George C. Marshall

George Catlett Marshall was born on December 31, 1880, in Uniontown, PennsylvaniaPennsylvaniaPennsylvania (officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania) is a Middle Atlantic state of the United States; its capital is Harrisburg, and Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are its two great metropolitan areas. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on December 12, 1787, the second state to do so. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 13,002,700.Open the full entry, about 40 miles south-southeast of Pittsburgh. He was the younger son of a father who was a prosperous coke and coal merchant during his boyhood but later ran into financial difficulties.⁠[1][2]

From September 1897 to June 1901 he attended the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, VirginiaVirginiaVirginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state whose capital is Richmond. It entered the Union on June 25, 1788, as the 10th state, and had a population of 8,631,393 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry, where he was first captain of the Corps of Cadets in 1900–1901; he graduated 15th of 34 in the class of 1901.⁠[1][3][4]

He was commissioned a second lieutenant on February 2, 1902, served in the Philippine Islands from May 1902 to November 1903 and at Fort Reno, Oklahoma Territory, from December 1903 to August 1906, and was promoted to first lieutenant in March 1907. At Fort Leavenworth he was an honor graduate of the Infantry-Cavalry School in 1907 and graduated first in his class from the Army Staff College in 1908.⁠[3][1]

From June 1917 to July 1918 he served in France with the 1st Division of the American Expeditionary Forces as assistant chief of staff and then chief of staff for operations (G-3), on the St. Mihiel, Picardy and Cantigny fronts; afterward, at AEF headquarters, he won praise for planning the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives.⁠[1][3]

From May 1919 to July 1924 he was aide-de-camp to General John J. Pershing in Washington, D.C.⁠[1][2]

From August 1924 to September 1927 he was executive officer and later commanding officer of the 15th Infantry at Tientsin, China. From November 1927 to June 1932 he was assistant commandant of the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia. From July to October 1933 he commanded Fort Moultrie and District “I” of the Civilian Conservation Corps, and in August 1936 he was promoted to brigadier general.⁠[1]

From July 1938 he served as assistant chief of staff, War Plans Division, and then as deputy chief of staff. Named Army chief of staff by Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) was an American politician who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 to 1945, the only president elected four times; he led the country through the Great Depression and World War II and greatly expanded the federal government’s role through the New Deal.Open the full entry, he was sworn in on September 1, 1939, with the grade of general. Under his direction the Army grew in less than four years from fewer than 200,000 personnel to a well-trained and well-equipped force of 8,300,000.⁠[1][3][4][2]

During the war he attended Allied conferences including the Atlantic Charter meeting (August 1941), ARCADIA (December 1941–January 1942), Casablanca (January 1943), Tehran (November–December 1943), Yalta (February 1945) and Potsdam (July 1945), and in 1941 he joined the committee on atomic policy. He pressed for a cross-Channel drive against Germany, but command of the invasion went to Dwight D. EisenhowerDwight D. EisenhowerDwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) was an American army general and politician who served as supreme commander of Allied forces in western Europe during World War II and as the 34th president of the United States, a Republican, from 1953 to 1961.Open the full entry while he remained with the Joint Chiefs in Washington. Time named him Man of the Year in January 1944; he was promoted to the five-star rank of General of the Army in December 1944 and retired as chief of staff on November 18, 1945.⁠[1][4][2][3]

In November 1945 Harry S. TrumanHarry S. TrumanHarry S. Truman (1884–1972) was an American politician who served as a U.S. senator from Missouri and as vice president in 1945, succeeding Franklin D. Roosevelt on his death that year and serving as the 33rd president of the United States from 1945 to 1953, a period spanning the end of World War II and the early Cold War.Open the full entry appointed him special representative of the president to China with the personal rank of ambassador. From December 1945 to December 1946 he was in China trying to mediate the civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists, an effort that BritannicaEncyclopædia BritannicaEncyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopedia first published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768; the name also refers to its publisher, Chicago-based Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (which presents itself as The Britannica Group). The print edition ended in 2012, and the company’s main businesses since then have been the online encyclopedia Britannica.com, digital education products for schools and libraries, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries.Open the full entry’s biography describes as unsuccessful.⁠[1][5][2]

