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History Corner
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Acheson On British
Investment In The U.S.A.
‘[I]n the
Europe-oriented-and-dominated world of the nineteenth century the western
hemisphere became out of bounds for colonial expansion. But not for investment.
Europe, after a few years of doubt, stood ready to invest in the American
gamble.
Throughout the century the flood of “foreign aid” grew and grew until in the
half century preceding 1914 Western Europe, led by Great Britain, “had invested
abroad almost as much as the entire national wealth of Great Britain. . . .
If the
same proportion of American resources were devoted to foreign investment as
Britain devoted . . . in 1913, the flow of investment would require to be thirty
times as great.
The entire Marshall Plan would have to be carried out twice a year.”’
Dean Acheson, Present
at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (New York: W.W. Norton
& Co., Inc.; 1969), p. 7.
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