Chapter 12 In Defense of Sterling

THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK of New York stands on the blockbounded by Liberty, Nassau, and William Streets and MaidenLane, on the slope of one of the few noticeable hillocksremaining in the bulldozed, skyscraper-flattened earth ofdowntown Manhattan. Its entrance faces Liberty, and its mienis dignified³ and grim. Its arched ground-floor windows, designedin imitation of those of the Pitti and Riccardi Palaces inFlorence, are protected by iron grilles made of bars as thick asa boy’s wrist, and above them are rows of small rectangularwindows set in a blufflike fourteen-story wall of sandstone andlimestone, the blocks of which once varied⁴ in color from brownthrough gray to blue, but which soot⁵ has reduced to acommon gray; the fa?ade’s austerity is relieved only at the levelof the twelfth floor, by a Florentine loggia. Two giant ironlanterns—near-replicas of lanterns that adorn⁶ the Strozzi Palacein Florence—flank the main entrance, but they seem to bethere less to please or illuminate⁷ the entrant than to intimidatehim. Nor is the building’s interior much more cheery orhospitable; the ground floor features cavernous groin vaultingand high ironwork partitions in intricate geometric, floral, andanimal designs, and it is guarded by hordes¹⁰ of bank securitymen, whose dark-blue uniforms make them look much likepolicemen.
Huge and dour¹¹ as it is, the Federal Reserve Bank, as abuilding, arouses varied feelings in its beholders. To admirers ofthe debonair¹³ new Chase Manhattan Bank across Liberty Street,which is notable for huge windows, bright-colored tiled walls,and stylish¹⁴ Abstract Expressionist paintings, it is an epitome¹⁵ ofnineteenth-century heavy-footedness in bank architecture, eventhough it was actually completed in 1924. To an awestruckwriter for the magazine Architecture in 1927, it seemed “asinviolable as the Rock of Gibraltar and no less inspiring ofone’s reverent¹⁶ obeisance¹⁷,” and possessed¹⁸ of “a quality which,for lack of a better word, I can best describe as ‘epic¹⁹’” To themothers of young girls who work in it as secretaries or pages,it looks like a particularly sinister²⁰ sort of prison. Bank robbersare apparently²¹ equally respectful of its inviolability; there hasnever been the slightest hint of an attempt on it. To theMunicipal Art Society of New York, which now rates it as afull-fledged landmark²², it was until 1967 only a second-classlandmark, being assigned to Category II, “Structures of GreatLocal or Regional Importance Which Should Be Preserved,”
rather than Category I, “Structures of National ImportanceWhich Should Be Preserved at All Costs.” On the other hand,it has one indisputable edge on the Pitti, Riccardi, and StrozziPalaces: It is bigger than any of them. In fact, it is a biggerFlorentine palace than has ever stood in Florence.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is set apart from theother banks of Wall Street in purpose and function as well asin appearance. As by far the largest and most important of thetwelve regional Federal Reserve Banks—which, together with theFederal Reserve Board in Washington and the sixty-twohundred commercial banks that are members, make up theFederal Reserve System—it is the chief operating arm of theUnited States’ central-banking²⁴ institution. Most other countrieshave only one central bank—the Bank of England, the Bank ofFrance, and so on—rather than a network of such banks, butthe central banks of all countries have the same dual²⁵ purpose:
to keep the national currency in a healthy state by regulatingits supply, partly through the degree of ease or difficulty withwhich it may be borrowed, and, when necessary, to defend itsvalue in relation to that of other national currencies. Toaccomplish the first objective, the New York bank co?perateswith its parent board and its eleven brother banks inperiodically adjusting a number of monetary²⁶ throttles²⁷, of whichthe most visible (although not necessarily the most important) isthe rate of interest at which it lends money to other banks. Asto the second objective, by virtue²⁸ of tradition and of itssituation in the nation’s and the world’s greatest financial center,the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is the sole agent of theFederal Reserve System and of the United States Treasury²⁹ indealings with other countries. Thus, on its shoulders falls thechief responsibility for operations in defense³⁰ of the dollar. Thoseresponsibilities were weighing heavily during the great monetarycrisis of 1968—and, indeed, since the defense of the dollarsometimes involves the defense of other currencies as well, overthe preceding three and a half years.
Charged as it is with acting³¹ in the national interest—in facthaving no other purpose—the Federal Reserve Bank of NewYork, together with its brother banks, obviously is an arm ofgovernment. Yet it has a foot in the free-enterprise camp; inwhat some might call characteristic American fashion, it standssquarely astride the chalk line between government andbusiness. Although it functions as a government agency, itsstock is privately³² owned by the member banks throughout thecountry, to which it pays annual dividends³³ limited by law to sixper cent per year. Although its top officers take a federal oath,they are not appointed by the President of the United States,or even by the Federal Reserve Board, but are elected by thebank’s own board of directors, and their salaries are paid notout of the federal till but out of the bank’s own income. Yetthat income—though, happily, always forthcoming—is entirelyincidental to the bank’s purpose, and if it rises above expensesand dividends the excess is automatically paid into the UnitedStates Treasury. A bank that considers profits incidental isscarcely the norm in Wall Street, and this attitude puts FederalReserve Bank men in a uniquely advantageous³⁶ social position.
Because their bank is a bank, after all, and a privately owned,profitable one at that, they can’t be dismissed as meregovernment bureaucrats³⁷; conversely, having their gaze fixedsteadily above the mire¹² of cupidity⁴⁰ entitles them to be calledthe intellectuals, if not actually the aristocrats⁴¹, of Wall Streetbanking.
Under them lies gold—still the bedrock on which all moneynominally rests, though in recent times a bedrock that hasbeen shuddering⁴³ ominously⁴⁵ under the force of variousmonetary earthquakes. As of March, 1968, more than thirteenthousand tons of the stuff, worth more than thirteen billiondollars and amounting to more than a quarter of all themonetary gold in the free world, reposed⁴⁶ on actual bedrockseventy-six feet below the Liberty Street level and fifty belowsea level, in a vault⁸ that would be inundated⁴⁷ if a system ofsump pumps did not divert a stream that originally wanderedthrough Maiden¹ Lane. The famous nineteenth-century Britisheconomist Walter Bagehot once told a friend that when hisspirits were low it used to cheer him to go down to his bankand “dabble⁴⁹ my hand in a heap of sovereigns.” Although it is,to say the least, a stimulating⁵⁰ experience to go down and lookat the gold in the Federal Reserve Bank vault, which is in theform not of sovereigns but of dully gleaming bars about thesize and shape of building bricks, not even the best-accreditedvisitor is allowed to dabble his hands in it; for one thing, thebars weigh about twenty-eight pounds each and are thereforeill-adapted to dabbling⁵², and, for another, none of the goldbelongs to either the Federal Reserve Bank or the UnitedStates. All United States gold is kept at Fort Knox, at the NewYork Assay⁵³ Office, or at the various mints; the gold depositedat the Federal Reserve Bank belongs to some seventy othercountries—the largest depositors being European—which find itconvenient to store a good part of their gold reserves there.
Originally, most of them put gold there for safekeeping duringthe Second World War. After the war, the Europeannations—with the exception of France—not only left it in NewYork but greatly increased its quantity as their economiesrecovered.
Nor does the gold represent anything like all the foreigndeposits at Liberty Street; investments of various sorts broughtthe March ’68 total to more than twenty-eight billion. As abanker for most of the central banks of the non-Communistworld, and as the central bank representing the world’s leadingcurrency, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is theundisputed chief citadel⁵⁴ of world currency. By virtue of thisposition, it is afforded a kind of fluoroscopic vision of theinsides of international finance, enabling it to detect at a glancean incipiently⁵⁵ diseased currency here, a faltering⁵⁶ economy there.
If, for example, Great Britain is running a deficit⁵⁷ in her foreigndealings, this instantly shows up in the Federal Reserve Bank’sbooks in the form of a decline in the Bank of England’sbalance. In the fall of 1964, precisely⁵⁸ such a decline wasoccurring, and it marked the beginning of a long, gallant⁵⁹,intermittently hair-raising, and ultimately losing struggle by anumber of countries and their central banks, led by the UnitedStates and the Federal Reserve, to safeguard the existing orderof world finance by preserving the integrity of the poundsterling. One trouble with imposing⁶¹ buildings is that they have atendency to belittle⁶² the people and activities they enclose, andmost of the time it is reasonably accurate to think of theFederal Reserve Bank as a place where often bored peoplepush around workaday slips of paper quite similar to thosepushed around in other banks. But since 1964 some of theevents there, if they have scarcely been capable of inspiringreverent obeisance, have had a certain epic quality.
EARLY in 1964, it began to be clear that Britain, which forseveral years had maintained an approximate equilibrium⁶³ in herinternational balance of payments—that is, the amount of moneyshe had annually⁶⁴ sent outside her borders had been aboutequal to the amount she had taken in—was running asubstantial deficit. Far from being the result of domesticdepression in Britain, this situation was the result ofoverexuberant domestic expansion; business was booming, andnewly affluent⁶⁵ Britons were ordering bales and bales of costlygoods from abroad without increasing the exports of Britishgoods on anything like the same scale. In short, Britain wasliving beyond her means. A substantial balance-of-paymentsdeficit is a worry to a relatively⁶⁷ self-sufficient country like theUnited States (indeed, the United States was having that veryworry at that very time, and it would for years to come), butto a trading nation like Britain, about a quarter of whose entireeconomy is dependent on foreign trade, it constitutes a gravedanger.
The situation was cause for growing concern at the FederalReserve Bank, and the focal point of the concern was theoffice, on the tenth floor, of Charles A. Coombs, the bank’svice-president in charge of foreign operations. All summer long,the fluoroscope showed a sick and worsening pound sterling⁶⁰.
