Logo used on aid delivered to European countries during the Marshall Plan, starting about 1948.

The labeling was deemed necessary when Congress became concerned that the Soviet Union was taking credit for the poorly-marked U.S. foreign aid donations to European countries. The shield was adapted from the Great Seal of the United States, and the slogan was translated into the languages of the recipient countries.

The slogan became obsolete when military aid was added to the economic program, and when some Near East and Asian countries became aid recipients under President Truman’s Point IV Program. In 1951, the slogan was changed to “Strength for the Free World from the United States of America.”

The logo was used until 1953, when the Mutual Security Agency (a successor to the Marshall Plan programs) revised it. The logo for the United States Agency for International Development (the current incarnation of the same programs) is descended from this logo, and those of intermediate agencies.