Thursday, July 19, 1945. Bretton Woods ratified.

Able Seaman Chadwick trimming the beard of Engine Room Artificer Jones, aboard HMAS Hobart.

The United States Senate ratified the Bretton Woods Agreement.

Encircled Japanese units in Burma begin an all out effort to breakout.

Last edition:

Wednesday, July 18, 1945. Explosions.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Belgium, Brazilian Army, China, Disaster, Halifax Nova Scotia, Harry S. Truman, Japan, Manhattan Project, Potsdam Conference, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, Wake Island, Winston Churchill, World War Two

Saturday, July 22, 1944. Changes in governments.

Resing tank crewman, Normandy.  July 22, 1944.

We start today with some items Sarah Sundin has already noted in her blog:

Today in World War II History—July 22, 1944

Gen. Kuniaki Koiso became the Prime Minister of Japan, and SS glider troops landed in the Vecors region to address a Maquis uprising.

Operation Goodwood concludes near Caen with limited results, and the US began initial support operations for Operation Cobra.

The Moscow controlled Polish Committee of National Liberation was established in Chelm.

The Red Army closed the Brody Pocket in Ukraine, capturing 17,000 German troops.  The Red Army also took Panevezys, Lithuania.

The Red Army overran the Majdanek concentration camp, the first concentration camp to be liberated by Allied forces.

The first all fighter aircraft shuttle mission occurred with July 22, 1944 Italian based U.S. P-38 Lightning's and P-51 Mustangs of Fifteenth Air Force attacking German airfields at Bacau and Zilistea, Romania and flying on to  Soviet territory.

The Germans began cancelling the construction of new U-boats as well as the repair of existing ones.

Arrests continued due to the July 20, plot.

The Poles took Castelfiorentino and Tavernelle, Italy.

The USS Bailey shelled positions on Tinian.

The US Army Air Force raided Japanese positions in Shanghai.

Bretton Woods concluded.

Last edition:

Friday, July 21, 1944. Landings on Guam.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, 1944 Election, boats and ships, Free French, French Army, German Army, German Kriegsmarine, Guam, Harry S. Truman, July 20 Plot, Operation Dragoon, Royal Navy, World War Two

Sunday, July 16, 1944. Polish claims and a great escape.

US 155 crew loads gun, July 16, 1944, near Saint-Lô, where US progress was slow.

The Polish Government in Exile claimed German territory in East Prussia, Danzia and the Polish Corridor.

The Red Army took Grodno.

British forces took Arezzo, Italy and cross the Arno.

U.S. anti tank gun crew clearing area of snipers, July 16, 1944, Italy.

Sarah Sundin reports that the Allied Sixth Army Group was created and Jacob Devers placed in command, in anticipation of the invasion of Southern France, Operation Dragoon.

Today in World War II History—July 16, 1944

She also reports on an amazing escape from the Japanese.

In case you wondered, Bretton Woods was still going on, and the alcohol supply was holding out.

Last edition:

Saturday, July 15, 1944. A second von Stauffenberg attempt.

Labels: Battle of Nietjärvi, British Army, Claus von Stauffenberg, French Army, Guam, Italy, July 20 Plot, Nationalist Chinese Army, New Guinea, Normandy, Operation Overlord, Second Battle of Odon, World War Two

Thursday, July 6, 1944. Advances on Eastern Front, Halted on Western Front, Tragedy in Connecticut, Racism at Camp Hood.

Admiral Horthy ordered a halt to the deportation of Hungarian Jews, clearly seeing which way the war was going.  Hungary had not supported this policy initially, but upon being invaded by the Germans early in 1944 Jewish deportation commenced.

The Red Army took Kovel and Svir.

The Polish 3d Division took Osemo, Italy.

The U.S. Army took Namber airfield on Numfoor.

Allied progress was generally halted in Normandy.

De Gaulle arrived in Washington for talks on his administration and forces. Bretton Woods, of course, the boozy conference on post-war economics, was rolling on at the same time.

The tragic Hartford Circus Fire resulted in 167 deaths and 700 injuries in Hartford, Connecticut.  Up to 7,000 people when the tent caught fire, with the cause never being determined.

U. S. Army Lieutenant Jackie Robinson, stationed at Camp Hood, Texas, was instructed to move to a seat farther back in the back of an Army bus and refused, resulting in his court-martialed.  Army buses were not segregated.

