International: How It Happened

Britain's decision to devalue the pound came so fast that Western Europe's statesmen are still muttering angrily about not having been consulted. Last week London's respected Daily Telegraph told a detailed story of how the decision was reached.

Late in July, ailing Sir Stafford Cripps went to Switzerland for medical treatment. In a hilltop sanatorium near Zurich he embarked on the "ordered life" prescribed by his physician: that meant no dispatches from London.

With Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin also in Switzerland for a rest cure, Prime Minister Clement Attlee was left alone to face Britain's mounting economic crisis. By the beginning of August,...

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