From the research section of the foreign department, Coombsdaily got reports that a torrent⁶⁸ of money was leaving Britain.
From underground, word rose that the pile of gold bars in thelocker assigned to Britain was shrinking appreciably—notthrough any foul⁶⁹ play in the vault but because so many of thebars were being transferred to other lockers⁷⁰ in settlement ofBritain’s international debts. From the foreign-exchange tradingdesk, on the seventh floor, the news almost every afternoonwas that the open-market quotations⁷² on the pound in terms ofdollars had sunk again that day. During July and August, asthe quotation⁷³ dropped from $2.79 to $2.7890, and then to$2.7875, the situation was regarded on Liberty Street as soserious that Coombs, who would normally handleforeign-exchange matters himself, only making routine reports tothose higher up, was constantly conferring about it with hisboss, the Federal Reserve Bank’s president, a tall, cool,soft-spoken man named Alfred Hayes.
Mystifyingly complex though it may appear, what actuallyhappens in international financial dealings is essentially⁷⁷ whathappens in private domestic transactions. The money worries ofa nation, like those of a family, are the consequence of havingtoo much money go out and not enough come in. The foreignsellers of goods to Britain cannot spend the pounds they arepaid in their own countries, and therefore they convert theminto their own currencies; this they do by selling the pounds inthe foreign-exchange markets, just as if they were sellingsecurities on a stock exchange. The market price of the poundfluctuates in response to supply and demand, and so do theprices of all other currencies—all, that is, except the dollar, thesun in the planetary system of currencies, inasmuch as theUnited States has, since 1934, stood pledged to exchange goldin any quantity for dollars at the pleasure of any nation at thefixed price of thirty-five dollars per ounce.
Under the pressure of selling, the price of the pound goesdown. But its fluctuations⁷⁸ are severely⁷⁹ restricted. The influenceof market forces cannot be allowed to lower or raise the pricemore than a couple of cents below or above the pound’s parvalue; if such wild swings should occur unchecked, bankers andbusinessmen everywhere who traded with Britain would findthemselves involuntarily engaged in a kind of roulette game,and would be inclined to stop trading with Britain. Accordingly,under international monetary rules agreed upon at BrettonWoods, New Hampshire, in 1944, and elaborated at variousother places at later times, the pound in 1964, nominally⁴² valuedat $2.80, was allowed to fluctuate only between $2.78 and$2.82, and the enforcer of this abridgment⁸¹ of the law of supplyand demand was the Bank of England. On a day when thingswere going smoothly⁸², the pound might be quoted on theexchange markets at, say, $2.7990, a rise of $.0015 from theprevious day’s closing. (Fifteen-hundredths of a cent doesn’tsound like much, but on a round million dollars, which isgenerally the basic unit in international monetary dealings, itamounts to fifteen hundred dollars.) When that happened, theBank of England needed to do nothing. If, however, the poundwas strong in the markets and rose to $2.82 (something itshowed absolutely no tendency to do in 1964), the Bank ofEngland was pledged to—and would have been very happyto—accept gold or dollars in exchange for pounds at that price,thereby⁸³ preventing a further increase in the price and at thesame time increasing its own reserve of gold and dollars, whichserve as the pound’s backing. If, on the other hand (and thiswas a more realistic hypothesis), the pound was weak andsank to $2.78, the Bank of England’s sworn duty was tointervene in the market and buy with gold or dollars allpounds offered for sale at that price, however deeply this mighthave cut into its own reserves. Thus, the central bank of aspendthrift country, like the father of a spendthrift family, iseventually forced to pay the bills out of capital. But in times ofserious currency weakness the central bank loses even more ofits reserves than this would suggest, because of the vagaries⁸⁴ ofmarket psychology⁸⁵. Prudent⁸⁶ importers and exporters seeking toprotect their capital and profits reduce to a minimum the sumthey hold in pounds and the length of time they hold it.
Currency speculators, whose noses have been trained to sniffout weakness, pounce⁸⁷ on a falling pound and make enormousshort sales, in the expectation of turning a profit on a furtherdrop, and the Bank of England must absorb the speculativesales along with the straightforward⁸⁹ ones.
The ultimate consequence of unchecked currency weakness issomething that may be incomparably more disastrous⁹⁰ in itseffects than family bankruptcy⁹¹. This is devaluation, anddevaluation of a key world currency like the pound is therecurrent nightmare of all central bankers, whether in London,New York, Frankfurt, Zurich, or Tokyo. If at any time thedrain on Britain’s reserves became so great that the Bank ofEngland was unable, or unwilling⁹³, to fulfill⁹⁴ its obligation tomaintain the pound at $2.78, the necessary result would bedevaluation. That is, the $2.78-to-$2.82 limitation would beabruptly abrogated⁹⁶; by simple government decree the par⁹ valueof the pound would be reduced to some lower figure, and anew set of limits established around the new parity⁹⁷. The heartof the danger was the possibility that what followed might bechaos not confined to Britain. Devaluation, as the most heroicand most dangerous of remedies for a sick currency, is rightlyfeared. By making the devaluing country’s goods cheaper toothers, it boosts exports, and thus reduces or eliminates adeficit in international accounts, but at the same time it makesboth imports and domestic goods more expensive at home, andthus reduces the country’s standard of living. It is radicalsurgery, curing a disease at the expense of some of thepatient’s strength and well-being—and, in many cases, some ofhis pride and prestige as well. Worst of all, if the devaluedcurrency is one that, like the pound, is widely used ininternational dealings, the disease—or, more precisely, thecure—is likely to prove contagious¹⁰⁰. To nations holding largeamounts of that particular currency in their reserve vaults¹⁰¹, theeffects of the devaluation is the same as if the vaults had beenburglarized. Such nations and others, finding themselves at anunacceptable trading disadvantage as a result of the devaluation,may have to resort to competitive devaluation of their owncurrencies. A downward spiral develops: Rumors¹⁰² of furtherdevaluations are constantly in the wind; the loss of confidencein other people’s money leads to a disinclination to do businessacross national borders; and international trade, upon whichdepend the food and shelter of hundreds of millions of peoplearound the world, tends to decline. Just such a disasterfollowed the classic devaluation of all time, the departure of thepound from the old gold standard in 1931—an event that is stillgenerally considered a major cause of the worldwide Depressionof the thirties.
The process works similarly in respect to the currencies of allthe hundred-odd countries that are members of theInternational Monetary Fund, an organization that originated atBretton Woods. For any country, a favorable balance ofpayments means an accumulation of dollars, either directly orindirectly, which are freely convertible¹⁰⁵ into gold, in the country’scentral bank; if the demand for its currency is great enough,the country may revalue it upward—the reverse of adevaluation—as both Germany and the Netherlands did in 1961.
Conversely, an unfavorable balance of payments starts thesequence of events that may end in forced devaluation. Thedegree of disruption of world trade that devaluation of acurrency causes depends on that currency’s internationalimportance. (A large devaluation of the Indian rupee in June,1966, although it was a serious matter to India, created scarcelya ripple¹⁰⁶ in the international markets.) And—to round out thisbrief outline of the rules of an intricate game of whicheverybody everywhere is an inadvertent player—even the lordlydollar is far from immune to the effects of an unfavorablebalance of payments or of speculation¹⁰⁷. Because of the dollar’spledged relation to gold, it serves as the standard for all othercurrencies, so its price does, not fluctuate in the markets.
However, it can suffer weakness of a less visible but equallyominous sort. When the United States sends out substantiallymore money (whether payment for imports, foreign aid,investments, loans, tourist expenses, or military costs) than ittakes in, the recipients¹⁰⁸ freely buy their own currencies with thenewly acquired dollars, thereby raising the dollar prices of theirown currencies; the rise in price enables their central banks totake in still more dollars, which they can sell back to theUnited States for gold. Thus, when the dollar is weak theUnited States loses gold. France alone—a country with a strongcurrency and no particular official love of the dollar—requiredthirty million dollars or more in United States gold regularlyevery month for several years prior to the autumn of 1966,and between 1958, when the United States began running aserious deficit in its international accounts, and the middle ofMarch 1968, our gold reserve was halved¹⁰⁹—from twenty-twobillion eight hundred million to eleven billion four hundredmillion dollars. If the reserve ever dropped to an unacceptablylow level, the United States would be forced to break its wordand lower the gold value of the dollar, or even to stop sellinggold entirely³⁵. Either action would in effect be a devaluation—theone devaluation, because of the dollar’s preeminent¹¹⁰ position,that would be more disruptive to world monetary order than adevaluation of the pound.
HAYES and Coombs, neither of whom is old enough to haveexperienced the events of 1931 at first hand as a banker butboth of whom are such diligent¹¹¹ and sensitive students ofinternational banking that they might as well have done so,found that as the hot days of 1964 dragged on they hadoccasion to be in almost daily contact by transatlantic telephonewith their Bank of England counterparts—the Earl of Cromer,governor of the bank at that time, and Roy A. O. Bridge, thegovernor’s adviser¹¹³ on foreign exchange. It became clear tothem from these conversations and from other sources that theimbalance in Britain’s international accounts was far from thewhole trouble. A crisis of confidence in the soundness of thepound was developing, and the main cause of it seemed to bethe election that Britain’s Conservative Government was facingon October 15th. The one thing that international financialmarkets hate and fear above all others is uncertainty¹¹⁴. Anyelection represents uncertainty, so the pound always has thejitters just before Britons go to the polls, but to the peoplewho deal in currencies this election looked particularly menacing,because of their estimate of the character of the LabourGovernment that might come into power. The conservativefinanciers of London, not to mention those of ContinentalEurope, looked with almost irrational¹¹⁶ suspicion on HaroldWilson, the Labour choice for Prime Minister; further, some ofMr. Wilson’s economic advisers¹¹⁷ had explicitly¹¹⁸ extolled¹¹⁹ the virtuesof devaluation of the pound in their earlier theoretical writings;and, finally, there was an all too pat analogy to be drawn¹²⁰ fromthe fact that the last previous term of the British Labour Partyin power had been conspicuously¹²¹ marked, in 1949, by adevaluation of sterling from the rate of $4.03 to $2.80.
