John Gimbel (2) (1922–1992)

2421 The Origins of the Marshall Plan, by John Gimbel (read 16 Nov 1991) This is a 1976 book by a California history professor. It is poorly organized but shows a lot of research in papers of key people in the 1945 to 1948 period. Really too specialized for me, since I have read very little in the period--after all, I lived through it. The author's thesis is that France, rather than Russia, was the main obstacle to U.S. plans for Germany in 1945-1947. When General Marshall gave his June 5, 1947, speech at Harvard there was no plan--it was rather haphazardly developed in the weeks after that. Regardless of this author's rather critical view of what was done, today we cannot help but feel things were done right by the U.S. as concerned with Russia during the period 1945 to 1991.… (mehr)