announcer: washington journal continues. host: welcome back. it has been 75 years since the marshall plan started. welcome back to washington journal, it's been 75 years since the marshall plan started the flow of billions of dollars in usa departments of europe after world war ii. our guest is ben steele, he's the author of the book the marshall plan. don of the cold war. he's also senior fellow of economics at the council on foreign relations and he joins us from new york city. ben, welcome to the program. >> thank you for having me, amy. >> so, describe the economic conditions of europe right at the end of world war ii and what was at stake, both for europe and for the united states. >> conditions were very dire,

quite obviously, there were massive destruction, factories, roads, bridges, canals all destroyed around the continent. most importantly, the inter gate division of labor that we count on in developed countries in order to move food from rural areas to urban areas, to move manufactured products from urban areas to rural areas, that had all broken down. a lot of that owed to massive lawlessness throughout the continent. tens of thousands of people were murdered in just the immediate aftermath of the award -- of the war in extra judicial killings. people who were accused of being collaborators. and the united states was extremely concerned about this.

not just from humanitarian perspective, but from an economic and security perspective. that is, if the european continent could not be stabilized, the united states was very concerned that the people of europe would turn to extreme ideologies. in other words, maybe another form of fascism as and nazi germany or they would turn to soviet style communism. in particular, the united states was very concerned about signs that the soviet union had expansionist aims in europe, asia, and elsewhere. >> before we talk about the marshall plan, tell us about marshall himself. he was a military man before becoming secretary of state. >> yes, he was an army chief of staff under fdr during the war, he played a critical role in or

planning and strategy implementation. after the war, president truman asked him in the beginning of 1947 to take over as secretary of state, so very quickly after that in 1947, general marshall went off for his most important diplomatic mission. that was six weeks of intense negotiations with his soviet counterpart. in moscow the oscars of molotov, the soviet foreign, minister and then with stalin himself. the purpose of those meetings was to finalize the peace treaty for germany which would allow an end to the occupation of the country facilitate

complete american withdrawal of all of its troops from europe. general marshall left moscow in april of 1947 extremely concerned that the soviets were not going to be a cooperative partner, that in fact they wanted to see germany and western europe sink into chaos, which would better help them the silicate their expansionist aims on the continent. so, marshall immediately when he came home plate in motion the plans to rescue restroom europe economic quickly, to try to integrate it and revive its production as quickly as possible so it would be able to provide for its own security and protect the political

integrity of its institutions. >> give us a little bit of specifics as to what the marshall plan proposed and which country specifically to help. >> right, so, general marshall introduced the ideas that became the marshall plan. in general form in a speech at harvard university in june of 1947. the speech was, i should emphasize, very general. it didn't lay out specifics at the time and that was for a very important reason. in fact wo important reasons. first, he wanted the europeans tocooperate on a unified plan to revive their ecomy is. he didn't want there to be 16 separate naional shopping lists thawould be presented to the unid states. for example, that each country should have their own self

sufficient steel industry. you want them to cooperate, to use their resources efficiently, to integrate their economies, to revive trade, and it was important to him that these ideas come from europe so this was not anything that the united states was imposing on europe. second, he was very concerned about the soviet union. he knew that the soviets were not going to be a cooperative partner in such initiative. they might want to get u.s. aid, but they would not participate in an economic and particular integration of the continent. so, he wanted the world to understand that this was an open invitation to europe. no country would be excluded, including the soviet union, but he wanted the soviet union to exclude itself. and in fact that's precisely

what happened. >> and i'll remind our viewers that you can give us a call if you would like to ask a question of our guest. the numbers are by region, so if you are in eastern or central signs of -- mountain in pacific 202748 8001. you can send us texts on our line 202748 8003. then, you mentioned that speech in 1947 at harvard and i wanted to show people a portion of that where he lays out his argument for the plan. >> the united states should do whatever it is able to do, to assist in the return of normal economic -- without which there can be no political stability and no ushered piece. our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine, but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. it's preface should be the

revival of a working economy to prove -- that emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist, such as -- i'm convinced it must might not be on a piecemeal basis as it is developed. any assistance that this government may render in the future should provide a cure rather than a mirror -- any government that is willing to assist in the task of recovery will find full cooperation, i'm sure, on the part of the united states government. any government which maneuvers to block the recovery of other countries cannot expect help from us. [applause] furthermore, the governments political, findings or groups which seek the perpetuation of human misery in order to profit their for politically or otherwise will encounter the