Robinson had originally been an enlisted cavalryman who had been sent to OCS, and was now a cavalry officer serving in an armor unit.  His commander, Paul L. Bates, refused to authorize the prosecution whereupon he was transferred to another unit and then charged with multiple offenses, including public drunkenness even though Robinson did not drink.  He was tried in August 1944, and acquitted.

The delay caused by the trial prevented him from going overseas with his unit.  He was transferred to Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky, and served as an army athletics coach before being discharged in November 1944.

Council of war, Saipan, July 6, 1944.

Last edition:

Wednesday July 5, 1944. Third Army in Normandy.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Army, Battle of the Atlantic, boats and ships, Canadian Army, George S. Patton, German Kriegsmarine, Operation Overlord, Operation Windsor, U.S. Navy, World War Two

Saturday, July 1, 1944. Bretton Woods.

Morgenthau opening conference.

Delegates from forty-four nations met at the secluded Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire to participate in the Bretton Woods Conference. The conference met to establish the post-war economic order and was one of the most significant events of the 20th Century.

Henry Morgenthau was the chief U.S. delegate to the conference, and was rapidly elected its presiding officer.  Harry Dexter White, who was a Soviet spy, was the chief US delegate in fact and a major factor in the resulting plans.

The II SS Panzer Corps attacked British positions around Caen but was repulsed.  Gerd von Rundstedt phoned Berlin to report the failure to which Chief of Staff Wilhelm Keitel purportedly asked, "What shall we do?", to which Rundstedt replied, "Make peace, you fools! What else can you do?"

The U.S. 133d Infantry Regiment captured Cicina, Italy.

The Red Army took Borisov.

U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Public Health Service Act and the Renunciation Act of 1944.  The latter allowed people physically present in the U.S. to renounce citizenship when the country was at war.  It required an application to the Attorney General of the United States in order to do so.

The act sought to have Japanese Americans do that very thing, sot hey could later be deported to Japan.  A total of 5,589 American citizens availed themselves of the act, 5,461 coming from the Tule Lake Segregation Center.  Many came to regret their decision, and some of the renunciations were reversed.

Internees at Tule Lake.

Formation of the anti-Soviet Lithuanian Partisans occured.

Partisans in 1947.

They'd fight on after World War Two.

Anti Soviet Estonian Forest Brothers re formed on the same day.

Last edition:

Friday, June 30, 1944. Epsom halted.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Battle of Biak, Blog Mirror, Caen France, Denmark, Diplomacy, Finland, Omar Bradley, Operation Epsom, Operation Overlord, United States, War Loan Drives, World War Two

Friday, April 21, 1944. Les Françaises obtiennent le droit de vote.

Black artillerymen of Btry B., 140th FA Bn., 37th Div. Btry firing a 105 on Bougainville. 21 April, 1944.

Charles de Gaulle issued a decree giving French women the right to vote.

It's hard to imagine that the vote came to French women this late.

US troops inspecting German one many torpedo at Anzio.

Japanese troops captured Crete West Hill during the Battle of Imphal.

As Sarah Sundin notes on her blog:

Today in World War II History—April 21, 1944: German Gen. Hans-Valentin Hube is killed in a plane crash at Berchtesgaden; Gen. Erhard Raus replaces him over German First Panzer Army.

She also noted that a massive US task force with up to twenty aircraft carriers had attacked  Hollandia, Wakde, Sawar, and Sarmi, New Guinea from the air in preparation for landings.  D-Day was the following day.

The following statement, a product of Bretton Woods, was released:

Italy formed a coalition government.

The RAF hit Cologne, La Chappelle (Paris), Lens and Ottignies (Brussels).

The Battle of Gurba occured in Ukraine, but it's obscure.  It was an action between the Soviets and the Ukrainian National Army, and relatively large-scale for such an encounter.

Last prior edition:

Thursday, April 20, 1944. Bombs for Hitler's birthday.

1940s, 1944, Adolf Hitler, baseball, Battle of Anzio, Battle of Kohima, boats and ships, German Kriegsmarine, German Luftwaffe, Merrill's Maurauders, Operation U-Go, Personalities, Royal Air Force, U.S. Navy

Harry Dexter White and Pearl Harbor. Soviet Plot?

Harry Dexter White with John Maynard Keynes.

DATE: October 16, 1950

TO: The Director

FROM: Mr. Ladd

SUBJECT: ESPIONAGE - R

PURPOSE: To advise you of the positive identification of agent Jurist (the cover name of a Soviet agent operating in 1944 and named by [Venona project]) as Harry Dexter White, deceased. White was formerly the Administrative Assistant to former Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau.

