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General of the Army George C. Marshall, U.S. Army
December 31, 1880 – October 16, 1959 (aged 78)
Place of birth	Uniontown, Pennsylvania
Place of death	Washington, D.C.
Allegiance	United States of America
Years of service	1901–1945
Rank	General of the Army
Commands	Army Chief of Staff
Battles/wars	Philippines, World War I, World War II
Awards	Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star
Other work	Secretary of State; Secretary of Defense

George Catlett Marshall, Jr. (December 31, 1880 – October 16, 1959) was an American military leader, Secretary of State, and the third Secretary of Defense. Once noted as the "organizer of victory" by Winston Churchill for his leadership of the Allied victory in World War II,^[1] Marshall supervised the U.S. Army during the war and was the chief military adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. As Secretary of State he gave his name to the Marshall Plan, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953.^[2]

Contents 1 Early life 2 World War I 3 Between World War I and II 4 Post War: China and Secretary of State 5 Secretary of Defense; attacked by McCarthy 6 References 7 See also 8 External links

George C. Marshall was born into a middle-class family in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. Marshall was a scion of an old Virginia family, as well as a distant relative of former Chief Justice John Marshall. Marshall graduated from the Virginia Military Institute (VMI),^[3] where he was initiated into the Kappa Alpha Order, in 1901.

Following graduation from VMI, Marshall was commissioned a Second Lieutenant the U.S. Army. Until World War I, he was posted to various positions in the US and the Philippines, and was trained in modern warfare. During the war, he had roles as a planner of both training and operations. He went to France in the summer of 1917 as the director of training and planning for the 1st Infantry Division. In mid-1918, he was promoted to American Expeditionary Forces headquarters, where he worked closely with his mentor General John J. Pershing and was a key planner of American operations. He was instrumental in the design and coordination of the Meuse-Argonne offensive, which contributed to the defeat of the German Army on the Western Front.

In 1919, he became an aide-de-camp to General John J. Pershing. Between 1920 and 1924, while Pershing was Army Chief of Staff, Marshall worked in a number of positions in the US Army, focusing on training and teaching modern, mechanized warfare. Between WWI and World War II, he was a key planner and writer in the War Department, spent three years in China, and taught at the Army War College. From June 1932 - June 1933 he was the Commanding Officer at Fort Screven, Savannah Beach, Georgia, now named Tybee Island. In 1934, then-Col. Marshall directed the publication of Infantry in Battle. a book that codified the lessons of World War I. Infantry in Battle is still used as an officer's training manual in the Infantry Officer's Course, and was the training manual for most of the infantry officers and leaders of World War II.

Marshall was promoted to Brigadier General in October 1936. He commanded the Vancouver Barracks in Vancouver, Washington from 1936-1938. Nominated by President Franklin Roosevelt to be Army Chief of Staff, Marshall was promoted to full General and sworn in on September 1, 1939, the day German forces invaded Poland, which began World War II. He would hold this post until the end of the war in 1945.

As Chief of Staff, Marshall oversaw the largest military expansion in U. S. history, inheriting an outmoded, poorly equipped army of 200,000 men and, partly drawing from his experience teaching and developing techniques of modern warfare as an instructor at the Army War College, coordinated the large-scale expansion and modernization of the U. S. army into a force of over eight million soldiers by 1942 (a forty-fold increase within three years).

On December 16, 1944, Marshall became the first American general to be promoted to 5 star rank, the newly created General of the Army. He was the second American to be promoted to a 5 star rank, as William Leahy was promoted to Fleet Admiral the previous day. This position is the American equivalent rank to Field Marshal. Marshall once joked that he was glad the U.S. never created a Field Marshal rank during World War II, since he would then have to be addressed as Marshal Marshall.^{[citation needed]}

During World War II, Marshall was instrumental in getting the U.S. Army and Army Air Corps reorganized and ready for combat. Marshall wrote the document that would become the central strategy for all Allied operations in Europe, selected Dwight Eisenhower as Supreme Commander in Europe, and designed Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy. His success in working with Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, along with his refusal to lobby for the position, ultimately resulted in his being passed over as the Supreme Allied Commander in charge of the D-Day invasion. At the time, the President told him: "I didn't feel I could sleep at ease if you were out of Washington."^[4]

Throughout the remainder of World War II, Marshall coordinated Allied operations in Europe and the Pacific. He was characterized as the organizer of Allied victory by Winston Churchill. Time Magazine named Marshall Man of the Year in 1944. Marshall resigned his post of Chief of Staff in 1945, but did not retire, as regulations stipulate that Generals of the Army remain on active duty for life.