In these circumstances, almost all the dealers¹²³ in the worldmoney markets, whether they were ordinary internationalbusinessmen or out-and-out currency speculators, were anxiousto get rid of pounds—at least until after the election. Like allspeculative attacks, this one fed on itself. Each small drop inthe pound’s price resulted in further loss of confidence, anddown, down went the pound in the international markets—anoddly diffused¹²⁴ sort of exchange, which does not operate in anycentral building but, rather, is conducted by telephone and cablebetween the trading desks of banks in the world’s major cities.
Simultaneously¹²⁵, down, down went British reserves, as the Bankof England struggled to support the pound. Early in September,Hayes went to Tokyo for the annual meeting of the membersof the International Monetary Fund. In the corridors of thebuilding where participants in the Fund met, he heard oneEuropean central banker after another express misgivings¹²⁶ aboutthe state of the British economy and the outlook for the Britishcurrency. Why didn’t the British government take steps athome to check its outlay¹²⁷ and to improve the balance ofpayments, they asked each other. Why didn’t it raise the Bankof England’s lending rate—the so-called bank rate—from itscurrent five per cent, since this move would have the effect ofraising British interest rates all up and down the line, andwould thus serve the double purpose of damping downdomestic inflation and attracting investment dollars to Londonfrom other financial centers, with the result that sterling wouldgain a sounder footing?
Doubtless the Continental¹¹⁵ bankers also put such questions tothe Bank of England men in Tokyo; in any event, the Bank ofEngland men and their counterparts in the British Exchequerhad not failed to put the questions to themselves. But theproposed measures would certainly be unpopular with theBritish electorate¹²⁹, as unmistakable harbingers of austerity, andthe Conservative Government, like many governments before it,appeared to be paralyzed by fear of the imminent¹³⁰ election. Soit did nothing. In a strictly¹³¹ monetary way, however, Britain didtake defensive¹³² measures during September. The Bank ofEngland had for several years had a standing¹³³ agreement withthe Federal Reserve that either institution could borrow fivehundred million dollars from the other, over a short term, atany time, with virtually no formalities; now the Bank of Englandaccepted this standby loan and made arrangements tosupplement it with another five hundred million dollars inshort-term credit from various European central banks and theBank of Canada. This total of a billion dollars, together withBritain’s last-ditch reserves in gold and dollars, amounting toabout two billion six hundred million, constituted a sizable storeof ammunition¹³⁴. If the speculative⁸⁸ assault on the pound shouldcontinue or intensify¹³⁵, answering fire would come from the Bankof England in the form of dollar investments in sterling madeon the battlefield of the free market, and presumably theattackers would be put to rout⁷⁵.
As might have been expected, the assault did intensify afterLabour came out the victor in the October election. The newBritish government realized at the outset that it was faced witha grave crisis, and that immediate¹³⁶ and drastic action was inorder. It has since been said that summary devaluation of thepound was seriously considered by the newly elected PrimeMinister and his advisers on finance—George Brown, Secretaryof State for Economic Affairs, and James Callaghan, Chancellorof the Exchequer¹²⁸. The idea was rejected, though, and themeasures they actually took, in October and early November,were a fifteen-percent emergency surcharge on British imports(in effect, a blanket raising of tariffs), an increased fuel tax, andstiff new capital-gains and corporation taxes. These weredeflationary, currency-strengthening measures, to be sure, butthe world markets were not reassured¹³⁸. The specific nature ofthe new taxes seems to have disconcerted, and even enraged,many financiers, in and out of Britain, particularly in view ofthe fact that under the new budget British governmentspending on welfare benefits was actually to be increased,rather than cut back, as deflationary policy would normallyrequire. One way and another, then, the sellers—or bears, inmarket jargon¹³⁹—continued to be in charge of the market for thepound in the weeks after the election, and the Bank ofEngland was kept busy potting away at them with preciousshells from its borrowed-billion-dollar arsenal¹⁴⁰. By the end ofOctober, nearly half the billion was gone, and the bears werestill inexorably advancing on the pound, a hundredth of a centat a time.
Hayes, Coombs, and their foreign-department colleagues onLiberty Street, watching with mounting anxiety, were as galledas the British by the fact that a central bank defending itscurrency against attack can have only the vaguest idea ofwhere the attack is coming from. Speculation is inherent inforeign trade, and by its nature is almost impossible to isolate,identify, or even define. There are degrees of speculation; theword itself, like “selfishness” or “greed,” denotes a judgment,and yet every exchange of currencies might be called aspeculation in favor of the currency being acquired and againstthe one being disposed of. At one end of the scale areperfectly legitimate¹⁴² business transactions that have specificspeculative effects. A British importer ordering Americanmerchandise may legitimately¹⁴³ pay up in pounds in advance ofdelivery; if he does, he is speculating against the pound. AnAmerican importer who has contracted to pay for British goodsat a price set in pounds may legitimately insist that hispurchase of the pounds he needs to settle his debt be deferredfor a certain period; he, too, is speculating against the pound.
(The staggering importance to Britain of these commoncommercial operations, which are called “leads” and “lags,”
respectively, is shown by the fact that if in normal times theworld’s buyers of British goods were all to withhold¹⁴⁴ theirpayments for as short a period as two and a half months theBank of England’s gold and dollar reserves would vanish.) Atthe other end of the scale is the dealer¹²² in money who borrowspounds and then converts the loan into dollars. Such a dealer,instead of merely protecting his business interests, is engagingin an out-and-out speculative move called a short sale; hopingto buy back the pounds he owes more cheaply later on, he issimply trying to make a profit on the decrease in value heanticipates—and, what with the low commissions prevailing¹⁴⁵ inthe international money market, the maneuver¹⁴⁶ provides one ofthe world’s most attractive forms of high-stakes gambling¹⁴⁷.
Gambling of this sort, although in fact it probably contributedfar less to the sterling crisis than the self-protective measurestaken by nervous importers and exporters, was being widelyblamed for all the pound’s troubles of October and November,1964. Particularly in the British Parliament, there were angryreferences to speculative activity by “the gnomes¹⁴⁸ ofZurich”—Zurich being singled out because Switzerland, whosebanking laws rigidly¹⁴⁹ protect the anonymity¹⁵¹ of depositors, is theblind pig of international banking, and consequently muchcurrency speculation, originating in many parts of the world, isfunnelled through Zurich. Besides low commissions andanonymity, currency speculation has another attraction. Thanksto time differentials and good telephone service, the worldmoney market, unlike stock exchanges, race tracks, andgambling casinos, practically never closes. London opens anhour after the Continent (or did until February 1968, whenBritain adopted Continental time), New York five (now six)hours after that, San Francisco three hours after that, andthen Tokyo gets under way about the time San Franciscocloses. Only a need for sleep or a lack of money need halt theoperations of a really hopelessly addicted¹⁵² plunger anywhere.
“It was not the gnomes of Zurich who were beating downthe pound,” a leading Zurich banker subsequentlymaintained—stopping short of claiming that there were nognomes there. Nonetheless, organized short selling—what traderscall a bear raid—was certainly in progress, and the defenders¹⁵³ ofthe pound in London and their sympathizers in New Yorkwould have given plenty to catch a glimpse of the invisibleenemy.
IT was in this atmosphere, then, that on the weekend beginningNovember 7th the leading central bankers of the world heldtheir regular monthly gathering¹⁵⁴ in Basel, Switzerland. Theoccasion for such gatherings¹⁵⁵, which have been held regularlysince the nineteen-thirties except during the Second World War,is the monthly meeting of the board of directors of the Bankfor International Settlements, which was established in Basel in1930 primarily as a clearing house for the handling ofreparations payments arising out of the First World War buthas come to serve as an agency of international monetaryco?peration and, incidentally, a kind of central bankers’ club. Assuch, it is considerably¹⁵⁶ more limited in resources and restrictedas to membership than the International Monetary Fund, but,like other exclusive clubs, it is often the scene of greatdecisions. Represented on its board of directors are Britain,France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden,and Switzerland—in short, the economic powers of WesternEurope—while the United States is a regular monthly guestwhose presence is counted on, and Canada and Japan are lessfrequent visitors. The Federal Reserve is almost alwaysrepresented by Coombs, and sometimes by Hayes and otherNew York officers as well.
In the nature of things, the interests of the different centralbanks conflict; their faces are set against each other almost asif they were players in a poker¹⁵⁸ game. Even so, in view of thefact that international troubles with money at their root havealmost as long a history as similarly caused troubles betweenindividuals, the most surprising thing about internationalmonetary co?peration is that it is so new. Through all the agesprior to the First World War, it cannot be said to have existedat all. In the nineteen-twenties, it existed chiefly through closepersonal ties between individual central bankers, oftenmaintained in spite of the indifference¹⁵⁹ of their governments. Onan official level, it got off to a halting start through theFinancial Committee of the League of Nations, which wassupposed to encourage joint¹⁶⁰ action to prevent monetarycatastrophes. The sterling collapse¹⁶² of 1931 and its grim sequelwere ample proof of the committee’s failure. But better dayswere ahead. The 1944 international financial conference atBretton Woods—out of which emerged not only theInternational Monetary Fund but also the whole structure ofpostwar monetary rules designed to help establish and maintainfixed exchange rates, as well as the World Bank, designed toease the flow of money from rich countries to poor orwar-devastated ones—stands as a milestone¹⁶³ in economicco?peration comparable to the formation of the United Nationsin political affairs. To cite just one of the conference’s fruits, acredit of more than a billion dollars extended to Britain by theInternational Monetary Fund during the Suez affair in 1956prevented a major international financial crisis then.
