World Business: Mr. Dollar Goes Abroad

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U.S. Treasury. "Improvement of the monetary system," says "Joe"* Fowler, "is the major task facing the finance ministers of the free world." Two months ago, Fowler called on financial leaders to convene—at a time to be negotiated—the greatest monetary meeting of the postwar era. Last week, in his first journey abroad as Treasury Secretary, he jetted through the major capitals of Europe in an effort to push that meeting and to sell the idea of reform to the men who manage Europe's money. Accompanied by a distinguished delegation that included Under Secretary of State George Ball and Under Secretary of the Treasury Fred Deming, Fowler hoped to determine what practical steps can be taken next toward the goal of changing the monetary system.

As the director and defender of the powerful dollar—"Mr. Dollar" himself—Fowler assumes a certain primacy among the West's clubby and powerful group of money managers. The U.S., after all, holds 33% of the free world's gold, accounts for 15% of its international trade and produces almost half of its industrial goods. Nonetheless, Europe's conservative finance ministers and central bankers felt that Fowler's proposal for a reform conference was rather brash for a newcomer—particularly one who had not consulted them in advance. They waited with considerable curiosity to meet this newest member of their club.

The man they met last week is a courtly but outgoing Virginian who acts, talks and looks quite a bit like a country lawyer. Unlike his sophisticated predecessor, Douglas Dillon, who was highly regarded in Europe, Fowler speaks no foreign language and is not notably experienced in the arcane affairs of international finance. In a job whose occupants in past years have often been men of wealth, he is of modest middle-class means. His surprise appointment April 1 was a disappointment to many financiers in the U.S. and abroad who had hoped for a man more in the Dillon mold. What they failed to see—and what they are learning fast—is that Joe Fowler has much of that deceptive country-boy shrewdness that marks his good friend, Lyndon Johnson.

Fowler is an adept negotiator who prepares for every task with compulsive thoroughness. He can be simultaneously friendly and cautious, has a disarming sense of humor. He also possesses a broad, basic background in all areas of the U.S. economy, and a political instinct that has been finely honed during a Washington career of some 32 years, roughly half in Government and half in law practice. He has countless friends in Congress and the business establishment, and he has the ear of Lyndon Johnson, who can hardly find enough adjectives to express his admiration: "He's prudent, careful, able, loyal. He's a leader of men."

Toward a Détente. Fowler's first stop last week was Paris, where he got a predictably cool reception. Though France was the first to press hard for monetary reform, it is in no rush for it right now, disagrees with the U.S. on how it should be achieved and what nations should carry it out. France's elegant, ambitious Finance Minister Valery Giscard d'Estaing pointedly did not meet Fowler at Orly Airport, and the talks got off to a slow start. After two days of discussion and some gastronomic milestones in Giscard's private dining