The Gates Plan

Abstract

again that the message, as good as it may be, is facilitated by the right speaker and the right audience. The Marshall Plan is forever embedded in our memories as involving George Marshall and the Harvard Commencement. Sixty years later that speech still provides a gold standard as people talk about the need for a “Marshall Plan” for Africa, for AIDS, for “marginalized countries,” or for malaria. Forgotten is the fact that the Marshall Plan had already been presented by other speakers but there was insufficient traction for it to become policy. President Truman had presented some details to Congress on March 12, 1947, almost three months earlier. Marshall’s plan was actually the idea of Undersecretary of State William Clayton. Perhaps because Clayton was a Mississippi native, the official launching of the idea was at a meeting of the Delta Council at Delta State Teachers College in Cleveland, Mississippi on May 8, 1947. The plan was presented by Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson and reported on by a young James Reston...but the story went no-where. The State Department decided to try again when Marshall was asked to give the Harvard Commencement address. This time it was different as message, messenger and venue reinforced each other. But not immediately. The significance of the speech required an incubation period for fermentation. After all, polls showed the U.S. public was not supportive of the idea.