[Cz-L] ERIC ROLL

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 Dear Members
 On the occasion of congratulating our member Mike Fuhr for being =
decorated, and as one who was born, and lived in Czernowitz, but also =
lived some time in Nouasulitsa I would like remind us of another =
Czernowitzer that achieved something in Britain.

DAILY TELEGRAPH OF LONDON

=20

LORD ROLL OF IPSDEN

(Filed 01/04/2005)

=20

The Lord Roll of Ipsden, who died yesterday aged 97, had three full =
careers: as an economist, as a civil service mandarin and as an =
international banker.=20

In the third of these roles he was chairman, and later president, of SG =
Warburg, the investment bank which is now part of Union Bank of =
Switzerland,=20

where he remained remarkably active until the last days of his life.=20

An emigre from a remote former province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, =
and partly educated in Vienna,=20

Eric Roll was very much at home in the middle-European intellectual =
hot-house of Warburgs.=20

With an iron constitution and an appetite for 15-hour working days =
acquired as a young civil servant, he also shared the austere work ethic =
of its founder, Siegmund Warburg.=20

He relished the role of the financier as a kind of discreet family =
doctor to his corporate clients, and the internal discipline of rigorous =
self-criticism,=20

both of which were part of the distinctive Warburg ethos.=20

In pursuit of the firm's business as an adviser to governments on the =
management of their currency reserves and external borrowings,=20

Roll travelled the world almost continuously. Consequently, he was as =
well-known and respected in the ministries of Beijing and Tokyo=20

as he was in the corridors of Brussels and the conference halls of =
Washington.=20

After Siegmund Warburg's death in 1982, Roll and the veteran Warburg =
partner Henry Grunfeld=20

fulfilled the role of "uncles" within the organisation, advising on its =
day-to-day business, maintaining an overview of every detail=20

of the bank's activities and guarding its eminent reputation.=20

Siegmund Warburg, no flatterer, said Roll was "one of the most civilised =
men around.

 I loved his warmth and wisdom, his sense of humour, his intellectual =
vitality,=20

which shows itself in the way he knows the great men of English, French =
and German literature ... I always teased him and said,

 'The only thing that I sometimes have reservations about is that you're =
an economist. But in spite of the fact that you're an economist, I'm =
devoted to you.' "=20

When SG Warburg was acquired by Swiss Bank in 1995, in due course to be =
subsumed into Union Bank of Switzerland and to drop Warburg from its =
name,=20

Roll - unlike some of his senior colleagues - took a positive and =
forward-looking view of the opportunities presented.=20

In extreme old age, he still travelled constantly on behalf of the bank =
- even surpassing Grunfeld, who worked until his death, aged 95, in =
1999.=20

Roll's network of contacts remained unrivalled: colleagues young enough =
to be his grandchildren would receive regular e-mails from him=20

detailing private conversations with Alan Greenspan and other notables =
of the financial world. He went to his office for the last time at the =
beginning of this week.=20

Eric Roll, the son of a bank official, was born on December 1 1907 at =
Nowosielitza, a village near Czernowitz in the duchy of Bukovina,

 a small south=ADeastern crownland of Austria. His early education, in =
German, was at the village school and at home (his mother had trained as =
a teacher).=20

For the duration of the First World War, the Rolls lived in Vienna, =
where Eric went to a local gymnasium.=20

Then in 1918 the family returned to Czernowitz =ADwhich soon became part =
of Romania. Eric attended a private school,=20

where classes were now held in Romanian - "a relatively simple =
language," he recalled, "which I acquired quickly".=20

By 1925 Eric's parents had decided that their son's education should be =
completed abroad, preferably in England,=20

whose social and political system and cultural climate they admired. So =
at 17, with a smattering of English (at school he had learned French),=20

Roll went to Birmingham University, where he read Economics.=20

Subsequently, he completed his doctorate in 1930, took British =
citizenship, and became an assistant lecturer at the

 University College of Hull - where, in 1935, he was appointed Professor =
of Economics and Commerce.=20

In 1939 Roll travelled to America, on a Rockefeller fellowship. He was =
offered a professorship at Texas University -

