ABSTRACT
The British take some credit for the idea of a union in Europe, relying on Winston Churchill's address in Zurich in 1946, which urged France and Germany to form something like a United States of Europe. 1 France sought a closer economic integration with the United Kingdom based on Monnet's five-year plan in January 1947, but this was overtaken by the Marshall Plan. 2 U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall proposed the Marshall Han in a speech at Harvard University on June 5, 1947, and it was quickly passed through Congress. The legislation established the Economic Cooperation Administration to administer funds for the reconstruction and recovery of Europe. (Kaldor had expected to help administer the Marshall Plan in Geneva when he accepted the position with the Economic Commission for Europe in 1947.) Through a series of conventions and organizations, six European countries (France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Italy, and Germany) plus the United Kingdom took steps toward organizing an economic and political union of Western Europe. Then on June 24, 1948, the USSR closed all the road and rail links from East to West Germany. The British Labour party's response was Ernest Bevin's statement, "We are in Berlin as of right It is our intention to stay there." President Harry Truman sent United States B-29s to maintain the link between Berlin and the West But the result was that these events shifted attitudes in the West so that West Germany became fully integrated in the European recovery efforts. 3 Finally, the Rome Treaties setting up the Common Market and Euratom were fully realized in 1958, with the Six ratifying the Rome Treaties.