In subsequent years, economic changes, like other changes,tended to come more and more quickly; after 1958, monetarycrises began springing up virtually overnight, and theInternational Monetary Fund, which is hindered by slow-movingmachinery, sometimes proved inadequate¹⁶⁵ to meet such crisesalone. Again the new spirit of co?peration rose to the occasion,this time with the richest of nations, the United States, takingthe lead. Starting in 1961, the Federal Reserve Bank, with theapproval of the Federal Reserve Board and the Treasury inWashington, joined the other leading central banks in setting upa system of ever-ready revolving¹⁶⁶ credits, which soon came tobe called the “swap¹⁶⁷ network.” The purpose of the network wasto complement¹⁶⁸ the International Monetary Fund’s longer-termcredit facilities by giving central banks instant access to fundsthey might need for a short period in order to move fast andvigorously in defense of their currencies. Its effectiveness wasnot long in being put to the test. Between its initiation¹⁶⁹ in 1961and the autumn of 1964, the swap network had played amajor part in the triumphant¹⁷⁰ defense against sudden andviolent speculative attacks on at least three currencies: thepound, late in 1961; the Canadian dollar, in June, 1961; andthe Italian lira, in March, 1964. By the autumn of 1964, theswap agreements (“L’accord de swap” to the French, “dieSwap-Verpflichtungen” to the Germans) had come to be thevery cornerstone of international monetary co?peration. Indeed,the five hundred million American dollars that the Bank ofEngland was finding it necessary to draw on at the verymoment the bank’s top officers were heading for Basel thatNovember weekend represented part of the swap network,greatly expanded from its comparatively modest beginnings.
As for the Bank for International Settlements, in its capacityas a banking institution it was a relatively minor¹⁷¹ cog in all thismachinery, but in its capacity as a club it had over the yearscome to play a far from unimportant role. Its monthly boardmeetings served (and still serve) as a chance for the centralbankers to talk in an informal atmosphere—to exchange gossip,views, and hunches¹⁷² such as could not comfortably be indulgedin either by mail or over the international telephone circuits.
Basel, a medieval Rhenish city that is dominated by the spiresof its twelfth-century Gothic cathedral and has long been athriving center of the chemical industry, was originally chosenas the site of the Bank for International Settlements because itwas a nodal point for European railways. Now that mostinternational bankers habitually¹⁷⁴ travel by plane, that asset hasbecome a liability, for there is no long-distance air service toBasel; delegates must deplane at Zurich and continue by trainor car. On the other hand, Basel has several first-raterestaurants, and it may be that in the view of the central-bankdelegates this advantage outweighs¹⁷⁵ the travel inconvenience, forcentral banking—or at least European central banking—has afirmly established association with good living. A governor of theNational Bank of Belgium once remarked to a visitor, without asmile, that he considered one of his duties to be that of leavingthe institution’s wine cellar better than he had found it. Aluncheon guest at the Bank of France is generally toldapologetically, “In the tradition of the bank, we serve onlysimple fare,” but what follows is a repast during which theconstant discussion of vintages makes any discussion of bankingawkward, if not impossible, and at which the tradition ofsimplicity is honored, apparently, by the serving of only onewine before the cognac. The table of the Bank of Italy isequally elegant (some say the best in Rome), and itssurroundings are enhanced by the priceless Renaissancepaintings, acquired as defaulted security on bad loans over theyears, that hang on the walls. As for the Federal Reserve Bankof New York, alcohol in any form is hardly ever served there,banking is habitually discussed at meals, and the mistress of thekitchen appears almost pathetically grateful whenever one of theofficers makes any sort of comment, even a critical one, on thefare. But then Liberty Street isn’t Europe.
In these democratic times, central banking in Europe isthought of as the last stronghold of the aristocratic bankingtradition, in which wit, grace, and culture coexist easily withcommercial astuteness¹⁷⁷, and even ruthlessness. The Europeancounterparts of the security guards on Liberty Street are apt tobe attendants in morning coats. Until less than a generationago, formality of address between central bankers was the rule.
Some think that the first to break it were the British, duringthe Second World War, when, it is alleged¹⁷⁸, a secret order wentout that British government and military authorities were toaddress their American counterparts by their first names; inany event, first names are frequently exchanged betweenEuropean and American central bankers now, and one reasonfor this, unquestionably, is the postwar rise in influence of thedollar. (Another reason is that, in the emerging era ofco?peration, the central bankers see more of each other thanthey used to—not just in Basel but in Washington, Paris, andBrussels, at regular meetings of perhaps half a dozen specialbanking committees of various international organizations. Thesame handful of top bankers parades so regularly through thehotel lobbies of those cities that one of them thinks they mustgive the impression of being hundreds strong, like the spearcarriers who cross the stage again and again in the triumphalscene of “Aida.”) And language, like the manner of its use, hastended to follow economic power. European central bankershave always used French (“bad French,” some say) in talkingwith each other, but during the long period in which the poundwas the world’s leading currency English came to be the firstlanguage of central banking at large, and under the rule of thedollar it continues to be. It is spoken fluently and willingly byall the top officers of every central bank except the Bank ofFrance, and even the Bank of France officers are forced tokeep translators at hand, in consideration of the seemingintractable inability or unwillingness¹⁷⁹ of most Britons andAmericans to become competent in any language but their own.
(Lord Cromer, flouting¹⁸⁰ tradition, speaks French with completeauthority.)At Basel, good food and convenience come before splendor;many of the delegates favor an outwardly humble¹⁸¹ restaurant inthe main railroad station, and the Bank for InternationalSettlements itself is modestly situated¹⁸² between a tea shop and ahairdressing establishment. On that November weekend in 1964,Vice-President Coombs was the only representative of theFederal Reserve System on hand, and, indeed, he was to bethe key banking representative of the United States through theearly and middle phases of the crisis that was then mounting.
In an abstracted way, Coombs ate and drank heartily¹⁸³ with theothers—true to his institution’s traditions, he is less than agourmet—but his real interest was in getting the sense of themeeting and the private feelings of its participants. He was theperfect man for this task, inasmuch as he has theunquestioning trust and respect of all his foreign colleagues. Theother leading central bankers habitually call him by his firstname—less, it seems, in deference¹⁸⁴ to changed custom than outof deep affection and admiration¹⁸⁵. They also use it in speakingof him among themselves; the name “Charliecoombs” (runtogether thus out of long habituation) is a word to conjurewith in central-banking circles. Charliecoombs, they will tell you,is the kind of New Englander (he is from Newton,Massachusetts) who, although his clipped speech and drymanner make him seem a bit cool and detached, is reallywarm and intuitive. Charliecoombs, although a Harvard graduate(Class of 1940), is the kind of unpretentious gray-haired manwith half-rimmed spectacles and a precise manner whom youmight easily take for a standard American small-town bankpresident, rather than a master of one of the world’s mostcomplex skills. It is generally conceded that if any one manwas the genius behind the swap network, the man was theNew England swapper¹⁸⁶ Charliecoombs.
At Basel, there was, as usual, a series of formal sessions, eachwith its agenda, but there was also, as usual, much informalpalaver in rump sessions held in hotel rooms and offices andat a formal Sunday-night dinner at which there was no agendabut instead a free discussion of what Coombs has sincereferred to as “the hottest topic of the moment.” There couldbe no question about what that was; it was the condition ofthe pound—and, indeed, Coombs had heard little discussion ofanything else all weekend. “It was clear to me from what Iheard that confidence in sterling was deteriorating,” he has said.
Two questions were on most of the bankers’ minds. One waswhether the Bank of England proposed to take some of thepressure off the pound by raising its lending rate. Bank ofEngland men were present, but getting an answer was not asimple matter of asking them their intentions; even if they hadbeen willing to say, they would not have been able to, becausethe Bank of England is not empowered to change its ratewithout the approval—which in practice often comes closer tomeaning the instruction—of the British government, and electedgovernments have a natural dislike for measures that makemoney tight. The other question was whether Britain hadenough gold and dollars to throw into the breach¹⁸⁷ if thespeculative assault should continue. Apart from what was left ofthe billion dollars from the expanded swap network and whatremained of its drawing rights on the International MonetaryFund, Britain had only its official reserves, which had droppedin the previous week to something under two and a half billiondollars—their lowest point in several years. Worse than that wasthe frightful¹⁸⁸ rate at which the reserves were dwindling¹⁸⁹ away;on a single bad day during the previous week, according to theguesses of experts, they had dropped by eighty-seven milliondollars. A month of days like that and they would be gone.
Even so, Coombs has said, nobody at Basel that weekenddreamed that the pressure on sterling could become as intenseas it actually did become later in the month. He returned toNew York worried but resolute¹⁹⁰. It was not to New York,however, that the main scene of the battle for sterling shiftedafter the Basel meeting; it was to London. The big immediatequestion was whether or not Britain would raise its bank ratethat week, and the day the answer would be known wasThursday, November 12th. In the matter of the bank rate, asin so many other things, the British customarily follow a ritual.
If there is to be a change, at noon on Thursday—then andthen only—a sign appears in the ground-floor lobby of theBank of England announcing the new rate, and, simultaneously,a functionary¹⁹¹ called the Government Broker¹⁹², decked out in apink coat and top hat, hurries down Throgmorton Street to theLondon Stock Exchange and ceremonially announces the newrate from a rostrum. Noon on Thursday the twelfth passedwith no change; evidently the Labour Government was havingas much trouble deciding on a bank-rate rise after the electionas the Conservatives had had before. The speculators, whereverthey were, reacted to such pusillanimity¹⁹³ as one man. On Fridaythe thirteenth, the pound, which had been moderately buoyantall week precisely because speculators had been anticipating abank-rate rise, underwent a fearful battering¹⁹⁴, which sent itdown to a closing price of $2.7829—barely more than aquarter of a cent above the official minimum—and the Bank ofEngland, intervening frequently to hold it even at that level, losttwenty-eight million dollars more from its reserves. Next day,the financial commentator¹⁹⁵ of the London Times, under thebyline Our City Editor, let himself go. “The pound,” he wrote,“is not looking as firm as might be hoped.”
THE following week saw the pattern repeated, but inexaggerated form. On Monday, Prime Minister Wilson, taking aleaf out of Winston Churchill’s book, tried rhetoric¹⁹⁶ as a weapon.
Speaking at a pomp-and-circumstance banquet at the Guildhallin the City of London before an audience that included, amongmany other dignitaries, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the LordChancellor, the Lord President of the Council, the Lord PrivySeal, the Lord Mayor of London, and their wives, Wilsonringingly proclaimed “not only our faith but our determinationto keep sterling strong and to see it riding high,” and assertedthat the Government would not hesitate to take whatever stepsmight become necessary to accomplish this purpose. Whileelaborately avoiding the dread¹⁹⁷ word “devaluation,” just as allother British officials had avoided it all summer, Wilson soughtto make it unmistakable that the Government now consideredsuch a move out of the question. To emphasize this point, heincluded a warning to speculators: “If anyone at home orabroad doubts the firmness of [our] resolve, let them beprepared to pay the price for their lack of faith in Britain.”
Perhaps the speculators were daunted¹⁹⁸ by this verbal volley, orperhaps they were again moved to let up in their assault onthe pound by the prospect¹⁹⁹ of a bank-rate rise on Thursday; inany case, on Tuesday and Wednesday the pound, though ithardly rode high in the marketplace, managed to ride a littleless low than it had on the previous Friday, and to do sowithout the help of the Bank of England.
By Thursday, according to subsequent reports, a sharp privatedispute had erupted between the Bank of England and theBritish government on the bank-rate question—Lord Cromerarguing, for the bank, that a rise of at least one per cent, andperhaps two per cent, was absolutely essential, and Wilson,Brown, and Callaghan still demurring²⁰⁰. The upshot was nobank-rate rise on Thursday, and the effect of the inaction wasa swift intensification²⁰¹ of the crisis. Friday the twentieth was ablack day in the City of London. The Stock Exchange, itsinvestors moving in time with sterling, had a terrible session.
The Bank of England had by now resolved to establish itslast-line trench²⁰² on the pound at $2.7825—a quarter of a centabove the bottom limit. The pound opened on Friday atprecisely that level and remained there all day, firmly pinneddown by the speculators’ hail of offers to sell; meanwhile, thebank met all offers at $2.7825 and, in doing so, used up moreof Britain’s reserves. Now the offers were coming so fast thatlittle attempt was made to disguise their places of origin; it wasevident that they were coming from everywhere—chiefly fromthe financial centers of Europe, but also from New York, andeven from London itself. Rumors of imminent devaluation weresweeping the bourses of the Continent. And in London itself anominous sign of cracking morale²⁰³ appeared: devaluation wasnow being mentioned openly even there. The Swedisheconomist and sociologist²⁰⁴ Gunnar Myrdal, in a luncheon¹⁷⁶ speechin London on Thursday, had suggested that a slight devaluationmight now be the only possible solution to Britain’s problems;once this exogenous comment had broken the ice, Britons alsobegan using the dread word, and, in the next morning’s Times, Our City Editor himself was to say, in the tone of acommander preparing the garrison²⁰⁵ for possible surrender,“Indiscriminate gossip about devaluation of the pound can doharm. But it would be even worse to regard use of that wordas taboo²⁰⁶.”
When nightfall at last brought the pound and its defenders aweekend breather, the Bank of England had a chance toassess its situation. What it found was anything but reassuring²⁰⁷.
All but a fraction of the billion dollars it had arranged toborrow in September under the expanded swap agreementshad gone into the battle. The right that remained to it ofdrawing on the International Monetary Fund was virtuallyworthless, since the transaction would take weeks to complete,and matters turned on days and hours. What the bank stillhad—and all that it had—was the British reserves, which hadgone down by fifty-six million dollars that day and now stoodat around two billion. More than one commentator has sincesuggested that this sum could in a way be likened to the fewsquadrons of fighter planes to which the same dogged nationhad been reduced twenty-four years earlier at the worst pointin the Battle of Britain.
THE analogy is extravagant²⁰⁸, and yet, in the light of what thepound means, and has meant, to the British, it is notirrelevant. In a materialistic²⁰⁹ age, the pound has almost thesymbolic importance that was once accorded to the Crown; thestate of sterling almost is the state of Britain. The pound is theoldest of modern currencies. The term “pound sterling” isbelieved to have originated well before the Norman Conquest,when the Saxon kings issued silver pennies—called “sterlings” or“starlings” because they sometimes had stars inscribed²¹⁰ onthem—of which two hundred and forty equalled one pound ofpure silver. (The shilling, representing twelve sterlings, orone-twentieth of a pound, did not appear on the scene untilafter the Conquest.) Thus, sizable payments in Britain havebeen reckoned in pounds from its beginnings. The pound,however, was by no means an unassailably sound currencyduring its first few centuries, chiefly because of the early kings’
unfortunate habit of relieving their chronic²¹¹ financialembarrassment by debasing the coinage. By melting down aquantity of sterlings, adding to the brew²¹² some base metal andno more silver, and then minting new coins, an irresponsibleking could magically convert a hundred pounds into, say, ahundred and ten, just like that. Queen Elizabeth I put a stopto the practice when, in a carefully planned surprise move in1561, she recalled from circulation all the debased coins issuedby her predecessors²¹⁴. The result, combined with the growth ofBritish trade, was a rapid and spectacular rise in the prestigeof the pound, and less than a century after Elizabeth’s coupthe word “sterling” had assumed the adjectival meaning that itstill has—“thoroughly excellent, capable of standing every test.”
By the end of the seventeenth century, when the Bank ofEngland was founded to handle the government’s finances,paper money was beginning to be trusted for general use, andit had come to be backed by gold as well as silver. As timewent on, the monetary prestige of gold rose steadily³⁹ in relationto that of silver (in the modern world silver has no standing asa monetary reserve metal, and only in some half-dozencountries does it now serve as the principal metal in subsidiarycoinage), but it was not until 1816 that Britain adopted a goldstandard—that is, pledged itself to redeem²¹⁵ paper currency withgold coins or bars at any time. The gold sovereign, worth onepound, which came to symbolize²¹⁶ stability, affluence²¹⁷, and evenjoy to more Victorians than Bagehot, made its first appearancein 1817.
Prosperity begat emulation²¹⁸. Seeing how Britain flourished, andbelieving the gold standard to be at least partly responsible,other nations adopted it one after another: Germany in 1871;Sweden, Norway, and Denmark in 1873; France, Belgium,Switzerland, Italy, and Greece in 1874; the Netherlands in 1875;and the United States in 1879. The results were disappointing;hardly any of the newcomers found themselves immediatelygetting rich, and Britain, which in retrospect²¹⁹ appears to haveflourished as much in spite of the gold standard as because ofit, continued to be the undisputed monarch²²⁰ of world trade. Inthe half century preceding the First World War, London wasthe middleman in international finance, and the pound was itsquasi-official medium. As David Lloyd George was later to writenostalgically, prior to 1914 “the crackle of a bill onLondon”—that is, of a bill of credit in pounds sterling bearingthe signature of a London bank—“was as good as the ring ofgold in any port throughout the civilized²²¹ world.” The war endedthis idyll by disrupting the delicate balance of forces that hadmade it possible and by bringing to the fore⁵¹ a challenger tothe pound’s supremacy—the United States dollar. In 1914,Britain, hard pressed to finance its fighting forces, adoptedmeasures to discourage demands for gold, thereby abandoningthe gold standard in everything but name; meanwhile, the valueof a pound in dollars sank from $4.86 to a 1920 low of$3.20. In an effort to recoup its lost glory, Britain resumed afull gold standard in 1925, tying the pound to gold at a ratethat restored its old $4.86 relation to the dollar. The cost ofthis gallant overvaluation, however, was chronic depression athome, not to mention the political eclipse for some fifteen yearsof the Chancellor¹³⁷ of the Exchequer who ordered it, WinstonChurchill.
The general collapse of currencies during the nineteen-thirtiesactually began not in London but on the Continent, when, inthe summer of 1931, a sudden run on the leading bank ofAustria, the Creditanstalt, resulted in its failure. The dominoprinciple of bank failures—if such a thing can be said toexist—then came into play. German losses arising from thisrelatively minor disaster resulted in a banking crisis in Germany,and then, because huge quantities of British funds were nowfrozen in bankrupt institutions on the Continent, the paniccrossed the English Channel and invaded the home of theimperial pound itself. Demands for gold in exchange for poundsquickly became too heavy for the Bank of England to meet,even with the help of loans from France and the United States.
Britain was faced with the bleak²²² alternatives of setting analmost usurious bank rate—between eight and ten per cent—inorder to hold funds in London and check the gold outflow, orabandoning the gold standard; the first choice, which wouldhave further depressed²²³ the domestic economy, in which therewere now more than two and a half million unemployed²²⁴, wasconsidered unconscionable, and accordingly, on September 21,1931, the Bank of England announced suspension of itsresponsibility to sell gold.
