On the morning of June 5, 1947, The New York Times informed its readers that Secretary of State George C. Marshall would be delivering Harvard's Commencement address that afternoon. "He is expected to deliver a speech which perhaps will include an important pronouncement on foreign affairs," the paper reported.

The statement proved correct, though incredibly understated. For the 2185 candidates for Harvard degrees who graduated that day were sent into the world with a message from the country's top diplomat that has had powerful implications on the shape of international relations until the present day. It is appropriate then that the speaker at today's Commencement, which celebrates the 40th anniversary of that pronouncement, be the leader of West Germany--one of the nations most aided by America post-War altruism as embodied in the Marshall Plan.

Sharing the stage in Tercentenary Theatre at the 296th Commencement with such honorands as T. S. Eliot '10 and J. Robert Oppenheimer, the former general unveiled a policy for reconstructing the European nations, devastated by the ravages of World War II. He pledged a commitment of U.S. aid to all European nations in order to combat "hunger, poverty, degeneration and chaos."

The speech provided Europeans with a will to prepare for the future. As German Chancellor Helmut Kohl said in a recent speech, Marshall's words were instrumental in providing Germans with "hope and faith in the future at a time of dire misery."

Scholars of United States international relations hail the plan, and its author, for exhibiting a sense of idealism that was tempered with shrewd diplomacy. They say that the Marshall Plan confirmed that the victorious American government would be committed to pursuing the role of a leader among nations.

But it was not simply an altruistic gesture to help Europe rebuild. Scholars say the plan was a farsighted strategy for building up an American-led European alliance which would be immune to the threat of communist influence.

As Dillon Professor of International Affairs Joseph S. Nye Jr. says, "It was like a poket game in which we had a lot of chips. It was far-sighted to realize that re-distribution of the chips was in our interest."

Thus, while the plan led to the revitalization of Europe and the coming of what has been 40 years of American dominance in world affairs, the Marshall Plan even more than the Truman Doctrine is responsible for confirming the divisions in Europe between East and West which have proven "almost insuperable," foreign policy experts say.

Few in the Commencement Day audience anticipated that such important consequences would flow from the 15-minute address. The speech was well-received by the soon-to-be Harvard graduates, receiving a particularly loud ovation following Marshall's vow to withhold economic assistance from any "governments, political parties or groups which seek to perpetuate human misery in order to profit therefrom politically or otherwise."

While Marshall's plea was the Times' lead story and warranted favorable same-day editorial comment, for the most part the full implications of what has come to be known as the Marshall Plan went unnoticed. In the words of one scholar of the era, it was "a singularly undramatic speech."

Stimson Professor of Law Emeritus Milton Katz '27, who headed the administration of the Marshall Plan's European offices for a period of time, was present for the Commencement address. "I sat there under the sunshine and, I'm ashamed to say. I thought it was very interesting but I was not struck by the overwhelming importance of it," he says.

But Katz soon found himself in the thick of administering a program for rejuvenating Europe that he terms "a high moment in the conduct of American foreign policy."

The speech provided only the rough outline for the program which was to pump into 16 European nations what would be the equivalent today of $60 billion current. The money revived their economies and created an allied Western front which has stood with relative stability for the last four decades.

A corps of young economists--inspired by the theories of John Maynard Keynes--civil servants and diplomats jumped at the opportunity to work for the Europeans from central offices in Paris and Washington. The excitement over the implementation of the plan reflected the nation's belief at the time "that intelligent action can be immensely helpful and not just muck things up," says Professor of History Charles S. Maier, who is currently working on a history of the era.

"In the late 1940's you had just won the war, licked unemployment, and there was no reason to believe that Europe couldn't do the same if it would just pull its socks up," Maier says.