The Transatlantic Relationship and the End of Bretton Woods, 1969-71

Based on an array of primary sources from the Nixon administration, this chapter argues that the divergence in the respective interests of the US and the West Europeans was not a consequence of the end of Bretton Woods but, rather, one of its main causes. Diverging economic and foreign policy interests and priorities among the allies, coupled with the inability to reconcile such differences by cooperative means, eventually led to Nixon acting unilaterally to rescind the gold-dollar link. The idealistic expectations of the previous decades, symbolised by the many references to an imagined Atlantic Community, gave way to more rational calculations about the mutual advantages and disadvantages of the security relationship, punctuated with a greater awareness of potential economic conflicts.