ABSTRACT
The Allies needed German expertise in the running of the country, especially since the Allied armies were quickly demobilised after the war had ended. The organisational structure of the European Recovery Program made it inevitable that West Germany played a part in the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, set up to coordinate the European planning for the Marshall Plan. American Cold War policy made it inevitable that Europe was to be rebuilt and integrated into a western block, both in military and in economic terms. The treaty was the Agreement on Economic Co-operation, commonly known as the Bilateral Agreement. According to an agreement within the US administration, which had been reached in spring 1950, 25 per cent of all Economic Cooperation Administration/Mutual Security Agency counterparts had to be transferred into the Government Appropriations for Relief in Occupied Areas (GARIOA) accounts. Consequently, the GARIOA programme was introduced into the budget of the US Army in 1946-47.
