Loan Negotiations with the US (Draft)
― August 1945 – December
Toshiaki Hirai (Sophia University)
[Abstract]
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, indicating the beginning of the so-called “Stage III”, ending the “Stage II (the period from the defeat of Germany to that of Japan). [*In the UK the Labour Party won the election, and Attlee became PM in July (-Oct. 1951), defeating Churchill. In the US Roosevelt died in April.]
Faced with this emergent situation, the British Government held a cabinet meeting on August 23, based on Keynes’s proposal produced on August 13. Keynes himself attended it.
On the next day, the delegation with Keynes as the top to the US was announced at the Commons. The delegation left for the US on August 27.
Concerning a financial negotiation with the US, there had been a negotiation leading up to the Anglo-American Mutual Aid Agreement (Feb. 1942) based on the Lend Lease Act (March 1941), followed by a further negotiation due to the change in political and economical situation. As Keynes was a representative of these negotiations, his selection above-mentioned was a natural course of event.
What this chapter aims at is an examination of the process of the negotiation which run from late August in which a loan negotiation with the US started to the conclusion of “The Anglo-American Financial Agreements”1, and an evaluation of how Keynes showed his stance as a negotiator during these processes.
TOB
1. Introduction
2. Preparatory Stage: August
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
