 Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Walter Matthow. Great men, hallow a whole people, and lift up all who live in their time. Such a man was general of the army, George Catlett Marshall. Recognized as one of the great military planners of all time, he contributed the design for victory in two world wars. After his military career, he enlisted in the service of all mankind. He served brilliantly in this capacity until his death in 1959. Among his many contributions in this area was the Marshall Plan. This expression of brotherhood and humanity was the instrument for European post-war recovery. He was a man of honor and of truth, a soldier, in the finest sense of that word. Mr. Walter Cronkite, the distinguished commentator, now brings us his story. The Marshall family had settled in southwestern Pennsylvania a few years before George Catlett was born in 1880. At Union Town, he entered a slow-moving world that was more a part of the past than of the future. Marshall's boyhood passed quietly, and the only contact this serious child had with the army he would someday serve came second-hand through his father's recollections of the Civil War. America's Indian frontier had only recently been tamed, and the stories of Carson and Custer were still fresh enough to excite the imagination of any boy. Looking backward over the years, it's hard to find the precise reason why young George Marshall decided to make the army his profession. But choose what he did, and he began his soldiering at a soldier's school. The Virginia Military Institute had trained many distinguished army men before George Marshall arrived in September 1897. It once boasted Stonewall Jackson as a member of its faculty. The MI provided the kind of environment calculated to encourage a young man with army ambitions, and Marshall in his four years at the school rose to cadet first captain. He was an honor graduate with a reputation for military skill and knowledge which was to follow him throughout his army career. He was a young man with a passion for facts and the ability to apply them imaginatively. Commissioned an infantry second lieutenant in 1901, Marshall shortly found himself on troop duty in the Philippines. Assignments in Oklahoma Territory, Texas, Massachusetts, and the Fort Leavenworth Staff College filled the early years. He studied and soldiered, and by the time the United States began to mobilize for war in 1916, George Marshall had become a captain in the regular army. He landed in France with the first American troops, and as a member of the First Division staff, he helped plan the battle of Kenting. Chief of operations prior to the Muse-Argonne offensive, Marshall planned the successful movement of almost a million troops, which made the great ally breakthrough possible. Marshall had helped engineer the final victory. Shown here with General Henry Allen, Marshall had risen to full kernel, and his enormous contributions to staff planning were being widely recognized. His work on the Muse-Argonne offensive brought Pershing's personal commendation. The man who designed the Muse-Argonne victory takes a moment to pose with other staff officers in France. His reputation for brilliance distinguished him among his staff colleagues. Marshall emerged from World War I as one of the most promising young officers in the army. Assigned as aide to General Pershing, Marshall's work kept him in close contact with the AEF commander during the last days in Europe. On a post-war battlefield tour, Marshall calls one officer's attention to the cameraman. Signal Corps photographers covering Pershing's activities little realized that the lean young Colonel at his side would someday be as newsworthy a figure as the illustrious Blackjack Pershing. In the late summer of 1919, General Pershing bid farewell to France and boarded the Leviathan for America. With him went Colonel George Marshall. Proud of the reputation he had acquired as a military planning brain, disappointed in the fact that he had been considered too valuable to spare for the combat command he coveted. Pershing recommended Marshall's promotion to Brigadier, but the wars end prevented it. The two things most important to a professional soldier's career, command and promotion, had been denied Marshall, either through unfortunate timing or because the talents he possessed were considered too precious to squander on the battlefield. Marshall's return was a time of triumph and frustration. He had learned the business of war in a tough school and he knew it as few others did, but there was small pleasure in the knowledge. Long after the noise and the shouting when this gay harbor scene had passed into memory and the world would once again take up arms, Marshall would be ready. But as the Leviathan docked in New York, he was still an obscure staff officer with a cinder in his eye. Following Pershing met a constant round of official appearances. These were the years when American defense policies affecting the future security of the nation were being decided. The post-war role of the army was debated by both military and political leaders. Pershing believed in a