George C. Marshall
50th United States Secretary of State
In office 21 January 1947 – 20 January 1949
President	Harry S. Truman
Preceded by	James F. Byrnes
Succeeded by	Dean Acheson
3rd Secretary of Defense
In office 21 September 1950 – 12 September 1951
President	Harry S. Truman
Preceded by	Louis A. Johnson
Succeeded by	Robert A. Lovett
Born	December 31, 1880(1880-12-31)
Died	October 16, 1959
Political party	Democratic
Religion	Episcopalian[5]

In December 1945, Truman sent Marshall to China to broker a coalition government between the Communists under Mao Zedong and America's Nationalist allies under Chiang Kai-shek. Marshall had no leverage over the Communists, but threatened to withdraw American aid essential to the Nationalists. Both sides rejected his proposals and the Chinese Civil War escalated, with the Communists winning in 1948. His mission a failure, he returned in January of 1947.^[6][7] As Secretary of State in 1947-48, Marshall seems to have disagreed with strong opinions in the Pentagon and State department that Chiang's success was vital to American interests, insisting that U.S. troops not become involved.

On his return in early 1947, Truman appointed Marshall Secretary of State. He became the spokesman for the State Department's ambitious plans to rebuild Europe. On June 5, 1947 in a speech[1] at Harvard University, he outlined the American plan. The European Recovery Plan, which became known as the Marshall Plan, would help Europe quickly rebuild and modernize its economy on American lines. Truman wanted to call the plan the Truman Plan,^{[citation needed]} but was warned that the plan would sink before it took off if named that. Truman thought of the idea to call it the Marshall Plan.^{[citation needed]} The Soviet Union forbade its satellites to participate.

Marshall was again named TIME's Man of the Year in 1948, and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953. As Secretary of State, Marshall strongly opposed recognizing the State of Israel, telling President Truman, "If you (recognize the state of Israel) and if I were to vote in the election, I would vote against you."[2][3] In 1949, he resigned from the State Department and was named president of the American National Red Cross.

When the early months of the Korean War showed how poorly prepared the Defense Department was, Truman fired Secretary Louis A. Johnson and named Marshall as Secretary of Defense in September 1950. His main role was to restore confidence. He served in that post for less than one year, retiring from politics for good in September 1951. In 1953, he represented America at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.

On June 14, 1951, as the Korean war stalemated in heavy fighting between American and Chinese forces, Republican Senator Joe McCarthy attacked. He charged that Marshall was directly responsible for the "loss of China," as China turned from friend to enemy.^[8] McCarthy said the only way to explain why the U.S. "fell from our position as the most powerful Nation on earth at the end of World War II to a position of declared weakness by our leadership" was because of "a conspiracy so immense and an infamy so black as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man."^[9] McCarthy said that "If Marshall were merely stupid, the laws of probability would dictate that part of his decisions would serve this country's interest." McCarthy argued that General Albert Coady Wedemeyer had prepared a wise plan that would keep China a valued ally, but that it had been sabotaged; "only in treason can we find why evil genius thwarted and frustrated it."^[10] McCarthy suggested that Marshall was old and feeble and easily duped; he did not charge Marshall with treason. Specifically McCarthy alleged:

Insert the text of the quote here, without quotation marks.

• "God bless democracy! I approve of it highly but suffer from it extremely. This incidentally is not for quotation." -- George Marshall (Marshall to Spencer L. Carter, 14 June 1948, Marshall Research Library, Lexington, VA.)
• "I couldn't sleep nights, George, if you were out of Washington." -Franklin D. Roosevelt, reported by Henry Stimson, 1943
• "...what a joy it must be to [Marshall] to see how the armies he called into being by his own genius have won immortal renown. He is the true 'organizer of victory.’" Winston Churchill, 1945
• "A man devoted to the daily study of war on several continents with all the ardour of a certified public accountant." - Alistair Cooke, 1959
• "Hitherto I had thought of Marshall as a rugged soldier and a magnificent organizer and builder of armies - the American Carnot. But now I saw that he was a statesman with a penetrating and commanding view of the whole scene." - Winston Churchill

