The deal that put the dollar at the centre of the world | The Story of Money

Take 730 delegates from 44 countries, plus another 2,000 or so hangers-on. House them in a remote, dilapidated hotel with holes in the roof and broken furniture. Deliver a train wagon filled with alcohol. Throw in some Russian spies, German prisoners of war, a troupe of bombshell “secretaries” and a magician. And then have the lead protagonist, the world’s most famous economist, almost die of a heart attack. What does that give you? Only the most successful international monetary negotiation in history. This is the story of the Bretton Woods conference of 1944, as relayed by journalist and author Ed Conway to hosts Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth. The three weeks of chaotic talks would deliver three decades of postwar peace and prosperity, and enthrone the US dollar as the global reserve currency. The discussions also nearly killed Britain’s lead negotiator, John Maynard Keynes, and would later disgrace his US counterpart, Harry Dexter White. Further reading: The Summit, by Ed Conway (2015) The Economic Consequences of the Peace, by John Maynard Keynes (1919) John Maynard Keynes, biography by Robert Skidelsky in three volumes (1983-2000) Treasonable Doubt: The Harry Dexter White Spy Case, by R Bruce Craig (2004) Credits: King’s College Cambridge, the IMF, Dreamstime, Getty Images, the Hulton Archive, Ullstein Bild, Bettmann, Shutterstock, the LIFE Picture Collection, Thomas D McAvoy, Alfred Eisenstaedt, and the Darling Archive. To enjoy future episodes, be sure to subscribe to The Story of Money wherever you get your podcasts, also on the show's dedicated YouTube channel here:    / @ftthestoryofmoney   Hosts: Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth Producer: Laurence Knight Executive Producers: Flo Phillips and Manuela Saragosa Original music: Breen Turner Broadcast engineers: Bianca Wakeman and Petros Giuompasis Podcast Development: Laura Clarke Video editor: Kristen Kenyon and Josh Divney at Podcast Discovery Learn more at www.ft.com/tsom or get in touch at [email protected]. Love listening to FT Podcasts? Join us live on Saturday June 20 at our inaugural NYC FT Weekend Festival at Spring Studios. Put your questions directly to our experts, experience your favourite podcast in person, and see the FT come to life. Register now and enjoy 10% off with code FTPodcast — this is one Saturday you won’t want to miss. Chapters: 0:00 - Intro 3:18 - Why Bretton Woods still matters 4:38 - Ed Conway joins to discuss The Summit 6:31 - John Maynard Keynes’s background and personality 8:32 - Keynes, Versailles, and the failures after World War I 11:39 - The Nazi monetary plan that influenced Keynes 14:04 - Keynes’s clearing union and Bancor proposal 17:05 - Harry Dexter White’s rise and contrast with Keynes 19:36 - White’s plan for gold, the dollar, IMF, and World Bank 20:21 - The competing British and American visions 23:08 - Delegates travel to Bretton Woods 24:36 - The Mount Washington Hotel setting 28:34 - Disrepair, alcohol, and chaos at the conference 33:01 - Negotiations, quotas, and behind-the-scenes deals 34:12 - How the dollar became central to the system 35:56 - The Soviet delegation and Harry Dexter White controversy 41:15 - Keynes’s heart attack and the final agreement 44:03 - The rushed final day and American bankers arrive 46:34 - Bretton Woods after Roosevelt and the war 48:54 - Britain’s post-war loan and Keynes’s final negotiations 50:56 - The deaths of Keynes and White 51:52 - Bretton Woods’ legacy and unintended consequences