Editorial Note
On September 6 Secretaries Snyder and Acheson appeared at a session of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to brief its members on the nature of the British financial crisis and outline the position that the United States would take in the forthcoming tripartite economic talks with representatives of the United Kingdom and Canada.
On the following day the three delegations assembled at the Department of State to begin the talks. The United States delegation consisted of Acheson, Snyder, Hoffman, their advisers, and representatives from the Federal Reserve System, the Departments of Labor, Commerce, and Agriculture, the National Military Establishment, and the Tariff Commission. The British delegation consisted of Bevin, Cripps, Franks, their advisers, and representatives from the Bank of England, Board of Trade, and the Economic Section of the Cabinet Office. The Canadian delegation consisted of Lester B. Pearson, Secretary of State for External Affairs; Hume Wrong, Ambassador in the United States; Douglas C. Abbott, Minister of Finance; their advisers; and representatives from the Ministry of Trade and Commerce and the Foreign Exchange Board.
[Page 833]At the first session Snyder, Cripps, and Abbott made opening statements regarding the British financial crisis, possible solutions to it, and the nature of the talks. For the texts of these statements, see the New York Times, September 8, page 3. At the same session subcommittees were established to report to the Ministers on various aspects of the crisis and to prepare materials for the political talks that would follow. The meetings continued until September 12, when the communiqué (infra) was issued. No records of any of the meetings or the reports of the subcommittees have been found in the State Department or Treasury files, but see Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1969) pages 322–325, and Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, 5th Series, volume 468, columns 7–31. For documentation on the political talks that followed, see pages 469 ff. and volume III, pages 594 ff. and 1146 ff.