"While Stalin was undertaking that risk, Marshall—following Truman’s lead—was constructing a Cold War grand strategy. Kennan’s “long telegram” had identified the problem: the Soviet Union’s internally driven hostility toward the outside world. It had, however, suggested no solution. Now Marshall told Kennan to come up with one: the only guideline was to “avoid trivia.” The instruction, it is fair to say, was met. The European Recovery Program, which Marshall announced in June, 1947, committed the United States to nothing less than the reconstruction of Europe. The Marshall Plan, as it instantly came to be known, did not at that point distinguish between those parts of the continent that were under Soviet control and those that were not—but the thinking that lay behind it certainly did."
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Military leaders from the United StatesEpiscopalians from the United StatesSpecial Envoys of the Secretary-General of the United NationsUnited States Secretaries of StateVirginia Military Institute alumni
Original Language: English
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Sources
John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (2005) p. 31
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_C._Marshall
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