ABSTRACT
WHEN FRANKS returned to government service to chair the CEEC in the summer of 1947 he may have regarded it as merely a task for the Oxford summer vacation.1 However, even before his trip to the United States as leader of the CEEC delegation in October to November, he seems to have changed his mind. The diary entry for 27 September of Robert Hall, Director of the Economic Section to the Cabinet, recorded a conversation with Franks in Oxford:
I think that he is very anxious to get back into public life if he can (a) square Queen’s, (b) time his reappearance so that he can pull us out of our troubles. He thought that the 40s should replace the 60s —at least the former had some ideas and some knowledge of how to carry these out.2
