W. German President Urges Return to Marshall Plan Spirit
West German President Richard von Weizsaecker told Harvard University’s alumni and graduating class Thursday that there must be a return to the cooperative spirit that allowed the Marshall Plan to help rebuild Europe after World War II.
Weizsaecker said that Third World countries need similar treatment and that East-West relations continue to pose a challenge to the world.
“We must find currencies other than just military power for (East and West) dealing with one another,” Weizsaecker said.
“We do not want new conflicts about borders. We have learned painful lessons from history. But borders should lose their divisive nature for people,” he said.
“The plan was visionary as great victors seldom are. . . . The aim of the United States was to restore the confidence of the Europeans in their own strength, in their own political future,” said Weizsaecker, in a speech prepared to commemorate another given 40 years ago in Harvard Yard.
In June, 1947, at another Harvard commencement, Secretary of State George C. Marshall took 12 minutes to outline the economic prescription to repair Europe that came to bear his name.
“The Marshall Plan is and will remain the most fundamental achievement of the Western world since the war,” Weizsacker said.
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