George Catlett Marshall

George Catlett Marshall

George Catlett Marshall served as a representative of the public service from 1939 to 1951, proposed the Marshall Plan, and was awarded the Nobel Prize.

From 1924 to 1927, Marshall served in China and then successively as instructor in the Army War College in 1927, as assistant commandant of the Infantry School from 1927 to 1936. In 1936, Marshall was appointed commander of the Fifth Infantry Brigade. I July of 1938, Marshall accepted a position with General Staff in Washington, D. C (The Nobel Foundation 1). In September of 1939, President Roosevelt named George Catlett Marshall as Chief of Staff, which he took command of the army and its air forces on the day war began in Europe (Perkins 210). He became General of the Army in 1944. George Catlett Marshall built and directed the largest army in history. He became responsible for the building, supplying and recruiting over eight and a half million soldiers (The Nobel Foundation 1). Winston Churchill pronounced him “the true organizer of victory” for his work as trainer, planner, and strategist. Shortly after the war ended, Marshall decided to resign. He resigned in November of 1945 (Foner and Garraty 702). After his career in military ended, he pursued a diplomatic career. Marshall was sent to China to make peace between the Nationalists and the Communists, but the mission failed. On January 21, 1947, Marshall was named secretary of state (Luce 24). In 1950, after the outbreak of the Korean War, President Truman asked Marshall to return to the government as the head of the Department of defense.

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In that year, Marshall increased the size of the army, promoted a plan for the universal military training, and helped to develop the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Foner and Garraty 703).

As Marshall’s position as chief of staff, he urged military readiness prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. From 1941 he was a member of the policy committee that supervised the atomic studies engaged in by American and British scientists (The Nobel Foundation 1).

President Harry Truman had many big decisions to make. Those decisions would greatly affect Americans and people around the world. In one of the most important of Truman’s decisions, he persuaded the American people to act generously to the defeated nations. What he had in mind had never been done before in the history of t...

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...han brilliant, but his record of achievement stands almost unequaled. Primarily a military man, he served with immense distinction in other fields, and he had much to do with bringing out many of the distinguished soldiers of the war period,” says Dexter Perkins (Perkins 211). He was not only loved and respected by our nation and world, but also by his family and friends. Before Marshall’s death in Washington, D.C., on October 16, 1959, Winston

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Churchill paid him the following tribute: “During my long and close association with successive American administrations, there are few men whose qualities of mind and character have impressed me so deeply as those of General Marshal. He is a great American, but he is far more than that. In war he was as wise as understanding in counsel as he was resolute in action. In peace he was the architect who planned the restoration of our battered European economy and, at the same time, labored tirelessly to establish a system of Western defense. He has always fought victoriously against defeatism, discouragement, and disillusion. Succeeding generations must not be allowed to forget his achievements and his example” (The Nobel Foundation 1)