DETAILS: You have previously been advised of information obtained from [Venona project] regarding Jurist who was active during 1944. According to the previous information received from [Venona project] regarding Jurist, during April, 1944, he had reported on conversations between the then Secretary of State Hull and Vice President Wallace. He also reported on Wallace's proposed trip to China. On August 5, 1944, he reported to the Soviets that he was confident of President Roosevelt's victory in the coming elections unless there was a huge military failure. He also reported that Truman's nomination as Vice President was calculated to secure the vote of the conservative wing of the Democratic Party. It was also reported that Jurist was willing for any self-sacrifice in behalf of the MGB but was afraid that his activities, if exposed, might lead to a political scandal and have an effect on the elections. It was also mentioned that he would be returning to Washington, D. C., on August 17, 1944. The new information from [Venona project] indicates that Jurist and Morgenthau were to make a trip to London and Normandy and leaving the United States on August 5, 1944.

On the basis of the foregoing, the tentative identification of Harry Dexter White as Jurist appears to be conclusively established inasmuch as Morgenthau and White left the United States on a confidential trip to the Normandy beachhead on August 5, 1944, and they returned to the United States on August 17, 1944.

You may recall that Harry Dexter White was named by Whittaker Chambers in his statements as having been a source of information for Chambers in his work in Soviet espionage until Chambers broke with the Soviets in 1938. Chambers produced a handwritten memorandum that White had given him and our Laboratory established this memorandum as being in White's handwriting. The Treasury Department advised that parts of the material were highly confidential, coming to the Treasury Department from the Department of State.

In addition to the foregoing, Elizabeth T. Bentley in November, 1945, advised that she had learned through Nathan Gregory Silvermaster that White was supplying Silvermaster with information which was obtained by White in the course of his duties as Assistant to the Secretary of the of the Treasury.

RECOMMENDATION:

There is attached hereto a blind memorandum which has been prepared for the information and assistance of   setting forth this identification. There is also attached a memorandum to the Field giving them the new information from [Venona project] which establishes conclusively the identity of White as Jurist.

Attachment

I really like the Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World podcast.  I want to note that upfront, as I think these next two episodes, while really entertaining and interesting. . . well, they sort of lay an egg.

At least sort of.

Not completely.

Countdown to Pearl Harbor? (FDR, Advance Knowledge)

Pearl Harbor Conspiracy? (FDR, Advance Knowledge, Soviet Spy)

Now, before a person assumes too much based on the title, Akin isn't suggesting, as some have, even occasionally some serious historians, that Roosevelt knew about Japanese designs on Pearl Harbor and let the attack happen.  Indeed, the conclusion to the second one pretty much definitively smashes that concept in a very general way.

Rather, what this two part episode suggests, but never flatly states, is that Treasury employee Harry Dexter White used his position to bring about an American diplomatic stance that made the war with Japan inevitable, as that's what the Soviets wanted.

The evidence, however, just doesn't support that.

Well, at least not completely.

This isn't a new theory, by the way.  It's been around since at least the 1990s.

White was a Soviet agent.  That's perfectly clear.  There are those who will dispute that even now, but we can set that aside.  He might not have been a Communist, but he was a Soviet mole without a doubt.

Harry Dexter White was a brilliant economist who came to that profession somewhat late, entering university at age 30, by which time he had already served as an Army officer in World War One.  He ultimately obtained a PhD in economics at age 38, and then taught at Harvard.  Later, he came into the Treasury Department at a time at which, for PhD's in economics, you either taught or worked for the government.  He was a very valued employee there.

The administration of Franklin Roosevelt was the most left leaning administration that the United States has ever seen, and the administration was full, at the office level, of many hard left thinkers. While the Wilson Administration had suppressed the then growing radical Socialists movements after World War One, FDR's administration was not interested in this and his coming into power in 1932 proved to be a respite for those with really radical views.  By and large, the government didn't care that much whether lower functionaries were hard line leftists.  

And the country had quite a few of them. Socialism, and other radical left wing philosophies, had been growing in the US since the mid 19th Century and by the 1910s it was coming into its own.  It was very much in vogue in some circles in the 1920s, in spite of efforts of the government to suppress it, and it drew encouragement from the example of Soviet Russia, which was in actuality very poorly understood.  Its base was in the working class, of course, but it was also heavily represented by Eastern European and Southern European immigrants, and oddly enough young academics.  

