Washington, May 9, 1974
OUR MEETING WITH MINISTER DUISENBERG
Minister Duisenberg on Monday2 will probably urge that we cooperate with him by expressing a willingness to enter into an effort to find a formula which can be agreed both by Europe and by the United States for a change in the present rules with respect to gold. He is likely to say that he believes that, as a result of the new oil price pressure on a number of countries, including Italy, France, Spain and Portugal, it is quite likely that the Europeans will decide to take unilateral action if an agreement cannot be worked out within the next several months with the United States. He will probably, therefore, argue that we should seriously consider accepting arrangements along the lines outlined in the attached translation of the European position agreed in the recent meetings at Zeist in Holland.3
The current European proposal basically has three provisions:
1. that governments be permitted to buy gold from one another at a market related price;
2. that governments be permitted to buy gold from the market; and
3. that some agreement be established among governments to reduce the potential fluctuation in the market price of gold.
[Mrt: Does the negation of these 3 statements imply that there ere at this point agreements which forbid the above? Is this covered by IMF rules?]
In addition, some of the European governments are suggesting that there be an arrangement to require governments collectively to sell over a period as much gold onto the market as governments have bought from the market, but no detailed plan has been developed to apportion the responsibility to sell to particular governments.
[Mrt: Does this sound a bit like a furture Washington agreement on gold?]
[Mrt: Could this be a proof that the selling would be to certain CB(s) in accordance with Another´s Gold for oil arrangements? The "old agreement" as he spoke about it?]
My suggestion is that you respond to Duisenberg along the following lines:
1. We are very grateful for your receiving the Treasury representatives in the Hague4 and for making the trip to Washington to explain the European thinking to us.
2. We share a common conviction that an agreed multilateral solution would be preferable to unilateral moves by one or more European countries.
3. We share a concern that unilateral current account measures, such as those recently announced by Italy,5 will seriously disrupt the fabric of international cooperation and will cause economic damage to us all.
4. At the same time we recognize that the increase in oil prices will more seriously affect particular countries and that it is in our common interest to intensify international financial cooperation, as exemplified in the European and United States credit lines for Italy and the proposed expansion of IMF facilities.6
[Mrt: Chess-mat. Please check the RGGB blog for details about the oil/dollar deal.]
5. We can understand why countries in particularly difficult positions will wish to consider cashing in some of their holdings of gold, but we do not think it realistic to think that any country will find it appropriate to attempt to finance a large share of its imports in this fashion, since it is unlikely that the private market would accept a substantial amount of gold without a significant decline in price.
[Mrt: Plain and simple.]
6. It is understandable that potential sellers of gold would wish the rules to be changed so that foreign governments could be among the potential purchasers, but there is no evidence of any significant desire on the part of other governments at this time to acquire additional gold. If any other governments were, for example, contemplating buying Italian gold largely out of a desire to help Italy, then it would probably be preferable for that assistance to be extended on a loan basis.
[Mrt: Whoah! I bet that here BIS took the initiative. I also think that the result was:
- "Hong Kong liberalized the Gold market following the dissolution of the Sterling Area in 1972. EEC Finance Ministers reached the Zeist Accord under which Central Banks may trade Gold between themselves at market related prices. If Central Banks buy gold from the free market, the effect of these operations should not be to increase their net Gold holding. Finance Ministers of the Group of Ten agreed that Central Banks may use their Gold reserves as collateral at market related prices for foreign loans. President Ford of the USA and President Giscard Estaing of France agreed that Central Banks may revalue their Gold reserves at market related prices. ~starlinggold" -> See the Timeline - 1974.
7. There are four principal serious dangers which we see in the European proposals as we now understand them:
a. The proposals contain no elements which would clearly signal to the public that governments intend in fact to carry forward their announced intention to phase gold out of its central place in the international monetary system;
b. On the contrary the emphasis in the European proposals upon stabilizing the gold price creates a probability that internal pressures will be developed within the system for further moves toward establishing a single official price for gold. That would be a long step back toward an overly rigid, potentially explosive monetary system;
c. There is also the danger that a sudden write-up in the value of the gold portion of the official reserves of many nations could result in practice in the political process in those nations generating inflationary, overly expansive domestic monetary and fiscal policies; and
d. The sudden large increase in the apparent liquidity of selected developed countries would probably strongly reinforce the demands of the developing countries for preferential arrangements for the provision of liquidity to them. The resulting confrontation could endanger the possibility of reaching a meaningful advance through widespread multilateral agreement at the concluding session of the C–20 ministers.7
In the light of these considerations, we will study the European proposals further. In the meantime we hope that the Europeans will also reflect further upon their own proposals with particular reference to the need to insure that any action taken does not turn out to be retrograde but rather constitutes a constructive step in the evolution toward a more serviceable international monetary system. We must be aware of the danger of taking short-sighted steps in the light of a short-term economic situation while unleashing unnecessarily destructive consequences for our common long-term interests.
Having said all this, I suggest that you should imply that we shall wish to talk further with the Europeans but that you do not say at this time specifically at what time and in what group we should talk. My present expectation is that our next discussion should be with the ministers of the group of 5, probably on Monday, June 10, just before the next ministerial meeting. A meeting earlier than that does not look feasible in the light of the political developments in France and Germany,8 but in any event it is unlikely that Duisenberg would be included in that meeting.
At this stage, I doubt that you wish to be very forthcoming in suggesting the possibility we will be able to strike a deal, but in fact I think the European initiative does now give us a promising opportunity to make a bargain that would be much better from our point of view than allowing things to continue to drift as they have been. A separate memorandum is being prepared for you on that subject.
Jack F. Bennett
Source: http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v31/d64
Zeist agreement: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=888&dat=19740424&id=h-pRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=KXMDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7273,3385471
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