64000 Vol. 8 No.4 April 1954 Sydney Harbor and Bridge, Australia View 0/ Perth, Australia. The recent mission to Australia, Canberra, the Commonwealth which departed in mid-November capital where we began our labors, and just squeezed back home in has only 30,000 residents but it the nick of time for Christmas, has been laid out with a wary eye consisted of Mike Lejeune, on the future with plenty of room (Chief)j your scribe, (Economist)j between one place and the next. Torgeir Finsaas, (Technical The drive from our hotel to the expert on Transport); Sam Lip­ nearest shops was like a jaunt kowitz, (Technical expert on through the country past rolling matters not elsewhere specified) fields and running streams. Now and Peggy Lejeune, (Tennis and again one would see a notice player). Having remembered that saying "Departmant of the Interior" Australia is on the underside of or something, and an arrow pointing the world and that it would be off into the woods. It is an summer down there, we arrived attractive and peaceful place. dressed in our best tropicals on! y Being so small there is little yet to be met by a frigid blast which in the way of hectic night life but chose the same moment to arrive the Australians have thoughtfully from the South Pole. "Oh yes, we designed their capital, not on the sometimes get this in November," dull but familiar grid system, but they told us cheerfully, "it won't in a series of interlocking con­ last long." Mercifully it didn't centric circles so the visitor can and for the rest of our stay the amuse- himself by getting hope­ weather was ideal. Two days after lessly lost. we left it went up to 1150 so we One weekend we took off into concluded that our timing might the Snowy Mountains, Australia's have been worse. highest, where there is an enor- 2 mous project to reverse the The number of--rabbits in Australia direction of the waters of the affects the quantity of grass, Snowy River and make them flow which affects the number of sheep, into the dry interior, while at the which affects the output of wool, same time producing vast quanti­ which affects the balance of pay­ ties of electric power. We spent ments and the subject is therefore one night at Cabramurra, a con­ of professional interest. Some struction camp which is the time ago the Australian scientists highest settlement in all Australia. (among whom we found a brothel­ They were cutting trees all round in-law of the Bank's Andre Geolot, it to make a fire-break, after which, well-known bowler, cricketer and they said, it would be necessary end-use supervisor) perfected for to do something to prevent soil Australian conditions, an old erosion. Much the most efficient disease known as myxomatosis way of doing this, they thought, which has a family resemblance would be to build a golf course. to -herpes" (when you get sores In th~ evening there was a brilliant around the mouth) but which is crescent moon and Torgeir told deadly to rabbits. They spent us it was decreasing. He taught many fruitless hours fUIDping us a special way of remembering their disease into rabbit warrens which phase the moon was in; I with no result other than the forget what it was but afterwards demise of the rabbits in the the moon went on obstinately immediate vicinity. About two increasing. Wrong hemisphere. years ago they determined to That night we retired, feeling have a final session with it and remotely like Hillary and Tensing, spenc two or three months pumping a continent asleep beneath us. away in one spot before returning The Australians are carrying dejected to Canberra. But two on a very successful form of germ weeks later a report came in of warfare against the local rabbits. rabbits dying 30 miles away. Left: Herd of Merlno sheep, Australia's finest wool pro· ducers. Right: Wheat field near Forbes, New South Wales. At its height the death toll was enormous reaching probab~y almost a million per day. Now it is a well-known statistical prtn­ ciple that if the death rate among a population exceeds the birth rate the population declines. A death rate of this order was too much even for rabbits. There are now some 300,000,000 fewer rabbits in Australia and about 4 million more sheep. Other than sheep and rabbits there are, in Australia, kangaroos (we never saw one), wallabies (we passed