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INTRODUCTION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2021

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Introduction
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Royal Historical Society Camden Fifth Series , Volume 62: BRITISH FINANCIAL DIPLOMACY WITH NORTH AMERICA 1944–1946 , December 2021 , pp. 1 - 29
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Royal Historical Society

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References

1 Matthews, R.C.O., Feinstein, C.H., and Odling-Smee, J.C., British Economic Growth 1865–1973 (Oxford, 1982), 129Google Scholar.

2 Alec Cairncross, The British Economy since 1945 (Oxford, 1992), 47: Britain accumulated a £10 billion (c. $40 billion) deficit in its balance of payments on current account. Cairncross, Alec, Years of Recovery: British Economic Policy, 1945–1951 (London: Methuen, 1985), 4Google Scholar: Lend-Lease aid to Britain totalled £6,700 million less £1,300 million reciprocal aid to the United States, leaving a balance of £5,000 million (c. $20 billion); see also Sayers, R.S., Financial Policy, 1939–1945 (London, 1956), 480Google Scholar, 500.

3 Harry S. Truman, Year of Decisions, 1945 (New York, 1965), 254–255.

4 FRUS, 1945, VI, pp. 102–103 109.

5 Commons, 5th ser., vol. 413, 24 August 1945, col. 956.

6 The in-text citations ‘Brand Report’ and ‘Harmer Diary’ refer to documents contained within this book.

7 Obituary, ‘Sir S. F. Harmer’, The Times (24 October 1950), 8; announcement of death, ‘Laura Russell Harmer’, The Times (25 May 1956), 1.

8 Letter to the editor, The Times (23 November 1983), 11.

9 Who's Who 1978; obituary, ‘Sir Frederic Harmer’, The Times (14 March 1995), 19; obituary, ‘Frederic Evelyn Harmer (1924)’, King's College Annual Report (November 1995), 57–58, at 57; information from James Harmer.

10 David Watt, ‘Brand, Robert Henry, Baron Brand (1878–1963)’, Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 1981)

11 FRUS, 1945, VI, p. 99.

12 ‘Profile: R.H. Brand’, The Observer (2 September 1945), 6.

13 Who Was Who; K. Burk, ‘Brand, Robert Henry, Baron Brand (1878–1963)’, Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004); ‘Cricket’, The Times (30 July 1897), 10; obituary, ‘Lord Brand’, The Times (24 August 1963), 8; James Fox, Five Sisters: The Langhornes of Virginia (New York, 2000), 160–171, 247, 250, 450–452, 472.

14 H. Duncan Hall, North American Supply (London, 1955), 46 n. 4.

15 Under the gold standard system gold guaranteed currencies, with the amount of money in circulation fixed by its agreed ratio to the gold reserves. International trade meant movements of gold from buyer to seller. By 1914, some countries held reserves not in gold but in the foreign exchange of other countries (mainly British securities). When countries returned to gold in the 1920s holding foreign exchange reserves (now dollars and pounds) became more frequent.

16 Nicholas John Spykman, ‘The United States and the Allied debts’, Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht, 1:1 (1929), 155–184; Arthur Rathbone (assistant secretary of the Treasury), ‘Making war loans to the Allies’, Foreign Affairs 3:3 (April 1925), 371–398; Annual Report of Secretary of Treasury, 1922, 24–27; Annual Report of Secretary of Treasury, 1923, 24–29; Annual Report of Secretary of Treasury, 1924, 47; Samuel Flagg Bemis, A Diplomatic History of the United States (New York, 1936), 716; Robert Blake, The Unknown Prime Minister (London, 1955), 483–495; Keith Middlemas and John Barnes, Baldwin: A Biography (London, 1969), 128–147; Harold G. Moulton and Leo Pasvolsky, War Debts and World Prosperity (New York, 1932), 80–103.

