Thorson's Oral History Project - Beginnings of IMF Stand-bys in the 1950s and 1960s.

134197

1988-1994

series

textual records

.5 linear ft. of textual records.

English

This oral history project was led by volunteer retirees Phillip Thorson, assisted by C. David Finch who gathered information from a number of their contemporaries on the IMF Staff. They developed and submitted for safekeeping to the Secretary's Department, RC Division (now TGS Archives and Records Management), a collection of oral history tape cassette recordings and transcripts and related papers. The collection was submitted to IMF Archives in 1999. This project was, as expressed by Thorson, the work of "...a number of former staff members..... an oral history project on the beginnings of stand-bys in the Fund during the 1950s and 60s..." "...sessions were arranged to bring together individuals who had played important roles in particular developments or geographic areas." The participants originally hoped that the tapes and written pieces might form the kernel for one or several publications.

Stand-By Arrangements, Mexico, Bolivia, Paraguay, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, United Kingdom, Mali, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Yugoslavia, Spain

Philip Thorson, C. David Finch, Joseph Gold, J.J. Polak, E. Walter Robichek, Costanzo. Al, Jack Clark, Timothy Sweeney, Jack Guenther, Jorge Del Canto, Irving S. Friedman, Gerald Alter, Donald K. Palmer, Margaret G. de Vries, E.L. Bornemann, U. Tun Wai, Rattan J. Bhatia, Charles L. Merwin, Tun Thin, Azizali Farrukh Mohammed, Subimal Mookerjee, Jouko Hauvonen, G. Tyler, W. A. Beveridge, Brian Rose, Richard Goode, John W. Gunter, Albin Pfeifer

Only the transcripts and written material can be accessed. Not the tapes: the fragile nature of the casette tapes means they cannot be used.

The oral histories and manuscripts are arranged in four groupings: Group 1 - audiotape sessions bringing together economists familiar with the setting and early WHD stand-bys; Group 2 - audiotape sessions bringing together economists familiar with stand-bys of ERD/ETR, World Bank and U.S. Government; Group 3 - audiotape sessions bringing together economists familiar with the use of stand-bys by other Departments in the IMF: and a final Group - related papers on stand-bys, as written (not audiotaped) by IMF staff from MED and EUR.