White wasn't young, but he'd come to academia late. And, additionally, he was a first generation American of Jewish Lithuanian extraction, so he had a foot in both the academic community and the immigrant one.  His Eastern European parents had only been in the US for twelve years at the time of his birth, and they were a working class family.  As noted, he was undoubtedly a brilliant man.

While even to this day he has his defenders, its clear that he was recruited as a Soviet mole by Jacob Golos, who was successful in recruiting numerous other Americans to the same role.  White became associated in that role with Whitaker Chambers, whom he reported to. And whatever it was he personally believed, it is clear that he was highly sympathetic to the USSR, so sympathetic that on rare occasions he was willing to voice that sympathy, as when he once engaged in a restaurant argument with a colleague to whom he maintained that Soviets had successfully worked out a system that would replace capitalism and Christianity.  And he was willing to carrying his admiration of the USSR as far as espionage and theft.  If he wasn't a Communist, he obviously had deep sympathies for the Communists.

When Chambers came out of the cold, he reported White among those who were Soviet agents, which he did as early as 1938.  Chambers didn't think that White was a Communist and further thought that while he was a Soviet agent, he thought White thought he was manipulating the Soviets to his ends, rather than the other way around, a rather naive thing to believe, if he believed it, but one which may be very well correct.   

Chambers' 1938 accusations were wholly dismissed by the Government.  He'd repeat them in March 1945 at which time the State Department was reaching out to Chambers.  Chambers at that point indicated that White had brought Communists into the government, but that White himself was timid.

In November 1945 the news on White was corroborated by defecting American Communist courier Elizabeth Benchley.  The Truman Administration basically ignored this, however, and even at this late date White's career in the government continued on, although he was less influential than before, and his boss Morgenthau was replaced by Truman.  Real problems for White didn't develop until 1948, however, when he was called before the House Committee on Un-American Affairs. Following his testimony, he had a heart attack. Shortly after going to a farm he had bought to recuperate, he had a second one and died due to an overdose of a drug he administered to treat it.  His death came a mere two days after he testified and it might have been suicide.  He was one of two figures caught up by the HCUA at the time who died from mysterious deaths during the investigations.His untimely death, and the fact that the Army closely guarded the Venona secretes, not really trusting anyone, meant that here was room for years to portray him as an innocent victim of a false accusation, rather than what he was, an exposed spy for the Soviet Union.

Okay, why does all of this matter?

Well, White's role as a Communist agent. . . again he might not have been a Communist himself, certainly are critical in regard to his wartime role in the Treasury Department.  More than that, however, he was the principal architect of the Bretton Woods Agreement which governed the world's post-war economy up until the early 1970s.  He was also the principal architect of the Morgenthau Plan, which saw the future of Germany as split into regions, deindustrialized, and made agrarian.

It can't be said that White's recommendations on the Morgenthau Plan and the Bretton Woods agreement were Communistic, so if he was himself heavily sympathetic to the Communists, it didn't fully show in that work, at least not in an openly obvious way.  It's known that he was passing information to the Soviets, but based on his actual work, he didn't seem to be really openly aiding them much in his work product during the war.

Well, what about accusations that he did before the war?

I'm not really seeing it there in an effective way either, although he may have tried a bit.

This is based on the claim that the Soviets developed an Operation Snow which was to attempt to get the United States and Japan into a war against each other.  The thought is that this would alleviate the Soviet fear of fighting a two front war, should Japan come in against the USSR. And, in spite of those who nay say that, the Japanese Army in fact wanted to do that, even though the wisdom of taking on the USSR at the same time that the Japanese were unable to defeat China was obviously pretty questionable.

Anyhow, Stalin did worry about this, to be sure.  And the NKVD could have hatched a plot to try to get figures in the American government to aid them in some fashion here, but the evidence is pretty sketchy, even if such journals as Time and The Wall Street Journal have published articles acknowledging the effort and, in the case of Time, even crediting the Japanese attack on Pearl Habor to White.

