Herter Committee

The House Select Committee on Foreign Aid, or Herter Committee, was established to study the proposal that had been launched by General George Marshall in his speech at Harvard on June 5, 1947 for a Marshall Plan, in part as Cold War anticommunism, which led future US President Richard Nixon to focus on foreign policy throughout his public career. In 1947, it identified a "prevailing theme throughout–that democratic leadership was close to non-existent and Communist leadership at the forefront of political shaping."
Members.
Committee members came not only from the House Foreign Affairs Committee but also geographically and politically diverse members:
Staff members included: 
History.
On July 29, 1947, the United States House of Representatives passed House Resolution 296 that created a Select Committee on Foreign Aid, comprising 19 members.
On August 28, 1947, the committee and staff sailed to Europe. The group comprised 17 representatives, ten consultants, and two secretaries. In London, they met with UK Minister of Food John Strachey. During the voyage, they received briefings. They visited every European nation except Albania, Russia, and Yugoslavia. Additionally, non-committee members Frances P. Bolton and Chester E. Merrow visited the Middle East (then "Near East"), while Walter H. Judd traveled to China, Japan, and Korea.
In October 1947, the Herter Committee came back home "with a healthy and wholehearted respect for Europe's Reds." Representative Thomas A. Jenkins (R-OH) called activity by Communist Yugoslavia at Trieste "terrorism." Representative James P. Richards (D-SC) said that the committee saw Communist leaders in Italy, France, and England who were "tough, hard, fanatical, well-financed and clever"; he called it a "great tragedy" that Europeans were unaware of the degree of American aid to date. European progress was moving slowly; the committee noted that Finnish farmers were feeding cattle with "a mixture of fish and wood pulp." The committee noted concern about Communist guerrillas in the Greek Civil War (1946-1949) and the rise of the Italian Communist Party under Palmiro Togliatti. At that point, the committee planned to recommend aid but at $12 Billion (not $19 Billion) as a loan (not a gift) with an American entity to oversee not only distribution but advantages for the United States on imports like rubber, tin, and manganese.
On Thursday, November 13, 1947, the Herter Committee released seven reports to Congress (published next day by newspapers). While their reports addressed more immediate aid at that moment, they indicated the direction of their stance on the Marshall Plan. (Also, President Truman was to address Congress the following Monday to urge support for the Marshall Plan.) Herter focused on the threat of "Communist-controlled labor unions." Bolton linked the growing Cold War front in Europe with America's long-term security. John Davis Lodge saw the plan as a tool to support America's "democratic system and its moral and spiritual values." The seven reports covered: 
The reports included grave concerns about the spread of Communism in Europe by former WWII ally the USSR, particularly Italy (as of November 1947): Frank Lindsay, who served in the OSS (1944-1945) served as a consultant to the Herter Committee (1947-1948, after which he was stationed in Paris for the Organization for European Economic Co-operation, and then worked for the newly formed United States Central Intelligence Agency or CIA (1949-1953). Later, he helped set up the European side of the Marshall Plan and helped fellow OSS officer Frank Wisner establish the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), a covert operation wing of the CIA.
Legacy.
Marshall Plan.
"See Marshall Plan"
On March 13, 1948, the Marshall Plan passed both the United States Senate (71:19) and House (333:78). On April 1, 1948, the plan went to joint conference committee; on April 2, 1948, it passed both the House and Senate. On April 3, 1948, US President Harry S. Truman signed the bill into law. In 1951 the Marshall Plan was largely replaced by the Mutual Security Act.
The resulting European Recovery Program (ERP) transferred more $12 billion (more than $128 billion as of 2020) to Western European economies and operated for four years. ERP goals included: rebuilding war-torn regions, removing trade barriers, modernizing industry, improving European prosperity, and preventing the spread of Communism. The ERP required a reduction of interstate barriers, a dropping of many regulations; it encouraged an increase in productivity, as well as the adoption of modern business procedures.
Economists Bradford DeLong and Barry Eichengreen deemed the Marshall Plan "History's Most Successful Structural Adjustment Program," stating: 
Nixon.
Nixon's name appears only once and only in a list of committee members. On May 15, 2008, the journalist Daniel Schorr recalled: In his 1960 memoir "Six Crises", Nixon does not mention what he learned from his trip to Europe with the Herter Committee, nor again does he in the 1978 "RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon". In his 1980 memoir "The Real War", Nixon recalled: In his 1982 book "Leaders", he mentions meeting Italian Prime Minister Alcide de Gasperi during his Herter Committee trip. Nixon recalled: On July 13, 1973, during an exit interview, Herbert G. Klein, Executive Branch Communications Director for Nixon, said: 
In 2007, Klein recalled: 
Works.
The committee's final, 889-page report included six (6) main points: The Franklin Lindsay papers at the Hoover Institution Archives include the following papers from the Herter Committee: