In 1966, France told the U.S. it wanted gold instead of dollars, alarmed by American monetary policy. Treasury Secretary William B. Fowler warned President Johnson that France's conversion could rapidly deplete U.S. gold reserves, exposing the fragility of the Bretton Woods system.
France said, we see what you're doing here. We don't like that at all. And as a matter of fact, we want the gold. We don't want your dollars anymore. We want the gold. It got to such a level that we can see here, this is from the Office of the Historian. This was from June 21st, 1966, memorandum from Secretary of the Treasury, then Fowler, to then President Johnson. And the subject was the French gold purchases. And the problem, as the Treasury Secretary at the time was telling the president, like, hey, we got a problem here. Because France realizes what we're doing and they're just taking the gold and like we're defending it. We're giving up so much gold. He said, as you know, the French policy is to convert all dollar accruals into gold.
