Remarks at a News Briefing Following the Announcement of the Creation of a New International Monetary Reserve Asset

Secretary Fowler, Chairman Martin, Secretary Deming, Mr. Ackley, Governor Daane, ladies and gentlemen:

We are delighted to welcome back Secretary Fowler, Chairman Martin, Secretary Deming, and those who have been traveling with them.

We want to commend them on a job done with distinction. They have brought us over the hump of a very long, difficult, and decisive international negotiation.

Secretary Fowler, you have returned with insurance that the world will experience orderly and adequate growth of monetary reserves in the years to come. The plan for creation of a new reserve facility at the International Monetary Fund marks the greatest forward step in world financial cooperation in the 20 years since the creation of the International Monetary Fund itself.

The details of the plan agreed upon in London are primarily the concern of financial experts. But the basic plan and what it represents advances the welfare of all Americans. This much should be clear:

--All the major industrial nations of the free world have shown their clear and sincere intent to build strongly and securely on the base of our current international monetary system.

--A firm foundation has been developed for another reserve asset to join gold, dollars, and other reserve currencies as the needed means of payment for a world of growing trade and commerce.

--Gold and exchange markets can now reflect a new sense of confidence in the adequacy of future reserve supplies. With the United States unquestionably committed to convert gold into dollars at $35 an ounce and with the availability of a new facility to draw on when needed, there can be no reasonable basis to fear a shortage of reserves.

Certainly no human being today can fully appraise the potential of this new development in the international monetary field. But we can be sure that this agreement will stand out in the history of international monetary cooperation. And so will the brilliant and determined efforts that made the agreement possible under the leadership of Secretary Fowler.

Saturday morning, concerning these negotiations, the Times of London said, "The eyes of the world should be focused on today's meeting .... For it is almost certainly the last chance... to reach agreement on the basic features of a scheme for the deliberate creation through the I.M.F. of a new kind of asset which all countries will be able to use and count as part of their official reserves. Without such a scheme, the increasing inadequacy of the world's money supply will make it progressively harder for national governments to follow liberal trade and employment policies. The livelihood and even the lives of literally hundreds of millions of people over the next decade or two could be at issue, especially in less developed countries."

As you can observe, we are very pleased that this agreement has been reached. And we are glad to welcome those home who contributed so much to it.

We met here in this room the other day and briefly announced that we were tabling a nonproliferation agreement as a result of many months and even years of effort on the international scene.

A few days before that we had just completed the negotiation of the Kennedy Round which taxed the capacity of those working in that field and which brought us a great satisfaction and pleasure.

The trilateral talks completed with the British and the Germans--which were continued some when Chancellor Kiesinger was here--is another effort that we have been working on for the past several months.

Mr. Bator, who is attached to our staff here in the White House, has been shepherding and guarding all of these efforts. This is his last appearance before he will return to Harvard in the next few days.

I not only want to congratulate and say "well done" to Secretary Fowler and Secretary Deming, who has crossed the Atlantic many, many times in the last few months, but to Chairman Martin for sitting in on these meetings, and a member of the Federal Reserve Board, Mr. Daane, who worked very closely with us, but to Gardner Ackley and all of those associated with it.

We are very pleased with what has come about. To you, Secretary Fowler, we welcome you back. We have some other problems. Now that you have finished this agreement, we hope you can get one out of the Ways and Means Committee.

I now turn you over to the tender mercies of the financial press.