TLS as president, one page, 7 x 8.75, White House letterhead, March 12, 1948. Letter to the Reverend Samuel McCrea Cavert of The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. In full: "May I acknowledge with gratitude your letter of March ninth with which was enclosed copy of the petition to Congress in support of the European Recovery Program which has been signed by more than seven hundred church leaders of many denominations. This action is encouraging, particularly since the petition endorses the forthright support which the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in American accorded the ERP. The preamble to the petition, by adopting the language of the Federal Council affirming 'faith in the curative power of freedom and in the creative capacity of free men,' states admirably the spirit in which we are trying to carry out the Marshall Plan. Such sympathetic understanding is most heartening." In fine condition.
The Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery Program, began in July 1947 and was a multibillion dollar project designed to rebuild war-torn western Europe. Cavert, the recipient of this letter, was an important Presbyterian minister and the executive of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ. He had met with Truman about a half-dozen times during his presidency, with their first communication in August 1945, when Cavert wrote a famous protest telegram to the White House stating that 'Many Christians [are] deeply disturbed over [the] use of atomic bombs against Japanese cities because of their necessarily indiscriminate destructive efforts.' Truman countered with 'I was greatly disturbed over the unwarranted attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor and their murder of our prisoners of war. The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them.' The Marshall Plan was arguably the cornerstone of the Truman Administration's foreign policy. Letters referencing it are both uncommon and highly desirable.
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