'. '' 7(4;tlr Cct --'-~ 79012 DIVISION OF THE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES v1 /i'RD flo I ,, tJII "! CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY i I\ "'"3" d v PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91125 \~,/~:~\~: ,_ . '. ~ A CONVERSATION WITH HAROLD GRAVES, I WASHINGTON, D.C. JULY 17, 1985 © ROBERT W. OLIVER ~c;,\tUTf OF' ~" rC"r.: ~ ~ ~ ~ - 0 ~ - C'l « ~ !i: ...~ ~ ~, ~# Slf"LL lA..~ CONVERSATIONS ABOUT GEORGE WOODS AND THE WORLD BANK 2 A Conversation with Harold Graves. I idea, and I waa glad to go to work for the Bank. The man whom I had my Washington, D. C. final conversation with and who signed my letter of appointment was July 17 • 1985 Michael LeJeune who at that time was the Personnel Director of the Robert W. Oliver Bank. 1 came into the Bank on the 12th of July, if I remember it OLIVER: Harold, let us begin by my asking you to say a bit about correctly, and began a period of study and meditation and reading all yourself: How you came to the Bank in the first place: How you the things I could about the bank. I wrote a speech which was not established the work in the Information Department; and Whatever you received with cries of joy by the senior staff of the Bank but which care to say about the history of that operation. Gene Black liked. He didn't give it because it was thoroughly GRAVES: I came to the Bank in 1950. The immediate occasion for my revised, but, at any rate, he liked the draft and ao that was fine. arrival was the tact that I bad gone to a Princeton Alumni Dinner with In September, the Bank bad its Annual Meeting in London. (Just as Richard Demuth who then, as later, was in the inner circle of the a footnote, this was a meeting which Bob Garner declined to attend, management of the Bank. I had at that time written a ~ouple of pieces because he felt the British at that time had a Communist Government, for The Reporter Magazine. 1 was a Washington correspondent for a and be wasn't going to have any part of that.) The people who went to Rhode Island newspaper. but I had written a couple of pieces for Th~ this meeting went in various waysi but, at this time, air travel across Reporter Magazine which Dick had read and liked. the Atlantic was still fairly rare, and a lot of people went by ship. I had known Dick since 1940. but at any rate at this dinner in Among the people who went by ship was my predecessor, a man named 1950, which Dick and I attended together, he said, ·~ould you be Ayres, Bill Ayres. And on his way to this meeting, Bill Ayres had a interested in coming to the Bank and writing speeches for the President heart attack and was taken off the ship. He was rushed to a hospital and working on the Annual Report1" These were two things which Dick of some kind on the south coast of England and stayed there for a time himselt had been doing very largely single-hsndedly -- certainly on the until he was ready to be moved, and he came back to the United States speech side. I said, "Yes, that it would interest me." He said, "Well, only to die, 1 think in October of 1950. Ayres had been brought into come down to the Bank and let us talk about it." So I talked the Bank out of the financial reporting community. He understood the especially with Robert Garner. but I also met Black. and I met some of financial market, had worked for financial publications, and had tlw department heads of the Bank. They decided that this was a good brought something to the Bank which Black felt it needed. It needed 3 4 contact with the financial community. It needed a publications effort character in the early history of the Bank, Walter Hill -- another which would be directed very strongly at the financial community and at fellow that the Bank didn't know what to do with, so he was shipped off the sale of the Bank's bonds. to the Paris office too. One of the early things that I was told At any rate, after a period of mourning, shall we say, 1 vas specifically, was, "You'd better look at Dudley'' and, in effect, decide appointed to succeed Bill Ayres late in November in 1950. And my to get rid of him. I went to Paris and discovered, quite to the not my formal instruction so much as the obvious state of affairs made contrary of the impressions the management had, Drew was really doing a it clear that my directive was to establish or to strengthen the Bank's terrific job for the Bank in Europe. So I declined to fire him, and acquaintance particularly in the financial community or in those that decision was reluctantly accepted -- especially by Garner who had sections of the press which were read by people who were buying no particular use for Dudley. At any rate, what I am saying is that the securities such as World Bank bonds. Bill Ayres hiaaelf bad not been indicated line of activity for me was very much the financial realm. I in the Bank for a long time at that point. I can't tell you how long obviously didn't know anything about finance either, but I had some he had been in the Bank. facility for writing, and 1 did, I