LETTERS
March 25, 2013, 4:18 p.m. ET
Both Benn Steil, author of "The Battle of Bretton Woods," and reviewer James Grant are to be commended for their excellent discussions of the 1944 Bretton Woods conference that resulted in the establishment of the International Monetary Fund and, more importantly, the less-than-stellar outcomes of IMF policies since then ("Review—Books: A Fateful Meeting That Shaped the World," March 16).
Kudos to both for revealing that America's chief delegate to the conference, assistant
secretary of the Treasury Harry Dexter White, was a spy for the Soviet Union. One of White's most egregious actions—which, fortunately, was never implemented—was recommending that postwar Germany be flooded with counterfeit money in order to destroy its economy.
In 1945, White got another opportunity to betray his country: He was named as senior adviser to the U.S. delegation to the conference in San Francisco that founded the United Nations. In this capacity, he funneled information to his handlers as to how the U.S.S.R. could get veto power and kept them apprised of the U.S. position on significant issues. White's perfidy was coupled with that of another high-ranking American spy for the Soviets, Alger Hiss, who presided over the U.N. conference. Hiss served as a top adviser to FDR at the Yalta conference, where Roosevelt and, yes, Winston Churchill ceded Eastern Europe to Joseph Stalin.
Another NGO formed at Bretton Woods was the World Bank, which consisted of two major divisions, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Development Association. The former is indicative of the World Bank's initial mission: providing loans to war-torn Western Europe to rebuild its shattered infrastructure. Once that objective had essentially been achieved by the late 1960s, the World Bank decided that it needed to do something to assure its continued existence. The new mission would be eradicating world poverty, to be achieved by providing social services, building schools and hospitals, improving primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing the rate of infant mortality, enhancing maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS and malaria, and promoting environmental stability. (I saw numerous examples of these programs—usually applied to developing nations—when I had the opportunity to peruse a number of publications in the World Bank's Paris office.)
In the review, the comments of the late New York Times editorialist Henry Hazlitt point out the shaky foundation on which the IMF was founded. I was surprised, however, that there was no mention that the IMF, like the World Bank, shifted direction to continue operating. Instead of a responsibility for stabilizing exchange rates, the current mission involves bailing out nations with failing economies; about $600 billion has been provided since 1970.
Communist influence during their formation, changing missions to extend their lives, profligate spending and general ineptness are the legacies of the IMF, World Bank and the U.N. Given these deficiencies and the billions of dollars we have contributed to these organizations with little or nothing to show, it is time for America to have a serious debate as to what our future involvement should be.
Related: The Architect of the US Federal Reserve Bank, JM Keynes, was a Pedophile & Pervert
Richard T. Hise
College Station, Texas
WSJ.com
March 25, 2013, 4:18 p.m. ET
Both Benn Steil, author of "The Battle of Bretton Woods," and reviewer James Grant are to be commended for their excellent discussions of the 1944 Bretton Woods conference that resulted in the establishment of the International Monetary Fund and, more importantly, the less-than-stellar outcomes of IMF policies since then ("Review—Books: A Fateful Meeting That Shaped the World," March 16).
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| Convicted Soviet Spy Harry Dexter White(left) and Pedophile John Maynard Keynes (right) at the Bretton Woods Conference |
secretary of the Treasury Harry Dexter White, was a spy for the Soviet Union. One of White's most egregious actions—which, fortunately, was never implemented—was recommending that postwar Germany be flooded with counterfeit money in order to destroy its economy.
In 1945, White got another opportunity to betray his country: He was named as senior adviser to the U.S. delegation to the conference in San Francisco that founded the United Nations. In this capacity, he funneled information to his handlers as to how the U.S.S.R. could get veto power and kept them apprised of the U.S. position on significant issues. White's perfidy was coupled with that of another high-ranking American spy for the Soviets, Alger Hiss, who presided over the U.N. conference. Hiss served as a top adviser to FDR at the Yalta conference, where Roosevelt and, yes, Winston Churchill ceded Eastern Europe to Joseph Stalin.
Another NGO formed at Bretton Woods was the World Bank, which consisted of two major divisions, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Development Association. The former is indicative of the World Bank's initial mission: providing loans to war-torn Western Europe to rebuild its shattered infrastructure. Once that objective had essentially been achieved by the late 1960s, the World Bank decided that it needed to do something to assure its continued existence. The new mission would be eradicating world poverty, to be achieved by providing social services, building schools and hospitals, improving primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing the rate of infant mortality, enhancing maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS and malaria, and promoting environmental stability. (I saw numerous examples of these programs—usually applied to developing nations—when I had the opportunity to peruse a number of publications in the World Bank's Paris office.)
In the review, the comments of the late New York Times editorialist Henry Hazlitt point out the shaky foundation on which the IMF was founded. I was surprised, however, that there was no mention that the IMF, like the World Bank, shifted direction to continue operating. Instead of a responsibility for stabilizing exchange rates, the current mission involves bailing out nations with failing economies; about $600 billion has been provided since 1970.
Communist influence during their formation, changing missions to extend their lives, profligate spending and general ineptness are the legacies of the IMF, World Bank and the U.N. Given these deficiencies and the billions of dollars we have contributed to these organizations with little or nothing to show, it is time for America to have a serious debate as to what our future involvement should be.
Related: The Architect of the US Federal Reserve Bank, JM Keynes, was a Pedophile & Pervert
Richard T. Hise
College Station, Texas
WSJ.com
