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278

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Congressional Exposé

"Mr. Volcker’s politics is something of an enigma."--New York Times

Since 1933 when Eugene Meyer resigned from the Federal Reserve 

Board of Governors, no member of the international banking families 

has personally served on the Board of Governors. They have chosen to 

work from behind the scenes through carefully selected presidents of 

the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and other employees.

The present chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors is 

Paul Volcker. His appointment was greeted by one well-known 

economist with the following prediction, "Volcker’s selection has been 

by far the worst. Carter has put Dracula in charge of the blood bank. 

To us, it means a crash and depression in the 80s is more certain than 

ever."

Col. E.C. Harwood’s Research Report, August 6, 1979, gave much the 

same view. "Paul Volcker is from the same mold as the unsound money 

men who have misguided the monetary actions of this nation for the 

past five decades. The outcome probably will be equally disastrous for 

the dollar and the U.S. economy."

Despite these gloomy views, the report from The New York Times on the 

selection of Volcker was positively ecstatic. On July 26, 1979, The Times 

commented that Volcker learned "the business" from Robert Roosa, 

now partner of Brown Brothers Harriman, and that Volcker had been 

part of the Roosa Brain Trust at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York,