User:Willemlazar

In May 1997 Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok used the following words in his speech welcoming President Bill Clinton during the commemoration of the Marshall Plan that was initiated by US Secretary of State George Marshall 50 years earlier in 1947. Also Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hans van Mierlo, used these same words in an article in the International Herald Tribune "Forward With a New Generation of Europeans" which appeared on 28 May 1997 on the Op-Ed page.

The quote reads: "Americans are our relatives by history and our friends by choice."