Henry Morgenthau Jr. (1891-1967) was
secretary of the US
Treasury under the
Roosevelt
administration from 1934 to 1945. He had been a neighbour and close friend
of Roosevelt two decades, and upon his appointment, became very influential,
more so than any other cabinet member. Together with his advisor
Harry D. White, he took over many functions outside his proper domain,
influencing foreign policy, to the point of conducting negotiations with
foreign governments behind the back of the
State Department.
This culminated in the formulation of the Morgenthau Plan in 1944, an
extremely harsh plan for the treatment of Germany after the end of the
war. This was mostly rejected, and so the biggest legacy that Morgenthau
left was his influence in building global economic structures in the
Bretton Woods Conference, namely the International Monetary Fund and the
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank).