And the eventual death of meriwether. So they werent aware that the spanish were after them but they they did learn later that the spanish had turned these other expeditions. Great question. Anything. Well, thanks for your attention. I hope you enjoyed this the Marshall Foundation was begun by president truman before left office. He declared general marshalls papers from his long should not be gathered at the National Archives as other government officials, but that should have a foundation in his name and the papers and memorabilia be gathered in something akin to a president ial library. How are you funded . Privately funded. We are a501c3. Were not associated with the state of virginia or, the National Park service. And although are surrounded by the vmi campus, were not part of the Virginia Military either. Tell us more about. The foundations work, its outreach of teachers and and the kinds of goals that you have. The foundation exists to tell the story specifically general marshall and others whom we hold collections for here. And we do this. We have researchers who come to the library. I have students working on history day reports in eighth grade. We a Teacher Education conference coming up this spring where teachers will spend a week here in lexington and develop lesson plans that they can use in their Middle School High School classrooms. We are in the library at the Marshall Foundation and lots to look out here. But lets first talk about george c. Marshall himself. Of course, he lived a long life in service to this country and has roots right here in lexington. Thats true. Marshall actually from uniontown, pennsylvania, which is in western pennsylvania, not far from. He decided that he wanted to come to the Virginia Military institute to go to school, much to his older brother stewart chagrin because stewart had been a cadet here and graduated from vmi, he threw a fit and we cant let george go. Hes a terrible student and hell ruin the family name. But but he did come. He was still a fair to middling student. But when he became in his senior year, he was the the first captain, which is now called the mental commander whos in charge, the cadets and it was also here in lexington that he met his first wife, lily, whos was just off of the campus. And so they they say that he would run the block and leave campus without permission, go visit lily. So after where did he go . His first tour of duty was in the philippines. He and lily had only been married a couple of weeks, and he was sent on an unaccompanied tour of the philippines, where she stayed here in the United States, and he went to the philippines. It was just after the the the spanishamerican war. There was still some insurrection going on in the philippines. At 20 years old, he was the mayor, not only of a community, but an entire island in the philippines trying to to bring peace to the area. It was a challenging first tour. How about the years leading into World War Two . Where was general marshall at that time . He spent some time working with troops in the United States and overseas in china. He also spent time to going to military school, the army and then called school of the line, now called commanding general Staff College in fort leavenworth, kansas. He was one of the last lieutenant boys to attend school there and was kept on as an instructor. So he, as a first lieutenant, was junior to most of the students that he was teaching. He also spent time working with the National Guard in summer times during their active duty training. And i think that that time was extremely valuable to general later on because he really began to understand what it meant to be a citizen soldier, a part time soldier, a National Guardsman. He said that you cant take a man from behind the counter of a store, throw army boots on him and have him march all over the countryside because youll tear his feet up. You have to work him into it. And so i think he gained rare insight that was going to prove very useful as we get into World War Two. So lets talk about those years into, World War Two and George Marshalls relationship with franklin d. Roosevelt and what was his role then . Because when we think of george, one of the things youll read about is he was a great planner. Right. Yes. He really actually discovered that he had a great talent for planning and logistics in world war one. He had a run in with general pershing that could have ended his career. And instead it landed him in general headquarters planning. He the battle of kentucky was the first world war, one battle that the United States had participated in as a standard lone force. He wasnt with the maps that he had so. He spent nights going behind enemy lines to his own peril, not only from enemy attack, but from his own field. Artillery that was being fired in the evening to create his own maps for this and for that effort, he was awarded a silver star in intervening years after the war, he served as aide de camp to general pershing, which i think was a good time for him to see how it worked in the senior echelons of the. He then was back in china. He spent time fort benning rewriting the Infantry School curriculum. He said that this is what they were teaching before world war one. The armys changed lot since then, and the army gotten very mobile. We had Radio Communication pins, we had airplanes. It had to be different. And then he was pulled into to the the general headquarters in 1938 as assistant chief of staff. His first meeting with roosevelt did not go very well. Marshall has a