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,