opposition of the united states. >> and, ben, going back to the specifics of the plan, how was the money used? did they, did the united states and cash over? where their specific guidelines as to how the money could be used and in what ways? >> i just wanted to point out with regards to marshall's speech that you notice the applause in the middle. the only applause during martial speech came when he warns without naming the country, the soviet union not to enter fear. you can see already, i call my book the dawn -- the subtitle of the book, the dawn of the cold war, this is really the beginnings of the cold war conflict in the united states and the soviet union. so, over the course of time between june 47, marshall speech, april of 1948 when the

marshall made legislation is passed. the outlines of the program are put together the basics were that there were 13.2 billion dollars dedicated to aiding the participant countries. these were ultimately 16 countries that participated. in current dollars, we're talking about 165 billion dollars. as a percentage of u.s. gdp, that's a percentage of u.s. output, if we were to launch the equivalent of a martial plan today, we would be talking about something approaching a trillion dollars. almost all of this money was in grants, it was not loans, the united states was determined not to dump further debt on

nations that were already indebted. , the scheme was very clever in that it didn't simply write checks. it had complicated counterpart funds i in order to ensure that the money was well used and that the united states or is it didn't dictate the programs would have some say in how the money was used. >> what about waste, fraud, and abuse? plus their oversight of that aid money that went over there? >> there was indeed, but the basic mechanism was such that the incentives were really right on the part of the recipient countries. i'll give you just a brief example of how counterpart funds work. let's say a french farmer needed a tractor and he wanted

to buy that from the united states, it wasn't available locally, he could buy that tractor with his own money and he could biden french francs. the french francs or held by the french central bank. the united states would provide that. there will be no transfer from funds from france to the united states, so the farmer would get the tractor that he indeed wanted, needed, and paid for in order to rebuild his farm. the french central bank would now put it matching money. money that match that money that the farmer had put in and in the french government could use that money for a national development program. the united states, in theory,

had veto power over how that money was used, but ultimately 95% of the decision or left to the national governments and, indeed, the various participant governments chose to use the money in very different ways. >> and we're taking your calls for our guest on our lines by region. so, eastern central time zooms 202748 8000. if you're in the pacific or mountain time zones, that's going to be 202748 8001. you can also text us and you can also reach us on social media. so, ben, how successful was the marshall plan? and in what ways? >> really quite successful. if we just look at the basic statistics from 1948 to 1942, output in this 16 recipient countries expanded by a massive 60%. if you read the early

eulogistic account you get the impression that all of this growth, just massive, quick revival of economic activity on the european continent owed to the dollars of the united states was sending over. that wasn't really the case, it wasn't for some decades until economists started studying the mechanisms behind the marshall plan trying to understand how it actually worked. the basic findings or that it was not the money per se that was an important pump primer to get reconstruction going again, but there was a massive revival of private investment on the continent and there were two reasons behind that. that people often overlook. one was the complete reversal of u.s. occupation policy in

germany in 1944, occupation policy was set according to the so-called morgenthau plan named after treasury secretary tried morgan tile. the idea was to the industrialized germany, turn it into an agricultural country so that it would not be able to threaten its neighbors again. that was a disastrous policy in that it was fueling starvation in germany and it was retarding the revival of its own neighbors economies. france, britain, et cetera or varied pendant on industrial output from germany. there is a complete reversal of that policy and turning germany once again into the industrial engine of an integrated western europe became a critical component of the marshall plan. the second component i want to

emphasize is the provision of u.s. security to the participating countries. france and britain in particular insisted that it was dangerous for them. -- policy without guarantees in the united states for the security because if they integrate it, there will no longer be -- they couldn't protect themselves on their own. so, a year and a day after the marshall a legislation was passed. now we're in april of 1949, the nato founding act legislation was passed. this commitment of the united states of providing security to the participating countries was absolutely critical to their rapid revival. it convinced investors, both in the united states in europe, that the americans weren't

going home as they had after world war i, but we're committed to the ongoing security of western europe. so you see the creation of nato as a direct result of the marshall plan? >> yes, it wasn't unintended result. i have to emphasize that after world war ii has united states out over 3 million troops in europe and president truman began withdrawing the very very quickly. military spending, collapse from 963 billion in 19 45 to 95 billion in 1948. so, the united states was trying to disengage from europe militarily, but our new european allies made clear to us that security commitments from the united states were going to be absolutely critical to first their economic revival and second their ability to

