ABSTRACT
In the 1950s, the main Unite States (US) assumptions and policy goals concerning Europe inherited from the Marshall Plan’s effort at reconstruction, remained paramount. The Treasury and the Federal Reserve maintained their view that international trade and payments, and Europe’s own economic performance, could be improved only by currency convertibility. The Commission on Foreign Economic Policy debate thus settled the issue and inaugurated a policy of official support for the common market. Currency convertibility was thus singled out as the main goal, although its attainment was pragmatically postponed to the moment when the persistent world payments imbalance had been reduced. That US support for integration through the new European Economic Community originated primarily in considerations of strategic interdependence is unquestionable. The concept of economic interdependence was virtually absent from the contemporary American debate, which rested on the assumption of western Europe’s unilateral dependence on the USA, the need for dollar aid appearing as its epitome.