Claims about Operation Snow come from one source, a figure formerly in the KGB, who claimed to be part of it.  It's possible that he had the knowledge on it, but based on what we otherwise have come to learn about White's role as a mole, this claim is on a narrow strand.  What that source claimed is that in 1941, prior to the commencement of Operation Barbarossa, the Soviets were working to reestablish their spy contacts with American agents. Those contacts had been disrupted by Stalin murdering everyone.  Anyhow, the claim is that a new contact reached out to White and vaguely suggested that it would be in the best interest of the US and the USSR if Japan was aggressively isolated.  White, this claim asserts, stated that his own thinking aligned with this.  You have to do a lot of reading between the lines here from there.

White did issue a memo on his views on what to do regarding Japan prior to Operation Barbarossa.  It came, however, in the context of the Roosevelt Administration becoming increasingly aggressive with Japan in any event.  That memo was, moreover, oddly anti-British, a peculiar position to take in regard to a country that was, at the time the supposed meeting occurred, the only major power fighting the Germans.  A person could rationalize that a Japanese attack on the US would mean that the Soviets would only have to fight the Germans, but what would the point of alienating the British be?  While a person might claim that this would refocus American eyes from the Atlantic to the Pacific, there was never going to be a war in which the Soviets weren't going to be glad to have the British fighting the same enemy.

Indeed, it would be frankly more likely that, if the Soviets had a plot, the point was to distract the Japanese, rather than to actually provoke them into a war.

At any rate, White's first note was rejected and therefore not influential.  A second one some months later, however, is more problematic.

Some weeks prior to Pearl Harbor the Japanese signaled that they'd be willing to evacuate China and northern Indochina under an agreement with the United States, if they were allowed to retain control of Manchuria.  Roosevelt in fact leaned away from this, and that did result in a White memo to Morgenthau which in turn issued to Roosevelt under Morgenthau's signature. That resulted in an ultimatum to Japan to withdraw from China.

Having said that, there's also evidence that the Japanese offer wasn't understood in the context of what was being offered in regard to northern Indochina.  Moreover, by that time the US had already taken a really hard line on Japan in China. A compromise regarding Manchuria in fact would have been problematic, even if Roosevelt was considering it.

And of course White was one man, with apparently mixed motives.  His suggestion may have been influential, but he wasn't the one conveying it.  Did he have such influence over Morgenthau by that point that Morgenthau would do what he wanted?  Moreover, did they both have influence over Cordell Hull?  That's pretty problematic.

And that one man aspect of it, at the end of the day, is the significant thing.  White was a lieutenant of Morgenthau's, and Morgenthau wasn't a Communist and didn't know that White was.  And neither of them set foreign policy, Cordell Hull had a bigger role in that, and the President the ultimate role.

So, did White "cause" Pearl Harbor.  No.

Did he influence the road to war at all?

That's really hard to say.  

White isn't an innocent figure in the Cold War story.  He was highly influential on the Morgenthau Plan and he did have a major role in it.  Somebody at the Treasury Department didn't like it, and it was leaked. Was it a Communist document?  Well no.  But it did propose, basically, to disestablish Germany as a state, and split into regions, something that was to the Soviet Union's advantage, but something that was also not outside of the desires of many others.

He did have a role in holding up wartime financing to the Nationalist Chinese, even at the time they were fighting our common enemy, the Japanese. That's more problematic to say the least.   The only reason to have done that was likely due to his Communist sympathies.  So he could indeed act with Moscow in mind.

And he definitely acted with Moscow in mind in supplying currency plates to the Soviet Union. That has been described as "outright larceny" and it definitely operated against American interest in all sorts of ways.

So in the end, the most we can probably say is that he was part of a group of Communist or Communist sympathizers, within the Treasury Department who pushed it in a certain direction, but there were lots also pushing.

Leaving us back where we started.  The war with Japan was brought about as the US was drifting towards war anyway, and wanted to get Japan out of China.  That goal was shared by a lot of people, and White's role in pushing in that direction, even if done at secret Soviet urging, was hardly the final factor.

Sunday August 15, 1971. The End of Bretton Woods

This will be one of those pots which, no doubt, will cause somebody to say, "you don't know what you are talking about".

Yeah, well maybe.

On this day in 1971 President Richard Nixon, well, read it here:

Nixon and the End of the Bretton Woods System, 1971–1973

On August 15, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon announced his New Economic Policy, a program “to create a new prosperity without war.” Known colloquially as the “Nixon shock,” the initiative marked the beginning of the end for the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates established at the end of World War II.