think, take a big load off Demuth's His predecessor was a man called Drew Dudley, and Drew had been shoulders. appointed the first Director of Information of the Bank by Eugene I did have a very indispensable aid in the presence on the Meyer. Drew was a very charming, socially adroit, nice kind of person information staff of William Bennett, who had been a principal who knew Meyer socially. Drew was a sort of s proteg~ of Blanche financial reporter for the New York Herald Tribune. who knew the whole Knopf, the wife of Alfred Knopf, the New York publisher. I think he scene very well, and who patiently indoctrinated me in the whole came into the Bank by that route. When Drew protested that he didn't subject. So the Bank 1 s public relations -- incidentally. the know anything about financial matters, Eugene Heyer said, according to department at that time was known as the Public Relations Department. Drew, "That's all right; if you can come to understand the Bank, then It had suffered or experienced several changes of names. Later on it anyone can be made to understand the Bank." That was Drew'a way of became an Office instead of a Department and it became Information putting it. instead of Public Relations. But, at any rate, Drew didn't know the financial aide of things, At any rate. this was a fairly narrow assignment, except that it and, for some reason or other, he didn't appeal very much to Black. So extended outside of the United States and included Western Europe as Drew wus posted off to the Paris Office along with another famous well as New York and Chicago. It also. to my mind, meant that we had 6 5 and he was getting impatient, I think, with the narrow scope of what we to have something more than financial public relations: we had to have. were doing. This came up in one of our Lost Weekends. As part of an as much as we could achieve in the time and with the resources that we informal discussion. there was a discussion of the public relations could reasonably expect to have. the good opinion. or at least to avoid program of the Bank: what its objectives where, bow it was being a bad opinion. by editorial pages. by journals of opinion. by people conducted. and where it waa going. Gene raised this subject, and I like the ~ York Times editorial page. and Harpers and Atlantic and said, ''Well, that"a fine. We'll certainly try to do this thing -- Foreign ~ and journals of that kind -- aore as an antidote getting into a big more-or-leas general publications, but 1 want to against any unfavorable publicity than as a promotion of the Bank. So point out that you can only do this one time; it is not a high yield that was the first assignment of the Bank. At that time, we had almost operation." Gene said, "So what, I'd like to sleep with Rita Hayvorth no relations with the United Nations system. In fact, the United at least once.'' Nations system wasn't as fully developed at that time as it became OLIVER: It sounds like a lost weekend all right. Can I just interrupt later on. 11 and ask if you would say a bit about where this term Lost Weekend" Black, himself, was interested in a more general kind of came from? publicity. He had bad neighbors when he was living at Princeton, Bruce GRAVES: I don't know. Bob. I don't think it was original with the and Beatrice Blackmer Gould, who were the editors of the ~ ~ Bank. 1 think it was borrowed from somewhere. Companion or one of the big magazines. and he used to talk with them OLIVER: Wholly apart from the title, the practice of having the senior about public relations. There was an unsuccessful attempt before my staff go off for a weekend somewhere to talk off the record, that goes time to do something big in the magazine world. So Black was back a long time in the history of the Bank, does it? interested in that. and he began pushing this more general concept of GRAVES: Well, now that a lot of time has passed, it does, but I think public relations pretty hard. I wasn't very cooperative. I'm afraid, it was a new invention in about "Sl or "S2. I don't rem~ber when the because it seemed to me that the essence of the whole problem was to first one occurred, but I think it was new in the Bank at that time. establish a continuing relationship, to do something which you could OLIVER: And that became standard practice once a year or something repeat. to get in the papers once a day if possible. but certainly once like that? a month; and that these other things were more or less one-shot GRAVES: Once we had the first one it became an annual event, that's ~fforts. right. et8ck was pressine for things in Fortune Magazine and what not, 7 8 OLIVER: And this was the source of a lot of ideas. at least letting Bank and about Gene Black. In fact. we went at it the other way ideas boil around in the cauldron? around. about Gene Black and the Bank. GRAVES: I'm not so sure. It was certainly a useful thing to do. It Drew took this memo to New York and talked to the editors of was a good morale measure. for one thing -- to get all the senior boys ~ Magazine. Fortune