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I. America’s Role in the World MANHATTAN PROJECT DIALOGUE FDR: The Forgotten Man The History of LaRouche’s Call for a Four-Power Agreement To Create a New Bretton Woods by William Wertz This is the edited transcript of William Wertz’ presenta- That fateful decision on the part of Nixon in 1971 tion to the Sept. 1, 2018 LaRouche PAC Manhattan led to an increase in free trade policies globally, an in- Project Dialogue. The full discussion is available at crease in globalization in which industry took advan- https://youtu.be/zAR6cluVT-o tage of “cheap labor” in Third World nations, exploiting that “cheap labor” instead of carrying out a policy of I want to tell you a forgotten story, the story of the improving the living standards of workers in the ad- fight of Franklin Roosevelt against imperialism. Impe- vanced sector nations, and developing the skills and rialism by the British, imperialism by the Dutch, and living standards of individuals in the developing sector. imperialism by the French. FDR’s vision of the peace This was the period in which the idea of a post-indus- after World War II—a peace sabotaged by the British trial society was introduced. Shortly after Nixon made and by their agent, Harry S that fateful decision, in comes Truman, who after FDR’s death the Presidency of Jimmy Carter, became President of the United a project of David Rockefeller’s States. This is an urgent topic, Trilateral Commission. A key because the solution to the prob- aspect of the Trilateral Commis- lems we’re facing in the world sion policy was the idea of con- today requires a New Bretton trolled disintegration of the Woods, which Lyndon La- world’s productive economy. Rouche has proposed. La- LaRouche has long fought Rouche’s proposal is very much for a restoration of the principles in line with the original concep- of the Bretton Woods system tion of Bretton Woods as out- from his more advanced scien- lined by Franklin Roosevelt and President Richard Milhous Nixon, announcing his tific and economic standpoint. his aide, Harry Dexter White. decision to suspend the convertibility of dollars to gold, Aug. 15, 1971, thereby abandoning the During his Presidential cam- Throughout the decades, Bretton Woods system. paign in 1988, he keynoted a particularly after Nixon aban- conference in January in Ando- doned the Bretton Woods system on August 15, 1971, ver, Massachusetts, just before the February New LaRouche has fought for a New Bretton Woods system. Hampshire primary. LaRouche’s campaign that year Nixon took the dollar off the gold reserve standard and was called the LaRouche Campaign for a New Bretton introduced a floating exchange rate system—as a sharp Woods—that was what he was fighting for. There was a break with FDR’s Bretton Woods system. After that oc- further emphasis upon this concept, in a speech he de- curred, there was a further devolution in the world livered in Washington, D.C. in 1998, and then an in- economy over the succeeding decades, and in particular creased emphasis in 2008. From June 2008 through No- in the United States’ economy. vember 2008, LaRouche delivered a number of September 7, 2018 EIR The Forgotten Man 3 speeches and wrote many articles on the necessity for a New Bretton Woods. LaRouche’s 1988 Presidential Campaign In 1988, you still had the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. There were also sovereign nation-states in western Europe. LaRouche proposed in 1988 that the initiating nations for the New Bretton Woods system should be the United States, Japan, and the Western European nations. However, after the collapse of the EIRNS/Philip Ulanowsky Soviet Union, things changed. Lyndon LaRouche proposes a New Bretton Woods system in his keynote address, Europe, for instance, lost its sover- “The New Name for Peace is Development,” at a Schiller Institute conference in eignty with the imposition of the Eu- Andover, New Hampshire, Jan. 30, 1988. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, left, and former ropean Union and the Maastricht Guyana Foreign Minister Fred Wills, right. Treaty. The Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact no longer existed, and there were further, So, if we create this seed crystal, of these four positive developments with respect to China. By 2008, nations, and others who join them, we now can and perhaps even before that, LaRouche’s conception have, any time we decide to do it—if the Presi- was that there should be a New Bretton Woods system dent of the United States says, to the President of initiated by four powers—the United States, Russia, Russia and to the President of China, and to the China, and India. And that these Four Powers had suffi- government of India, and some other countries: cient power to overrule the imperialist policies centered ‘Let’s make this