Office of the Historian

800.515/1029a: Telegram

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

Washington, April 5, 1944—10 p.m.

2651. The Secretary of the Treasury4 has asked me to send to you the following message:

“Please call upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer5 and inform him of the following personal message from me. I should also appreciate it if you would supplement the message with an oral explanation of the urgent necessity for an immediate reply.

  • ‘1. The President has indicated his desire to call a conference of representatives of the Governments of the United and Associated Nations for the purpose of establishing an International Monetary Fund and a Bank for Reconstruction, and Development. He has specified that if a conference is to be called, he wishes it convened during May. To do this, it is essential to publish the Joint Statement of recommendations6 within a week or so inasmuch as a minimum of 5 to 6 weeks must elapse between the publication of the Joint Statement and the convening of the conference. This period is needed both to prepare for the conference and to permit discussions of the Joint Statement in Parliament as requested by the U.K. experts.
  • 2. Before we can publish the statement, we must also have the acquiescence of the technical experts of some other countries. The U.K. technical experts have insisted that we do not show even a preliminary draft of the Joint Statement to the technical experts of other countries until its publication has been agreed between us. For this reason we need about a week between the day the U.K. experts agree to the Joint Statement and the date of actual publication.
  • 3. It is not my intention to try to influence in any way the decision of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the recommendations of the technical experts. As the Joint Statement explicitly states the recommendations are solely those of the technical experts, and governments are in no way bound by them. My purpose is to inform the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the necessity for a prompt decision on whether or not the U.K. experts agree with the Joint Statement of principles.
  • 4. It is clear that unless we hear from the U.K. within a few days or so regarding publication of the Joint Statement we shall be unable to hold a conference at the time selected by the President. If it is not held then, there is no saying if and when a conference can be held. It is my hope, therefore, that you will let me know within a few days the decision on publication of the Joint Statement.
  • 5. If the Joint Statement is published promptly there would still be time for public discussions of the recommendations of the experts before invitations to the conference are issued. Under any circumstances, it is my intention to appear before the appropriate Congressional Committees soon to inform them of the status of the technical discussions. The precise date for issuing invitations and convening the conference could be settled soon after the Joint Statement, is published.’”

Please bring the substance of this message to the attention of the Foreign Office.

Hull
  1. Henry Morgenthau, Jr.↩
  2. Sir John Anderson.↩
  3. See bracketed note and draft of joint statement, Foreign Relations, 1943, vol. i, pp. 1084–1090.↩