The most important man in Pinehurst this week may be someone with whom you are not familiar. Few people are, and yet they should be for what he contributed to world peace.
The most important man in Pinehurst, or MIMIP, is not James Tufts, who founded the town in 1895, nor Robert Dedman Sr., owner of the company that acquired Pinehurst in 1984, nor Bob Dedman Jr., his son who is chairman, nor Tom Pashley, president of the resort. It is not even Donald Ross for his outstanding design of the Pinehurst No. 2 golf course on which the U.S. Open is being played this week.
The MIMIP is General George C Marshall, the architect of the Marshall Plan, which began the economic recovery of many ravaged European nations after the end of the Second World War.
Who knows, who dares foretell, how the world might look in 2024 if Marshall had not announced this program when he gave the commencement speech at Harvard University on June 5, 1947, saying it was “directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos.” It is interesting to note now that the plan was initially projected to cost $22 billion (about $300 billion today) but ended up costing less than $13 billion.
Testimony to the importance of Marshall came from the highest quarters. Winston Churchill, then prime minister of Britain, referred to Marshall as “the organizer of Allied victory. It was his strategic planning that led to the Allied victory [in World War II] in Europe and in the Pacific and the unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan.”
After President Harry S. Truman left office in 1953, he was asked who he thought was the American to have made the greatest contribution of the past 30 years. He quickly answered “Marshall.”
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