The three most significant effects of the United States' European Recovery Plan (ERP), better known as the Marshall Plan, were the economic recovery of most of the nations of western Europe, the securing of these countries in an American sphere of influence where they were relatively safe from the threat of the USSR, and the establishment of the basis for European cooperation that eventually led to the European Union (EU), as it came to be called. Although the Marshall Plan is often hailed as one of the most generous international initiatives in history and is also sometimes derided as an attempt to establish American cultural and political hegemony, the truth about this undertaking falls in between these two poles. For, while it is true that American dominance (sometimes unwanted) in many spheres was, indeed, an important effect of the Marshall Plan and while it is equally true that the program was not merely an example of disinterested generosity, neither of these statements explains the essential nature of the ERP. Essentially it was a rare blending of generosity and self-interest in an intelligent political strategy that served the greater interests of Americans and Europeans. This review of the origins, purposes and effects of the Marshall Plan begins with a discussion of the genesis of Marshall's ideas in the problems of Europe after World War II that made humane and economic aid necessary and the nature of the Soviet threat that made a political strategy vitally important. This is followed by an account of the goals, scope and methods of American assistance and concludes with a discussion of their impact on the formation of a united Europe.
The European Recovery program was the most important facet of what has been described as "one of the most pragmatically creative phases of [American] foreign policy history" and its eventual broad effects were, to a considerable extent, part of the original conception (Ellwood 33). ...