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"Our.policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist. Such assistance, I am convinced, must not be on a piecemeal basis ... Any assistance that this government may render in the future should provide a cure rather than a mere palliative."
One final crucial point grew out of a wish to force European nations to cease their eternal bickering and begin working together toward a longer-range goal of integration:
"The initiative, I think, must come from Europe. "
Afterward, Marshall wondered whether his message had really got across. Had Under Secretary Acheson been right in advising against using the commencement as a forum on the ground that speeches there were "a ritual to be endured without hearing"? The audience had received him warmly, at start and finish, but had broken in with applause only once —and not at the most significant place. Marshall, as he had confided to associates, had hoped that the speech would trigger an "explosive" effect.
In fact, it did so—not in the U.S., although it soon got behind the idea, but in Europe, where the response was instant. That same night, Britain's Foreign Secretary Bevin began arranging the conferences in which Europe's nations would assess their needs as a region and go to the U.S. with a program in hand. As Marshall intended, all of Europe—Russia included—was invited to take part. But Russia, after the first conference, refused—and declared war on the plan as another example of U.S. efforts to enslave Europe. Finally 16 nations joined in developing a program.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., the Democratic Administration and G.O.P.-run Congress began hammering out enabling legislation in a bi partisan mood fostered mainly by Re publican Senator Arthur Vandenburg. Congress doubtless saw the plan in terms of cold war designs, and its passage was helped substantially by Stalin's hostility to it. President Harry Truman himself considered the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan "two halves of the same walnut." He signed the law on April 3, 1948. Two weeks after that the freighter John H. Quick left Galveston, Texas, with 9,000 long tons of wheat for France — the first item of a vast outpouring of aid that would eventually include machine tools, farm equipment and raw materials of almost every sort.
The Marshall Plan worked faster than anyone had thought possible. By 1951, Western Europe's industrial production had soared to 40% above prewar levels, and its farm output was bigger than ever. Western Europe's current status as a vigorous economic competitor of the U.S. testifies to the plan's effectiveness.