(FORTUNE Magazine) – Jack Kemp and Madeleine Albright disagree about almost everything. Kemp, who was Bob Dole's running mate in the 1996 presidential race against Bill Clinton, leans right, while Albright, who was Clinton's Secretary of State, leans left. On one issue, however, they've quietly been working together. Both believe that the U.S. should do much more to help the economies of impoverished nations as a way to make the world a safer place.

The question of how to bolster developing economies--especially in poor Islamic countries where terrorism flourishes--is one of the hottest topics in international relations. With George W. Bush beating the war drums against Iraq, lawmakers and scholars are debating what role the U.S. should play in the Middle East in the event Saddam Hussein is deposed. Albright and Kemp met once at Brainstorm II in Aspen last summer and again in September at Albright's Washington, D.C., office to see if they could compose a joint statement or begin an organized dialogue with a wider group to bring attention to what they think of as a new Marshall Plan.

Secretary of State George C. Marshall proposed the original Marshall Plan on June 5, 1947, in a commencement address at Harvard. Europe, still reeling from World War II, had just been through a harsh winter and, before that, a meager harvest. Its economies and governments were on the verge of collapse. Marshall said that if the Europeans could cooperate and offer a single plan to revitalize themselves, the U.S. would underwrite the effort with up to $20 billion. By year-end, the European Recovery Program was underway, distributing U.S. goods and financial know-how to 17 nations. By 1953, America had disbursed $13 billion, and Europe was well on its way to becoming the thriving unified market that it is today.

Modern-day politicians aren't proposing anything as elaborate--or as expensive--as the Marshall Plan, which cost about $3 billion a year. That may not sound like much, but in 1948 it was 10% of the federal budget and 1.1% of GDP. By contrast, the U.S.'s entire foreign-aid budget of $11.6 billion today is only 0.6% of government spending and 0.1% of GDP.

Before Sept. 11, the Bush administration and many others opposed peacekeeping and nation building--jargon for using U.S. military and financial resources to police and restore the world's most troubled countries. But that is precisely what the U.S. is doing in Afghanistan and what it would have to do in a post-Saddam Iraq. Because of the Marshall Plan's success at nation building in Europe, politicians of both parties like to invoke its memory to make foreign aid more palatable to a skeptical public.

Kemp and Albright haven't agreed on the specifics of a plan. During the Clinton years Albright was forever trying to persuade Congress to dramatically boost direct payments to struggling countries. Kemp says his plan would be "more trade than aid" and would focus initially on improving the lot of Palestinians and Afghans. In practice, neither vision by itself is likely to work. President Bush has endorsed increases in foreign aid but nothing massive--the budget deficit looms too large--and Kemp acknowledges that additional support for Palestinians must await a peace agreement with Israel. That could be a very long wait.

A big difference between today and General Marshall's era is that the federal government is no longer alone in assisting needy countries. Its nearly $12 billion in aid represents less than half the amount Americans contribute abroad, often through nongovernment organizations. The world has gotten much more complicated since Marshall spoke beneath the Cambridge elms; a new version of his plan would be equally complicated. --Jeffrey H. Birnbaum