agreement!’, the United States in the City of London. Of course, 2008 was also the year has Constitutionally, the Constitutional appara- of the financial crisis which hit the world. This was La- tus and the authority, to do this! Rouche’s proposal to solve that crisis. I want to start out with a few quotes from Lyndon Bretton Woods & Physical Science LaRouche from the year 2008. On June 12, 2008, La- On November 24, 2008, he wrote “The Truth of Rouche wrote a paper, “Free Trade vs. National Interest: Bretton Woods Lies Within Physical Science,” in which The Economic Debate about Russia,” in which he wrote: he said: What must occur soon . must be the formation What President Roosevelt had actually proposed of an initial organizing committee composed of was, in all essential features, an anti-British im- the governments of the U.S.A., Russia, China, perialist, anti-monetarist system. His proposed and India, a committee whose agreement to what system excluded any defense of that British Em- needs to be adopted as certain common princi- pire’s predatory interest. ples of reform, principles which will serve as the needed catalyst for a general, more or less global The final piece I want to cite was written earlier, on agreement to a reform committed to certain prin- August 20, 2008, under the title, “New Bretton Woods: ciples of global cooperation among a majority of Russia’s Role in a Recovery.” There he wrote: the world’s nation-states. Furthermore, while it were desirable that any On Nov. 11, 2008, he made a presentation titled, among Russia, China, India, and other nations “Only My Reforms Can Save the Planet from a Dark would press the United States to initiate the New Age.” There he said: Bretton Woods reform which I have proposed, it is absolutely indispensable that that reform in in- 4 The Forgotten Man EIR September 7, 2018 ternational institutions actually be initi- ated as a proffer from the U.S.A. Roosevelt intended to use that avail- able economic power to eliminate imperi- alism from the planet’s forthcoming, post- war history. Roosevelt’s intention, including that expressed by his role in Bretton Woods, was that each nation must have true sovereignty under the needed new reforms, and, at the same time, that all forms of colonialism and its like must be uprooted from the planet. What President Roosevelt had in- tended, as I do today . is a reform of the world’s economic and related affairs ac- cording to a single, commonly adopted great principle, one conceived in the same painting by Gerard Terborch spirit as the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. Ratification of the Peace of Westphalia (the Treaty of Münster), May 15, It must become a new, refreshed body of 1648, ending thirty years of religious warfare in Europe. anti-monetarist, natural, international law of economy, binding together a system of respec- 1. That their countries [The United States tively perfectly sovereign nation-states by a and the United Kingdom] seek no aggrandize- common, universal principle adopted in the like- ment, territorial or other; ness of a universal physical principle.” 2. That they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely ex- So, that is what Lyndon LaRouche called for back in pressed wishes of the peoples concerned; 2008, and it’s what we’re calling for today. The United 3. That they respect the right of all peoples States must play a key role in creating this new system. to choose the form of government under which As he said, it were perhaps indispensable that Russia, they will live; and they wish to see sovereign China, and India encourage the United States—and in rights and self-government restored to those this case, President Trump—to do precisely that. who have been forcibly deprived of them; Standing in the way of this, of course, is the same 4. That they will endeavor, with due respect British Empire which jettisoned Roosevelt’s post-World for their existing obligations, to further the en- War II vision of peace throughout the world based on a joyment of all states, great or small, victor or principle of economic development. It wasn’t totally vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the abandoned, but the intent was to reverse Roosevelt’s trade and to the raw materials of the world which policy altogether; particularly his opposition to any form are needed for their economic prosperity; of imperialism, and any form of monetarism. I want to 5. That after the final destruction of the Nazi emphasize that Roosevelt’s conception of the post- tyranny, they hope to see established a peace World War II period actually pre-dated the United States’ which will afford to all nations the means of entrance into that war after the bombing of Pearl Harbor dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, on December 7, 1941.

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