protect the integrity of their own political institutions against potential threats from either a revived germany that might go down a hostile path again or, more importantly now, the soviet union. >> all right, let's talk to colors now. george is in white hall new york. good morning,. towards >> yes, morning. we were talking earlier about the tractors in france. are you aware of the john deere compared manufacturing? it started that time? is that part of? it >> i don't know who were the major tractor manufacturers in the united states. at the time. but it was obvious, given the destruction in europe that a lot of the manufacturer's would have to be provided directly from the united states because the capacity wasn't there in europe but i should emphasize

that the marshall plan was a long term vision. where is in the short term the united states was providing industrial goods, machinery, light tractors to western europe, the aim was to, over time, integrate western europe in -- the economies would be a balanced and germany would be once again put in its place in its natural place as the dominant provider of industrial goods to europe. agriculture would flourish again in the regions where it was most beneficial and the economies of western europe would no longer be dependent on the united states. the united states, in fact, use some very clever means to revive trade in western europe

from 1950 to 1958 well beyond the tenure of the marshall plan, a european payments union was put into place under which the united states guaranteed payments among the various participating nations in order to get them to trade again. for example countries did not want to trade with germany because if you sold something to germany, you're afraid you would never get paid because so many countries i had claims on germany. the united states standing behind those contracts, the united states was able to revive inter european trade in western europe. >> all right, devin's next, he's in westerville ohio. good morning, devin. >> hey, good morning, guys. i was just curious how much you believe the u.s. investing in postwar europe helped lay a

foundation for very positive american western european relations during the cold war as well as help with the foundation of nato? >> absolutely critical and, as i've emphasized, the two things went together. the economic aid and the military guarantees. that wasn't the original intention of the marshall plan. again, the original intention was to allow the united states to disengage militarily from europe. the lesson that we learned very quickly though is that the two things had to go together. if i can just give you a quick example of why those two things go together, consider iraq and afghanistan. since those wars, we have spent 215 billion dollars on reconstruction aid alone. that is about 50 billion dollars more than the totality

of martial aid in current dollars. yet, we have almost nothing to show for it politically and the reason is that we are unable to provide the necessary external and internal security to those countries that would have allowed their economies to develop along the lines that we saw in western europe after world war ii. so, the security element is absolutely imperative. >> ben, i want to ask you about the reaction within the united states to the marshall plan. was congress fully on board? plus the american public on board? >> initially, congress was not on board. we had divided government at the time. we had a democratic president, harry truman, we had a republican house and senate. republican congressman and in particular were quite skeptical

about the idea of using massive foreign aid as a tool to reinforce the u.s. economic and security interests. but the administration launched a massive public relations and education campaign beginning in the fall of 1947 many congressman including republican congressman visited europe to see conditions on the ground. many of them like young congress research distance from california came home convinced that the united states really did have to do something radical, something new, in order to protect its interests in europe without having to depend on the military. general marshall himself traveled around the united states speaking to farms, farm

groups, speaking to women's groups, speaking to labor groups, emphasizing the importance of this aid. then there was also a galvanizing factor in the international sphere. in february of 1948, the soviets instigated a communist crew in czechoslovakia. there had been a coalition government in czechoslovakia at the time. the small the democrats were pushed out, the communist took over. that really come insulin of wavering republican congressmen that they needed to support the marshal aid legislation because if they did not, stalin would use these same tactics further and further west, more and more threatening u.s. security and economic interests. >> all right, let's talk to --

actually before we go to the, phones i wanted to show our viewers a portion of the secretary of state george marshall testifying before congress about the marshall plan in early 1948. >> 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 parties have proclaimed they're determined opposition to a plan for european economic recovery. it is the difficult program. you know far better than i do the political difficulties involved in this program, but there's no doubt whatsoever in my mind that if we decide to do this thing, you can do it successfully. there's also no doubt in my mind that the whole world hangs in the balance.

>> ben, he said the whole world hangs in the balance. >> yes. he very much meant it because this wasn't just the future of western europe that was in doubt, it was the future of asia where we are also had deep security concerns. china was in the midst of a civil war. the soviet union was supporting mao and the communists. of course we had the korean war breakout in in 1950. there is a big debate in the united states about whether we should pursue a neutral japan or whether we should try to turn japan into a u.s. military ally as we, of course, roundup

doing with germany in europe. so, the ideas that we applied in the marshall plan in western europe were ultimately applied in asia as well. >> all right let's talk to brian in fulsome pennsylvania. good morning,. brian >> good morning. thank you for your form here. you sound very knowledgeable about what you're talking about and i do want to go get the book. when i've seen pictures of -- and london, the devastation that world war ii created and the amount of machinery in the productivity of the united states at that time was incredible and i think the warriors helped because we were so mobilized for the war that it allowed us to provide for france england, germany,

