Our Finest Hour

by Gregory A. Fossedal

• ISBN13: 9780817992019
• ISBN10: 0817992014
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2019-10-01
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group (Chicago Review Press)

Summary

Leaving school and family at the age of fifteen, Clayton made a fortune as founder of the largest cotton brokerage firm in the world and became an outspoken and influential activist for improved government fiscal policies. In 1944, he was appointed by President Roosevelt to serve as assistant secretary of state for economic affairs, his passionate goal being to bring into existence a worldwide free economy. A businessman-statesman genius, Clayton is a forgotten titan of the Roosevelt and Truman administrations. Concerning Clayton's rejection, for family reasons, of a presidential appointment to serve as secretary of state, Fossedal writes, "He felt he had contributed his talents to the nation's war effort and was content with his place in history. In fact, he was one of the few men who served in Washington, D.C., in those critical years who did not write his memoirs or cultivate a biographer…. This book is meant to be Will Clayton's memoirs."

Table of Contents

Foreword
Acknowledgments
An Offer Declined	p. 1
From forth War's Bosom	p. 15
To Dare Mighty Things	p. 25
Into the Arena	p. 47
Waging the Warehouse Wars	p. 65
The War within the War	p. 83
Economic Statecraft: Crafting Bretton Woods	p. 110
Between Taft and Keynes: Selling Bretton Woods	p. 137
Year of Nondecisions: The Road to Hiroshima	p. 150
Potsdam and the Morgenthau Plan	p. 162
The Battle of (Lending) Britain	p. 182
Marshall's Team and the Greek Crisis	p. 200
The Fifteen Weeks: Clayton's Memorandums	p. 212
Summer 1947: From Marshall's Speech to a Plan	p. 235
Final Challenges	p. 255
Will Clayton's Legacy	p. 281
Notes	p. 287
Bibliography	p. 331
Index	p. 337
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.