The International Monetary Fund 1945-1965 : Twenty Years of International Monetary Cooperation Volume I: Chronicle

International Monetary Fund

• Publisher: INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND
• eBook ISBN:
  9781451955255
• Year: 1996

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Preface to Volume I

Part I of this Chronicle, comprising the first five chapters, deals with the plans and negotiations that culminated in the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference at Bretton Woods in July 1944, and with the Conference itself. Readers whose concern is only with the Fund after it was established, and not with these preliminary stages, will nevertheless find certain passages in these chapters helpful to an understanding of the influences which were brought to bear upon the Fund in its early days—in particular the first five sections of Chapter 1 (pp. 3–16); the section headed “U.S. Views on the Keynes Plan” on pages 28–30; the section headed “The Protagonists” on pages 54–57; the final paragraphs of the discussion of “Right to Draw” on pages 75–77; and the three middle sections of Chapter 4 (pp. 81–87). A synopsis of the Articles of Agreement will be found on pages 110–13.

In Parts II, III, and IV of this volume, each chapter is concerned, in principle, with the activities of the Fund from one Annual Meeting to the next—or, as time goes on, with its work in two such twelve-month periods. This arrangement has been preferred to the alternatives of relating each chapter either to the calendar year or to the fiscal year of the Fund, because the Annual Meetings have the advantage of being occasions on which the work of the Fund is traditionally reviewed. Nevertheless, any cutoff date is necessarily artificial, since the Fund’s activities are continuous. Moreover, consideration of many topics recurred on the agenda of the Executive Board over a period of years, and it would often be unhelpful to limit discussion only to that part of the total debate which took place during a single year. In many instances, therefore, the description of the Board’s actions in relation to a given topic has been concentrated in one chapter out of the several to which it would be relevant chronologically.

It should also be understood that only a small selection of the work of the Fund has been dealt with here. In addition to the topics discussed, the Board’s agenda contained a mass of other items. Some of these were of a routine character. Many, however, were important in themselves, though offering no fresh insights into the Fund’s work. All these have perforce been neglected. The reader should therefore bear in mind that when theoretical issues were considered by the Board it was in the context of specific problems not always detailed and against the background of continuous contact between the Fund and its members.

A reader wishing to identify the areas of interest of individual Executive Directors may refer to Appendix A, which lists the countries that appointed or elected them. As an approximation to this identification, the name of each Executive Director, when first mentioned in any section of the history, is followed by the name of his country of origin in parentheses. A similar course has been followed for Alternate Executive Directors, each of whom is also linked, on the first occasion when he is mentioned, to the Executive Director who appointed him.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for assistance in the preparation of this volume.

To Her Britannic Majesty’s Treasury and to the Bank of England, for permission to examine their files of material bearing on the Fund for the period 1941–45, and to quote from them; to Mrs. Anne Terry White, for permission to use and to quote from the papers of Harry Dexter White, now on deposit at Princeton University Library; and to Lord Kahn for permission to quote from Lord Keynes’ correspondence.

To Mr. Elting Arnold, Mr. E. M. Bernstein, Mr. Johan W. Beyen, Mr. Henry J. Bittermann, Sir George Bolton, K.C.M.G., Mr. Emilio G. Collado, Mr. Jean de Largentaye, Miss G. A. Koen, Sir Frank Lee, G.C.M.G., Mr. Ansel F. Luxford, Mr. August Maffry, Professor James Meade, Professor Raymond F. Mikesell, Mr. Redvers Opie, Lord Robbins, C.H., Mr. Leroy D. Stinebower, Mr. G. H. Tansley, Professor Jacob Viner, and Mr. George H. Willis, for information freely given in response to inquiries.

To Mr. Allan G. B. Fisher, formerly Chief Editor of the Fund, and to Mr. Lucius P. Thompson-McCausland, for continuous help, comment, and criticism of the drafts.

To present and former Executive Directors and members of the staff of the Fund, who have supplied inside information and corrected many errors.

To the Archivist of the Fund and to the Joint Bank-Fund Librarian, and their staffs, who have greatly facilitated the task of identifying and consulting the relevant documents and books.

To the author’s research assistant, Mrs. Helen G. Burrows, who prepared Appendix A, purged successive drafts of inconsistencies and infelicities, and maintained a constant head of steam for the project throughout its course.

To Mrs. Jane B. Evensen, Assistant Editor of the Fund, for her masterly revision of the final text.

But the author alone is responsible for the obtusenesses and inaccuracies that still remain.