whatever countries needed and anyways when i see some pictures of the devastation, i've got to tell you it's not unlike some of the devastation i'm seeing in our inner cities the states of factories, old factories are just shattered and demolished. how are we going to turn a martial plan to our nation and do we have the ability, or will we need foreign help? that's my question. god bless. >> are a,. brian >> well, you make an excellent point. in order to kickstart the reconstruction of europe, and remember, this is just kick starting. we couldn't do this simply with government money. we had to mobilize private investments. the private investment that came into western europe eventually swamped the marshall aid from the united states. what was absolutely critical is

that the united states who is standing behind this reconstruction. the western europeans understood that this was a strategic imperative. so, when we look at problems that we have at home, you talk about the economic devastation and certain inner cities in the united states, it's very important that we have a plan, not just to pump public money in but to give maximum incentive to the private sector to invest in those communities, to make it clear that the government is absolutely determined to make life better for the citizens of those communities. >> lee is in bronx, new york. , highly. >> hi, good morning. you speak of the marshall plan,

i've got to play devils advocate. there's two sides to the stories and security was imperative to russia as well because germany have invaded them twice. , so and it helps fund nato and all of that but whatever your thoughts on the burning blockade and the reasons why they weren't for the small of the and we have to understand that the whole world is not going to be democracy. what do you think is the burning blockade? >> i think you ask an absolutely excellent question. again, i point out that the subtitle of my book is dawn of the cold war, so after marshals speech in june of 1947, you really do get the beginning of

serious cold war conflict between the united states and the soviet union. prior to martial speech, you did have coalition governments of sorts in central and eastern europe in poland, in romania in hungary, in bulgaria and the most legitimate of those was czechoslovakia. as i had mentioned. stalin, after martial speech, became very, very concerned with two things. one, that the united states would spread martial aid to his what -- he called satellite nations in eastern and central europe. use determined that that would not happen so he cracked down on all the coalition governments in such a role in eastern europe and entrenched communist control with regard to germany.

stalin spies in washington and london made clear to him that the united states was reversing occupation policy in germany, was no longer going to be the morgenthau plan. the united states was going to rapidly reindustrialize west germany and might even go on to create an independent capitalist democratic west drummond state, which indeed the united states did in 1949. as you point out, the soviets were very concerned about and industrially revived germany, which they believed would once again reemerge as a military threat to the soviet union. so, i do argue in the book that given the enormous strategic differences between the united states and the soviet union, the cold war was probably inevitable.

there is absolutely no doubt that the marshall plan accelerated the path to the cold war and accelerated the division of europe. all right, james is calling from green bay, wisconsin. good morning, james. >> good morning, how are you today? >> good. >> thank you for taking my call. i want to touch bases, i served in europe for two years in the 1960s and i was a first defended of the -- when i got in a car accident and they assured me out of the country instantly. so, please don't pass my name on. i want to know what the status of forces agreements with europe contributed to the marshall plan? >> i'm not clear what you are referring to in terms of the status is of forces agreement.

there's no doubt, as i've emphasized, the creation of nato. the combining of national military forces in the western europe was critical to the marshall plan, but i'm not quite sure what it is that you're trying to emphasize. >> the forces agreement allowed the civilian governments to take over any military person that they thought committed a crime. they were instantly accused and convicted then from the local government and the marshall plan would never allow that because the marshall plan with the united states or the nato running the whole works. the status of forces agreement was to get the equal protection to the german government of the government issue of people of america. i just kind of thought it was

an interesting question because i left there and i never went back. >> well, there's no doubt that after the creation of the marshall plan and nato there were there are various issues of conflict. sometimes deep conflict among the allies, particularly in the military sphere, but also in the trade sphere. that was anticipated. by the marshall planners. people on both sides of the divide. i can't emphasize enough how much this was intended to be a long term plan where the united states recognize that they were going to be difficulties but that we were trying to create allies. not colonies abroad, not just transactional counterpart, but

allies who would be with us for generations. you had congressman who are openly talking about this being, in fact, a 50 year plan. not a 50-year plan of economic aid from the united states, but a 50 year plan in the sense that we were going to produce alliances in europe and asia that would endure with us through the generations and i think when the berlin wall fell in 1989, we saw just how powerful that vision was because the alliances that had been created by the soviet union after world war ii in particular the warsaw pact crumbled immediately, whereas the alliances that sprung out of the marshall plan, i'm thinking in particular of nato,

