SECRET US funding of "voluntary" organisations began with the Marshall Plan. In June 1947 George Marshall, US Secretary of State, in a speech at Harvard, suggested that the European nations, including the USSR, should agree a joint programme of reconstruction to which the US would contribute. Within three months 16 European nations had formulated a European Recovery Programme (ERP) for the period 1947-51.
ERP was welcomed by President Truman, immediate interim aid was authorised for Austria, France and Italy, and in April 1948 Congress passed the Economic Co-operation Act which set up the Economic Co-operation Administration (ECA*) to administer some 13,000 million dollars of aid to Europe over the period 1948-51. (*ECA administrator for France was Barry Bingham, who helped launch the International Press Institute.)
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