Loan Negotiations with the US (Draft) ― Faced with a “Financial Dunkirk” Toshiaki Hirai (Sophia University) It was on August 17, 1945 - immediately after the end of the WWII - that the Lend-Lease Act (LLA) was abolished. This was a snap judgment by President Truman, a successor of Roosevelt from April on, indicating the beginning of the so-called “Stage III” with the end of the “Stage II” (the period from the defeat of Germany to that of Japan). Faced with this emergent situation, Clement Attlee, the leader of the Labour Party, who became a prime minister just in July through an unexpectedly overwhelming victory in the general election, defeating Churchill, held a cabinet meeting on August 23, based on Keynes’s proposal produced on August 13. Between August 17 and 23, Keynes wrote a memorandum, “Our Overseas Financial Prospects” (Keynes [1945]), warning a “financial Dunkirk”. On the next day, the delegation with Keynes as the top for the negotiation with the U.S. was announced at the Commons. It left for the U.S. on August 27. Concerning a financial negotiation with the U.S., there had been one leading up to the “Anglo-American Mutual Aid Agreement” (February 1942) based on the LLA (March 1941), followed by a further negotiation due to the changed political and economical situation. As Keynes was a representative of these negotiations, his selection above-mentioned was a natural course of event. What this paper aims at is an examination of the process of the negotiation which started on late August and came to the conclusion of “The Anglo-American Financial Agreements” (December 6), and an evaluation of how Keynes showed his stance as a negotiator during this process. 1. Introduction 2. Preparatory Stage: August 1945 2.1 Proposals for Financial Arrangements in the Sterling Area and between the U.S. and the U.K. to Follow after Lend Lease 2.2 Some Highly Preliminary Notes on the Forthcoming Conversations: 9 September 1945 3. Favorable Phase 3.1 Top Committee (U.S.-U.K. Financial and Economic Negotiations Top Committee): September 13― 20 3.2 Favorable Proceeding: September 20 ― October 12 4. Offense and Defense of Tactics and the Stalemate Phase: October 12 ―November 18 5. Confusion and Outcome: November 19 ― December 6 5.1 Organizational Confusion and Lack of Understanding in the US side 5.2 Internal Conflict in the UK Side ― Cabinet Meeting vs. Delegation 5.3 Vinson’s Behavior and The Anglo-American Financial Agreement (December 6) 6. Chilly Response in the UK and Keynes’s Speech at the House of Lords 6.1 Chilly Response 6.2 Keynes’s Speech at the House of Lords 7. Conclusion |
