the causes of the dollar problem

In November 1960 Robert B. Anderson, the U.S. secretary of the treasury, and Douglas Dillon, the U.S. undersecretary of state, paid a visit to Bonn that has been called “a striking symbol” of the changing nature of European-American relations. Whereas in the first postwar decade European delegations crossed the Atlantic to negotiate economic help with their American counterparts, the mission of Anderson and Dillon was aimed at rallying the Europeans to the defense of the American currency, which had been under pressure since 1958. Germany was the main target, and the negotiators' agenda included a request for a direct contribution toward the cost of maintaining U.S. troops in Germany. Press commentators on both sides rushed to the event. The German press commented on the visit with particular malice. Anderson and Dillon were portrayed as begging for money and, to underline this characterization, the German news magazine Der Spiegel printed a photo showing the stout German minister of economics, Ludwig Erhard, lecturing the skinny Anderson. The Anderson-Dillon mission illuminates the increasingly intertwined nature of security and monetary problems in German-American relations. The visit signaled a new framework in which European-American relations were to evolve: The limits of American economic power became visible and contrasted sharply with the success of the European recovery, particularly in the monetary field. This change, partly perception, partly reality, had enormous political consequences. Monetary questions were to affect American-German relations (and American-European relations in general) deeply during the 1960s. A closer look at the causes for and consequences of the visit will help us to understand the real changes taking place and their political significance.