17 David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 (New York, 1999), 37, 49, 58–67.

18 Harold James, Europe Reborn: A History, 1914–2000 (Harlow, 2003), 108; Herbert Hoover, Memoirs: The Great Depression (New York, 1952), 81–82.

19 Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 390–391; Hoover, Memoirs, 67–80; Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War (New York, 1948), 201–219; Bemis, Diplomatic History of US, 719–721.

20 British overseas possessions (except Canada) and some Middle Eastern and European countries pegged their local currencies to the pound and conducted international transactions in sterling. This group became known as the sterling bloc with trade denominated in sterling within the Imperial Preference area. In 1939 Britain introduced exchange controls, ending convertibility, and the bloc's dollar earnings were pooled. By 1945 the bloc was called the sterling area.

21 Walter A. Morton, British Finance, 1930–1940 (Madison, WI, 1943), 286–288; Commons, 5th ser. vol. 343, 15 February 1939, cols 1730–1731; G. C. Peden, British Rearmament and the Treasury, 1932–1939 (Edinburgh, 1979), 207; Hall, North American Supply, 72–80; John Morton Blum, From the Morgenthau Diaries II: Years of Urgency, 1938–1941 (Boston, MA, 1965, 101–103.

22 Cmd 6707, Statistical Material Presented During the Washington Negotiations (London, 1945), 9–10; Hall, North American Supply, 275 n.

23 Warren Kimball, Forged in War (London, 1997), 69–73; Roosevelt's press conference, 17 December 1940, available at www.presidency.ucsb.edu (accessed 11 March 2020).

24 Warren Kimball, Most Unsordid Act, 132–229; Leon Martel, Lend-Lease, Loans and the Coming of the Cold War (Boulder, CO, 1979), 1–5; Edward R. Stettinius, Lend-Lease: Weapon for Victory (Harmondsworth, 1944), 74, 100, 118.

25 Christopher Thorne, Allies of a Kind (Oxford, 1978), 110–111; Hall, North American Supply, 255; Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, 360–362.

26 Richard Toye, ‘The Attlee government, the Imperial Preference System and the creation of the GATT’, English Historical Review, 118:478 (2003), 912–939, at 915–918.

27 Warren Kimball, ed., Churchill and Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence, 3 vols (Princeton, NJ, 1984), I, 357–358; Anglo-American Mutual Aid Agreement, 23 February 1942; Master Lend-Lease Agreement, 1942; both available at https://avalon.law.yale.edu/ (accessed 28 February 2020).

28 Hall, North American Supply, 340–393, 463–471.

29 FRUS, 1942, I, pp. 89–162; FRUS, 1943, I, pp. 851–1028; George Woodbridge, History of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, 3 vols (New York, 1950).

30 R. Bruce Craig, Treasonable Doubt (Lawrence, KS, 2004), 17–40; Theodore A. Wilson, First Summit, (Lawrence, KS, 1991), 155–156; Randall Bennett Woods, A Changing of the Guard (Chapel Hill, NC, 1990), 74; Robert Skidelsky, Keynes: III: Fighting for Britain, 1937–1946 (London, 2000), 110, 151–154; D.E. Moggridge, Keynes: An Economist's Biography (London, 1992), 726–727, 780.

31 Proceedings and Documents of the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, July 1–22, 1944, 2 vols (Washington DC, 1948).

32 TNA, CAB 65/43, WM(44) 92nd Conclusions, 18 July 1944; Sayers, Financial Policy, 1939–1945, 434, 463–468. FDRL, Morgenthau Presidential Diary 6:1386–1388, 19 August 1944; Morgenthau Diary, 765:107–108, 118–123, 771:223–225; Blum, From the Morgenthau Diaries III: Years of War, 1941–1945, 307–313.

