Office of the Historian

16. Telegram From Prime Minister Wilson to President Johnson1

London, October 27, 1964, 1980Z.

T75W/64. Very many thanks for your prompt and helpful reply to my message about our economic situation.2

Our plan has now been launched, and it has, on the whole, been very well received both at home and abroad. People seem to think it a sensible start to a vigorous attack on our problems. As a result, sterling is already strengthening and the stock market is more than steady. There have, of course, been some squeals from overseas, but these are mostly for the record.

[Page 32]

Without your sympathetic understanding and the co-operative attitude of your administration as demonstrated in Mr. Dillon’s statement,3 we should have had a much more difficult task ahead of us. Naturally this makes us all the more determined that the dislocations caused by our policies should be removed as soon as possible. Once again may I say how much I appreciate what you said and I at least realise that this was not easy in the middle of an exhausting election. Thank you very much.

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, FN 12 UK. Confidential.↩
  2. See Documents 13 and 14.↩
  3. Presumably a reference to the Treasury’s October 26 statement; see Document 15.↩