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Under McCloy, however, the Bank was run by McCloy and his American aides, not by the international directors. Like many lawyers in administrative jobs, McCloy's was a one-man act. He resented the directors, once told them that they could be replaced by better men if they met once every three months instead of once a week. Directors complained that he withheld information on pending loans until a few days before meetings. McCloy admits that he was sometimes short with the directors. "I'd go to a meeting and tell them that the Bank's mission had departed for Guatemala. Then I'd go to the next meeting and tell them the mission had arrived in Guatemala."
Recently, when McCloy lined up for a farewell picture with the directors, an official cracked: "Why don't the members pose with their rubber stamps in their hands?"
Somewhat to his surprise, McCloy liked the job. It was a postgraduate lesson in the flow of mankind's economic bloodstream. "A real listening post in the world," says McCloy. "Everybody who is anybody financially comes to see you. I've discovered the 48 nationalities work pretty well together and can be loyal to an international institution provided you get them away from the front of a microphone."
The Bank now shows an operational profit, has made loans of $650 million to eight countries. When ECA dries up by 1953, it may well be that the Bank will stand ready to give international credit new impetus.
Free Enterpriser. Despite his long service within a Democratic administration, McCloy is a Republican. During the 1944 presidential campaign, he was conferring with Franklin Roosevelt when the phone rang. The President talked into the mouthpiece unguardedly about campaign strategy. Embarrassed, McCloy interrupted: "Mr. President, don't forget I'm a Republican." "Damn it," grinned Roosevelt, "I always do forget it." Then he went on talking unguardedly.
Another time, provoked by professional Democrats at a Washington cocktail party, McCloy lashed back with a telling defense of his politics. He repeated the gist of the argument last week: "I think, as time goes on, that in the Republican Party will lie the antithesis to the trend toward large government controls. I don't mean that government should not operate in certain important social fields. But it's important to keep a force opposed to the monolithic state. If you destroy the incentive and initiative of free enterprise, you bring everything down to a low, undistinguished level of life. I think the Republican position is strong because it does not try to solve every problem in terms of government control."
He calls some New Deal liberals "totalitarians," believes they stand contrary to every meaning of true economic liberalism. On the other hand, he thinks some Old Guard Republicans are less "enlightened" than many Democrats on foreign policy.