33 Churchill College, Cambridge, Robinson Papers, ROBN 3/1/5 and ROBN 3/8/1; JMK CW, XXIV, pp. 185–192.

34 JMK CW, XXIV, pp. 256–295; CAB 66/65, WP(45) 301, 15 May 1945 contains minor revisions to 18 March version; DBPO, 1st ser., III, p. 2 n. 4. L.S. Pressnell, External Economic Policy Since the War (London, 1986), 237–241.

35 JMK CW, XXIV, pp. 339–343.

36 JMK CW, XXIV, pp. 372–376, at 372, 376.

37 JMK CW, XXIV, pp. 377–398, 398–411; CAB 129/1, CP(45) 112, CAB 128/1, CM(45) 23rd Conclusions, 16 August 1945.

38 FRUS, 1945, VI, pp. 79–87, 97–101, 103–105; Pressnell, External Economic Policy, 250–251; Sayers, Financial Policy, 1939–1945, 483.

39 DBPO, 1st ser., III, pp. 55–58.

40 DBPO, 1st ser., III, No. 1(i).

41 DBPO, 1st ser., III, pp. 72–77.

42 DBPO, 1st ser., III, p. 117; Moggridge, Keynes, 798–799; Pressnell, External Economic Policy, 343.

43 Skidelsky, Keynes III, 410.

44 Brand Papers 197/2, ‘He Did What Nobody Thought He Could Do’, Evening Star (11 May 1945); Nicholas J. Cull, ‘Lord Halifax’, in Michael F. Hopkins, Sean Kelly, and John W. Young (eds), The Washington Embassy, 1939–1977 (Basingstoke, 2009), 33–51.

45 David McCullough, Truman (New York, 1992), pp. 404, 507.

46 Robert H. Ferrell (ed.), Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman (New York, 1980), 46; Clark Clifford, Counsel to the President (New York, 1991), 70.

47 Moggridge, Keynes, 799.

48 Hugh Dalton, High Tide and After (London, 1962), 75.

49 Skidelsky, Keynes III, 409; Martin Weil, A Pretty Good Club (New York, 1978), 203.

50 FRUS, 1945, VI, pp. 122–126.

51 JMK CW, XXIV, pp. 460–466.

52 National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland [hereafter NARA], RG59, State Department, Central Decimal File, 1945–1949, box 2727, 611.4131/5-1446 contains the minutes of all the meetings of the different committees.

53 JMK CW, XXIV, pp. 479, 483.

54 JMK CW, XXIV, pp. 488–489.

55 JMK CW, XXIV, pp. 493–494.

56 JMK CW, XXIV, p. 500; DBPO, 1st ser., III, pp. 149–150; Skidelsky, Keynes III, 415.

57 DBPO, 1st ser., III, pp. 153–155, 157–159.

58 JMK CW, XXIV, pp. 512 n, 502–508, at 505; DBPO, 1st ser., III, p. 169 n.

59 FRUS, 1945, VI, pp. 103–105, at 104; Moggridge, Keynes, 801; Pressnell, External Economic Policy, 273–274; Skidelsky, Keynes III, 414–415.

60 Toye, ‘The Attlee government, the Imperial Preference System and the creation of the GATT’, 912–939, at 937–938.

61 DBPO, 1st ser., III, pp. 181–183, 191–193, 200–204, 205–207, 292–297, at 295, 297; Susan Howson and Donald Moggridge (eds), The Wartime Diaries of Lionel Robbins and James Meade, 1943–1945 (Basingstoke, 1990), 225–233; Pressnell, External Economic Policy, 276–279, 326–329; JMK CW, XXIV, pp. 538 n.

62 DBPO, 1st ser., III, pp. 196–199, 210–214.

63 DBPO, 1st ser., III, pp. 219–222, 223–224, 227–232.

64 A 3c loan referred to clause 3c of the Lend-Lease agreement relating to supplies in the pipeline after the termination of Lend-Lease, which the Americans expected to be funded through a 30 years’ loan at 2⅜ per cent; Sayers, Financial Policy, 1939–1945, 482.

