Office of the Historian

800.515/8–1144: Telegram

The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State

London, August 11, 1944—11 p.m.
[Received 11:15 p.m.]

6472. Ronald12 in an informal talk raised a point regarding Resolution VI of the Final Act of the Bretton Woods Conference, dealing with enemy assets and looted property.13 He said the Foreign Office is still most reluctant to undertake or recommend any measures which could not effectively be enforced without widespread continuation after the war of postal censorship, blockade and navicerts. He asked what if any measures the State Department proposes to take as a result of this Resolution and said that though he feels the objections he made at Bretton Woods14 have not lost force, the Foreign Office will do its best to cooperate with the State Department in any measures which it may take.

Winant
  1. Sir Nigel Bruce Ronald, British Assistant Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who was a member of the United Kingdom delegation to the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, July 1–22, 1944. For documentation on this Conference, see pp. 106 ff.↩
  2. For text of Resolution VI, see infra. At the Bretton Woods Conference, the French and Polish delegations had submitted proposals on enemy assets and looted property to Committee 2 of Commission III. When the United States delegation submitted an alternative draft resolution containing features of their proposals, the French and Polish delegates withdrew their drafts. Thus, it was essentially the United States draft resolution that was finally adopted as Resolution VI. (Proceedings and Documents of the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, July 1–22, 1944 (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1948), vol. i, p. 862.)↩
  3. The British delegate was the only member of Committee 2 to speak in opposition to the proposed resolution; for summary of his objections, see ibid. ↩