Noam Chomsky: The favored illustration of "generosity and goodwill" is the Marshall Plan. That merits examination, on the "strongest case" principle. The inquiry again quickly yields facts "that 'it wouldn't do' to mention." For example, the fact that "as the Marshall Plan went into full gear the amount of American dollars being pumped into France and the Netherlands was approximately equaled by the funds being siphoned from their treasuries to finance their expeditionary forces in Southeast Asia," to carry out terrible crimes. And that the tied aid provisions help explain why the U.S. share in world trade in grains increased from less than 10% before the war to more than half by 1950, while Argentine exports reduced by two-thirds. And that under U.S. influence Europe was reconstructed in a particular mode, not quite that sought by the anti-fascist resistance, though fascist and Nazi collaborators were generally satisfied. And that the generosity was overwhelmingly bestowed by American taxpayers upon the corporate sector, which was duly appreciative, recognizing years later that the Marshall Plan "set the stage for large amounts of private U.S. direct investment in Europe," establishing the basis for the modern Transnational Corporations, which "prospered and expanded on overseas orders,...fueled initially by the dollars of the Marshall Plan" and protected from "negative developments" by "the umbrella of American power."
Howard Zinn: The Marshall Plan was offered to the Soviet Union but with conditions which they were certain to reject, because it was not intended to help the Soviet Union, which certainly qualified for "humanitarian aid" on a far larger scale than any country in Europe, having suffered the greatest devastation of any nation during the war. The motives for the Marshall Plan were both economic and political. Just to point to one aspect of the economic motive: George Marshall was quoted in an early 1948 State Department bulletin: "It is idle to think that a Europe left to its own efforts...would remain open to American business in the same way that we have known it in the past." Most of the money went to American businesses exporting to Europe. At least 10% of the aid money went for European purchases of oil, moving them away from coal-dependency (which involved dealing with troublesome trade unions) to oil dependency, with the U.S. dominant in the world oil market. The political motive was to shore up anti-Communist governments in France and Italy. Truman's Secretary of State Dean Acheson said at the time: "These measures of relief and reconstruction have been only n part suggested by humanitarianism. Your Congress has authorized and your Government is carrying out, a policy of relief and reconstruction today chiefly as a matter of national self-interest". You can read much more about the Marshall Plan, that is, realistic evaluations, in Michael Hogan's book "The Marshall Plan" (Cambridge Univ. Press 1987) and in Melvyn Leffler's excellent book "A Preponderance of Power" (Stanford Univ. Press, 1992)
Louis Proyect
(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)