window manager not picking up Xresources?

["Ian D. Leroux" <ian_leroux@fastmail.fm>]

I'm having a strange (to me) problem where xterms launched by the window
manager are clearly ignoring my Xresources settings.  To be precise:

1) Xterms launched via menu entry or via hard-coded commands in the
window manager have default settings (small fixed font, white-on black)
irrespective of the contents of ~/.Xresources. Xterms launched by hand
(either from other xterms or from a window-manager-supplied command line
like ratpoison's C-t !) obey all .Xresources settings, as expected.  If
I launch a second window manager from the first, the second window
manager behaves correctly, i.e. the problem only appears for the first
window manager to be launched.

2) I've tried this with aewm, aewm++, fluxbox, lwm, ratpoison, and wm2,
and the behaviour is the same in each case.  I conclude that the problem
is not a bug in the window manager

3) I've also tried not exec'ing the window manager, but leaving it as a
subcommand of the .xsession script (i.e., ~/.xsession would contain the
single line "ratpoison"), with no change in results.

4) I've tried putting an explicit xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources in the
~/.xsession file, with no effect.  I've also tried launching an xterm in
~/.xsession before starting the window manager.  The
~/.xsession-launched xterm comes up with correct ~/.Xresource settings
(so the resources are getting loaded early enough) but the window
manager still uses default settings for any xterms it launches.  I
conclude that the issue is not simply one of command execution order.

5) .xsession contains (at the moment, but see above)
exec <window-manager>
or
<window-manager>

6) .Xresources contains (among other things):
XTerm*faceName: Bitstream\ Vera\ Sans\ Mono
XTerm*faceSize: 11

XTerm*eightBitInput: on
XTerm*eightBitOutput: on
XTerm*allowSendEvents: true
XTerm*internalBorder: 0
XTerm*borderWidth: 0
XTerm*visualBell: false
XTerm*waitForMap: true
XTerm*scrollBar: true
XTerm*saveLines: 10000

XTerm*background:       rgb:dc/d7/c0
XTerm*cursorColor:      rgb:60/60/60
XTerm*foreground:       rgb:00/00/00
[... other color settings ...]

This is on a recent install of Debian Etch on amd64; I'm a new arrival
to Debian from BSD-land.  I'm stumped.  Why would the first window
manager be the only program to be started in an "environment" (I'm using
the term loosely) free of customized X resource settings?  Any help or
tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Ian Leroux