Project description: Interviews with officers of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development detail its history and operations from the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference to 1960. Organization, development of policies, management practices, personnel, and the relationship of directors and staff during the presidencies of Eugene Meyer, John McCloy, and Eugene Black are described.

Regulatory significance: The functions of the World Bank are analyzed, including policy formulation and supervision of end-use of funds, project appraisal, creditworthiness, administration and significance of loans, government banks, equity investment and venture capital, bond issues and corollary legislation, and foreign and domestic bond marketing. The relationship of the Bank to the International Monetary Fund and to other financial institutions is explored. There are descriptions of individual projects in various parts of the world, particularly flood protection, railway rehabilitation, the Indus Basin Settlement Plan, the Mekong River Survey, and the Suez Canal.

Repository: Columbia Center for Oral History

Interview dates: Circa 1961

Digital access: Only abstracts. No online transcripts or audio.

Physical access: For transcripts and audio, researchers may visit the Columbia Center for Oral History.

Link: http://oralhistoryportal.cul.columbia.edu/document.php?id=ldpd_4074552

Interviewees: Siem Aldewereld; Gerald Alter, Harold Larsen, and John de Wilde; Eugene R. Black; Robert W. Cavanaugh; Sidney Raymond Cope; Daniel Crena de Iongh; Richard H. Demuth (certain pages closed); William Diamond and Michael Hoffman; Donald Fowler; Robert L. Garner; William F. Howell; Sir William Iliff; Andrew Kamarck; J. Burke Knapp; Harold Larsen; Ansel F. Luxford; Luis Machado; George Martin and Emil Pattberg; Morton Mendels; Lester Nurick (closed during lifetime); Hoyt Peck; Hugh Ripman; Leonard B. Rist; Paul Rosenstein-Rodan; Orvis A. Schmidt; Davidson Sommers; Alexander Stevenson; Raymond A. Wheeler.