The Marshall Plan, officially called European Recovery Program (ERP), was in place from April 1948 to September 1951. Most contemporary actors considered that it played an essential role in the economic successes of postwar Western Europe. The various European programs of modernization greatly benefited from the ERP, since it financed imports essential to reconstruction and modernization. It produced counterparts in European currencies, the allocation of which needs to be clarified, and generated a debate on their use. Moreover, the Marshall Plan was at the origin of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC), created to encourage European unity. The Marshall Plan was a political tool in the hands of the American administration in the context of the Cold War and the defense of the West.

For someone who is not an historian, and was only a child when the Marshall Plan helped Europe rebuild itself, it may seem awkward to write about it. Of course, I have been very much interested in the project passionately advocated by Candice Nancel to restore the prestigious Hôtel de Talleyrand, and I learned more about George C Marshall when my wife’s uncle, Bernard Pujo, wrote his first French biography (Pujo, 2003). But this is hardly a qualification to discuss the historical significance of the Marshall Plan.