The deal that put the dollar at the centre of the world

The Bretton Woods Agreement, signed in 1944, was not the orderly triumph of economic planning many assume, but a chaotic, high-stakes drama born in a leaky New England hotel during wartime. At its heart was a clash between two titans: John Maynard Keynes, the British intellectual who envisioned a global currency called Bancor to enforce symmetrical economic adjustment, and Harry Dexter White, the American underdog whose plan centered on the dollar as the linchpin of a gold-backed system. What emerged was a compromise that enshrined the dollar as the world’s reserve currency—despite Keynes’ shock at the omission of his vision. The conference, marked by drunkenness, espionage, and a heart attack that nearly killed Keynes, ultimately created the IMF and World Bank, institutions that would outlive their original purposes. Yet both men died in disgrace: Keynes, broken by a failed post-war loan negotiation, and White, accused of being a Soviet spy. Still, their legacy endured—providing the foundation for three decades of global economic stability, even as the system they built eventually unraveled. The episode reveals that Bretton Woods was not a victory for logic, but a fragile political compromise forged under pressure, where personal ambition, national interest, and Cold War paranoia shaped history.