On this day, 66 years ago, October 16, 1959 (September 15, 1959 in the lunar calendar), US military general and Secretary of State Marshall passed away. U.S. military general and Secretary of State George Catlett Machhe On October 16, 1959, George Marshall, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff during World War II, post-war Secretary of State, and Nobel Peace Prize winner, died. George Catlett Marshall was a five-star general of the U.S. military and a Democrat. He was born on December 31, 1880 in Union City, Pennsylvania. He entered the Virginia Military Academy in 1897 and graduated in 1901 and was awarded the rank of second lieutenant. He served in the Philippines twice from 1902 to 1903 and from 1913 to 1916. In 1918, he was promoted to colonel in the army. During World War I, he served as director of operations of the First Army of the United States Dispatch Force. In the spring of 1919, he served as Chief of Staff of the Eighth Infantry Regiment of the US Army in Germany, and from 1924 to 1927, he served as Commander of the 15th Infantry Regiment of the US Army in Tianjin, China. In the early days of World War II, he successively served as Director of Operations Planning and Deputy Chief of Staff of the Ministry of Defense. He served as Chief of Staff of the Army since September 1939. On December 7, 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he was a military adviser to President Roosevelt as Chief of Staff of the Army and participated with Roosevelt at the Casablanca, Quebec, Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam Conferences. In 1944, he was promoted to a five-star general. On November 21, 1945, he resigned as Chief of the General Staff and retired. A few days later, President Truman appointed him as his special envoy to China, nominally mediating the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, but actually tried his best to help Chiang Kai-shek fight the civil war to safeguard U.S. interests in China. He arrived in China at the end of December 1945, when Chiang Kai-shek's government pretended to negotiate with the Communist Party of China to establish a coalition government. On January 13, 1946, the two sides stopped military operations and the United States increased its arms supply to Chiang Kai-shek. Truman extended the validity period of the Lend-Lease Act to China to July 30, 1946. Before the expiration, Chiang Kai-shek received assistance from the United States with a thousand aircraft, a thousand tanks and many other weapons and equipment. In addition, the U.S. government handed over surplus military supplies worth US$900 million to Chiang Kai-shek, while Chiang Kai-shek's government repaid it with US$175 million in other goods. By the spring of 1946, in addition to training thirty-nine divisions for Chiang Kai-shek's army, American officers were also training and equipping sixty-four divisions of Chiang Kai-shek's army from November 1945 to October 1946. These troops were rushed to the front lines for combat. In early July 1946, the Kuomintang launched a full-scale civil war. On December 18, 1946, Truman announced that since Japan surrendered, especially after Marshall arrived in China, the U.S. Air Force and Navy had transported fourteen Kuomintang divisions to North China. In 1946, like 1945, the US military participated in Kuomintang combat operations in many battles. These incidents aroused opposition from the China people and progressive public opinion around the world, and the movement calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from China was surging. On January 8, 1947, Marshall had to leave China. On January 21, he was appointed Secretary of State of the United States. In April 1947, the US military began to withdraw from China. However, the United States did not admit defeat. It continued to provide money, weapons and equipment for the Kuomintang's civil war in accordance with the new slavery agreements signed with Chiang Kai-shek on October 27, 1947 and July 3, 1948. After Marshall became Secretary of State, he participated in the formulation of a series of major U.S. foreign policies. On March 12, 1947, in his message to Congress, President Truman proposed allocating 400 million US dollars to "aid" Greece and Turkey in order to establish U.S. dominance in the Middle and Near East; The U.S. Congress passed a bill based on this message, which came into effect on May 22, 1947. By the end of 1948, the United States had allocated more than 90,000 tons of military supplies to Greece alone and sent a large number of military advisers. This is the so-called "Truman Doctrine". On July 5, 1947, Marshall delivered a speech at Harvard University, declaring that the United States was willing to provide assistance to "rejuvenate Europe", the so-called "Marshall Plan." He said that if the United States does not aid Europe, they "will be suffocated in all aspects of economic, political and social relations." Truman later publicly admitted in his memoirs that the United States proposed the Marshall Plan as a means of dealing with the growth of communist power in Europe. The main content of the Marshall Plan was that the United States allocated funds to "assist" Western European countries to revitalize the post-war economy. However, the recipient countries must purchase a certain amount of American goods, remove tariff barriers as soon as possible, and cancel or relax foreign exchange restrictions. The use of U.S. aid must be subject to U.S. supervision. The recipient countries must supply strategic materials produced in their own countries and colonies to the United States, establish matching funds controlled by the United States, protect the right of private investment and development in the United States, and reduce trade with socialist countries. Abandon the "nationalization" plan, etc. From July to September 1947, sixteen countries including Britain, France, Italy, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Ireland, and Iceland met in Paris and decided to accept the "Marshall Plan" and establish the European Economic Cooperation Commission, requiring the United States to provide US$16 to US$22 billion in aid. In April 1948, West Germany and the Trieste Free Zone also announced their acceptance of the Marshall Plan. On December 19, 1947, in his address to Congress, President Truman proposed a "European Restoration Plan" totaling US$17 billion. On April 3, 1948, the U.S. Congress enacted the Economic Cooperation Act based on this plan and established the Economic Cooperation Agency to be responsible for implementing the Marshall Plan. From April 1948 to June 1951, the actual allocation of the Marshall Plan totaled US$12.5 billion. This plan was originally planned to be implemented for five years (1948-1952), but the implementation results were not good, and the United States was forced to declare the failure of the plan ahead of schedule at the end of 1951 and replace it with the "Common Security Plan." During the two years when Marshall served as Secretary of State, he also led U.S. delegations to participate in various international conferences held in Moscow, Rio de Janeiro, Bogotá, Paris, London and New York. He was one of the actual defense and foreign policy decision-makers of the United States during this period. He was also the first person in American history to serve as Secretary of State as a professional soldier. On January 21, 1949, he resigned as Secretary of State. He served as Secretary of Defense from September 21, 1950 to September 12, 1951. During this period, the United States launched a war of aggression against Korea, strengthened the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and established a global military training plan for the U.S. military. In 1953, he won the Nobel Peace Prize. This is said to be due to his "contribution to the revival of the European Union's compensatory economy after World War II and his efforts to promote international peace and understanding." On October 16, 1959, Marshall died of illness in Washington.