A major announcement in Sweden earlier this month echoed similar news six decades ago about a former Vancouver resident.
Although, maybe it was more of a general announcement: Gen. George Marshall, a former Vancouver Barracks commander, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953.
The recent round of Nobel presentations was an opportunity to look back on the final chapter of Marshall’s 18-month stay in Vancouver — his farewell dinner.
On June 9, 1938, The Columbian’s editorial writer described the previous night, when “Vancouver showed its appreciation of General George C. Marshall … Although many fine gentlemen have been in command of the local garrison, none has commanded more respect or gained a wider circle of friends than General Marshall.
“General Marshall has proved himself civilian-minded as well as military-minded.”
That was illustrated over the span during which Marshall served as Army chief of staff to President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II. After the war, he was named U.S. secretary of state, then received the Nobel Peace Prize for his plan to rebuild Europe.
As Marshall biographer Gerald Pops noted a few years ago in a visit to Vancouver, a lot of that work overlapped. Marshall was working on his postwar recovery plan “in the fall of 1942. Disasters were happening all over the world, and he was planning for the end of the war,” Pops said.
So while you might not always agree with everything you read on our opinion pages, that editorial writer nailed it:
“Vancouver will bid goodbye to General Marshall with a heart full of regret, tempered only by the knowledge that he has been called to broader fields.”
Such as helping win a world war and saving Europe.
Off Beat lets members of The Columbian news team step back from our newspaper beats to write the story behind the story, fill in the story or just tell a story