had then and perhaps still has an down there and let them bask in the luxury of hotel accommodations that institution of the ~ lunch. Lots of publications do this. The very few of us would have wanted to support personally. We went down Washington Post bas a Washington Post lunch. not regularly. but to Williamsburg, we went to the Princeton Inn. and it was all very nice frequently-- bringing some person to lunch with the upper staff of the and deluxe. As for hatching new ideas, I think not. It was useful in publication and letting them look at him and hear what he has to say letting ideas circulate, clarifying what we thought about various and try to learn something from him. Well. Gene went through one of things. Letting Gene say that he wanted to sleep with Rita Hayworth these lunches at For~ne at which the host was Henry Robinson Luce. as once. That wasn't the kind of thing he would have said at a senior a matter of fact. staff meeting. But it very well expressed his position and let me know Gene just swept them off their feet. and the first thing you know be really did have an interest in this. and I had better damn well do we had a very good piece in Fortune Magazine written by a fells. I something about it. think. named Richard Austin Smith. But at any rate. this was part of a OLIVER: So you arranged one big storyl successful venture. Not without its difficult moments -- Gene tells GRAVES: Oh no. What happened. the aforesaid Drew Dudley. who was very the writer. I think I have his name more or less _right. that he bad good at high-level personal relationships I brought Drew back to the visited fifty countries and had had dysentery in forty of them. This States for the specific purpose of trying to get up in this league of was a slight exaggeration. Anyway. this was an interesting. colorful publications. The financial publications. I hardly need say. were not remark. so that this was in the text of the article to Gene's great noted for their fierce independence or their unassailable editorial anguish. We were shown this piece before it was published. and this integrity. They were fish in a barrel. more or less. All we needed really became the biggest thing in my life -- to try to get this thing was to go after them and show them a little human kindness and treat out of the text. Gene said. "This is terrible. People were kind to them with some intelligence and respect. Fortune and these other me. They asked me in. and here I said this terrible thing about them." tbinr..s were another matter. Anyway. we brought Drew back. and I armed So I worked very hard on that and a number of other things in the htn• wtth a IUI:"PJl· abUllt why tht;-se people should do something about the article. I don't think we got many of them out. but at any rate. 9 10 OLIVER: What year was the article? that made my peace with the management. and the problem of the public GRAVES: I think it was 1956. Anyway that happened. and then. not too relations effort did not get to be a problem again. until about a half long after that. Gene was on the cover of !i!! magazine and Newsweek a dozen years later in the Woods administration. Shall I go on and magazine. as often happens in the same week. And that was about as far talk about that7 or do you want to cover that in the fullness of time? as one could go with this line of endeavor. I should say; and I am OLIVER: Well. I'm fascinated by what you're telling me about your taking a lot of time I think in the wrong era. but the management got early years in the Bank. You might say a bit about how the Information so discouraged about public relations that they appointed a consultant. Department expanded. and what effect. if any. there was on the G. Edward Pendray. to come in and take a look at the public relations Department with the change of administration fro. Eugene Black to of the Bank. This was useful. because Bob Garner was a man who bated George Woods. to spend a nickel. Basically Bob's view of public relation or GRAVES: It was a very small department to begin with: three or four information or whatever was that. Well. you had to do this. but you people. As a result of this Pendray exercise. the management really shouldn't waste much time or spend any money on this. and Bob. asked me to write my evaluation of the problem and so on. which I did; as you recall. controlled the budget of the Bank and decided how the and at that time. we expanded the department. if you can use that term money was going to be spent on the administrative side. So this is for a pretty modest evolution. I think we built the staff from four to part of the atmosphere in which the information effort was carried on. seven. five to eight. something on that order. And. for the first Well. bringing in this consultant was a useful thing. because it did time. I had a Deputy Director of Information. finally convey to Garner the idea that you really should do something We got formal approval for some things that we wanted done with in this realm. and you really should be willing to spend some money on the grudging consent of Hr. Garner. We had a speaking program which this. The Pendray report was. I thought. partly good and partly bad. Garner thought. • • • Some of it interested him. If we could talk to It pointed out that the Bank didn't really have an adequate publications a group of the Investment Bankers Association of Phoenix Arizona. he program in the sense that having a line of publications that were was all for that. He didn't see much point in talking to a local building up faithful audiences. and so on. In other respects. it was committee of the Council on Foreign Relations in Augusta. Georgia. sort of dumb. I'm sure the consultants had written this same report Well. we were doing both of these things to the extent that we could for other clients. and they had just sort of put the Bank's name in the partly because we wanted to reach some of these people. but partly proper paragraphs. On the whole. it was a not unuseful exercise. So also. I must say. because we thought it wss good for the staff to get 11 12 out and meet the public and find out bow much they didn't know, or what at the end we would put them on a jumbo typewriter. very large type. so they did know and thought about the Bank. We were doing this in the U. they could be read fraa the podium with a minimum of peering through s. We then proposed, and to a certain extent succeeded, to adopt a the eye glasses and so on. There was one page of this final text which program which would carry this kind of effort further in Europe. and so gave George trouble. and we kept revising that page all through the on. minutes preceding his delivery of his speech. We kept rushing back When Woods came in -- 1 had met Woods and be had met me, and I and forth through the corridors of the Sheraton Hotel with new jumbo think that he understood that 1 was a more or leas standard part of the pages. We did four revisions of this thing. And at the end -- I saved furniture in the Bank. I was important to h~, again in the speech all these pages. naturally -- I looked at the final revision and I writing department. Thi8 was something that Woods was very interested looked at the original text. and they were identical. But the point is in. that George was very concerned about this. Woods didn't have very much formal education, as you are well OLIVER: Were all his speeches written. the first draft at least. in aware, but he was very sensitive, I must say, to words. He was very, your department1 very concerned about what be said, how he •aid it, and was very GRAVES: With the exception of the fact that the speech to ECOSOC. the impatient with some convention• of speech writing. Like lot8 of speech Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. was. I hesitate to 11 writers, I would say, How we,'' meaning the man who was •peaking, the say always. sometimes written by Dick Demuth's department. But the audience he wa• addressing, you know: We. Woods wouldn't tolerate rest of them. the Annual Meeting speech. all of the occasional this. '"Who the hell is We? 11 I finally learned not to say "We, 11 and speeches. were written in my department. Most of them until about 1960 things like that. There are also delicacie• about this that happen in were written by me. any public institution, I think. Things that you would like your OLIVER: Well. that was before Woods: 1960. audience to understand without actually saying them -- delicacies of GRAVES: That's right. That's right. At that point. we had brought in expression, sensibilities of feeling that you didn't want to brush up a man called Nathania! HcKitterick who began writing speeches for Black against while you were saying this and that. Woods was very sensitive and wrote speeches for Woods. That was certainly an odd couple: about all this, unless he chose to be deliberately insensitive. George Woods and Nat McKitterick. 1 re~ember with anguish to this day a speech at one of the Annual OLIVER: A number of George Woods spee~hes. of course. are publications Meetings. We used to do these drafts in conventional form, and then, of the Bank. but a fair number are also available in his files as typed 14 13 11 would aort of put you in Siberia." I don't know if this was a speeches. Is it likely that the typed speeches also originated with Freudian remark or what, but at any rate I was pretty much in Siberia McKitterick. let's say? at that point. Anyway, that's where and bow the mechanics of the GRAVES: Yes. speech were handled. OLIVER: Can you say a word about the famous Grand Assize speech in As for the speeches and where the ideas came from and that sort of Stockholm1 can you say a word about where the ideas caae from in the thing, the Bank was probably better than moat institutions in letting speechea1 Did they start with Woods? -- that sort of issue. ita spokesman and speech writers be present at aanagement policy GRAVES: Well, the Grand Assize -- this is the one that led to the diacuaaiona aod even to participate in those discussions, so that I Pearson Commission. William Clark