The move hit the financial world like a thunderbolt. So greatwas the prestige of the pound in 1931 that John MaynardKeynes, the already famous British economist⁴⁸, could say, notwholly in irony²²⁶, that sterling hadn’t left gold, gold had leftsterling. In either case, the mooring²²⁷ of the old system wasgone, and chaos⁹⁸ was the result. Within a few weeks, all thecountries on the vast portion of the globe then under Britishpolitical or economic domination had left the gold standard,most of the other leading currencies had either left gold orbeen drastically devalued in relation to it, and in the freemarket the value of the pound in terms of dollars had droppedfrom $4.86 to around $3.50. Then the dollar itself—thepotential new mooring—came loose. In 1933, the United States,compelled by the worst depression in its history, abandoned thegold standard. A year later, it resumed it in a modified formcalled the gold-exchange standard, under which gold coinagewas ended and the Federal Reserve was pledged to sell gold inbar form to other central banks but to no one else—and to sellit at a drastic devaluation of forty-one per cent from the oldprice. The United States devaluation restored the pound to itsold dollar parity, but Britain found it small comfort to be tiedsecurely to a mooring that was now shaky itself. Even so, overthe next five years, while beggar-my-neighbor came to be therule in international finance, the pound did not lose much moreground in relation to other currencies, and when the SecondWorld War broke out, the British government boldly pegged²²⁸ itat $4.03 and imposed controls to keep it there in defiance²²⁹ ofthe free market. There, for a decade, it remained—but onlyofficially. In the free market of neutral Switzerland, it fluctuatedall through the war in reflection of Britain’s military fortunes,sinking at the darkest moments to as low as $2.
In the postwar era, the pound has been almost continuouslyin trouble. The new rules of the game of international financethat were agreed upon at Bretton Woods recognized that theold gold standard had been far too rigid¹⁵⁰ and the virtual paperstandard of the nineteen-thirties far too unstable²³⁰; a compromiseaccordingly emerged, under which the dollar—the new king ofcurrencies—remained tied to gold under the gold-exchangestandard, and the pound, along with the other leadingcurrencies, became tied not to gold but to the dollar, at ratesfixed within stated limits. Indeed, the postwar era was virtuallyushered in by a devaluation of the pound that was about asdrastic in amount as that of 1931, though far less so in itsconsequences. The pound, like most European currencies, hademerged from Bretton Woods flagrantly overvalued in relationto the shattered economy it represented, and had been keptthat way only by government-imposed controls. In the autumnof 1949, therefore, after a year and a half of devaluationrumors, burgeoning²³¹ black markets in sterling, and gold lossesthat had reduced the British reserves to a dangerously lowlevel, the pound was devalued from $4.03 to $2.80. With theisolated exceptions of the United States dollar and the Swissfranc, every important non-Communist currency almost instantlyfollowed the pound’s example, but this time no drying up oftrade, or other chaos, ensued, because the 1949 devaluations,unlike those of 1931 and the years following, were not theuncontrolled attempts of countries riddled²³² by depression to gaina competitive advantage at any cost but merely representedrecognition by the war-devastated countries that they hadrecovered to the point where they could survive relatively freeinternational competition without artificial props²³³. In fact, worldtrade, instead of drying up, picked up sharply. But even at thenew, more rational evaluation⁹² the pound continued its career ofhairbreadth escapes. Sterling crises of varying magnitudes wereweathered in 1952, 1955, 1957, and 1961. In its unsentimentaland tactless way, the pound—just as by its gyrations in thepast it had accurately²³⁴ charted Britain’s rise and fall as thegreatest of world powers—now, with its nagging²³⁵ recurrentweakness, seemed to be hinting that even such retrenchmentas the British had undertaken in 1949 was not enough to suittheir reduced circumstances.
And in November, 1964, these hints, with their humiliatingimplications, were not lost on the British people. The emotionalterms in which many of them were thinking about the poundwere well illustrated²³⁶ by an exchange that took place in thatcelebrated forum²³⁹ the letters column of the Times when thecrisis was at its height. A reader named I. M. D. Little wrotedeploring all the breast-beating about the pound and particularlythe uneasy whispering about devaluation—a matter that hedeclared to be an economic rather than a moral issue. Quickas a flash came a reply from a C. S. Hadfield, among others.
Was there ever a clearer sign of soulless times, Hadfielddemanded, than Little’s letter? Devaluation not a moral issue?
“Repudiation—for that is what devaluation is, neither more norless—has become respectable!” Hadfield groaned²⁴⁰, in theunmistakable tone, as old in Britain as the pound itself, of theoutraged patriot²⁴¹.
IN the ten days following the Basel meeting, the first concern ofthe men at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was notthe pound but the dollar. The American balance-of-paymentsdeficit had now crept up to the alarming rate of almost sixbillion dollars a year, and it was becoming clear that a rise inthe British bank rate, if it should be unmatched by Americanaction, might merely shift some of the speculative attack fromthe pound to the dollar. Hayes and Coombs and theWashington monetary authorities—William McChesney Martin,chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Secretary of theTreasury Douglas Dillon, and Under-Secretary of the TreasuryRobert Roosa—came to agree that if the British should raisetheir rate the Federal Reserve would be compelled, inself-defense, to competitively raise its rate above the currentlevel of three and a half per cent. Hayes had numeroustelephone conversations on this delicate point with his Londoncounterpart, Lord Cromer. A deep-dyed aristocrat—a godson ofKing George V and a grandson of Sir Evelyn Baring, later thefirst Earl of Cromer (who, as the British agent in Egypt, wasChinese Gordon’s nemesis²⁴² in 1884–85)—Lord Cromer was alsoa banker of universally acknowledged brilliance²⁴³ and, atforty-three, the youngest man, as far as anyone couldremember, ever to direct the fortunes of the Bank of England;he and Hayes, in the course of their frequent meetings at Baseland elsewhere, had become warm friends.
During the afternoon of Friday the twentieth, at any rate, theFederal Reserve Bank had a chance to show its goodintentions by doing some front-line fighting for the pound. Thebreather provided by the London closing proved to be illusory;five o’clock in London was only noon in New York, andinsatiable speculators were able to go on selling pounds forseveral more hours in the New York market, with the resultthat the trading room of the Federal Reserve Bank temporarilyreplaced that of the Bank of England as the command post forthe defense. Using as their ammunition British dollars—or, moreprecisely, United States dollars lent to Britain under the swapagreements—the Federal Reserve’s traders staunchly held thepound at or above $2.7825, at ever-increasing cost, of course,to the British reserves. Mercifully, after the New York closingthe battle did not follow the sun to San Francisco and onaround the world to Tokyo. Evidently, the attackers had hadtheir fill, at least for the time being.
What followed was one of those strange modern weekends inwhich weighty matters are discussed and weighty decisionstaken among men who are ostensibly sitting around relaxing invarious parts of the world. Wilson, Brown, and Callaghan wereat Chequers, the Prime Minister’s country estate, taking part ina conference that had originally been scheduled to cover thesubject of national-defense policy. Lord Cromer was at hiscountry place in Westerham, Kent. Martin, Dillon, and Roosawere at their offices or their homes, in and aroundWashington. Coombs was at his home, in Green Village, NewJersey, and Hayes was visiting friends of his elsewhere in NewJersey. At Chequers, Wilson and his two financial ministers,leaving the military brass²⁴⁵ to confer about defense policy witheach other, adjourned²⁴⁶ to an upstairs gallery to tackle thesterling crisis; in order to bring Lord Cromer into theirdeliberations, they kept a telephone circuit open to him in Kent,using a scrambler system when they talked on it, so as toavoid interception²⁴⁷ of their words by their unseen enemies thespeculators. Sometime on Saturday, the British reached theirdecision. Not only would they raise the bank rate, and raise ittwo per cent above its current level—to seven per cent—but, indefiance of custom, they would do so the first thing Mondaymorning, rather than wait for another Thursday to roll around.
For one thing, they reasoned, to postpone²⁴⁸ action until Thursdaywould mean three and a half more business days during whichthe deadly drain of British reserves would almost certainlycontinue and might well accelerate; for another, the sheer shockof the deliberate violation²⁴⁹ of custom would serve to dramatizethe government’s determination. The decision, once taken, wascommunicated by British intermediaries in Washington to theAmerican monetary officials there, and relayed to Hayes andCoombs in New Jersey²⁴⁴. Those two, knowing that theagreed-upon plan for a concomitant rise in the New York bankrate would now have to be put into effect as quickly aspossible, got to work on the telephone lining²⁵⁰ up aMonday-afternoon meeting of the Federal Reserve Bank’s boardof directors, without whose initiative the rate could not bechanged. Hayes, a man who sets great store by politeness, hassince said, with considerable chagrin²⁵¹, that he fears he was thedespair of his hostess that weekend; not only was he on thetelephone most of the time but he was prevented by thecircumstances from giving the slightest explanation of hisunseemly behavior.