Secretary of the Treasury John Connally on the day that President Richard Nixon announced his New Economic Policy, August 15, 1971. (Nixon Presidential Library)

Under the Bretton Woods system, the external values of foreign currencies were fixed in relation to the U.S. dollar, whose value was in turn expressed in gold at the congressionally-set price of $35 per ounce. By the 1960s, a surplus of U.S. dollars caused by foreign aid, military spending, and foreign investment threatened this system, as the United States did not have enough gold to cover the volume of dollars in worldwide circulation at the rate of $35 per ounce; as a result, the dollar was overvalued. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson adopted a series of measures to support the dollar and sustain Bretton Woods: foreign investment disincentives; restrictions on foreign lending; efforts to stem the official outflow of dollars; international monetary reform; and cooperation with other countries. Nothing worked. Meanwhile, traders in foreign exchange markets, believing that the dollar’s overvaluation would one day compel the U.S. government to devalue it, proved increasingly inclined to sell dollars. This resulted in periodic runs on the dollar.

It was just such a run on the dollar, along with mounting evidence that the overvalued dollar was undermining the nation’s foreign trading position, which prompted President Richard M. Nixon to act. On August 13, 1971, Nixon convened a meeting of his top economic advisers, including Secretary of the Treasury John Connally and Office of Management and Budget Director George Shultz, at the Camp David presidential retreat to consider a program of action. Notably absent from the meeting were Secretary of State William Rogers and President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs Henry Kissinger. After two days of talks, on the evening of August 15, Nixon announced his New Economic Policy in an address to the nation on “The Challenge of Peace.” Asserting that progress in bringing an end to U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam meant that it was time for Americans to turn their minds to the challenges of a post-Vietnam world, Nixon identified a three-fold task: “We must create more and better jobs; we must stop the rise in the cost of living; we must protect the dollar from the attacks of international money speculators.” To achieve the first two goals, he proposed tax cuts and a 90-day freeze on prices and wages; to achieve the third, Nixon directed the suspension of the dollar’s convertibility into gold. He also ordered that an extra 10 percent tariff be levied on all dutiable imports; like the suspension of the dollar’s gold convertibility, this measure was intended to induce the United States’ major trading partners to adjust the value of their currencies upward and the level of their trade barriers downward so as to allow for more imports from the United States.

A success at home, Nixon’s speech shocked many abroad, who saw it as an act of worrisome unilateralism; the assertive manner in which Connally conducted the ensuing exchange rate negotiations with his foreign counterparts did little to allay such concerns. Nevertheless, after months of negotiations, the Group of Ten (G–10) industrialized democracies agreed to a new set of fixed exchange rates centered on a devalued dollar in the December 1971 Smithsonian Agreement. Although characterized by Nixon as “the most significant monetary agreement in the history of the world,” the exchange rates established in the Smithsonian Agreement did not last long. Fifteen months later, in February 1973, speculative market pressure led to a further devaluation of the dollar and another set of exchange parities. Several weeks later, the dollar was yet again subjected to heavy pressure in financial markets; however, this time there would be no attempt to shore up Bretton Woods. In March 1973, the G–10 approved an arrangement wherein six members of the European Community tied their currencies together and jointly floated against the U.S. dollar, a decision that effectively signaled the abandonment of the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate system in favor of the current system of floating exchange rates.

This is more than a little complicated, and one thing you'll frequently hear is that Nixon took the US "off the gold standard". Well, sort of.  The trading of currency for gold in the US had actually come to an end in 1933 when Franklin Roosevelt's administration stopped it.  Indeed, from that point until some point after 1971 U.S. citizens were subject to restrictions on the ownership of gold.

Nixon's move was supposed to address inflation.  It didn't work.  Indeed, arguably, while Bretton Woods had its problems, particularly given that the value of the exchange rates it imposed were not properly set, it did create a rational economic system.  In its wake, currency just floated.

Indeed, in 1971, the really bad inflation was yet to come.  It was brought about by government spending in the Cold War and made worse by the Johnson Administration's expansion of social spending in the 1960s at the same time the country was spending more and more on Vietnam.  It wouldn't be addressed until President Reagan through the country into a recession to cool the economic heat in the late 1970s.

All of this should be a lesson for today. We're overheating the economy once again and inflation is taking off.  Early on, we were told not to worry. Well, worry, this is bad and if things aren't done, such as curbing massive Federal spending, it'll get worse.

One thing we could do is to try to go back to some rational basis for our money.  I.e., backing it with something.  

Yeah, yeah, I know "it's too late".

And so it may be. All really bad ideas have real staying power.