one which had come to a premature end through jay­ hopping across a trunk road) and Martin Place in the heart of koalo bears which you Sydney's business centre. can see in parks. The Australians make koala Leaping from their laboratories, teddy bears and all visi­ Geolot's brother-in-law and his tors who have children friends tore off into the bush but must buy one. Peggy Le­ by the time they arrived at the jeune was designated scene their disease was 200 miles co-ordinator of the mission·s further off. They tried to get in koala bear buying activities. She front to watch it coming but it went into a store and proceeded kept turning up behind their backs. to hold an impromptu beauty contest Left: Parliament House, Canberra. Right: Melbourne, capital 01 Victoria, situated on the River Yarra. by lining up some fifteen bears on the counter and selecting those with the cutest faces, in spite of be ing hampered by the tendency of ignorant members of the public to walk off with the contestants on the end of the line. To get to Austtaliayou have to cross the International Date Line, an imaginary line which, roughly speaking, separates one day from the next. This leads to a very curious result (henceforth to be known as ·Collier's Paradox") that it always takes much longer to get to Australia than it does Water skiing on the Hawkesbury to get back. If this is confus ing River near Sydney. it is nothing to the mystification engendered by cabling across the Sam, who went all the way around line. "If we send a cable off the world and therefore ended up now," we would say, "it will get by being really a day older than to Washington yesterday afternoon you'd think, the mission left for so we might get a reply back an Australia on a Monday, thus con­ hour ago tomorrow." For practi­ triving a four-day week, and came /' cal purposes the thing to remember back from Australia over the week­ is to choose the right time to end, thus having two Saturday ttave I. With the exception of nights in a row. Left: Christmas Day on Bondi Beach, New South Wales. Right: (L to R): Torgeir Finsaas, Samuel L ipkowitz, W. Hudson, Com­ missioner, Snowy Mountain Hydro-Electric A uthority, Michael and Peggy Lejeune inspecting site 0/1ustralia's Snowy Mountain scheme. by Ted Lamont Yann LeRoux is undoubtedly one of the most popular and better known members of the Bank family. Old timers with the Bank will certainly remember him from his Bank service in Washington before he was repatriated to join the Paris Office and, incidentally, return to his beloved French cooking. In this connection if you get to Paris and see Yann for the first time since he left Washington, do not be surprised to meet a somewhat more hale and hearty edition of LeRoux than you remembered. Crepes suzette and pommes frites have altered the svelte young man who used to take the trainees swimming in a West Virginia quarry, but the jovial laugh is the same. After service with the French Navy, Yann joined the Bank in Washington in May 1947. He served in the Personnel Division and in 1949 managed the Bank's first Trainee Program. In June 1950 he was transferred to Paris to become the Administrative Officer of the Paris Office. In addition to the normal administrative tasks involving his own office, Y ~nn also takes on special assignments from time to time. \ Last fall he journeyed to Lebanon to help set up the Bank's new office in Beirut. Yann performs numerous valuable services for travelling members of the Bank staff as well, and this can be a big business. A great many missions pass through Paris to and from their destinations, and many travelling Bank staffers, having fallen under the attraction of Paris' v.ell known charms, visit the City of Light on their own. First of all there is the important job of making arrangements for meetings, greetings, and departures, capably handled by Yann. With the able assistance of Kirsten Mohrhagen, requests for travel and hotel reservations are speedily and efficiently attended to. If you don't know where you want to stay, you can rely on a hotel of Yann's choice to be just what you had in mind. Another valuable service performed by Yann is supplying Bank travellers with francs and other currencies. Finally, there is a category of aid which we shall call miscella­ neous. This consists of