but not just nato, the european union because european integration, political integration, was also a key aim of the marshall plan, they became is popular supper,. newly-liberated countries of central and eastern europe were clamoring to get into those institutions. so, that i think is a great legacy of the marshall plan. >> and benn we covered your remarks about this on book tv in an event in 2018 and you called the marshall plan quote, visionary the hardheaded. explain that. >> yeah, the reason that we are talking about the marshall plan today is because we see it as a success. it was a success partly because of the way we had to find the boundaries of the plan. if we had, at the time, define success in terms of being able

to bring say poland and czechoslovakia into the marshall plan, these are two countries that very much wanted to participate, but which stolen would not allow to participate, if we had made that fundamental to the marshall plan, we would not have succeeded and we would not be talking about the marshall plan today. the reason is that we would ultimately have had to go to war with the soviet union in order to even try to achieve that aim. it was a fundamental objective of the marshall plan to secure vital american interests in europe without having to go to war. so we made, some very hardheaded decisions with regards to czechoslovakia, for example. george kennan in the state department predicted the czech coup in november of 1947, just

a few months before it occurred. general marshall made the hardheaded decision not to interfere because he felt that we did not have the conventional force levels necessary, nor would we ever have the contentious no forces necessary and central europe in order to defend czechoslovakia. so, it was sensible to keep out, to understand that geography could not be changed, the united states was not omnipotent. today in europe we are dealing with the same questions with regard to ukraine. to what degree can we ultimately integrate ukraine into western economic, political, and military structures given that it has a long unprotected border with a hostile russia? these are very difficult questions, but the same sort of

questions that we had to deal with in formulating and implementing the marshall plan. >> i want to talk a little bit more about what's going on today because you did mention reconstruction in iraq and afghanistan and we spent a lot of money, didn't get a whole lot for it because of the security situation. what happens when ukraine gets to the point of needing to be re-bill? what lessons do you think we can take from the marshall plan? >> that is a great question. most likely, unfortunately, war in ukraine is not going to end at least not immediately with the peace treaty. it's more likely to be something in the form of an armistice like we have in korea between north and south. unfortunately, it will probably involve russia still occupying parts of ukraine it is very

difficult to imagine, for example, russia abandoning crimea. under the circumstances, it would be very, very difficult to use massive reconstruction of aid in ukraine as a means of stimulating a massive foreign private investment in the country. that would involve integrating it into western political, economic, and military structures that russia is, right now at least, determined to oppose. so, i'm not, by any means, calling for appeasing russia, but we have to understand that there are limits to what we can achieve without some degree of cooperation from russia. i believe we have got to take a

long term vision with regard to reconstructing ukraine. vladimir putin is seven years old, he is not going to be in power forever. we should, in the short term, continue to use economic and diplomatic pressure to try to compel russia to withdraw its forces, to end its aggression against ukraine. ultimately, a productive settle of the conflict will almost certainly require a new administration in russia. >> sherry is next in margaretville, new york. hi, sherry. >> hi there, thank you for taking my call. sir, i was not aware of your book so i actually just ordered at this morning. i am just calling -- i think you probably answered a couple of my questions that i

had mostly about ukraine and the type of cooperation that we can get now to help rebuild it after the conflict is over with. initially i wanted to say that my father was stationed in germany as an mp during world war ii, right after wilbur two in mannheim, and nuremberg, and the war trials. he didn't speak a lot about germany at that time. only that it was a complete mess, just the destruction and then 37 years later i was stationed in the army as the mpa in germany and it was just amazing how you would never know that there is a war there at all. the highway system, the eisenhower brought over to the united states, everything was just so beautiful. originally what my question was is what kinds --

going back to ukraine, what kind of cooperation do you think that we in the united states or nato would get to help rebuild ukraine? i don't think that it would be very much in today's political climate. the right-wing politicians and their supporters are, against sending supplies and money to the ukraine right now to help fight russia. so i was just wondering if you had anything more on that. also, going back -- i'm sorry i'm flip-flopping back and forth, but going back, what kind of cooperation was there with the local populous in germany after world war ii in helping to rebuild their country? where their limitations? when i was there there, we're a

