[Essay Today] 'Roman Holiday' Born from the Marshall Plan

The movie begins. The setting is Rome, Italy. The screen zooms in on Trajan's Column, displaying the names Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn. A bird's-eye view of St. Peter's Square, the left side of the Vittorio Emanuele Monument, the Sant'Angelo Bridge crossing the Tiber River, and some ruins of the Forum Romanum pass by in sequence. Then, as the Arch of Septimius Severus appears, a subtitle that will be remembered in film history fills the screen.

"All filming and recording of this movie were done in Rome, Italy."

The movie title is Roman Holiday. It's straightforward. The title already tells you where the movie was filmed. Would they film Roman Holiday in Paris instead of Rome? But this subtitle has historical significance. It reveals that the film was made with the support of the U.S. government. Right after World War II, Europe's economic system was paralyzed. The industrial base was less than 30% of the pre-war level. Meanwhile, the United States held more than half of the world's industrial production capacity. The U.S. challenge was to block Soviet influence in Europe. For that, Europe had to rise again. The U.S. devised a large-scale aid plan and printed dollars to send. These were called "Eurodollars." These dollars had to be used only within Europe. Paramount used Eurodollars to shoot on location in Rome.

The U.S. European reconstruction plan is called the "Marshall Plan," named after U.S. Secretary of State George Catlett Marshall who proposed it. Marshall was a politician with a military background. He graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 1901 and served in both World War I and World War II. After becoming Secretary of State in 1947, Marshall first announced the European reconstruction plan in a speech at Harvard University on June 5 of that year.

"It is aimed at eliminating hunger and poverty, desperation and chaos... The purpose of this policy must be to create political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist by restoring the world economy to a healthy and functioning state."

The U.S. Senate approved the Marshall Plan legislation on March 13, 1948, and the House of Representatives on March 31. The vote counts were 71 to 19 in the Senate and 333 to 78 in the House. President Harry Truman signed the bill on April 3. The U.S. sent about $12.7 billion to Europe by December 31, 1951. The aid amounts reached $3.3 billion for the United Kingdom, $2.3 billion for France, $1.4 billion for West Germany, $1.2 billion for Italy, and $1.1 billion for the Netherlands. Spain under Franco's regime and neutral Finland were excluded.

The Marshall Plan was successful. Most Western European countries restored their economies to pre-World War II levels. They continued to grow and prosper for the next 20 years. Europeans became loyal customers of American products. Moreover, the Marshall Plan laid the cornerstone for European integration by dismantling tariff barriers among European countries and establishing organizations to harmonize their economic levels. George Marshall was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953 for his contributions to European reconstruction. The Marshall Plan also faced criticism. In the U.S., some argued that it set a precedent for using taxpayers' money to restore foreign economies. There were claims that dollars sent to France and the Netherlands were misused to maintain their imperialist influence in South and Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union strengthened its influence in Eastern Europe with the "Molotov Plan," modeled after the Marshall Plan. An iron curtain was drawn between Eastern and Western Europe, both ideologically and economically.

Heo Jin-seok, poet and professor at Korea National Sport University