Dennis A. FitzGerald

For the next several years he held many positions within the U.S. Department of Agriculture and gained administrative experience plus exposure to the problems of food distribution in a war ravaged world.

Upon his return, he served for the next couple of years as Secretary General, International Emergency Food Council,[1] a United Nations agency composed of representatives of 32 countries interested in dealing with worldwide food shortages during the years following World War II.

In 1948 the U.S. began implementing a massive program of economic assistance to Europe in order to support European recovery from the losses of World War II.

Although a professionally trained agricultural economist with years of administrative experience with foreign aid programs, FitzGerald was also a political appointee and thus subject to the fate of holdover political appointees who are normally replaced by an incoming presidential administration wanting to pick its own people to carry out its policies and programs.

While at Brookings FitzGerald conducted research on issues involving foreign economic assistance, participated in Council on Foreign Relations discussions and in the spring of 1963 served as a consultant for the United Nations Special Fund which provided development assistance to Indonesia.