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Atlantic to France. Before long 150 ships, chartered and paid for by Hoffman’s ECA, were on the high seas carrying cargoes to harbors at Bordeaux, Liverpool, Rotterdam, and Genoa. The psychological effect of the first American ships arriving at ports on the continent, along with the promise of what was to come, cannot be overstated. For the Europeans and the British, the Marshall Plan revived hope for the future, a sense of confidence that economic and political recovery was indeed achievable. For the first time in years, wrote an Economist reporter, “it is fitting that the peoples of
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David L. Roll (George Marshall: Defender of the Republic)