Word: bevin
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Britain's Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin was having a friendly dinner with visiting American Legionnaires at London's Savoy Hotel last week. As he referred to "this awful economic crisis," Bevin had a sudden thought. Said he to the Legion's former National Commander Paul Griffith: "I know, Commander, that you will forgive me for suggesting the other day at Southport that you should take the gold out of Fort Knox. It does not seem to have been a very popular speech in America." While the diners laughed, Bevin continued: "Well, I do not mind whether...
...after Bevin's casual reference to Lend-Lease, Chancellor of the Exchequer Hugh Dalton made a not-so-casual plea for crisis aid from the International Bank (whose staff calls its present quarters, one of London's deepest air-raid shelters, "the second Fort Knox"). Bank President John J. McCloy pointed out that the Bank was designed to make only commercially sound loans, attractive to private investors, and not to grant emergency aid not likely to be repaid...
Economists on both sides of the Atlantic promptly reminded Bevin that U.S. wealth lay in its high productivity, not in its gold hoard at Fort Knox. Bevin knew that a higher standard of living for Britain ultimately depended on increasing Britain's own productive capacity, not on "purchasing power...
...Bevin's plug for an imperial customs union warmed at least one Tory heart. When Arch-Imperialist Lord Beaverbrook, publisher of the Daily Express, heard of Bevin's remarks, he chuckled: "By God, I think I'll go right down to Transport House [Trade Union headquarters] and join the union...
...Redcoats Are Coming. For the third week in a row, stocks on the New York exchange drifted lower. The day after Britain's Ernest Bevin suggested that the U.S. redistribute its gold (see FOREIGN NEWS), a sudden flurry of selling brought forth the waggish explanation: "The British are within 50 miles of Fort Knox...