advice to visiting firemen on a variety of subjects, such as where to eat, what to see, where to get the best buy on perfume, etc. Very often this service includes personally guided (Con t • d on p. 11) 6 THE BANK'S EXECUTIVE DI.RECTORS Andrew N.. Overby, Executive Director of the Bank appointed by the United States as of February 1952 is also Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and was previously with the Irving Trust Company and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. From August 1946 until January 1952 he· served successively as Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury, United States Executive Director, and there~fter, Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. Sir Edmund '(all-Patch, Executive Director of the Bank and Fund appointed by the United Kingdom as of .May 1952 served with H.M. Treasury between 1919 and 1932, and since 1935 with H.M. Treasury and the Foreign Office. In the course of his duties he has held posts in France, Bulgaria, Germany, Thailand, Turkey, Rumania, Japan and China, and prior to his appointment to the Bank he was Ambassador and Head 'of the United Kingdom Delegation to OEEC in Paris for four years. Kan Lee, Executive Director appointed by China as of August 195"3 attended Tsing Hua College, the University of Missouri and Harvard University. An economist and lecturer,. Mr. Lee became the Commercial Counsellor at the Chinese Embassy in Washington and later was adviser to the Central Bank of China. Before coming to the Bank he was a Member and Secretary-General of the Chinese Technical Mission, and Alternate Delegate for China to UN. Roger Hoppenot, Executive Director appointed by France as of October 1947 saw action in the first world war as an artillery officer and then entered the Inspection des Finances. He served as Comptroller of the French Line, General Director of Finance in Tunis, Chief Personal Assistant to the Air Minister, and General Director of the Exchange Control Office. He is a General Inspector of Finance and an ftOfficier de la Legion d'Honneur." 7 G. R. Kamat, Executive Director appointed by India as of January 1954 was educated at Elphinstone College in Bombay and the Royal College of Science in London. He first held various posts with the. Indian Civil Service. Later, after a tour of duty as Chief Controller of Imports with the Ministry of Commerce, he returned to the Ministry of Finance and was, until his appointment -to the Bank, Joint Secretary in Charge of the Overseas Finance Division. Luis Machado, Executive Director elected by Mexico, Cuba, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama as of November 1952, in addition to holding many high offices in government and civic activities in Cuba, is well-known as a Governor of the Bank, as Executive Director for Latin Ameri­ can countries from 1946 to 1948, and as former Ambassador of Cuba to the United States. Johannes Zahn, Executive Director elected by Germany and Yugoslavia as of November 1952 emerged from the Univer­ sities of Tubingen and Bonn with a doctorate degree in law, and then turned to a financial career. In addition to his duties at the Bank he is one of three partners in th~ 5anking firm of C. G. Trinkaus, Dusseldorf, and has had many books pub­ lished on banking, financial and legal subjects. Mohammad Shoaib, Executive Director elected by Pakistan, Egypt, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Ethiopia and Jordan as of November 1952 was a member of various committees to work out the details of partition. He was the Financial Adviser on Military Finance, Communications and Development in Pakistan, and in 1952 became the first Managing Director of the Agricultural Development Finance Corporation. 