J. K. H.

Abbreviations and Definitions

Annual Meetings, 19—	Annual Meetings of the Boards of Governors of the Fund and the Bank, in the year specified. The Meetings of the two institutions are held at the same time and in the same place, and some of the sessions are held jointly. Other sessions, however, are held separately by the Fund and the Bank. When the term Annual Meeting (in the singular) is used, the reference is to a Meeting of the Fund Governors.
Annual Report, 19—	Annual Report of the Executive Directors for the Fiscal Year Ended April 30, 19—
Articles of Agreement; Articles; Fund Agreement	Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund
Atlantic City	[Site of] meeting of technicians, June 1944, preparatory to Bretton Woods Conference
Bank; World Bank	International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
BIS	Bank for International Settlements
Bretton Woods	[Site of] United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, July 1944
Canadian Plan	Tentative Draft Proposals of Canadian Experts for an International Exchange Union
Consultations	Annual consultations with members by the Executive Board under Article XIV, and parallel consultations with members that have accepted the obligations of Article VIII
Drawing	Purchase from the Fund by a member of another member’s currency (or other members’ currencies). Amounts are always expressed in U.S. dollars.
E.B. Decision	Decision of the Executive Board. Until Meeting 630 (at the beginning of 1951), the formal decisions and policy actions of the Executive Board were numbered x-y, where x was the number of the meeting and y that of the decision taken at that meeting (e.g., 2-1 was the first decision taken at Executive Board Meeting 2). Beginning with Meeting 630, the decisions were numbered consecutively; thereafter the number was z-(x), where z was the consecutive number of the decision and x that of the meeting (e.g., 7-(648) was the seventh policy decision taken since Meeting 630, and was taken at Meeting 648). From January 1, 1952, the number of the decision has been followed by the last two figures of the year and the number of the meeting in that year in parentheses (e.g., Decision No. 102-(52/11) was the 102nd decision since Meeting 630, and was taken at the eleventh meeting in 1952).
ECA	Economic Cooperation Administration (U.S.)
ECE	Economic Commission for Europe (UN)
ECOSOC	Economic and Social Council (UN)
EEC	European Economic Community
EPU	European Payments Union
ERP	European Recovery Program (U.S.)
FAO	Food and Agriculture Organization (UN)
French Plan	Suggestions Regarding International Monetary Relations
GAB	General Arrangements to Borrow
GATT	General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
Group of Ten	The countries associated in the General Arrangements to Borrow, viz., Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States
IFNS	International Financial News Survey
IFS	International Financial Statistics
ILO	International Labor Office
ITO	International Trade Organization
Joint Statement	Joint Statement by Experts on the Establishment of an International Monetary Fund
Key-Currency Plan	Professor John H. Williams’ proposals
Keynes Plan	Proposals for an International Clearing Union
OECD	Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
OEEC	Organization for European Economic Cooperation
Princeton papers	Harry Dexter White papers deposited at Princeton University
Proceedings	Proceedings and Documents of the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, July 1–22, 1944, 2 vols. (Washington, 1948).
Resolution	Resolution of the Board of Governors of the Fund. Resolutions at the Annual Meetings of Governors are referred to by the number of the Annual Meeting followed by a dash and the number of the resolution. Resolutions passed at the Inaugural Meeting (Savannah, March 1946) are listed as IM-1, etc., those at the First Annual Meeting (Washington, September 1946) as 1-1, and so on. Resolutions passed by Governors between Annual Meetings are given the number of the next succeeding Annual Meeting.
Savannah	[Site of] Inaugural Meeting of Governors
Selected Decisions	Selected Decisions of the Executive Directors and Selected Documents, 3rd issue, January 1965
Selected Documents	Selected Documents, Board of Governors Inaugural Meeting, Savannah, Ga., March 8 to 18, 1946 (compare Summary Proceedings below)
Summary Proceedings, 19—	Summary Proceedings of the … Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors (issued after each Annual Meeting). In early years Summary Proceedings were really summaries, but latterly most speeches made at the Annual Meetings have been printed in full. In these printed reports Governors are named, but in the records maintained in the Fund’s files they are not, being referred to as “Governor” whether they were in fact Governors, Alternate Governors, or Temporary Alternate Governors. Unless, therefore, the speaker can be identified in other ways, it has been necessary, in those parts of this Chronicle that are d...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface to Volume I
• Abbreviations and Definitions
• Part I: Prehistory
• Part II: The Beginnings
• Part III: Forging Ahead
• Part IV: Wider Horizons
• Appendices
• Indexes
• Tables
• Footnotes