Gordon, A. Lincoln – 1988
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The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR A. LINCOLN GORDON Interviewed by: Melbourne Spector Initial interview date: January 12, 1988 Copyright 1998 A ST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background 1 47 Conception of the Marshall Plan Teaching at Harvard University Tyler Wood War Production Board Baruch Plan European response to Marshall)s speech Robert Marjolin State Department, Creating the Marshall Plan 1 47-1 .2 European Coal Committee Mariam Capp European Emergency Committee for Europe European Coal rationing 0nterim Aid Package Congressional participation Secretary Marshall)s personality President Truman Paul Hoffman Averell Harriman Congressional opposition 1ondon2 England3 Chief of the Marshall Plan Mission 1 .2-1 .. Senator McCarthy Diplomatic rankings Walton Butterworth Robert Hartley Policy Planning Staff Need for special Mission William T. Batt Conversion to European 7NATO8 defense support Dollar shortage 1 Refugees West 9ermany economy Marshall Plan organi:ation and operations Communications arrangements with State Richard Bissell Use of Counterpart funds Problems of Missions) organi:ation Volume of funds Budget Bureau Program officers OECD Executive Director Robert Marjokin Jean Monnet Organi:ation for Economic Cooperation and Development 7OECD8 Organi:ation of Committees and Councils Protocol issues Averell Harriman)s influence 9ermany Mission re-organi:ation 1everage from economic aid Paris2 France3 Head of Marshall Plan Program Division 1 4 -1 .2 Averell Harriman Korean War European Payments Union State/Defense department tension Defense Secretary 1ouis Johnson European Defense Community 7EDC8 Council of NATO ambassadors Wisemen)s Committee Technical Assistance Program 7TCA8 National Advisory Committee on 0nternational Financial Agreements Breton Woods Agreement Office of the Director of Mutual Security Senator Otto Passman Military assistance to Europe 0ranian oil and Mossadegh China enters Korean War Elmer Stats Defense Production Agency 1ondon2 England, Chief of Marshall Plan Mission 1 .2-1 .. Ambassador Winthrop Aldrich Secretary of State Dulles 2 Washington2 DC 1 ..- Harold Stassen Security with-hunt Alliance for Progress Foreign Aid Appropriations Passman INTERVIEW ": This is the first interview in a proposed series of interviews focusing specifically on the organi%ation and the administration of the Marshall Plan. Lincoln Gordon is eminently qualified to spea, to this. For just a little bit of his bac,ground, he was a Rhodes Scholar. He was professor at Harvard 1niversity. He held numerous jobs during the war effort in 2ashington. He was in on the founding of the Marshall Plan and NATO. 0e has been a president of a prestigious university, Johns Hop,ins. He5s been an Ambassador to Bra%il, Assistant Secretary for Inter7American Affairs and many other things. He has written numerous boo,s. He is a diplomat, scholar and administrator. I had the pleasure of ,nowing Mr. Gordon when I served in the Marshall Plan in 2ashington and Paris. Linc, to quote Mr. Acheson, 8you were present at the creation.8 I5ll turn it over to you. 9ORDON3 Well that's true. 0 wasn't present at the conception of the Marshall Plan2 if we're going to use these biological analogies2 but 0 was present shortly after the birth. No 0 guess 0'd put it further back2 0 was present shortly after the conception2 during most of the period of gestation, and certainly at the birth and during the period of infancy and adolescence and maturity2 and at the very end2 the termination. So 0 saw it through all the life stages except for the thinking which went into the idea2 the need for a Marshall Plan before Marshall's famous speech of June 1 47. For that you must consult others. My involvement started with a telephone call from C. Tyler Wood about two weeks after Marshall's speech. 0 was in Cambridge2 0 think 0 was correcting examinations at Harvard that early summer of 1 47. Ty Wood had been a reserve army officer. He was a New Aork stockbroker2 but he was2 of course2 called into the service during the war. He had worked on 9eneral Clay's staff in the Army Service Forces2 and he was one of their representatives to the War Production Board. My war-time experience was in various jobs in the War Production Board. 