8 ~I Cabir Selek, Executive Director elected by Italy, Austria, Turkey and Greece as of November 1952 following an earlier term of office from 1950-1952, has been associated with ·i various banks in Istanbul and London including the Industrial Development Bank of Turkey. He is Chairman of the Board of Guaranty Bank of Turkey, and active in the Cabir Selek Import-Export Company and other commercial enterprises. Takeo Yumoto, Executive Director of the Bank and Fund elected by Japan, Burma, Ceylon and Thailand as of November -. /' ·w' ~ 1952 served in the Ministry of Finance as Chief of the National Treasury Section, and then became Superintendent of the Bank of Japan and Yokohama Specie Bank. He acted as Financial Commissioner of the Finance Ministry of Japan in England, France, China and Germany, and before coming to Washington was Director of the Japanese Economy Research Institution. Erling Sveinbjdrnsson, Executive Director elected by Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland as of November 1952 has been associated with the Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Supply and the Foreign Office in Copenhagen for the past twenty-five years, and has had extensive experience in the negotiation of trade agreements, export credit and tariffs. He represented Denmark on the OEEC Council in Paris, and ECE and GATT in Geneva. Alfonso Fernandez, Executive Director elected by Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Philippines, Bolivia, Ecuador and Paraguay as of November 1952 followed _ an extensive career in the Ministry of Finance and the Exchange Control Commission in Santiago, and was the representative of the Chilean Nitrate Sales Corporation in Spain. He later became Manager of the Office for Service of the Public External Debt, and Counsellor of the Savings Bank for Government employees. 9 .L. H. E. Bury, Executive Director of the Bank and Fund elected by Australia and the Union of South Africa as of November 1953,' in addition to his banking experience, has served in the Department of External Affairs, was with the Department of the Treasury, and President of the Canberra Branch of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. He was Alternate Director of the Bank and Fund from 1951-1953. Louis Rasminsky, Executive Director of the Bank and Fund elected by Canada since 1950 and by Iceland for 1950-1952, was Chief Executive Officer of the Foreign Exchange Control Board, and then became Executive Assistant of the Governors of the Bank of Canada. He served as Chairman of the drafting Committee on the International Monetary Fund, Bretton Woods Conference, and is the author of many publications on currency. D. Crena de longh, Executive Director of the Bank and Fund elected by the Netherlands as of January 1953 was President of the Netherlands Trading Society in Amsterdam. In 1940 he set up exchange control for the Netherlands Indies Govern­ ment and became its manager, and has represented various economic and financial interests of the overseas areas of the Netherlands. He was Alternate Director from May-D~cember, 1946 and then served as Treasurer of the Bank for six years. Thomas Basyn, Executive Director elected by Belgium and Luxembourg as of November 1952, has served with the Bank for eight years, as Execu tive Director and previously as Alternate. He was associated first with the National City Bank of New York in Brussels. He became General Manager of the Antwerp Branch and then Secretary-General of the Banque Nationale de Belgique, of which he is now the repre­ sentative 1fi the United States. 10 FIVE YEARS OF SERVICE WITH THE BANK Marc h and April L to R: Costello Harris, Dorothy Chisnall (April), General R. A. Wheeler, Ursula Gajewska, Pearl Cornioley, - Paris Office. ======~ntmfNlJi ========= The following books have been added to the Staff Relations Library, Room 1212. They rent for 3¢ per day and may be reserved wi thout charge by caliinA Extension 2951. SAYONARA LADIES WITH A UNICORN by James Michener by Monica SterlinA THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS THE CONQUEST OF EVEREST by Ewen Montagu by Sir John Hunt NIGHTINGALES ARE SINGING Bur WE WERE BORN FREE by Monica Dickens by Elmer Davis THE ANGEL WHO PAWNED HER HARP by Charles Terrot Evening in Paris - (Cont'd from p. 6) tours by M. LeRoux. During the day we recommend Yann's capsule tour of the Louvre. At night the "Left Bank after Dark" is particularly favored. When it comes to tips on wining and dining in Paris, M. LeRoux is the person to see. It is rumored that even the Michelin people refer to Yann on this subject. High on his current list of favorites is the Chateaubriand, where Yann's friendship with the patron often provokes special treats for the Bank staffers. So all in all, one of the Bank's accomplished bilingualists is a very busy man. Keep up the good work, Yann. 11 WELCOME TO NEW STAFF