A few days before the famous Bretton Woods monetary ??conference in July 1944, John Maynard Keynes, the UK’s lead negotiator, had one of his legendary dust-ups with his American counterpart, Harry Dexter White. It was over the role of the US dollar in the postwar world. White was determined to make the dollar the sole international currency; legally a surrogate for gold itself. Keynes, whose country was effectively bankrupt – meaning it had not nearly enough gold or dollars to settle its international debts – was equally determined to ensure the dollar would have no such special status. The survival of the British empire itself could hinge on Britain’s ability to salvage some measure of international acceptability for the pound sterling or, at the very least, access to an international medium of exchange (which he wanted to call “bancor”) not controlled by the Americans. Britain was a desperate debtor with no cards to play, and Keynes lost that battle.
在1944年7月著名的布雷頓森林(Bretton Woods)貨幣會議召開前幾日，英國首席談判代表約翰?梅納德?凱恩斯(John Maynard Keynes)與美國首席談判代表哈里?德克斯特?懷特(Harry Dexter White)進行了一場傳奇般的爭論。爭論主題是美元應在戰后世界中扮演什么角色。懷特決心讓美元成為唯一的國際貨幣，即黃金的合法替代品。凱恩斯則同樣下定決心不讓美元攫取到如此特殊的地位。凱恩斯的國家事實上已經破產，即它所擁有的黃金或美元遠不夠償清它的外債。大英帝國自身的存亡，可能取決于該國能否在某種程度上挽回國際社會對英鎊的認可，或者至少推動各方接受不由美國人控制的國際交易媒介（凱恩斯希望稱之為“班科”(bancor)）。英國當時已是陷入絕境的債務國、無牌可出，所以凱恩斯輸掉了那場爭論。