tight, hard, professional force backed by a large citizen army. Marshall eventually found an enthusiastic supporter. It was this kind of army which had brought victory out of Europe in 1918. As a member of Pershing's Washington staff, Marshall devoted much effort during the next four years toward a realization of the citizen army goal. 1924 brought duty with the 15th Infantry Regiment in Tinson, China. With the commanding officer of the 15th, Colonel Newell, Marshall posed for a rare picture in Mufti. It was his first actual troop assignment in almost ten years. The 15th Infantry was operating well enough when Marshall joined it as executive officer. But by the time he left, it had become a crack outfit. In the middle 20s, China was fragmented by civil war and revolution, and the private armies of Chinese warlords fought in all parts of the land for national advantage. The mission of the 15th Infantry was to help protect both American trading concessions and American lives. It was a tense, but quiet assignment for Marshall, and before he finished his tour, the 15th had acquired a reputation for smart appearance and snappy precision. It could outperform and outshine every other garrison regiment in Tinson. A distinguished faculty at the Fort Benning Infantry School, which included future generals Bradley, Stillwell, and Collins, was under Marshall's direction from 1927 to 1931. When he took over the school, one of the most important in the Army, he found much of the instruction had fallen behind the times. But this hard-driving man with the passion for facts was not satisfied to refight old wars. It was the present and the future which concerned him, and he revised the curriculum accordingly. During the 30s, the world caught fire, ignited by a handful of global arsonists who enjoyed their work. Germany threatened to even the score for her defeat in 1918. On the other side of the world, the Japanese were introducing their neighbors to their own brand of arson. China felt the brutal aggression directed by the Japanese warlords. The Japanese onslaught of China carried out the ambitions and aspirations of a nation bent on territorial conquest. For a while, many of us laughed at a comic opera character speaking from a Roman balcony. But his intended victims in Ethiopia did not laugh. They were a proud and fierce people determined to resist the Italian dictator's aggression. Benito Mussolini invaded the tiny African kingdom anyway, and another piece of earth caught fire. An appeal was made, but no one came forward to answer it. Mussolini demonstrated for his friends how easy it was. The day Germany invaded Poland, George Marshall, then a brigadier general, made the extraordinary jump from one to four stars to become the Army Chief of Staff. With Secretary of War Stimpson, the task of mobilization lay ahead. The resources of a mighty nation had to be tapped to produce the props for the great drama about to unfold. Marshall had waited in the wings for 20 years for the role he was about to play. The country's manpower resources, the great citizen army in which Marshall believed so deeply, had to be activated, trained, and equipped to fight if necessary. And with each passing month in 1940 and 41, it appeared increasingly probable that the United States would be drawn into the war. The army numbered less than 200,000 men when Marshall took over as Chief of Staff. It would swell to more than 8 million before the Axis defeat. The accumulated experience from the early days in the Philippines continued in the Muse Argon, from the staff worked with Pershing and the seasoning in China, from Fort Benning to the National Guard and the CCC during the Depression. The sum total was imaginatively applied by George Marshall, in directing the American Army during the war. It was as if every single year of his career in some way related to the monumental task he undertook. The American military buildup was just beginning to gain momentum when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. At an inspection of the Army's new airborne troops at Fort Bragg in 1942, Marshall gets a close-up view of the citizen soldier at work. Field soldiers never knew when the Chief of Staff might make an appearance such as this one at the Jungle Warfare Training Center in Hawaii. Marshall might do his thinking and planning in Washington, but it was from the field that he drew his facts. A gifted observer, the smallest detail did not escape him. Army subordinates were either proud or dismayed by Marshall's critical appraisal, depending upon the performance. Jungle training was a new experience for American troops, but it was clear from the beginning that in order to win the war in the Pacific, our soldiers had to beat the Japanese at their own game. In the forbidding gray of a November dawn in 1942, American naval vessels ghosted in toward the beaches of North Africa, delivering the first major Allied counter-attack since the outbreak of the war. Their objective? The German-Africa Corps in Tunisia. The enemy was led by Germany's ingenious field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox. His veterans already had been baptized