MEMBERS L to R (Seated): Joyce Thorp, Administration/Personnel, from Armagh, Northern Ireland, formerly with NATO in Washington; Noel Mcivor, Department of Operations ,-- Western Hemisphere, from Oamaru, New Zealand, formerly with the New Zealand Government, Department of External Affairs and Treasury, in London, England; Evelyn Pendleton, Office of Public Relations, from Marion, Ohio, formerly with the Bureau of Customs, Treasury Department, Washington, D.C.; (Standing): Hursit Calika, Department of Operations -- Europe, Africa and Austra­ lasia, from Ankara, Turkey, formerly Deputy Director General of the Treasury in the Ministry of Finance; Betty Farmer, Administration/ Archives, from Bridgetown, Barbados, formerly secretary to Dr. Tomas Cajigas, in Washington, D.C.; Eugenia Robb, Administration/Archives, from Baltimore, Maryland, formerly with FAO in Rome; James F. Main, Department of Technical Operations, from London, England, formerly Managing Director of the D & C and Wm. Press Ltd., Contracting Civil Engineers in London. Bank members were invited to attend the meeting of the Found Camera Club on March 16, at which slides were exhibited for criti­ cism. Paul Ehrlich, Chairman of the Club conducted the meeting. TRAVEL TO EUROP E THE UNITED NATIONS COOPERATIVE, INC., - A voluntary organization of persons officially associated with the United Nations is exploring the possibility of arranging inexpensive air transport between Europe and the U. S., from May to October. It is anticipated that the probable single fare from Washi!1gton to a major airport in Britain and the Continent might be around $164 as against the one­ way published fare of $344.60 tourist class and $482 first class. Bank staff members are invited by the UN Cooperative Inc. to par­ ticipate in these trips either this year or the summer of 1955. Ap­ plication forms are available in Room 1210. For information call Extension 2331­ THE "Y" GOES TO EUROPE - Seven countries in three weeks for $678 with Mr. and Mrs. William Malten, instructors at the New York City "Y" Schools. This is a specially arranged grand tour of Europe for young adults with a vacation of three weeks only. A variety of longer programs is available for those able to go abroad for 6 - 8 weeks. Study Abroad Inc., 250 West 57th Street, New York 19, N.Y. Deposit of $215 required with registration. For information call Extension 2331. ··- ·I". : ~ ~ ~~; t, " ,\, ;J iW .. L ~ -= -Don't suppose our Australians will appreciate it. PESTS in their country, you know." 13 FOR SALE - Red Maple Kitchen set - Gateleg table and 4 chairs. 135.00 or best offer. Miller - HO 2-1340. Ext. 66. FOR RENT - Efficiency apt. well fum. N.W. facing Rock Creek Park; 190 per mOo incl. utils; available early May. Hamilton. Ext. 2008. Fum. house. 3 BR. 2 baths; two-story brick Colonial in Spring Valley; 1250 per mo. Ext. 2951. SHORT TERM RENT ALS ~ May 1 for 4 months or longer - 2 BR apt; fum.; 5102 So. 7th Road. Arlington. Va.;,1100 per mo. Ext. 2951. APRIL to JUL Y - 2 BR fum. apt.; spacious; Rock Creek Park area; 1150 per mo. Ext. 2951. APRIL 15 toSEPTEMBER -1 BR fum. apt.; aircond.; 1170. Ext. 2951. JUL Y and AUGUST - 3 BR rambler; modern; 10502 Gilmoure Drive. Silver Spring; 1150 per mo. or best offer; tenant can arrange to use car. Groenveld, Ext. 2107. June 21 to A'ugust 31 - fum. house; 4 BR. 2 baths; Maryland. Powers. Ext. 522. RIDE WANTED - Springfield. Va. to 1818 H Street and return daily. Willing to use own car part time. Ray. Ext. 674. BANK PICNIC The Bank picnic will be held on June 10 from 1 - 8 p.m. at Areas 2, 2A, 3, 3A and 3B in Rock Creek Park. BANK-FlJND TENNIS CLUB The annual meeting of the Tennis Club was held on Friday, March 19, and the following were elected to serve on the committee for the 1954 season: Rudolf Kroc, Chairman; Anna Watkins. Treasurer; Roger Chaufournier. Colin Conron and Helen McLeod. committee members. The new committee met on March 24 to formulate plans. The season will be from approximately April 15 to October 15, and the club will use the Friends School Courts again. The fee for the season is $10 and all Bank and Fund staff members and their families are eligible to join the club. For information regarding applications, playing time and number of courts available, please call Helen McLeod, Extension 2993. 14 ~A