IFC’s reputation within the World Bank Group was arguably established by its first chief executive, Robert L. Garner, who before joining the World Bank as chief of staff had been a treasurer of Guaranty Trust and an executive at General Foods Corporation.
Richard Demuth, assistant to World Bank presidents Eugene Meyer, John J. McCloy, and Eugene R. Black, recounted Garner’s tactics and reputation in an oral history interview in 1961: “[McCloy, Garner, and Black] worked as a remarkably good team: Black out selling the Bank to the market, McCloy helping greatly in that effort but also selling the Bank to the world, the public at large, [and] Garner the able chief of staff who really got the Bank into operation as an effective banking institution. I don’t think one could speak too highly of Garner’s contribution in those days, not only in terms of tremendous work but tremendous toughness, his insistence that we operate not as a public institution -- accepting less than the best standards -- but as a business institution. Our staff had to be the best staff that could be gotten together, and we did not compromise because of the political nature of our constitution and our structure.”
Said Demuth: “I know this created conflicts with governments at times, governments that were pushing people. For example, he [Garner] refused to pay any attention to the political pressures that were put on to employ certain individuals. While he was sometimes impatient with the economists, with the ‘longhairs’ in the Bank, his approach was a very broad approach, and he was willing to stick his neck out to make decisions. All those policy issues that had been discussed for a long time in committees were brought up to the management of the Bank for decision, and they were quickly decided, sometimes rightly, mostly rightly, sometimes wrongly, but at least they were decided and enacted."
Davidson Sommers, a lawyer in the Bank’s Legal Department from 1949 to 1959, recounted similar stories of Garner for the Truman Presidential Museum and Library:
Sommers: “Bob Garner was one of those people who talk pretty tough. He was a conservative in many ways. But what he really wanted to do was to keep the Bank apolitical. He didn’t want the Bank to get involved in U.N. hassles, such as the Group of 77 versus the developed countries. I remember some good things about Garner. Once, a senator called up and recommended somebody for employment by the Bank. I was in Garner’s room and heard him say, ‘Senator, that sounds like an excellent recommendation. Unfortunately, we have a firm policy that we don't accept anybody recommended by a Senator.’ ”
Interviewer: “That squelched that.”
Sommers: “I think that was when the policy was formed. A lot of people didn’t take to Garner because he had this hard manner.”
Interviewer: “Kind of authoritarian?”
Sommers: “But he was absolutely necessary to get things started. I remember one story about Garner. The World Bank’s senior economist in its early days was Paul Rosenstein-Rodan. He was one of the real pioneers of development economics, and later became one of John Kennedy's ‘wise men’ framing the Alliance for Progress. He attended a meeting of the Bank's Staff Loan Committee chaired by Garner. After the meeting Paul was fuming at the way Garner ran it. When I asked whether he agreed with the decision, he answered, “I agreed with the decision, but nobody has the right to reach the correct result by such outrageous reasoning” … [Former Bank President Eugene] Black was brilliant in mediation, and he was very good in negotiation. Some representative of a developing country once said, ‘I’d rather be said ‘no’ to by Gene Black than ‘yes’ to by Bob Garner.”
If you have an idea for a “postcard from the past,” please email Celeste Diaz Ferraro at cdiazferraro@ifc.org.