• Saving Private Ryan
• Marshall Space Flight Center
• Marshall Mission to China
• The George C. Marshall Foundation
• German Marshall Fund
• George C. Marshall High School
• USS George C. Marshall (SSBN-654)

• Brief biography at the official Nobel Prize site
• The Marshall Foundation
• The Marshall Plan Speech MP3
• The Marshall Films Collection
• Marshall Scholarships
• The Marshall Plan Speech
• Dodona Manor
• "George C. Marshall: Soldier of Peace" (Smithsonian Institution)
• Annotated bibliography for George Marshall from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
• The Last Salute: Civil and Military Funeral, 1921-1969, CHAPTER XIX, General of the Army George C. Marshall, Special Military Funeral, 16-20 October 1959 by B. C. Mossman and M. W. Stark
• City of Vancouver, Washington's "General George C. Marshall and Vancouver" page

Military offices
Preceded by Malin Craig	Chief of Staff of the United States Army 1939 – 1945	Succeeded by Dwight D. Eisenhower
Political offices
Preceded by James F. Byrnes	United States Secretary of State Served Under: Harry S. Truman 1947 – 1949	Succeeded by Dean Acheson
Military offices
Preceded by Louis A. Johnson	United States Secretary of Defense Served Under: Harry S. Truman 1950 – 1951	Succeeded by Robert A. Lovett
Honorary titles
Preceded by Joseph Stalin	Time's Man of the Year 1943	Succeeded by Dwight Eisenhower
Preceded by James F. Byrnes	Time's Man of the Year 1947	Succeeded by Harry Truman

v • d • e Chiefs of Staff of the United States Army
Young • Chaffee • Bates • Bell • Wood • Wotherspoon • Scott • Bliss • March • Pershing • Hines • Summerall • MacArthur • Craig • Marshall • Eisenhower • Bradley • Collins • Ridgway • Taylor • Lemnitzer • Decker • Wheeler • Johnson • Westmoreland • Palmer • Abrams • Weyand • Rogers • Meyer • Wickham • Vuono • Sullivan • Reimer • Shinseki • Schoomaker • Casey

v • d • e United States Secretaries of State

Jefferson • Randolph • Pickering • J Marshall • Madison • Smith • Monroe • Adams • Clay • Van Buren • Livingston • McLane • Forsyth • Webster • Upshur • Calhoun • Buchanan • Clayton • Webster • Everett • Marcy • Cass • Black • Seward • Washburne • Fish • Evarts • Blaine • Frelinghuysen • Bayard • Blaine • Foster • Gresham • Olney • Sherman • Day • Hay • Root • Bacon • Knox • Bryan • Lansing • Colby • Hughes • Kellogg • Stimson • Hull • Stettinius • Byrnes • G Marshall • Acheson • Dulles • Herter • Rusk • Rogers • Kissinger • Vance • Muskie • Haig • Shultz • Baker • Eagleburger • Christopher • Albright • Powell • Rice

v • d • e United States Secretaries of Defense
Forrestal • Johnson • Marshall • Lovett • Wilson • McElroy • T Gates • McNamara • Clifford • Laird • Richardson • Schlesinger • Rumsfeld • Brown • Weinberger • Carlucci • Cheney • Aspin • Perry • Cohen • Rumsfeld • R Gates

v • d • e Nobel Peace Prize Laureates
Léon Jouhaux (1951) • Albert Schweitzer (1952) • George Marshall (1953) • United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (1954) • Lester B. Pearson (1957) • Georges Pire (1958) • Philip Noel-Baker (1959) • Albert Lutuli (1960) • Dag Hammarskjöld (1961) • Linus Pauling (1962) • International Red Cross and Red Crescent (1963) • Martin Luther King, Jr. (1964) • UNICEF (1965) • René Cassin (1968) • International Labour Organization (1969) • Norman Borlaug (1970) • Willy Brandt (1971) • Henry Kissinger / Le Duc Tho (1973) • Seán MacBride / Eisaku Satō (1974) • Andrei Sakharov (1975)
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