spent four hours. I think, talking knew, and McKitterick knew, pretty well what currents of thought were about this to the current Oral History Project at the Bank, so you flowing through the Bank; what problems were considered important in ought to be aware of that and take a look at that material. the Bank at that timei what the Bank's objectives were in the field of The Grand Assize idea. as far as I know. originated with Barbara action, in the field of persuading other people to think like the Bank. Ward -- Lady Jackson. She got William Clark interested in this idea, So all that material was immediately available to the person who was and they tried to interest Woods in this idea. It is interesting to told to write a speech for this or that occasion. In addition to which recall that at the beginning Woods really didn't see any merit in this the Information Department, to aome eztent, vas engaged in contriving at all. He said this would just be more words. "We've got enough occasions for speeches with some idea in mind of what could be said on words. what we need now is to do something. •• So in the beginning he that occasion and for what purpose. Some times, not infrequently, a was not very much attracted to the idea of the Grand Assize. but little committee was put together, very often under the chairmanship of Barbara Ward is a very persuasive lady: and she and William Clark, who, Dick Demuth, to discuss a particular speech and what ought to be in it at that time, was not yet in the Bank. got Woods to ag.t"ee that this was and so on. At other tiaea, the speech writer was left entirely on his probably a good idea. own, The Stockholm speech, I wrote a few weeks after having been I remember writing a speech about African problems. The rest of relieved of my duties as Director of Information. This is my the Bank vas very busy. and they really couldn't talk to me about recollection at any rate. George had me put into a new and different African problems. So I suddenly became an eKpert on Africa. I read office just for the purpose of writing this speech. I had an office books on Africa, I talked to people about Africa, and I wrote a great down in the main body of the Bank. but Woods said a different office 15 16 speech about Africa. whiCh. since it came out of the mouth of the Black was that • • • • I guess it was a simpler world, but anyhow Gene President of the Bank. was widely admired as being a highly expert really knew what he thought about the things he thought about, and one treatment of this topic. of his great merits as a leader was that people knew what Gene thought. OLIVER: But. in general. the speeches Were reflections of the ideas of Tbis meant that you didn't have to have a lot of stuff written down. the President and his senior staff as expressed in places like Senior You didn't have to have a flow of directives and what not. You could Staff meetings? talk to anybody down to the third or fourth level in the Bank, and they GRAVES: Yes. And in the committees that were established to study could tell you what Black thought. particular problema in the Bank -- operational problema which were It was when Woods came into the Bank, in a more complicated world arising at the time. with a more complicated person (although Gene was not a simple person), OLIVER: Did Hr. Woods sometimes change his speeches. or change words that we got into the buainess of writing a lot of things down. One of in his speeches? the first things Woods did, as you will have learned, was to set in GRAVES: Ob yea. he did. I don~t remember an occasion in which there motion a whole series of studies in the Bank about the Bank was a major rethinking or recasting of a speech. It doesn't mean that agriculture policy, the industrial policy, it's this, that, and the it didn't happen. It does mean that I don't remember that it happened. other; and we had paper, paper, paper on all these subjects. This had But he did tinker with language to considerable degree. never happened in the Bank before that I could remember, not that we OLIVER: Did he tinker more or leas than Mr. Black had done? were not interested in all this, but this was done on an unprecedented GRAVES: Mr. Black tinkered almost not at all. Gene bad an inferiority scale; and then we wrote all this stuff down in a big policy manual, complex on the whole subject of language. His grandfather, Henry and the Bank has been writing everything down ever since: A9 nauseam. Grady, widely known editor of the Atlantic Copatitution in the OLIVER: While we are on the subject of contrasts between Presidents, Reconstruction Era, had been a famous orator; and Gene felt that there what can you say about Hr. McNamara and his speech writing was no way in which he could live up to the reputation of Henry Grady, proclivities? Maybe you could also say something about their so he was very modest about his attainments as a speaker -- more than extemporaneous capabilities. I take it Mr. Black was very good he need have been, although he was not a great speaker. But his