Paul G. Hoffman
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Paul Gray Hoffman (April 26, 1891October 8, 1974) was an American
automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarde ...
company executive, statesman, and global development aid administrator. He was the first administrator of the
Economic Cooperation Administration The Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA) was a U.S. government agency set up in 1948 to administer the Marshall Plan. It reported to both the State Department and the Department of Commerce. The agency's first head was Paul G. Hoffman, a form ...
, where he led the implementation of the
Marshall Plan The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative enacted in 1948 to provide foreign aid to Western Europe. The United States transferred over $13 billion (equivalent of about $ in ) in economic re ...
from 1948–1950.


Life and work

Hoffman was born in Western Springs, Illinois, a suburb of
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
. He quit his studies at the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
at 18 to sell Studebaker cars in Los Angeles. He had made his first million dollars by the age of 34, and became president of Studebaker ten years later. Hoffman and Harold Sines Vance were the two executives most responsible for rescuing Studebaker from insolvency in the 1930s. From 1935 to 1948, Hoffman served as president of Studebaker. From 1950 to 1953, he also served as the president of the
Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...
. Returning to Studebaker in 1953, Hoffman was chairman of the corporation during the turbulent period leading up to and during the 1954 merger with the
Packard Motor Car Company Packard or Packard Motor Car Company was an American luxury automobile company located in Detroit, Michigan. The first Packard automobiles were produced in 1899, and the last Packards were built in South Bend, Indiana in 1958. One of the "Thr ...
. When Studebaker-Packard found itself nearing insolvency in 1956, the company entered into an
Eisenhower Administration Dwight D. Eisenhower's tenure as the 34th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1953, and ended on January 20, 1961. Eisenhower, a Republican from Kansas, took office following a landslide victory ...
-brokered management agreement with
Curtiss-Wright The Curtiss-Wright Corporation is a manufacturer and services provider headquartered in Davidson, North Carolina, with factories and operations in and outside the United States. Created in 1929 from the consolidation of Curtiss, Wright, and v ...
. Hoffman, Vance (who had become chairman of the executive committee after the Packard merger) and S-P president James J. Nance all left the company. From 1966 to 1972, he was the first administrator of the
United Nations Development Programme The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)french: Programme des Nations unies pour le développement, PNUD is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human dev ...
when it was founded, with David Owen as his co-administrator. On June 21, 1974, he was awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, along with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made "an especially merit ...
by President
Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
.


The Marshall Plan

President Harry S. Truman nominated Hoffman to lead the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA) in April 1948. Truman initially wanted to nominate Dean Acheson, but Hoffman was a more acceptable candidate to Congress, which preferred someone with more business acumen. In this role as administrator, he was responsible for managing the distribution of U.S. aid to post-WWII Europe. He primarily worked with the Organization of European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) and coordinated policy with the U.S. State Department. He was a forceful advocate of European integration. In September 1949, Hoffman and his staff met in Washington to assess the progress of the Marshall Plan. They agreed that the "salvage function is substantially completed" and that the ECA should now focus on integrating the economies of Europe by supporting European-led initiatives to reduce trade barriers, coordinate fiscal policy, streamline regulation, and ensure currency convertibility and stability. This would, in their view, strengthen the European economies so that by they could be "free from dependence on sustained outside assistance." His most famous speech as ECA administrator was his October 31, 1949, address to the OEEC in which he argued that Europe must integrate. Invoking a comparison to the United States, he argued:
The substance of such integration would be the formation of a single large market within which quantitative restriction on the movements of goods, monetary barriers to the flow of payments and, eventually, all tariffs are permanently swept away. The fact that we have in the United States a single market of 156 million consumers has been indispensable to the strength and efficiency of our economy. The creation of a permanent, freely trading area, comprising 270 million consumers in Western Europe would have a multitude of helpful consequences. It would accelerate the development of large-scale, low-cost production industries. It would make the effective use of all resources easier, the stifling of healthy competition more difficult... This is why integration is not just an ideal. It is a practical necessity.
He concluded this speech with a veiled threat that the U.S. Congress may not continue to fund the Marshall Plan if the Europeans did not integrate. Congressional leadership was, indeed, skeptical of continuing to fund the Marshall Plan absent integration. Hoffman's tenure as administrator of ECA was marked by dramatic improvements in the industrial and agricultural output of countries receiving Marshall Plan aid.


Personal life

Hoffman's first wife was Dorothy Brown. They married in 1915. She died in May 1961. She was a Christian Scientist. The couple had five sons, Hallock, Peter, Donald, Robert and Lathrop, and two adopted daughters, Barbara and Kiriki.Raucher, ALan. Paul G. Hoffman: Architect of Foreign Aid. Lexington, KY: U of Kentucky P, 1985. Whitman, Alden. Paul G. Hoffman is dead at 83; Led Marshall Plan and U.N. Aid. New York Times, October 9, 1974. Hoffman married businesswoman Anna M. Rosenberg on July 19, 1962.


Publications

;Film clips * *


References


External links


Paul G. Hoffman Papers 1928-72
at Truman Library & Museum

at smokershistory.com * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hoffmann, Paul G. 1891 births 1974 deaths Administrators of the United Nations Development Programme Studebaker people 20th-century American economists Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Henry Laurence Gantt Medal recipients 20th-century American engineers American officials of the United Nations