The Marshall Plan (officially called the European Recovery Program ) was a plan of the United States for rebuilding the allied countries of Europe after World War II. One of the main reasons this was done was to stop communism. The plan was named after Secretary of State George Marshall, but the plan was worked out by other people in the State Department. The plan ran for four years beginning in April 1948. During that period US $13 billion in economic and technical help were given to help the recovery of the European countries that had joined in the Organization for European Economic Co-operation. By the time the plan ended, the economy of every member state had grown well past pre-war levels. In recent years some historians have said that another reason for the plan was to make the United States stronger, and to make the countries of western Europe need the United States.

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