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Now Fowler leaves his Federal-period (1809) red brick house in Alexandria, Va., at 8 a.m. in his air-conditioned black Cadillac, often gets on the radio-telephone to the Treasury switchboard during the 20-minute drive. He almost always lunches in his office, which overlooks the White House south lawn. Over his desk on a typical day pass a CIA report, a survey on an Asian development bank, a balance-of-payments prophecy, a study on nuclear policy, a request for a Coast Guard cutter in the South China Sea. When he breaks for the day at 8:30 p.m., he lugs home a briefcase full of staff papers that he works on until midnight—or much later. Fowler is so busy that he and his wife rarely entertain any more, and he has limited himself to a single cocktail a day to keep in working shape.
As Treasury Secretary for only five months, Fowler has already made his weight felt in Washington. He eased through Congress an increase in the federal debt ceiling, from $324 billion to $328 billion. He cut the silver content of the nation's coins for the first time in more than a century. Just before leaving for Paris, he advised the President about the economic implications of the steel negotiations, sent him a sheaf of memos to keep him busy in Fowler's absence.
Stability & Security. No task that Fowler takes on is more important than his assignment to protect and defend the position of the dollar. All the talk of reform, all the plans and schemes inevitably raise a basic but difficult question for the U.S.: Should the dollar continue to be almighty?
The U.S. never consciously sought its present fiscal preeminence, but will not lightly surrender the role and responsibility that it has acquired. The dollar has been dominant in the world monetary system for decades. The postwar pattern was set when a conference of political and economic leaders from the Allied powers, meeting at Bretton Woods, N.H., decided that postwar commerce should continue to be financed by gold, pounds and dollars. Because the pound had been battered by the war and gold was in short supply, the dollar became the most fluid unit for international exchange, and the U.S. Treasury became a commercial bank to a capital-starved world. Through foreign aid, loans, investments and gifts, the U.S. has poured out a net of $97 billion during the past two decades.
The dollar has become the world's most powerful and mobile currency, freely crossing borders and financing most of the postwar expansion of global trade. Despite the U.S.'s recent monetary problems, it remains the most highly prized currency, backed by the huge productive power of the U.S. economy and the integrity of one of the world's oldest governments. The dollar is literally as good as gold because the U.S. stands ready to redeem it for gold. It has held its value better than the currency of any other major nation in recent years. Though some Americans complain about the decline of its worth resulting from inflation, the dollar has 87% as much purchasing power today as a decade ago, while Britain's pound has only 80% as much, Japan's yen 72% and France's franc 64% .
The free world's monetary system, though overly dependent on the dollar, has worked remarkably well. It has not only given the world enough capital and confidence to prevent the deflations that plagued nations