Virginia Historical Society Podcast

On November 19 at noon, Gerald M. Pops will deliver a Banner Lecture entitled "Champion of War, Champion of Peace: The Leadership of George C. Marshall." George Catlett Marshall, recognized early on as the U.S. Army’s most capable leader, overcame a number of obstacles to become Army Chief of Staff on the very day World War II began. He served as the de facto leader of America’s military until the end of the war and then went on to serve in China as President Truman’s ambassador and then as secretary of state, president of the American Red Cross, and secretary of defense. As the father of the European Recovery Act (appropriately labeled by Truman as the “Marshall Plan”), Marshall is credited with jump-starting western Europe’s postwar economic and political recovery and laying the foundation for long-term European-American relations. For this he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This lecture will focus primarily on his extraordinary leadership between September 1939 and December 1941 in preparing America fo