MEMORANDUM

The Structure of American Economy
From the beginning of 1938 it was plain sailing but a considerable work effort, not
least in numerical calculations, to complete the monograph. It took much longer time than
expected. The date set for completing the manuscript changed from the end of 1938, to
1939 and 1940. The monograph was eventually published at the beginning of 1941.
In 1938 Leontief was elected Fellow of the Econometric Society, effectuated from
1939. 227 Econometric Society had two categories of members: Fellows and ordinary
members. But it was really a Society of Fellows, because the fellows decided everything,
ordinary members had no say in anything within the Society. The Fellowship was thus not
just an honorary bestowment it was an election to a quite exclusive club. After Leontief
had been elected the number of Fellows was only 38, while the number of ordinary
members was 633. The election procedure was elaborate with a nominating process
preceding the election according. In the announcement of the election results in
Econometrica the name of each elected Fellow was accompanied by a shortlist of most
important works. Under Leontief’s name was a list of fourteen papers, among which were
two papers written by Leontief’s father about Soviet financial issues, a bizarre mistake! 228
The situation of Leontief’s parents in Germany, not least the fact that they remained
there, was a worry for Leontief. The parents remained in Berlin not only throughout 1937
but also throughout 1938 marked by ominous events such as Anschluss in March,
Münchner Abkommen in September, and Kristallnacht in November. The renewed their
Fremdenpässe in June 1939 and were still in Berlin at the outbreak of World War II. They
booked a passage on the Italian liner S.S. Conte di Savoia from Genoa to New York, the
ship docked at New York on Thanksgiving Day, 23 November 1939. 229 A year and a half
before his departure Leontief Sr. could read in the German press about the fate of the
Soviet ambassador of his Berlin years. Nikolai Krestinsky had been arrested in 1937, put
on trial 12 March 1938, and shot three days later. 230
227 See Econometrica 7, pp.284-287.
228 The list was prepared by the Secretary. Leontief’s name had been nominated or «aired» several
times since the first fellowship election in 1933, see Bjerkholt (2015).
229 See Alpers (2013, pp.72-74). Luggage shipped out on another ship got lost.
230 While almost all defendants admitted guilt during the Moscow Trials, Krestinsky denied
everything:
On 12 March he stated: “…I was never a member of the right-winger and Trotskyite bloc …nor
have I committed a single one of the crimes imputed to me personally; and I am not guilty of
having maintained relations with the German Secret Service. The next day he reversed himself:
“Yesterday, under the influence of a momentary keen feeling of false shame, evoked by the
atmosphere of the dock and the painful impression created by the public reading of the indictment,
which was aggravated by my poor health, I could not bring myself to tell the truth, I could not bring
myself to say that I was guilty.… I almost mechanically answered, No, I am not guilty.”
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