George Marshall: Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech

About the Author

Born on December 31, 1880, in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, George Catlett Marshall spent his youth there until leaving in the fall of 1897 to attend the Virginia Military Academy, where he distinguished himself academically and as a leader. Commissioned a second lieutenant by the U.S. Army in 1902, Marshall commanded troops in the last months of heavy combat in the Philippine-American War (1899–1902). Afterward, Marshall rotated through a succession of peacetime postings. He helped revitalize officer education in the army and taught a variety of courses at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He served on General John J. Pershing's staff during World War I and helped plan the largest American offensives of that war. Widely regarded as one of the most capable officers in the army, Marshall continued to rise through the ranks after the war. President Franklin Roosevelt appointed him chief of staff of the army in 1939, and Marshall served in that position throughout World War II, helping lead the nation's mobilization and war effort.

As chief of staff, Marshall oversaw the massive expansion of the army as the nation prepared for war. Marshall's public speeches on military preparedness and his testimony before Congress paved the way for rearmament and proved critical in mobilizing the American people and preparing the nation for war. Under Marshall's direction the army grew from two hundred thousand soldiers in 1939 to 1,686,000 by the end of 1941 and to more than 8 million by the war's end. Marshall assembled an extraordinary group of generals to lead this army and took the lead in forming the Combined Chiefs of Staff, the joint American and British command organization that directed the war effort and is generally regarded as the closest and best functioning allied command organization in history. Marshall also closely monitored the appointments of many junior officers and took every opportunity to speak to them. Marshall retired as chief of staff on November 18, 1945.

Marshall had expected to retire from public life. Instead, he became an indispensable member of the administration of President Harry Truman, serving as special presidential emissary to China (1945–1947) and then secretary of state (1947–1949). Recalled again following the outbreak of the Korean War, he served one year as secretary of defense (1950–1951). In these years, Marshall helped craft American foreign policy and present it to the American public. In several important speeches, he argued for the linkage of military strategy to diplomacy and economics, civilian control of the military, preparation to fight limited as well as total wars, and an emphasis on Europe rather than Asia in American strategy. He spearheaded a number of diplomatic initiatives, most famously the European Recovery Program, better known as the Marshall Plan, an immense economic aid program to rehabilitate the industries and economies of Western Europe. Marshall played a key role in developing the alliance that would persevere through the cold war. He received the Nobel Peace Prize for the European Recovery Program in 1953, and his speech at the awards ceremony was his last major public address. Early in 1959 he suffered a stroke. He died on October 16 at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C.