ABSTRACT
Many observers may have forgotten that at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, the clear intention was for the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to be integral parts of the United Nations, under the authority of the UN secretary-general. Nonetheless, powerful voices like Harry Dexter White, the chief US negotiator, and Henry Morgenthau, secretary of the US treasury, were determined that the UN should never tell the World Bank or the IMF what to do. Notwithstanding, the Bank and the IMF became part of the UN organigram, though by the time of the Bank’s first meeting in 1946, the de jure organizational chart had given way to de facto separation. Reflecting on this relationship, John Toye and Richard Toye commented: “this tension between the formal UN status and the de facto operational independence of the IMF and the World Bank has been a constant feature of the international scene ever since.” 2