65 DBPO, 1st ser., III, pp. 243–247; Halifax Diary (18 October 1945).

66 DBPO, 1st ser., III, pp. 255–256, 257–261.

67 DBPO, 1st ser., III, pp. 269–271, 289–292, 300–302, 315–316; Skidelsky, Keynes III, 430.

68 DBPO, 1st ser., III, No 104i; Skidelsky, Keynes III, 433–434.

69 FRUS, 1945, VI, pp. 162–167; Halifax Diary (19 November 1945); DBPO, 1st ser., III, pp. 335–338, 341–344.

70 DBPO, 1st ser., III, No 118i, pp. 354–356, 356–358, 375–378, at 375; FRUS, 1945, VI, pp. 168–173; NARA, RG59, box 2727, 611.4131/5-1446.

71 DBPO, 1st ser., III, pp. 371, 372–374.

72 Pressnell, External Economic Policy, 319–320; CAB 128/4, Cabinet CM(45), 57th Conclusions; DBPO, 1st ser., III, pp. 389–394, 405–408.

73 NARA, RG59, box 2727, 611.4131/5-1446; DBPO, 1st ser., III, pp. 419–423 (at 423), 428–430; FO 371/45712, UE 5984/1094/53 and UE6090/1094/53; FRUS, 1945, VI, pp. 158, 173 n, 187 n; Cmd 6708, Settlement of Lend-Lease, Reciprocal Aid, Surplus Property and Claims (London, 1945).

74 The Economist (15 December 1945), 850.

75 Richard Toye, ‘Churchill and Britain's “Financial Dunkirk” ’, Twentieth Century British History 15:4 (2004), 329–360.

76 Lords, 5th ser., vol. 138, 18 December 1945, cols 777–794.

77 Moggridge, Keynes, 814–815.

78 Brand Papers 195/2, Canadian Loan Negotiations folder.

79 Urquhart, M.C. and Buckley, K.A.H. (eds), Historical Statistics of Canada (Toronto, 1965), 165Google Scholar; Hall, North American Supply, 482–483, 487; Mackenzie, Hector, ‘Sinews of war and peace: The politics of economic aid to Britain, 1939–1945’, International Journal 54:4 (Autumn, 1999), 669Google Scholar.

80 Brand Papers 195/2, Canadian Loan Negotiations folder. For the Canadian records, see Donald M. Page (ed.), Documents on Canadian External Relations, Vol. 12 (Ottawa, 1977), 1396–1404. Pressnell, External Economic Policy, 348–349.

81 Cmd 6904, Financial Agreement between UK and Canada, 6 March 1946 (London, 1946); T236/39, OF19/42/2. A memorandum, probably by Brand, explained that the Canadian dollar was worth 10 per cent less than the US dollar, meaning the loan amounted to $1,125 million; Brand Papers 195/1, F. Financial Papers folder, ‘US Loan to UK’, 4 March 1946.

82 RG59, box 5941, 841.51/3-446.

83 Acheson Papers, box 27, British loan – 1946 folder.

84 NARA, RG59, Treasury, Country and Area Records, box 30, UK: Agreements and Loans – United States folder.

85 Keynes Papers, JMK/L/B/2/279-281, 288, Brand to Keynes, 24 January 1946; Orr cartoon, ‘The Preferred Customer’, Chicago Daily Tribune (24 January 1946).

86 79th Congress, Second Session, Hearings of Senate Banking and Currency Committee, Anglo-American Financial Agreement (Washington DC, 1946); Hearings of House of Representatives Banking and Currency Committee, Anglo-American Financial Agreement (Washington DC, 1946).

87 See JMK CW, XXIV, pp. 568, 588 n and 598. I am grateful to Professor Donald Moggridge for identifying these entries.

88 Gamble, Andrew, ‘Political memoirs’, British Journal of Politics and international Relations 4:1 (April 2002), 143CrossRefGoogle Scholar.