved the Nobel Peace Prize for ending seven or eight “unendable” wars. He might also want to end a particular war that he personally started.