reputation, rightfully so, speaking truth to power, as he did with pershing and this in this meeting with roosevelt with president roosevelt. There were about a men there, and they were talking about air power and how air power would be completely different. We got involved in this war that we wouldnt boots on the ground, that the airplanes take care of everything and. Everybody was agreeing with the president. They got to general marshall and general marshall said, mr. President , i respectfully disagree. And said that you could hear the air leave the room. And after meeting people patted him on the shoulder and said, well, you know, general, thats the shortest tour in d. C. Ever. Have a nice time out in the back of beyond because you just entered career. But president roosevelt saw what general pershing had seen which is someone his own peril would tell him the truth and he felt like he needed that. If they got involved in this, what would turn out to be a global war . And what was his specific role during World War Two . He was chief of staff of the army, which is the leader of the armed forces, of course, then and also included the army air corps, which became the army air forces, the war. And he was in charge of of the entire army National Guard and regular army. He also was the pusher behind creating the joint chiefs of staff in their first meetings with the british, he saw the cooperation that was taking place the british chiefs of staff and wanted that same kind of organization in the United States. And so so that they created this this joint chiefs, which wed never had before for better communication, cooperation. We are here in the library at the george c. Marshall foundation with Melissa Davis, who is director of library and archives for the foundation. Lets do a little bit of a tour inside this library, beginning with this table and this map. Tell us what were looking at. So this is a copy of the last core level dday map in existence. It belonged to general leonard giraud, who graduated from vmi in 1911. He is in this picture on the left. He was the Corps Commander of omaha beach and is the copy of map that he carried ashore. We have the original here at the foundation. You said its your favorite artifact. And here it is my favorite artifact in here, because my father was part of the 29th and was on omaha beach on dday. And ive learned more from this map, his experiences that day than he ever told himself. Now, this desk has history itself, right . It does. It does. This desk was purchased with a suite of furniture by general Phil Sheridan for the War Department in the 1880s. And this was actually general sheridans private desk. This is the one that he used. We believe that he sat at the desk right here, the green men are the drawer pulls, and this one has extreme wear. Now, you to know that general sheridan wasnt very tall and he was a cavalryman, and he wore his spurs to the War Department. He wanted everybody to know that he was cav and. If you look underneath there, you can where he parked his spurs. Now, general marshall, when he moved from the munitions building, small office on constitution avenue to the bigger, almost complete id pentagon, he needed a map table and a conference table. He in storage and found this one and this the one that he used in his general headquarters office. You can see some of the staff from general headquarters gathered around another map at this desk. So the map is an artifact and the desk is as well. So, melissa, you can feel the temperature change in here inside the vault. What happens here . This is a three story vault . One way in, one way out. It holds the marshall papers as our largest and most important collection, but also about 500 other collections. We do keep the temperature and humidity controlled here differently than the library, is what youre feeling. This is also the workspace we have for items that come in the collection continues to grow and archive is never done. Secretary state George Marshall goes to harvard, goes to boston. The date is june 5th, 1947. He a speech. Its preceded this press release. It looks like the day before from the department of state. Tell us about this press release leading up to this big event at harvard. So George Marshall had come back from the moscow Foreign Ministers conference, very displeased. He didnt feel like the soviet union was living up to their end of the end of the war bargain at ty hamade he was very, very that the future of europe was in danger. And he gave a Multi Network radio address. The evening he got back from moscow where he said the patient is sinking while the doctors deliberate. And then had someone get in touch with harvard whove been trying to give him an Honorary Degree for several years. But he hadnt had time and said, can we get on the docket for june . And they said, sure. And as marshall was flying up to boston, he was delivering the essence of his speech back the state department. Neither the state department nor the white house knew exactly he was going to say that day. He requested that no american be invited to the speech. He asked that it be given very little attention as possible. The press release for the speech was issued single spaced print, which told all the radio announcers that it wasnt important because Important Press releases were issued in double spaced print to make it easy to read on the radio. Let me jump in and ask you why he didnt want the attention here in the u. S. . He was very afraid that if the idea of helping in an organized fashion was first react to by the United