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Leaders Celebrate 'Unsordid Act' That Rebuilt Post-War Europe

THE HAGUE, May 28 -- President Clinton joined two dozen government leaders from across Europe today to pay tribute to the Marshall Plan, which five decades ago showered billions of dollars in U.S. aid on the nations of Western Europe as they lay prostrate in the rubble of World War II.

Solemn remembrances mingled, sometimes jarringly, with balloons and rock music during a day of celebrations marking one of the boldest and most expensive diplomatic efforts in American history -- launched with a few elliptical words on June 5, 1947, at a Harvard University commencement address by Secretary of State George C. Marshall.

Cutting through the air of nostalgia today was a more topical question: What should the wealthy nations of the West do to help lift the new democracies of Eastern Europe, just now emerging from the shadows of Soviet-era repression?

Clinton declared that "America and Europe must complete the noble journey that Marshall's generation began -- and this time with no one left behind." But he did not match this declaration with a pledge of funds.

By contrast, the host of the celebration, Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok, did not shy away from specifics. Saying that assistance to Eastern Europe's economies "is needed on a massive scale," Kok called for an international effort to build infrastructure and encourage private investment in the region. "Estimates of the funds needed run as high as $100 billion," he said, calling for a "Euro-Atlantic Conference" later this year to discuss how to spur aid.

While Clinton praised Kok's words, administration officials said they had not seen enough details to respond. Clinton told reporters that international financial institutions so far had committed about $50 billion to Eastern Europe and that "most of what still needs to be done is to accelerate the pace of private investment."

But such excursions into policy were brief; this was a day of misty sentiment and gaudy celebration.

German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who as a teenager saw American trucks delivering food at his schoolyard, was weeping as Clinton saluted him for reunifying Germany and symbolizing "the spirit of the Marshall Plan." A few minutes later, the crowd in the church-like Hall of Knights at the Binnenhof Palace was listening to singers belt out the 1980s pop anthem "We Are the World."

As the afternoon wore on, the mood turned downright giddy in nearby Rotterdam, a port city rebuilt with Marshall Plan money, where schoolchildren serenaded Clinton with a version of his 1992 campaign theme song, "Don't Stop (Thinking About Tomorrow)." At portside, the Dutch unveiled a giant bronze plaque in honor of Marshall.

All this hoopla carried a certain irony. The man being celebrated was known by his contemporaries as perhaps the most austere and humble of the World War II leaders.

While serving as Army chief of staff during the war, according to biographers, Marshall made it his practice not to smile or laugh when his civilian leader, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, tried to lighten the mood with jokes. Marshall thought sharing in the frivolity was inappropriate for a military man, but he made himself invaluable to Roosevelt, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill hailed him as the organizer of the Allied victory.

Later, as secretary of state, Marshall became one of President Harry S. Truman's most trusted aides. Yet at a time when popular interest in the World War II era and its personalities is surging, Marshall has remained a little-known figure, his name mostly echoing because of the aid plan that bears his name.

The Harvard speech was only 12 minutes long -- Clinton today spoke at several times that length -- and the proposals in it, according to various histories, were crafted not by Marshall, but by several of the advisers he assembled to work with him. They included Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson and George Kennan, the chief of policy planning.

But because of Marshall's high public esteem, and Truman's low approval ratings at the time, the administration's proposal became known as the Marshall Plan, and it has resounded through history since.

The elderly Dutch citizen who introduced Clinton today, Gustaaf Sedee, recalled seeing bread wrappers in his youth that carried emblems reading, "Produced with the assistance of the Marshall Plan."

Between 1947 and 1952, the Marshall Plan sent about $13 billion to 16 nations in Europe, an amount equal to about $88.5 billion in current dollars. While the United States extended offers of Marshall Plan assistance to the Soviet Union and the East European nations under its control, leaders in Moscow rejected the help.

Vernon Walters, a retired U.S. Army general and diplomat who as a young man served as an aide to Marshall, noted that Churchill called the Marshall Plan "the single most unsordid act in the history of nations."

But its motives were not exclusively altruistic. Many business leaders, according to foreign policy analysts, helped push the plan because they believed that helping Europe would be good for U.S. business. But Marshall's intentions may well have been selfless. Walters, who was in the audience at The Hague today, said last week that Marshall, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953, was possessed of a modesty and integrity that made him "almost too good to be true."

Holding the anniversary ceremony in the Netherlands was something of a coincidence. Clinton and several European leaders already were scheduled to be here as part of a European Union summit. Clinton said the United States and EU were close to an agreement on safety and manufacturing standards on both sides of the Atlantic.

Clinton leaves The Hague early Thursday for a day-long stopover in London, where he will meet with newly elected British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

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