whole extemporaneously as he must have been at this Fortune magazine lunch approach to language was: "Let somebody else do this, I don"t know we talked about. bow." He knew what he wanted to say. One of the great strong points of GRAVES: Black was wonderful off the cuff. And not always off the cuff 17 18 either: he could talk very well from his head if it was an occasion of OLIVER: Can you add anything about Hr. McNamara. exceptional importance. as occasionally arose in the Board. Gene could GRAVES: Well. with Mr. McNamara. we learned for the first time. that make an extremely good presentation from a little chit of notes. He speeches had footnotes and appendices. You look at those speeches. and was very good extemporaneously. His formal delivery was perfectly you see that they do have footnotes and appendices. awful. I couldn't stand to listen to Gene giving anything that I bad I had very little to do with McNamara's speeches. I used to write written for him. I used to leave the ball when he gave his great the ECOSOC speech for him. but that was the only thing that I ever did annual speech. because I couldn 1 t stand to hear Gene read it. but he for McNamara. I did not listen: I listened to him once or twice. I was a very effective speaker in a small group. He was somewhat like really am not much of a judge except. The McNamara speeches. like Lyndon Johnson in that way. Lyndon was terrific in a small . • • ; or nearly all the speeches given by Bank presidents. were understood to be like Senator Robert Taft who was marvelous in a group of 12 or 15 for a wider audience than the audience that was in the room. We bad people. and who turned absolutely to stone when he got in front of a not previously carried it to the extent of supplying appendices as well big audience. Gene was very good at extemporaneous things. Woods was as long footnotes for the benefit of the people who were not in the a much better speaker on formal occasions than Black was. He was very room. There were two versions of every McNamara• s speech. 1'here was effective extemporaneously. He bsd a very colorful flow of speech. It the published version. and then there was the version that was read. was a New York color rather than an Atlanta color. There wasn 1 t enough time to give the whole text. so he only read OLIVER: Was there a little bit of Boston? excerpts from his speeches. one might say. GRAVES: Well. the accent. perhaps; but it was a very casual. jazzy OLIVER: Well. you referred in passing to William Clark and to changes kind of monologue compared to what we 1 d been used to. He had these in the Information Department that put you in Siberia. I wonder if you marvelous expressions about • . • • which were probably not original could amplify that story a little bit. with him; be had heard them before. When he was talking about GRAVES: Well. I don't know all the story. It was in 1967. in the next difficult decisions. a difficult choice between two or more to the last year of Woods regime. I think it was. (This is something alternatives. he would say. "Well. I guess we could run between the you can ask Michael Lejeune about.} raindrops on that one." which expressed just exactly what he wanted to Woods got hold of me one day • and said "'Harold I'm not happy cay. So he was quite comfortable too. quite effective. with your department. I don't know what's wrong with it. but there is ft'ti, I"' WlHII1Uioicator. something wrong with it; and I've asked Michael LeJuene if he will look 20 19 to people about perhapl getting appointed to this job, which I did not into this and see i f we can work this out." I think that the big thing get. So that might have been part of it. on Woods' mind at that point (this is sheer speculation on my part) was Aootber part of it was that George was not ver.y happy with the the thing that was on his mind more generally: the continual problem Assistant Director of the department. a man called Lars Lind. who was a of IDA Replenishment, and I think he felt that this Information very experienced Swede who had worked in the information departments of Department should have made a bigger contribution toward helping hia FAO. and UNESCO. and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Lara was deal with this problem. not aa fluent in Engliab as he might have been. He vas also rather The Bank, for the first time really, at least for the first time in slow spoken 1 and I think George was rather U.patient with his presence a long time. was faced with the necessity for dealing with the Congress here, at least in this departaent. Lars Lind. He really. I think. of the United States, and Woods was meeting all sorts of people up on wanted me to fire Lind. I did not want to fire Lind 1 who had virtues the Hill who had never heard of the Bank or didn't understand what the that were not apparent to George. but we never sat down for an overt Bank was about. He thought that by this time, surely, the Bank should face to face discussion of this problem. At any rate, those were three have been a