9
The World Bank and the IMF:
50 Years is Enough!
BRETTON WOODS: THE IMF AND THE WORLD BANK ARE
BORN
On the evening of 30 June 1944, two special trains left Washington
and Atlantic City. They were both packed with hundreds of well-
dressed gentlemen (there were very few women) in fashionable suits
and ties. Their conversations were in so many languages that local
reporters referred to the trains as 'the Tower of Babel on wheels'.
Their destination was the locality of Bretton Woods, in the
picturesque hills of New Hampshire. They were on their way to the
UN conference on monetary and financial matters.
The meeting of 44 countries had been organised by US President
Franklin D. Roosevelt. The goal was to lay down the rules for a new
postwar international economic order.
The inaugural session of the conference was held in the grand
ballroom of the Hotel Washington, where there was more than
enough room for the hundreds of delegates.
US Secretary of the Treasury and conference chairman Henry
Morgenthau read out a welcome message from President Roosevelt.
Morgenthau's opening speech set the tone for the gathering and
reflected the guiding spirit behind it. He called for 'the creation of a
dynamic world economy in which the peoples of every nation will be
able to realise their potential in peace and enjoy, increasingly, fruits
of material progress on an earth infinitely blessed with natural riches'
(Rich, 1994).
112