The Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA) was a United States 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 head was Paul G. Hoffman, a former head of Studebaker. Much of the rest of the organization was also headed by major business figures. The ECA had an office in the capital of each of the sixteen countries participating in the Marshall Plan. In theory the ECA served as joint administrator of the Marshall Plan development projects in each European nation. In practice the local officials knew far more about what was needed than the ECA representatives.
It was succeeded by the United States Agency for International Development.
Famous quotes containing the words economic and/or cooperation:
“The economic dependence of woman and her apparently indestructible illusion that marriage will release her from loneliness and work and worry are potent factors in immunizing her from common sense in dealing with men at work.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“We fatuously hoped that we might pluck from the human tragedy itself a consciousness of a common destiny which should bring its own healing, that we might extract from life’s very misfortunes a power of cooperation which should be effective against them.”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)