What had been done—or, rather, was about to be done—inBritain was plenty to flutter the dovecotes of internationalfinance. Since the beginning of the First World War, the bankrate there had never gone higher than seven per cent and hadonly occasionally gone that high; as for a bank-rate change ona day other than Thursday, the last time that had occurred,ominously enough, was in 1931. Anticipating lively action at theLondon opening, which would take place at about 5 A.M. NewYork time, Coombs went to Liberty Street on Sunday afternoonin order to spend the night at the bank and be on handwhen the transatlantic doings began. As an overnightcompanion he had a man who found it advisable to sleep atthe bank so often that he habitually kept a packed suitcase inhis office—Thomas J. Roche, at that time the seniorforeign-exchange officer. Roche welcomed his boss to thesleeping quarters—a row of small, motel-like rooms on theeleventh floor, each equipped with maple²⁵² furniture, Old NewYork prints, a telephone, a clock radio, a bathrobe, and ashaving kit—and the two men discussed the weekend’sdevelopments for a while before turning in. Shortly before fivein the morning, their radios woke them, and, after a breakfastprovided by the night staff, they repaired to theforeign-exchange trading room, on the seventh floor, to mantheir fluoroscope.
At five-ten, they were on the phone to the Bank of England,getting the news. The bank-rate rise had been announcedpromptly at the opening of the London markets, to theaccompaniment of great excitement; later Coombs was to learnthat the Government Broker’s entrance into the StockExchange, which is usually the occasion for a certain hush²⁵³, hadthis time been greeted with such an uproar²⁵⁴ that he had haddifficulty making his news known. As for the first marketreaction of the pound, it was (one commentator said later) likethat of a race horse to dope; in the ten minutes following thebank-rate announcement it shot up to $2.7869, far above itsFriday closing. A few minutes later, the early-rising NewYorkers were on the phone to the Deutsche Bundesbank, thecentral bank of West Germany, in Frankfurt, and the SwissNational Bank, in Zurich, sounding out Continental reaction. Itwas equally good. Then they were back in touch with the Bankof England, where things were looking better and better. Thespeculators against the pound were on the run, rushing now tocover their short sales, and by the time the first gray lightbegan to show in the windows on Liberty Street, Coombs hadheard that the pound was being quoted in London at$2.79—its best price since July, when the crisis started.
It went on that way all day. “Seven per cent will drag moneyfrom the moon,” a Swiss banker commented, paraphrasing²⁵⁵ thegreat Bagehot, who had said, in his earthbound, Victorian way,“Seven per cent will pull gold out of the ground.” In London,the sense of security was so strong that it allowed a return topolitical bickering²⁵⁶ as usual; in Parliament, Reginald Maudling, thechief economic authority of the out-of-office Conservatives, tookthe occasion to remark that there wouldn’t have been a crisisin the first place but for the actions of the Labour Government,and Chancellor of the Exchequer Callaghan replied, with deadlypoliteness, “I must remind the honorable gentleman that he toldus [recently] we had inherited his problems.” Everybody wasclearly breathing easier. As for the Bank of England, so greatwas the sudden clamor for pounds that it saw a chance toreplenish its depleted²⁵⁷ supply of dollars, and for a time thatafternoon it actually felt confident enough to switch sides in themarket, buying dollars with pounds at just below $2.79. In NewYork, the mood persisted after the London closing. It was witha clear conscience about the pound that the directors of theFederal Reserve Bank of New York could—and, that afternoon,did—carry out their plan to raise their lending rate from threeand a half per cent to four per cent. Coombs has since said,“The feeling here on Monday afternoon was: They’ve doneit—they’ve pulled through again. There was a general sigh ofrelief. The sterling crisis seemed to be over.”
It wasn’t, though. “I remember that the situation changed veryfast on Tuesday the twenty-fourth,” Hayes has said. That day’sopening found the pound looking firm at $2.7875. Substantialbuying orders for pounds were coming in now from Germany,and the day ahead looked satisfactory. So things continued until6 A.M. in New York—noon on the Continent. It is around thenthat the various bourses of Europe—including the mostimportant ones, in Paris and Frankfurt—hold the meetings atwhich they set the day’s rate for each currency, for thepurpose of settling transactions in stocks and bonds that involveforeign currency, and these price-fixing sessions are bound toinfluence the money markets, since they give a clear indicationof the most influential²⁵⁸ Continental sentiment in regard to eachcurrency. The bourse rates set for the pound that day weresuch as to show a renewed, and pronounced, lack ofconfidence. At the same time, it appeared subsequently, moneydealers everywhere, and particularly in Europe, were havingsecond thoughts about the manner of the bank-rate rise theprevious day. At first, taken by surprise, they had reactedenthusiastically, but now, it seemed, they had belatedly decidedthat the making of the announcement on Monday indicatedthat Britain was losing its grip. “What would it connote if theBritish were to play a Cup final on Sunday?” a Europeanbanker is said to have asked a colleague. The only possibleanswer was that it would connote panic in Albion.
The effect of these second thoughts was an astonishinglydrastic turnabout in market action. In New York between eightand nine, Coombs, in the trading room, watched with a sinkingheart as a tranquil²⁶⁰ pound market collapsed²⁶¹ into a rout. Sellingorders in unheard-of quantities were coming from everywhere.
The Bank of England, with the courage of desperation,advanced its last-line trench from $2.7825 to $2.7860, and, byconstant intervention²⁶², held the pound there. But it was clearthat the cost would soon become too high; a few minutes after9 A.M. New York time, Coombs calculated that Britain waslosing reserves at the unprecedented²⁶³, and unsupportable, rate ofa million dollars a minute.
Hayes, arriving at the bank shortly after nine, had hardly satdown at his desk before this unsettling news reached him fromthe seventh floor. “We’re in for a hurricane,” Coombs told him,and went on to say that the pressure on sterling was nowmounting so fast that there was a real likelihood that Britainmight be forced either to devalue or to impose asweeping—and, for many reasons, unacceptable—system ofexchange controls before the week was out. Hayes immediatelytelephoned the governors of the leading European centralbanks—some of whom, because not all the national marketshad yet felt the full weight of the crisis, were startled to hearexactly how grave the situation was—and pleaded with themnot to exacerbate²⁶⁴ the pressure on both the pound and thedollar by raising their own bank rates. (His job was scarcelymade easier by the fact that he had to admit that his ownbank had just raised its rate.) Then he asked Coombs tocome up to his office. The pound, the two men agreed, nowhad its back to the wall; the British bank-rate rise hadobviously failed of its purpose, and at the million-a-minute rateof loss Britain’s well of reserves would be dry in less than fivebusiness days. The one hope now lay in amassing²⁶⁵, within amatter of hours, or within a day or so at the most, a hugebundle of credit from outside Britain to enable the Bank ofEngland to survive the attack and beat it back. Such rescuebundles had been assembled just a handful of times before—forCanada in 1962, for Italy earlier in 1964, and for Britain in1961—but this time, it was clear, a much bigger bundle thanany of those would be needed. The central-banking world wasfaced not so much with an opportunity for building a milestonein the short history of international monetary co?peration aswith the necessity for doing so.
Two other things were clear—that, in view of the dollar’stroubles, the United States could not hope to rescue the poundunassisted, and that, the dollar’s troubles notwithstanding, theUnited States, with all its economic might, would have to jointhe Bank of England in initiating²⁶⁶ any rescue operation. As afirst step, Coombs suggested that the Federal Reserve standbycredit to the Bank of England ought to be increased forthwithfrom five hundred million dollars to seven hundred and fiftymillion. Unfortunately, fast action on this proposal washampered by the fact that, under the Federal Reserve Act, anysuch move could be made only by decision of a FederalReserve System committee, whose members were scattered²⁶⁷ allover the country. Hayes conferred by long-distance telephone(all around the world, wires were now humming with news ofthe pound’s extremity²⁶⁸) with the Washington monetarycontingent, Martin, Dillon, and Roosa, none of whom disagreedwith Coombs’ view of what had to be done, and as a result ofthese discussions a call went out from Martin’s office tomembers of the key committee, called the Open MarketCommittee, for a meeting by telephone at three o’clock thatafternoon. Roosa, at the Treasury, suggested that the UnitedStates’ contribution to the kitty could be further increased byarranging for a two-hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar loan fromthe Export-Import Bank, a Treasury-owned andTreasury-financed institution in Washington. Hayes and Coombswere naturally in favor of this, and Roosa set in motion thebureaucratic machinery¹⁶⁴ to unlock that particular vault—a processthat, he warned, would certainly take until evening.
As the early afternoon passed in New York, with the millionsof dollars continuing to drain, minute by minute, from Britain’sreserves, Hayes and Coombs, along with their Washingtoncolleagues, were busy planning the next step. If the swapincrease and the Export-Import Bank loan should comethrough, the United States credits would amount to a billiondollars all told; now, in consultation²⁷⁰ with the beleagueredgarrison at the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve Bankmen began to believe that, in order to make the operationeffective, the other leading central banks—spoken of incentral-banking shorthand as “the Continent,” even though theyinclude the Banks of Canada and Japan—would have to beasked to put up additional credits on the order of one and ahalf billion dollars, or possibly even more. Such a sum wouldmake the Continent, collectively, a bigger contributor to thecause than the United States—a fact that Hayes and Coombsrealized might not sit too well with the Continental bankers andtheir governments.
At three o’clock, the Open Market Committee held itstelephone meeting—twelve men sitting at their desks in six cities,from New York to San Francisco. The members heardCoombs’ dry, unemotional voice describing the situation andmaking his recommendation. They were quickly convinced. Inno more than fifteen minutes, they had voted unanimously toincrease the swap credit to seven hundred and fifty milliondollars, on condition that proportional credit assistance could beobtained from other central banks.
By late afternoon, tentative word had come from Washingtonthat prospects²⁷¹ for the Export-Import Bank loan looked good,and that more definite word could be expected before midnight.
