134. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski) to the Cabinet

Washington, October 27, 1977.

• SUBJECT
• Energy Policy

Secretary Blumenthal has reported to the President that, in his conversations with Middle East leaders,² it has become clear to him that the willingness of the oil exporting countries to cooperate with the U.S. in their oil pricing policies will depend to an important degree on their seeing evidence of our resolve to face up to this situation, specifically by putting in place adequate energy legislation.

The President asked me to report the above to you. He further asked that you make this point in your statements and speeches regarding our energy policy.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

Source: http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v37/d134

122 Memorandum of Conversation

"...In a contingency basis: Offer preferential treatment for OPEC (Saudi) assets in return for (1) a Saudi commitment to progressively increase production levels, to continue to moderate price decisions within OPEC and to produce enough oil to prevent future tight market conditions, or (2) a Saudi commitment to enforce within OPEC an oil price agreement that provides for small price increases..."

Source: http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v03/d122

Ford Knox old rumor

Source: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=861&dat=19800224&id=pSJIAAAAIBAJ&sjid=84AMAAAAIBAJ&pg=7098,5879716

H/T @KoosJansen

RM - Financial Crises and the International Monetary System

Robert MundellColumbia UniversityNew York, NY 100
27March 3, 2009

Source: http://www.normangirvan.info/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/mundell.pdf

PMG - The Collapse of the Bretton Woods Fixed Exchange Rate System

"The collapse of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates was one of the most accurately and generally predicted of major economic events.’ Hind- sight, of course,  sharpens  the  perception of the  inevitability of events  and makes great prophets of those members of the spectrum of analysts who hap- pened to get their predictions right. But the general outlines at least of the key events from 1967 through 1971 were foreseen, starting from the work of Triffin (1960), whose warnings provided  the compass  to policymakers  implementing serious changes in the provision of liquidity  and the administration of capital controls in a vain attempt to preserve the system..."
Source: www.nber.org/chapters/c6876.pdf