Nominated by Truman as secretary of state, he was appointed on January 8, 1947, confirmed unanimously by the Senate, entered on duty on January 21, 1947, and left office on January 20, 1949. On June 5, 1947, in a commencement address at Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private research university in Massachusetts, established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature in 1636 and named in 1639 for early benefactor John Harvard. Its principal campuses are in Cambridge and the Allston and Longwood neighborhoods of Boston. It includes Harvard College, graduate and professional schools, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Two governing boards share oversight. Alan M. Garber was president as of October 2026, and the endowment stood at $56.9 billion at the end of fiscal 2025.Open the full entry, he outlined the program of aid for Europe’s economic recovery that became the European Recovery Program, known as the Marshall Plan; in 1947 and 1948 he led the effort to formulate the massive aid package for Western Europe and secure congressional support for it.⁠[5][3][2]

During his tenure the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry also gave aid to Greece and Turkey and negotiated the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance and the treaty establishing NATO. He disagreed with Truman over recognition of the State of Israel. He left office in 1949 because of ill health.⁠[5][2]

From January 1949 until October 1959 he chaired the American Battle Monuments Commission, and from September 1949 to September 1950 he was president of the American National Red Cross.⁠[1]

Because the National Security Act barred recently serving officers from the post, Congress passed a special waiver for him. As secretary of defense, heading the U.S. Department of Defense from September 21, 1950, to September 12, 1951, he backed a rapid buildup during the Korean War, with U.S. forces growing from about 1.46 million in July 1950 to 3.25 million in June 1951; he supported limited war aims and a diplomatic settlement in Korea, and an increase of U.S. ground forces in Europe from two to six divisions.⁠[6]

He and the Joint Chiefs of Staff concurred in Truman’s relief of Douglas MacArthurDouglas MacArthurDouglas MacArthur (1880–1964) was a five-star general of the U.S. Army. He served as Army chief of staff, commanded Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific in World War II, directed the postwar occupation of Japan, and led United Nations forces early in the Korean War until the president relieved him of command in 1951.Open the full entry, and in May 1951 he testified for seven days in Congress in defense of the decision. He pressed for universal military training, appointed Anna M. Rosenberg assistant secretary for manpower and personnel, set up the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS), and helped shape the security treaties concluded with the Philippines, with Australia and New Zealand (ANZUS) and with Japan in August and September 1951. On September 12, 1951, he left the Pentagon and retired to his home in Leesburg, Virginia.⁠[6]

In June 1953 he led the U.S. delegation to the coronation of Elizabeth II. On December 10, 1953, in Oslo, Norway, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, unshared, “for proposing and supervising the plan for the economic recovery of Europe.”⁠[1][7]

He died at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C., on October 16, 1959, at age 78, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.⁠[6][2]

He married Elizabeth Carter Coles of Lexington on February 11, 1902; she died on September 15, 1927. On October 15, 1930, he married Katherine Tupper Brown.⁠[3][1]

Winston ChurchillWinston ChurchillSir Winston Churchill (1874–1965) was a British Conservative statesman and writer who served as Prime Minister in 1940–1945 and 1951–1955, led Britain through the Second World War and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953.Open the full entry called him “the organizer of victory,” and Truman called him the “architect of victory” in World War II. The George C. Marshall Foundation notes that he is the only person to have served in all three of the highest posts of Army chief of staff, secretary of state and secretary of defense.⁠[2][6][8]

The George C. Marshall Foundation: Web page: https://www.marshallfoundation.org/marshall/ (opens in a new window).⁠[8]

Nobel PrizeNobel PrizeThe Nobel Prize is an international award established under the will of Alfred Nobel, comprising five prizes in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace, awarded since 1901; its funds are managed by the Nobel Foundation, whose Board is based in Stockholm. The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, established in 1968, is not a Nobel Prize.Open the full entry (George C. Marshall prize facts): Web page: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1953/marshall/facts/ (opens in a new window).⁠[7]

Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State (secretary of state biography): Web page: https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/marshall-george-catlett (opens in a new window).⁠[5]

U.S. Department of Defense Historical Office (secretary of defense biography): Web page: https://history.defense.gov/Multimedia/Biographies/Article-View/Article/571266/george-c-marshall (opens in a new window).⁠[6]