 "You should have stayed," Lyndon Johnson said to him many years later. =
"We might have made something of you" -=20

but swiftly found himself drafted into the Second World War effort, as =
deputy head of the British Food Mission in Washington.=20

This was the first of an extraordinary list of assignments. He was a =
member of Ernest Bevin's team negotiating=20

post=ADwar aid for Britain under the Marshall Plan; and he took part in =
the Schuman Plan discussions on the=20

future of the European coal and steel industries =ADregretting that he =
could not persuade his political masters to bring Britain into the =
communal arrangements which followed.=20

He led the British delegation to the Organisation for European Economic =
Co-operation (forerunner of the OECD)=20

and was deputy head of the British delegation to Nato in Paris in 1952. =
As an official of the Ministry of Agriculture,=20

he was seconded for two years to be executive director of the =
International Sugar Council.=20

The first peak of his Whitehall career came in 1962, when he was one of =
Edward Heath's team of "flying knights" -=20

a group of senior officials who bore the weight of the long, detailed =
and frustrating negotiations over Britain's entry into the Common =
Market.=20

=20

Unlike other observers at the time, Roll =ADwho was deeply committed to =
the European cause - did not believe that breakdown of the talks was =
inevitable,=20

and was later obliquely critical of Heath's negotiating tactics.=20

Next he considered retiring to the vice=ADchancellorship of Liverpool =
University, but instead was dispatched by the Treasury to Washington,=20

as Economic Minister and British director of the IMF and World Bank.=20

He returned to Britain in 1964 to become Permanent Under-Secretary at =
the short-lived Department of Economic Affairs.=20

There his ministerial boss was the volatile and emotional George Brown.=20

The two men had fierce disagreements, but Roll described Brown, with =
perfect mandarin understatement,=20

as "exceptional" and "a most sensitive person ... one who, except in =
moments of personal stress, was mindful of the sensitivities of others". =

Among the many posts for which Roll's name was touted at various times =
were those of secretary-general of Gatt,=20

director of the London School of Economics and, in 1966, Governor of the =
Bank of England.=20

He was thought to have been disappointed when the latter job went to the =
then Deputy Governor, Leslie O'Brien (later Lord O'Brien of Lothbury).=20

Roll, then aged 58, resigned from the Civil Service a few months later, =
becoming deputy chairman of Warburgs the next year.

 He was chairman (and with Sir David Scholey, joint-chairman) of the =
bank from 1974 to 1987, and then president until 1995. Thereafter,=20

he held the post of Senior Adviser (latterly to UBS).=20

Despite the rigours of his schedule on behalf of Warburgs, Roll =
accumulated a plethora of other posts.=20

He was a member of the Court of the Bank of England and of the NEDC, and =
sat on the boards of Times Newspapers=20

and the Rootes car company, among others. He was chairman of the Book =
Development Council and, from 1974, Chancellor of Southampton =
University.=20

He also maintained a prolific output of books, academic papers and =
speeches on economic topics,=20

in which he propounded views, set in a wide philosophical perspective, =
which were essentially=20

Keynsian and interventionist - he was a firm believer in incomes =
policies long after they passed out of fashion.=20

The most successful of his earlier works was A History of Economic =
Thought (1954).=20

Later volumes included The World After Keynes (1968) and The Uses and =
Abuses of Economics (1978).=20

His autobiography, Crowded Hours (1985), dwelt principally on the =
intellectual themes of his career.=20

Roll's recreations were music - he was a castaway on Desert Island Discs =
in=20

2001 - and reading. For years after the Second World War he could not =
bring himself to read, or to speak, German.=20

Eventually, he returned to Goethe and Heine, and Goethe's Faust was his =
chosen book for the desert island.=20

Poetry was always a great love; of poets writing in English, Yeats was a =
special favourite.=20

Eric Roll was appointed CMG in 1949, CB in 1956 and KCMG in 1962. He =
became a life peer in 1977. He held many foreign honours.=20

He married, in 1934, Winifred (Freda) Taylor, who died in 1998; they had =
two daughters.=20

Jerry Wolf

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Received on 2012-06-22 15:48:08