by the battle-tuff and British Tommies. Desperately, with everything they had, the Germans fought to keep from being pushed into the sea. The Allied military advisors convened at Casablanca in January 1943. The North African campaign had become tough and bitter, but the achievement of a unified Allied command was part of the ultimate victory. Marshall had worked tirelessly to achieve a smooth-running command organization at the highest American level. He held the President's trust and regard, and was consulted on every critical decision affecting the conduct of the war. Marshall's diplomatic skill helped reconcile many opposing points of view with British leaders during the Casablanca Conference. From the North African meetings came the Allied decision to bomb Germany around clock. American B-17s helped carry the war to the German backyard. The decision to invade Sicily also was reached, and in July of 1943, Americans and British jumped off from Africa on the preliminary leg to the first assault on Fortress Europe, the Italian mainland. A strong partisan for the Women's Army Corps, as important to our mobilization, the Chief of Staff made it a point to be in Washington the day Colonel Obita Kulp hobby was sworn in as his new commander. By the time the Allied leaders convened at Cairo in December 1943, the Italian campaign was well underway, and the war against the Japanese demanded stepped-up operations. The future of the China-Burma-India theater and the problem of harnessing China's manpower had to be resolved. At Tehran, Marshall took part in planning joint strategy with the Russians. Soviet demands for an expanded second front were addressed to the United States. It was George Marshall who answered. When the Chief of Staff visited the Pacific Theater on his return from Tehran, our offensive was gaining speed. Island by island, we were moving in on Japan. At Goodenough Island in 1944, Marshall listened to a firsthand report on the successful operations in the Gilbert Islands and the planned invasion of the Marshalls. Marshall conferred with General Douglas MacArthur, theater commander, as the Allies were gearing for the big Pacific push which would carry them to the very doorstep of Japan. Italy had become a slow and painful struggle. The road to Rome was a long one, and for Marshall and his wife, one of extreme personal anxiety. As a tank commander under pattern, Marshall's stepson had been engaged in the heaviest fighting for weeks. When the Americans finally broke through the lines of a stubborn enemy, the young officer fought his last fight. For General Marshall, the war had turned into a personal tragedy. When the spring of 1944 brought the long-planned invasion of France, Marshall accompanied General Eisenhower and other high-ranking officers ashore for an inspection of the American positions on the Normandy beachhead. Fifteen stars till this corporal's jeep was Admiral King and Generals Marshall, Bradley and Eisenhower, ride out to survey the battle damage. On this trip, Marshall takes a few moments to visit an old friend, the colorful ex-Calvaryman Patton, whose fast-moving armored columns had many times torn great holes in the German defenses. Marshall considered Patton one of the ablest field commanders in the Army, and the Chief of Staff had personally ordered the Mercurial General to his original combat assignment in North Africa. The subsequent performance of the troops under Patton's command confirmed General Marshall's wise choice. Allied planners met again in 1944, this time at Quebec. A decision was reached to move the invasion of the Philippines three months ahead of schedule. Marshall returned from Quebec to fly immediately to Paris with Secretary of State James Burns for another meeting with General Eisenhower. The Chief of Staff was involved with the vast and complicated problem of our global supply lines, and he chose to inspect the divisions poised for the final thrust into Germany. A minor slack in the line of supply at this moment could cause a major military disaster, and Marshall knew all these facts at both ends of the line. The price of victory was far too high to risk delay. The trip to Europe provided Marshall with another opportunity, a chance to talk with the troops. He spoke informally to American soldiers who had faced the toughest tests in history and triumph. Marshall inspected their positions within range of the enemy, his last close look before the Axis collapsed. World War II ended with the final capitulation of Japan. When President Truman presented Marshall with the Distinguished Service Medal in 1945, he said that although millions gave America extraordinary service, Marshall gave it victory. 1945 also saw Marshall dispatch to China as the President's special representative to negotiate a truce between Chiang Kai-shek and the Communists. General Eisenhower, then Chief of Staff, visited his former boss during the negotiations. This was the first time Marshall officially functioned as a diplomat, but the role was not unfamiliar. Although the Army had been his profession, his country's interest had always been his career. Marshall received the oath of office as Secretary of State from Chief Justice Vincent early in 1947. The President enthusiastically endorsed the former Chief of Staff at a critical time in history. It was fairly said that Mr. Truman selected him not because of his experience, but because he was Marshall. There's nothing that I can say at this time regarding matters that pertain to my position in the State Department, but I assume the duties were the feeling of great responsibility and a very earnest desire to carry out the foreign policy of this government in the manner that has been so splendidly exemplified by my predecessor, Mr. Burns, my old friend. The new Secretary brought imagination and a dignified intensity to his job, which was equal to the World Challenge. In March 1947, Marshall headed a delegation to Moscow whose mission was the peace agreement on Germany and Austria. The opportunity to observe the Russian bear in his native environment was valuable in view of increasing Soviet hostility. Russia already loomed as the largest question mark in America's future. The desperate economic plight of Europe drew Marshall's whole attention upon his return, and his recommendations were presented to the Congress. Europe is still emerging from the devastation and dislocation of the most destructive war in history. Within its own resources, Europe cannot achieve, within a reasonable time, economic stability. The solution would be much easier, of course, if all the nations of Europe were cooperating, but they are not. Far from cooperating, the Soviet Union and the Communist Party have proclaimed their determined opposition to a plan for European economic recovery. Economic distress is to be employed to further political aims. There are many who accept the picture that I have just drawn, but who raise a further question. Why must the United States carry so great a load in helping Europe? The answer is simple. The United States is the only country in the world today which has the economic power and productivity to furnish the needed assistance. The 6th and 8th billion proposed for the first 15 months is less than a single month's charge of the war. To be quite clear, this unprecedented endeavor of the New World to help the old is neither sure nor easy. It is the calculated risk. It is the difficult program. And you know far better than I do the political difficulties involved in this program. But there's no doubt whatever in my mind that if we decide to do this thing, we can do it successfully. The great rebel heaps left by the war were soon diminished by an American investment in international friendship and goodwill, which also proved to be an effective economic weapon against spreading communism. The Marshall Plan. Offered on a self-help basis, Marshall Plan aid enabled many war-ravaged countries to regain their first foothold on a stable peacetime economy. Trade and production were stimulated, and communist plans which were dependent upon poverty and despair for their success were thwarted in many parts of the world. George Marshall resigned as Secretary of State in January 1949, intending to relax for the first time in almost 50 years. But the National Red Cross called upon him for one further task in the public interest when it asked him to serve as its head. Meeting with Bolio Foundation Chief Basil O'Connor at the White House, Marshall outlined his plans for this vast mercy organization. Less than one year later, the President persuaded him to return to the government as Secretary of Defense. He flew to Korea where he met with General Ridgway and other UN leaders. The man with the passion for facts was gathering them firsthand. This was a different American army than Marshall had known, and a different kind of war. The citizen soldier did the fighting in Korea, but this time under a UN banner and for a limited objective. In Washington, Marshall assumed the critical responsibility for all of the men and material necessary for victory in Korea. The peculiar circumstances of the conflict called for the existence of large American forces without total mobilization in the United States. Once more, George Marshall, the statesman, distinguished himself. Relaxation was rare for the busy cabinet member, but to the delight of a pretty queen, he did manage to officiate at the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival in 1951. On the 50th anniversary of his graduation, VMI paid tribute to General Marshall with a day named in his honor. Many of his old classmates came to Lexington to applaud the school's most distinguished graduates and recall their years as members of the cadet corps. After a howitzer salute to the soldier statesman, the entire body of cadet stood at attention while Marshall was awarded Virginia's distinguished service medal by Governor John Battle. Then, the man whose life represents the highest ideals of the cadet corps inspected the ranks of men who may be tomorrow's leaders. George Catlett Marshall resigned from the Defense Department and settled in Leesburg, Virginia in 1951. His public service spanned a critical half-century for our country, placing him on the ranks of great American patriots.