household word on capitol Hill. It wasn't, and so I think things -- especially the whole IDA problem. this was a source of concern for him. and a source of discontent. OLIVER: It appears fro. the recorda of the Senior Staff aeetings that Without knowing. I think this was the major problem. there was a hiatus between Oct. 19, 1967 1 and Feb. 21, 1968, when. in I think there were also other problems: the view that I wasn't the first instance. you had moved from the job of Director of very happy with his regime; I was critical of things he was doing. You Inforaation and, at the second date, Mr. William Clark was officially ask me what. and I'm embarrassed to say that I would have difficulty in announced by Mr. Woods to be the Director of Information. recalling what they were. But I was quite unhappy with the whole GRAVES: Well. ironically, Hr. Lara Lind ran the department during that situation myself. and. in that last summer. I was interested in a hiatus. vacancy that occurred in the presidency of something called "Franklin OLIVER: But Mr. Clark was Mr. Woods selection? Books". Later I think it was called the "Franklin Book Program." This GRAVES: Well no-- ulti.aately of course. Woods said to Demuth, "You was a very interesting publishing venture which specialized in find us a new Director of Information." William Clark was Dick's promoting the publication in other languages of American books. thought. I was consulted and agreed that Clark was a very capable particularly in Third World Countries. I'm sure the word must have person and would probably be helpful to the Bank. gotten back to George that I was interested in this. and I was talking 21 22 OLIVER: Be was a close friend of Barbara Ward already? that a person who was doing the 8peechea (who was McKitterick) ought to GRAVES: Yea. ob yea. have the benefit of that experience. So. for example, Hac went on a OLIVER: So Hr. Woods bad probably met Mr. Clark through • • • • long trip into Africa with Gene toward the end of Gene's period in the GRAVES: I'm not sure. Ob yes. sure; he bad talked to Mr. Clark about Bank. the Grand Assize. I'm sure. I did some very interesting things with Gene. I went with Gene to OLIVER: Then Clark stayed on as Director of Information under Hr. Southeast Aaia at a tt.e when the final negotiations leading up to the McNamara and, I guess. accompanied Mr. McH..ara on trips and that sort INDUS aediatioo were in progress. I watched that. I went with Gene to of~-. Cairo when he went there to try to adjudicate the problema of the GRAVES: Oh yea. Be was chosen by Woods in fact to be the Director of claims against the Egyptian government arising out of the sequestration Information. He got another and higher title, as it happened. to serve by the Egyptian Government of British properties at the time of the under McNamara. I don't think Woods felt that Clark was going to be Suez Canal incident. his (Woods;} Director. This was something be was going to hand to OLIVER: That was an incident in which Hr. Woods was involved, wasn't McNamara. it? OLIVER: You have no idea if he checked with McNamara on that subject? GRAVES: Well, bia involvement was a bit later and came in the • • • GRAVES: I really don;t. Although, I do know, or I think I know, that Well, to talk about Woods involvement in some things that happened McNamara, after a short time, was very happy with William Clark. Be during Black;& presidency: the first thing (that I was aware of at any thought this was great, and he was especially grateful to Woods for rate} waa the Bank;& financing of the private manufacture of steel in having made this choice in his appointment. India. There were two private companies in India. In fact, two of the OLIVER: Did you travel with Mr. Black, for example, or Mr. Woods to private companies were Indian Iron and Steel Company and the Steel the same extent that Hr. Clark traveled with Mr. McNamara? Company of Bengal, and theae had adjacent facilities; they had GRAVES: No. I travelled somewhat with Gene, very little with Wooda. partially interlocking directorate•, and so on. From various points of McKitterick travelled with Woods at my behest. In fact, be travelled vie~. it . . de sense to merge these companies instead of continuing to with Black at my behest, because my experience with Black bad been that operate the. as separate entities, and Black recruited Woods to you learned an awful lot travelling with the President of the World accomplish this merger 1 which he did. This involved not only Bank and watching him deal with tasks in the field; and it seemed to me negotiations with management but especially with stockholders and so 23 24 on. So George did this for Black. OLIVER: You liked them a lot. The sequel to the Suez Canal incident was the expropriation of the GBAVES: They were not without incident. I will never forget: One well, the thing that started it all off was the expropriation of the thing we did, which waa not known in British circles at the time, was Suez Canal Company. Part of what Gene worked out with the Egyptian