States that there were some elements of isolation ism that would kill it before it ever ever had a chance to grow. He knew that only by getting the reaction from europe first would it have a chance at life inside this vault, at the george c. Marshall foundation is the actual Marshall Plan speech. You have it there. You look. It is right here. This is the actual reading copy of the speech. If you look carefully, you can see the fold where he folded it the long way and stuck it in his pocket. It was delivered the day after commencement. He wrote on there. He delivered it at 2 50 p. M. , june 5th. The speech lasted for 12 minutes and literally changed the world in a logical that the United States should do, whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal Economic Health in the world, without which can be no political stability and no assured peace. Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine, but against hunger poverty, desperation and chaos. Its purpose should be to revive a little working economy in the world so as to prevent the emergence of and social conditions in which free institutions can exist. Such a system. I am convinced, must not be on a piecemeal basis as crises develop any assistance that this government run in the future should provide a cure rather than a mere. Any government that is willing to assist in the task of recovery will find or cooperate. I am sure on the part of the United States government, any government which maneuvers to block the recovery of other countries cannot expect help from us. Furthermore. Furthermore government Political Parties or groups which seek to perpetuate human misery in order to profit from politically or otherwise, will encounter the opposition of the United States. What was the Immediate Reaction here, not just in boston, but here in the United States, in the u. S. Congress, and then in europe, of course . Well, was very canny. He, dean acheson, get in touch with a gentleman, the bbc named leonard mitchell, and said, Pay Attention to this speech. Youre going to want to hear it to make that the bbc would have ability to to the speech. It was not a popular this this idea of europe planning making the plan and the United States financing it was not popular in the United States with many, including a lot in congress. I mean, lets face it, the United States had just spent the equivalent of 3 trillion fighting a war. A lot of loss of life. A loss of time for these young people. The men and women who served wanted to come home, use that va loan and gi bill and start their families. They didnt want to think about europe, the things that they had seen and done. And so it was a tough sell that that he really, really had to do a lot of talking. He talked to chambers of commerce. He talked to farmers. He talked to university groups. He talked to every politician he could find. An really, he and Robert Lovett talked to everyone that fall nvincing that this was a good idea. The most amazing thing is that from time that he gave the speech in uniform, even to president truman signing the act into was ten months Melissa Davis how did an oscar statue make its way to the library at the Marshall Foundation . The oscar was awarded to frank for producing the movie patton. I think everyone remembers George C Scott starred in the movie patton and he didnt come to get his oscar that night. But frank was awarded this one. Theres actually a picture of him holding two oscars because he stepped and picked up George C Scott. And the question is always, well, what happened to scotts oscar . Frank returned it the next. I suppose they pop the label off front, slapped on one for next year and used it again. Frank mccarthy during the war was chief of the secretariat, a general headquarters, and he traveled extensively with general marshall, which is a very good thing. Frank mccarthy had worked for a as a journalist before the war. Hed done some pr for the broadway show brother rat, and he was a note taker, which is a very, very good thing because marshall didnt take notes for anything. He didnt take notes at meetings, didnt keep a calendar, he didnt keep a journal, he didnt write down things. He kept everything in his head. And so having frank travel with him was wonderful. Theres this great picture of marshall talking to a general, and franks in the background just down everything because of that. We know who marshall tald with, where he stayed, he ate with what they conversed about at dinner, all of these conferences at yalta, potsdam and these international conferences. After the war took his writing talents out to hollywood and did pr and then went producing movies and he stayed close with marshall even after the war. He would go and visit. He was from richmond and he would go and visit. The marshalls at their home in leesburg. And so when frank was retiring in downsizing, he chose to donate all of his military and his hollywood papers, along with the oscar here to the foundation. Another stunning item here in the library is an actual Nobel Peace Prize awarded to George Marshall in 1953, correct . Right tell us the story. Well, when marshall was nominated for this peace in 53. It was a very controversial. There are people who said that a career soldier not receive a peace prize, but he wasnt nominated for the work that he did during World War Two. He was nominated for the work that he did after the war in saving europe with the Marshall Plan. And so being awarded this said having an a nobel prize being given to a soldier did make sense to him in that context.