Il governo del dollaro. Interdipendenza economica e potere statunitense negli anni di Richard Nixon, 1969-73

This volume deals with US policy and the end of the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rates regime between 1969 and 1973. It is based on the records of the three secretaries that served in the US Treasury under the Nixon administration (Kennedy, Connally and Shultz) on the files of their undersecretary for Monetary Affairs (Volcker), and on White House, NSC, Federal Reserve and State Department records. From the very beginning of its term in office, the Nixon administration included the need for a different international monetary system in the broad process of reshaping of US foreign policy that would take the forms of the Nixon Doctrine, Détente, and the opening to China. US economic and political exigencies called for a "flexible" system based on the dollar, intended to serve the trends toward growing transnational investments by US companies and banks, as well as the perceived need of a diminished financial constraint on overseas military commitments. However implicitly, and with a trial and error process concerning implementation, this entailed a de facto new conception of US hegemony globally, as well as a serious clash of interests with the West European allies in particular. As West European plans, to create their own shield against monetary instability, took on growing credibility throughout 1970 with the launching of the EMU and the Werner plan, US policymakers moved towards the unilateral suspension of their commitment to Bretton Woods. This came on 15 August 1971, after months of deep internal debate within the administration, involving both economic and geopolitical reflections. The second half of 1971, as well as the year 1972, marked the beginning of a different phase. The US administration proceeded quite ruthlessly in the dismantling of the Bretton Woods system, sometimes actually using global financial instability to secure its objectives. A new conception of global American power was taking shape, and, for what concerns the Transatlantic relationship, a clearer definition of western hierarchies de facto replaced the idealistic visions of the "partnership" of the 1960s.