percentage of nationals that we had to hire to work on the post in the base >> we got it cheri. >> one of the many heroes of my thereof is u.s. general loses clay who is the military governor of germany after the war. he deserves enormous credit for reversing u.s. occupation policy in the country and getting the united states to understand that yes indeed we could with a positive vision and economic support make west germany into a democratic peace-loving but -- that's exactly what we did. it was only western germany. we were not able to do it

throughout the entire country. we tried, as i said. general marshall spent six weeks in moscow trying to bring about unification of germany in march and april but that's what -- we are unable to do it so we had to limit the scope of our objectives. in ukraine likewise we are going to have to limit the scope of our objectives at least in the first phase of reconstruction. as i said almost certainly crimea will remain in russian hands. unfortunately we, it is likely that the eastern part of ukraine will still remain under russian occupation. there are creative means that we can use to leverage financial western financial aid to ukraine.

one of the topics that's being discussed very controversial is the possibility of using russian central bank assets that have been frozen abroad. we're talking about roughly 300 billion dollars to reconstruct ukraine but they are very difficult. strategic questions involved in that. obviously, russia will not cooperate and that is one issue. we are also sending the message around the world that if your country holds u.s. dollar assets and you get involved in a geopolitical conflict with the united states there is the possibility that your central bank assets could be seized. that is very important that if we were to do something like this we do it strictly according to legal mechanisms and do it in conjunction with

allies. that is it should not be the united states operating alone, but we should be operating in concert with our western european allies so that the world understands that this is not the united states dictating terms. >> all right, charles is calling from louisville kentucky. hello. good morning. the marshall plan put too much control financially in the hands of the military. it's doing it today. now, you talk about us sending money to france and france distributing it out. okay they're going to frank currency. the goal, says lyme getting all this money from the united

states in gold and it's in frank. so he kept the gold and use the franks -- not franks but the gold. and then he sending it to stalin? and stalin is supposed to be making a plan with czechoslovakia, poland, and all of them. you saw what happened there. he invaded those people. so, the had a lot of this money. but he didn't have it for too long. >> ben, response? >> i'm not clear what you are referring to with regard to the goal and gold. i should emphasize that the goal was not a supporter of the marshall plan and the united states was almost as concerned

as -- 1947 about him coming back into power as they were about the communists in france coming back into the coalition government in there. so, it was central to u.s. strategy in the time that the marshall plan launched to support center, left and center right governments were throughout europe. that is, we were trying to avoid the emergence of extremes on either side. on the right the left. at times that involve very difficult calculations for the united states. for example, in britain the german administration was very much against the british labor government policy of nationalizing certain industries. ultimately, the state department felt it was very

important in the united states strategic interest to make clear to the europeans that the united states respected their sovereignty and that even if we founded this distasteful, even if we didn't think it was sensible, we needed to support at times what the state department called the end c l, the non communist left. that is, we were going to support any parties in europe that were ultimately dedicated to maintaining democracy. as long as they were dedicated to democracy, we were going to support them irrespective of our opinions about whether their policies could be improved. as i emphasized, france, italy, britain did very, very different things with their economic aid. we had a long, quiet behind the scenes dispute with all of those governments about how they use their aid, but

ultimately, 95% of the decisions were made at the local level. >> john in johnstown, pennsylvania. you're next, go right ahead. >> good morning. you get a lot of people in this country bad-mouthing socialism versus communism. the marshall plan was the greatest -- as far as i'm concerned. people helping people, that's what socialism basically is. we have a lot of socialist but our country. the post office in the military and whatever. there's a list of about 30 or 40 things that are socialist decay. people get bad enough socialism should really listen and buy your book and read about the marshall plan. that was probably the greatest example of socialism ever. thank you very much >> well, the republicans in particular were very concerned that the

marshall aid would wind up supporting socialism. it's an ill defined term today. it wasn't able to find term back then, but i should emphasize that the truman administration put in very clever and effective mechanisms to ensure that we weren't helping to promote state run economy is. that's why i gave the example of how aid was used in france. ultimately, aid to france was triggered by a private decision assay a farmer who needed a tractor, who paid with his with his own money. this is not a gift ultimately, the funds that were deposited

with the fronts central bank as a result of that tractor order were leverage into economic development projects within france. again, most of that had to go towards stimulating private economic activity this was really a public private partnership. >> all right, well, that's all the calls that we've got. benn steil is the author of the book, the marshall plan, don of the motion. thanks for having me. >> testify but an ongoing investigation into the agency's 2022 nationwide infant formula crisis response. they will take questions from members of the house oversight subcommittee. watch live at c pm eastern on seeping three, c-span now, our free mobile video app or online at c-span.org.