Читать книгу CWT Ideology - Алексей Муратов - Страница 11

In spring of 1965 a French ship anchored in New York

harbor. It was not a combat vessel, but it had a weapon with

which Paris intended to win the financial battle with the

United States. The French ship had brought bank notes to the

value of 750 million dollar to the United States in order to

exchange them for “real money”, that is for gold. That was

the first tranche payment to the Federal Reserve System.

“All the formalities are met. The representative of the

Bank of France is ready to provide half of the said amount

to the US Treasury. The money is here”, – read the official

dispatch from Paris to Washington. Exchange under the rules

of the Gold Pool could only be made to the US Treasury. The

hull of the first French “money” ship was waiting to unload

the 750 million dollars. At an exchange rate of 1.1 grams

of gold per dollar, Paris’s move away from the US currency

turned out to be very productive. 825 tons of the yellow metal

is a large amount. Another ship carrying the same amount

was on the way and that was only the beginning. By the end

of 1965 there remained only about 800 million dollars of the

$ 5.5 billion French foreign reserves in the US.

Of course, de Gaulle had not brought down the dollar

alone. However, the French currency intervention had

created a dangerous precedent for the US. Following the

unpredictable move by France, zealous Germans pulled

together to change dollars for gold bars. Their exchange

was several times larger than the 1.5 billion dollars of

France. Americans were shocked by this bold play but had

to change the “greenbacks” for gold. Then the central banks

of other countries – Canada, Japan – followed suit. The news

about the US gold reserves at that time were like front-line

reports on the battle field.

In March of 1968 the Americans limited the free

exchange of dollars for gold for the first time. By the end

of July, 1971 the US authorities declared the gold reserve

of America had dropped to its lowest level – less than