to have cocktails before lunch. The British Pres• vas a very much government was to try to regularize relations between the Egyptian leas respected institution than the American Preas and not pampered at Government and the West, especially the financial community in the all the way the American Preas ia pampered. This business of having West, to find something for the canal company to do and also some cocktails before lunch was unknown but greatly appreciated by the City appropriate compensation for the company. Well Woods handled that for editors. Well, some of the City editors liked the cocktails better Black. There are other things no doubt that be did. Those are the two than they liked the lunch, I guess. that I remember. At one of these lunches, the senior editor waa a dear little man OLIVER: I think I interrupted you when you were telling your own story named Norman Crump, who was the City editor of~~~. We about Suez and Egypt. Were there other occasions when you were with eat down at the table, and we ate a little, and Gene ~de a few Black that you wanted. spontaneous remarks as be always did. Then came time for questions, GRAVES: I travelled with him. I went to Hew York with him quite and since Norman Crump was the senior editor present, be was recognized often. One thing that he predictably liked to do, aod which I must say for the purpose of asking the first question. Norman, who bad had a I particularly liked to do, be liked to lunch with the financial press few. succeeded in uttering his question and then he put his face down in London, when be happened to be in London-- called the City Preas: in hia plate, which was not yet entirely empty of nourishment, and went The City in London. Gene enjoyed that enormously, because the City aound asleep. At any rate, this does lead --and I'll dignify this editors were a very interesting and well informed group of people, aucb story by • • • more so than any group that you could put together out uf the New York OLIVER: I just have to interrupt to say that it is not surprising that Preas. So he enjoyed those occasions enormously, and I went along to drinks were not offered to British reporters as often as Americana. help with the physical arrangements. I made up the invitation list and (Laughter) I saw to the seatingi and I saw that Gene met these boys, and that they GRAVES: It had been the practice in Mr. McCloy's time to have a weekly got private interviews if they wanted them. and so on. These were lots press conference in the Bank. Come hell or high water, there was a of fun and so I went on all of those missions. I liked them a lot. weekly preaa conference in the Bank. And there were still some 25 26 vestiges of that when I came in, which eeemed to me to be tedious for without having to explain them, even to members of the staff. We used everybody, because the President of the Bank didn't always have to have inforaation conferences with the press, and Gene would not let something to say and the press vas not always interested in what he bad the transcripts of those conferences be circulated in the Bank. That to say. So we adopted the practice of scheduling press conferences when was his buainess with the press, and that's where that rested. Woods we thought there vas something to be said, and even more of having was even more reticent about making policy decisions and explaining why informal lunches with Black at tiaea when there wasn't any occasion at he made them. He talked a great deal, but there were subjects on which all, just for the purpose of getting the press acquainted with Black he was utterly silent or very reticent. This vae one difficulty that and getting him acquainted with them and letting them develop anything the staff bad with Woods: be did not really explain himself adequately they had on their minds. on many occasions. This vas it, and that vas that. Despite his later concern wit~ his problema in the public opinion OLIVER: Well, thank you for this first aession of taping. It's been a field, Woods was nowhere near aa conscious of the press or concerned fascinating story, and we will do one aore. with the press. It was difficult to get him to do press conferences, and there were sooe subjects on which be absolutely refused to talk. When the Bank's relations with India became very strained and very delicate, Woods absolutely refused to see the press at any time, because he didn't want to face the possible embarrassment of questions about India. And he especially refused to see the members of the Indian Preas, who were individually very friendly with the Bank and might have been quite helpful in this situation. Actually be refused to see them. Gene, more and more, got to know the press and to value what the press could do for him. Woods did not. He liked reporters well enough, individually, but he didn't really care for the Preas, or The Preas Corps, as institutions. OLIVER: He was, perhaps, not as outgoing a personality as Hr. Black. GRAVES: That's right. Gene wanted to have the right to make decisions