George Marshall: Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

Awarded the Nobel Peace Price in 1953 for the European Recovery Program, which expired that year, the ailing Marshall reflected on his long career in his acceptance speech, returning yet again to his favored themes: the importance of studying history, the dangers of complacency, the economic underpinnings of peace and democracy, and the need for military preparedness. Even more than in his other speeches, Marshall argues that education and prosperity lead to peace and democracy.

Delivered in the midst of the cold war, Marshall's speech focuses on the international situation, noting that “the rapid disintegration between 1945 and 1950” of American military power had led directly to “the brutal invasion of South Korea.” Too often, efforts to preserve international peace succeeded only temporarily. While the cold war and the threat from the Soviet Union required a “very strong military posture,” Marshall notes that military preparedness and deterrence was “too narrow a basis on which to build a dependable, long-enduring peace.” National leaders “must find another solution,” and it is on this that he focuses most of his speech. He firmly believes that prosperity and democracy would produce a peaceful world because tyranny must inevitably “retire before the tremendous moral strength of the gospel of freedom and self-respect for the individual.”

Perhaps the most important ingredient to world peace, he suggests, “will be a spiritual regeneration to develop goodwill, faith, and understanding among nations,” and the inspiration of “great principles.” Marshall devotes most of his attention, however, to three specific and linked ideas: international cooperation, education, and aid to poorer nations by democratic nations. Schools should teach history “without national prejudices” to encourage international cooperation, and people should fight against intolerance. The wealthier nations had to address the needs of the poorer nations because “democratic principles do not flourish on empty stomachs.” Growing prosperity would lead to democracy, which he sees as a “force holding within itself the seeds of unlimited progress by the human race.” These must flow from the inspired leadership of democratic nations working together as they did in the great World War II alliance. Coercion, he warns, will not work to spread either prosperity or peace.