Thomas H. McKittrick
Thomas H. McKittrick | |
|---|---|
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| Personal details | |
| Born | 1889 St. Louis, Missouri |
| Died | 21 November 1970 |
Thomas McKittrick (1889 - 21 January 1970) was an American banker and president of the Bank for International Settlements during World War II. He was educated at Harvard University and graduated in 1911. He joined the National City Bank in 1916, assigned to assist in opening a branch of the bank in Genoa.[1] He served in the American Expeditionary Force during World War I. In the interwar years he was a banker with Lee, Higginson & Co. From 1946 to 1954 McKittrick worked for the Chase National Bank, becoming a senior vice president and director. He headed a survey mission for the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development to India in the 1950s. He died on January 21, 1970 in New Jersey.[2]
McKittrick was president of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) from 1940 to June 1946, under the chairmanship of Otto Niemeyer and Ernst Weber.[3] BIS, intended to facilitate effective monetary co-operation, declared its neutrality in World War II. After the war was declared in September 1939, it was no longer possible for representatives of Germany, France or the United Kingdom to attend BIS meetings.[4] Due to the commencement of hostilities in France, only a few miles from BIS headquarters in Basel, Switzerland, McKittrick was the only member of its assembly to attend the May 1940 annual meeting.[2]
Mittrick was a family friend of Allen Dulles, a US intelligence officer also based in Switzerland during WWII. Dulles later became a Director of the Central Intelligence Agency[5].
In 1941 Fortune magazine claimed that Germany had gained control of BIS by purchasing shares from other shareholders. McKittrick denied alleged that the bank was being used to escape the foreign funds controls put in place by the US Government against the Axis powers.[6] During World War II BIS received gold as interest payments from the German Reichstag which later investigations showed had been looted from the central banks of Belgium and the Netherlands.[4] McKittrick was re-elected to the post of president of the BIS in 1942.[6]
References
- ^ "Bibliographical Note to Thomas Harrington McKittrick papers, 1924-1946".
- ^ a b "T. H. M'Kittrick, world financier". New York Times. 22 January 1970.
- ^ "Swiss National Bank Biography" (PDF).
- ^ a b "BIS history - the BIS and the Second World War (1939-48)".
- ^ See telegram Marjorie McKittrick to Thomas McKittrick, September 25, 1945. Series 1, Carton 5, Folder 2, Reel 6, Thomas H. McKittrick Papers.
- ^ a b Slany, William Z. (1997-07-01). U. S. and Allied Efforts to Recover and Restore Gold and Other Assets Stolen Or Hidden by Germany During World War II. DIANE Publishing. ISBN 9780788145360.
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