Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was an international aid program by the United States following World War 2.
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Composition
The program was administered by the Economic Cooperation Administration, overseen jointly by the Department of State and Department of Commerce. The ECA had an office and representative in each participating state. These offices and representatives worked with the national banks of the host state to administer counterpart funds held in that local currency.
Participating states were represented in the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation.
American firms received investments, paid in U.S. dollars by the program fund, and provided goods and services to participating states. Foreign recipients paid for the goods and services in local currency to the counterpart funds. The program fund was partially financed against the counterpart funds. Because international monetary transfers were avoided, there were no consequences for the balance of payments.
History
Marshall negotiated with Molotov for an economic recovery program for occupied Germany. Ultimately Molotov walked out of the talks, forcing the United States to plan without East Germany. Marshall did not in fact produce the plan; he proposed a unilateral economic aid program as necessary for countering communist influence.
The program was divisive among Republican senators. Vandenberg and Wherry led the internationalist and isolationist factions respectively. Ultimately, and in part a reaction to the rise of the KSČ in Czechoslovakia, the internationalist faction pushed the bill through. It was funded until 1953.
The Korean War led to the program being shut down early in 1951. The ECA was briefly succeeded by the Mutual Security Agency, which was briefly succeeded by the Foreign Operations Administration in 1953, which was briefly succeeded by the International Cooperation Administration in 1955, which finally was succeeded by USAID in 1961.
The USSR's analogous program was COMECON.