In his Philadelphia Kaiser-Frazer agency one day last year, swarthy, greying Joe Pacifico heard about a new ECA plan. To encourage U.S. investments abroad and help European recovery, ECA would guarantee the conversion of profits into dollars for any projects that it approved. Joe remembered the old stone quarry near Naples which he had helped his father work as a boy. His brother Eugene and sister Carmela still ran it with primitive methods and materials.
Joe got his son to type a hunt & peck letter to ECAdministrator Paul Hoffman, telling him about the quarry and his relatives. Joe...