0n the latter part 0 was first Deputy Program Vice Chairman and finally Program Vice Chairman2 Chairman of the ReBuirements Committee2 which involved a whole bunch of claimant agencies. Ty Wood represented the Army at one level on committees that 0'd chaired. We struck up a considerable friendship2 and found that as 1 44 and 4. were getting on that we were turning our thoughts to what would happen after the war. We would have lunch 3 from time to time2 perhaps every two or three weeks2 and talked about various post-war problems and possibilities. And then 0 lost track of him. 0 went back to Cambridge at the beginning of 1 4C. 0 was supposed to be working on a book on industrial mobili:ation during the war. 0 was distracted from that for six months in the second half of 1 4C by a reBuest from another wartime acBuaintance to work on Bernard Baruch's delegation to the U.N. Atomic Energy Commission. So 0 add that to the biographical notes. 0t was a fascinating experience. 0t was the United Nations' first year. My boss there was Ferdinand Eberstadt2 who had been a spectacular Vice Chairman of the War Production Board for a few months at a critical time early in the war2 in 1 42. Eberstadt was a very close friend and advisor to Baruch. So this call from Ty Wood about two weeks after Marshall's speech 7it must have been about June 20th 1 478 came out of the blue. He said that he had decided not to go back to New Aork and private life. The State Department had offered him a position working on raw materials2 trade in raw materials. He'd moved up very rapidly2 and was then Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Affairs. His boss was Willard Thorp2 who was the Assistant Secretary for Economic Affairs2 who is still living, Ty Wood is not. Over both of them in a sense was the interesting figure of the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs2 Will Clayton. ": Oh yes. 9ORDON3 Of course he was a very famous figure and much involved in the Marshall Plan's earliest phase2 although he didn't stay very long. He left the department fairly soon thereafter. Ty Wood asked me whether 0 had been present at the Harvard Commencement and heard Marshall's speech2 which 0 had not. He asked whether 0'd read it2 which 0 had. He asked whether 0 had any notion of how important it was2 and 0 said2 EWell2 it seems to be important2 but 0 don't know much about the details.E He said2 E1et me tell you2 this is the most important thing in American foreign policy for the next four years2 and we need help desperately to convert it from a gleam in the eye into an operating program. Can you come down and spend the summer working with us on thisFE Well2 0 had had exactly the same experience a year earlier on the Baruch Plan. 0 was beginning to get behind on my work at Harvard. 0 had a new appointment then at the Harvard Business School2 and they had in effect given me a year's leave before 0 had any teaching duties in order to produce this book about industrial mobili:ation. That book never got done. 4 So 0 replied to Ty Wood that 0 was very reluctant. He said2 EWell2 when you're in Washington anyway2 come and see me.E 0 went in a couple of weeks later2 just after the fourth of July. He had a big office in what used to be called the State2 War2 and Navy Building2 now the old Executive Office Building. He had his desk in one corner and a conference table at the other end of the room. He'd piled up at one corner of it a whole stack of cables. And he said2 EBefore we talk2 just sit down and leaf through those. Read some of them.E These were the current cables from the main European capitals. 0t was early July. By that time2 in response to Marshall's speech2 Ernest Bevin of England and 9eorges Bidault of France had jointly summoned a conference in Paris to consider an organi:ed collective response. They had invited all of the European countries except 9ermany 7which was an occupied country then82 including the Soviet Union and the East Europeans. At the moment that 0 called on Ty Wood the Russians were just deciding not to have anything to do with the Marshall Plan2 to walk out of the conference2 and to drag the C:echs and the Poles rather unwillingly behind them. But the cables also included the reports from Will Clayton2 who was traveling around Europe about the conditions, the state of France and 0taly particularly. Britain obviously had much less physical destruction2 but still a lot from the bombardments. But the 1ow Countries were also in bad shape. For anybody interested in Europe2 those cables demanded some kind of response. 0'd had my three years of graduate work in Europe at Oxford2 traveling on the continent of Europe every summer and many of the other holidays. 0 had spent the war not fighting there2 as 0 could have physically2 but in 1 43 there was a reBuest from the President for a draft deferral for me2 because by that time 0 was well up in the ranks of the War Production Board.