So the one billion dollars in United States credits appeared tobe virtually in the bag. It remained to tackle the Continent. Itwas night now in Europe, so nobody there could be tackled;the zero hour, then, was Continental opening time the nextday, and the crucial period for the fate of the pound would bethe few hours after that. Hayes, after leaving instructions for abank car to pick him up at his home, in New Canaan,Connecticut, at four o’clock in the morning, took his usualcommuting train from Grand Central shortly after five. He hassince expressed a certain regret that he proceeded in such aroutine way at such a dramatic moment. “I left the bankrather reluctantly,” he says. “In retrospect, I guess I wish Ihadn’t. I don’t mean as a practical matter—I was just as usefulat home, and, as a matter of fact, I ended up spending mostof the evening on the phone with Charlie Coombs, who stayedat the bank—but just because something like that doesn’thappen every day in a banker’s life. I’m a creature of habit, Iguess. Besides, it’s something of a tenet of mine to insist onkeeping a proper balance between private and professional life.”
Although Hayes does not say so, he may have been thinkingof something else, too. It can safely be said to be something ofa tenet of central-bank presidents or governors not to sleep attheir places of business. If word were ever to get out that themethodical Hayes was doing so at a time like this, he mayhave reasoned, it might well be considered just as much a signof panic as a British bank-rate rise on a Monday.
Meanwhile, Coombs was making another night of it on LibertyStreet; he had gone home the previous night because theworst had momentarily appeared to be over, but now hestayed on after regular work hours with Roche, who hadn’tbeen home since the previous weekend. Toward midnight,Coombs received confirmation²⁷² of the Export-Import Bank’stwo-hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar credit, which had arrivedfrom Washington during the evening, as promised. So noweverything was braced²⁷³ for the morning’s effort. Coombs againinstalled himself in one of the uninspiring eleventh-floor cubicles,and, after a final marshalling of the facts that would be neededfor the job of persuading the Continental bankers, set his clockradio for three-thirty and went to bed. A Federal Reserve manwith a literary bent²⁷⁴ and a romantic temperament²⁷⁵ was latermoved to draw a parallel between the Federal Reserve Bankthat night and the British camp on the eve of the Battle ofAgincourt in Shakespeare’s version, in which King Henry musedso eloquently²⁷⁶ on how participation²⁷⁷ in the coming action wouldserve to ennoble even the vilest²⁷⁸ of the troops, and howgentlemen safe in bed at home would later think themselvesaccursed that they had not been at the battle scene. Coombs,a practical man, had no such high-flown opinion of hissituation; even so, as he dozed² fitfully, waiting for morning toreach Europe, he was well aware that the events he was takingpart in were like nothing that had ever happened in bankingbefore.
IISo that evening, Tuesday, November 24, 1964, Hayes arrived athis home, in New Canaan, Connecticut, at about six-thirty,exactly as usual, having inexorably taken his usual 5:09 fromGrand Central. Hayes was a tall, slim, soft-spoken man offifty-four with keen eyes framed by owlish round spectacles,with a slightly schoolmasterish air and a reputation forunflappability. By so methodically going through familiar motionsat such a time, he realized with amusement, he must seem tohis colleagues to be living up to his reputation ratherspectacularly. At his house, a former caretaker’s cottage of circa1840 that the Hayeses had bought and remodelled²⁷⁹ twelve yearsearlier, he was greeted, as usual, by his wife, a pretty andvivacious woman of Anglo-Italian descent named Vilma butalways called Bebba, who loves to travel, has almost no interestin banking, and is the daughter of the late Metropolitan²⁸⁰ Operabaritone Thomas Chalmers. Since at that time of year it wascompletely dark when Hayes got home, he decided²⁵⁹ to forgo²⁸¹ afavorite early-evening unwinding activity of his—walking to thetop of a grassy²⁸² slope beside the house which commands a fineview across the Sound to Long Island. Anyway, he was notreally in a mood to unwind; instead, he felt keyed up, anddecided he might as well stay that way overnight, since the carfrom the bank was scheduled to call at his door so early thenext morning to take him to work.
During dinner, Hayes and his wife discussed subjects like thefact that their son, Tom, who was a senior at Harvard, wouldbe arriving home the following day for his Thanksgiving recess²⁸³.
Afterward²⁸⁴, Hayes settled down in an armchair to read for awhile. In banking circles, he is thought of as a scholarly,intellectual type, and, indeed, he is scholarly and intellectual incomparison with most bankers; even so, his extra-bankingreading tends to be not constant and all-embracing, as hiswife’s is, but sporadic²⁸⁵, capricious, and intensive—everythingabout Napoleon for a while, perhaps, then a dry period, then abinge on, say, the Civil War. Just then, he was concentratingon the island of Corfu, where he and Mrs. Hayes wereplanning to spend some time. But before he had got very farinto his latest Corfu book he was called to the telephone. Thecall was from the bank. There were new developments, whichCoombs thought President Hayes ought to be kept abreast²⁸⁶ of.
To recapitulate²⁸⁷ in brief: drastic action to save the pound,which the Federal Reserve Bank not only would be intimatelyinvolved in but would actually join in initiating, was going to betaken by the government banks—or central banks, as they aremore commonly called—of the non-Communist world’s leadingnations as soon as possible after the next morning’s opening ofthe London and Continental financial markets, which wouldoccur between 4 and 5 A.M. New York time. Britain was faceto face with bankruptcy, the reasons being that a huge deficitin its international accounts over the previous months hadresulted in concomitant losses in the gold and dollar reservesheld by the Bank of England; that worldwide fear lest thenewly elected Labour Government decide, or be forced, to easethe situation by devaluing the pound from its dollar parity ofabout $2.80 to some substantially lower figure had caused aflood of selling of pounds by hedgers and speculators in theinternational money markets; that the Bank of England, fulfillingan international obligation to sustain the pound at a free-marketprice no lower than $2.78, had been losing millions of dollars aday from its reserves, which now stood at about two billiondollars, their lowest point in many years.
The remaining hope lay in amassing, in a matter of hoursbefore it would be too late, an unheard-of sum in short-termdollar credits to Britain from the central banks of the world’srich nations. With such credits at its disposal, the Bank ofEngland would presumably be able to buy up pounds soaggressively that the speculative attack could be absorbed,contained, and finally beaten back, giving Britain time to set itseconomic affairs in order. Just what the sum necessary forrescue should be was an open question, but earlier that daythe monetary authorities of the United States and Britain hadconcluded that it would have to be at least two billion dollars,and perhaps even more. The United States, through theFederal Reserve Bank of New York and the Treasury-ownedExport-Import Bank, in Washington, had that day committeditself to one billion; the task that remained was to persuade theother leading central banks—habitually spoken of in thecentral-banking world as “the Continent,” even though theyinclude the Banks of Canada and Japan—to lend more than abillion in addition.
Nothing of the kind had ever been asked of the Continentbefore, through the swap network or any other way. InSeptember, 1964, the Continent had come through with itsbiggest collective emergency credit so far—half a billion dollarsto the Bank of England for use in defending the pound,already embattled then. Now, with this half-billion loan stilloutstanding and the pound in far worse straits, the Continentwas about to be called upon for more than twice thatsum—perhaps five times that sum. Obviously, the spirit ofco?peration, if not the quality of mercy, was about to bestrained. So Hayes’ musings that evening may well have run.
With such portentous²⁸⁹ matters churning around in his head,Hayes found it hard to keep his mind on Corfu. Besides, theprospect of the bank car’s arrival at four o’clock made him feelthat he should go to bed early. As he prepared to do so, Mrs.
Hayes commented that since he would have to get up in themiddle of the night, she supposed she ought to feel sorry forhim but since he was obviously looking forward with keenanticipation to whatever it was that would get him up at thathour, she envied him instead.
DOWN on Liberty Street, Coombs slept fitfully until he wasawakened by the clock radio in his room at about three-thirtyNew York time—that is to say, eight-thirty London time andnine-thirty farther east on the European Continent. A series offoreign-exchange crises involving Europe had so accustomedhim to the time differential that he was inclined to think interms of the European day, referring casually²⁹⁰ to 8 A.M. in NewYork as “lunchtime,” and 9 A.M. as “midafternoon.” So whenhe got up it was, in his terms, “morning,” despite the starsthat were shining over Liberty Street. Coombs got dressed,went to his office, on the tenth floor, where he had somebreakfast provided by the bank’s regular night kitchen staff,and began placing telephone calls to the various leading centralbanks of the non-Communist world. All the calls were putthrough by one telephone operator, who handles the FederalReserve Bank’s switchboard during off hours, and all of themwere eligible²⁹¹ for a special government-emergency priority thatthe bank’s officers are entitled to claim, but on this occasion itdid not have to be used, because at four-fifteen, when Coombsbegan his telephoning, the transatlantic circuits were almostentirely clear.
The calls were made essentially to lay the groundwork forwhat was to come. The morning news from the Bank ofEngland, obtained in one of the first calls from Liberty Street,was that conditions were unchanged from the previous day: thespeculative attack on the pound was continuing unabated, andthe Bank of England was sustaining the pound’s price at$2.7860 by throwing still more of its reserves on the market.
Coombs had reason to believe that when the New Yorkforeign-exchange market opened, some five hours later, vastadditional quantities of pounds would be thrown on the marketon this side of the Atlantic, and more British dollars and goldwould have to be spent. He conveyed this alarming intelligenceto his counterparts at such institutions as the DeutscheBundesbank, in Frankfurt; the Banque de France, in Paris; theBanca d’Italia, in Rome; and the Bank of Japan, in Tokyo. (Inthe last case, the officers had to be reached at their homes, forthe fourteen-hour time difference made it already past 6 P.M. inthe Orient.) Then, coming to the crux²⁹² of the matter, Coombsinformed the representatives of the various banks that theywere soon to be asked, in behalf of the Bank of England, fora loan far bigger than any they had ever been asked forbefore. “Without going into specific figures, I tried to make thepoint that it was a crisis of the first magnitude, which many ofthem still didn’t realize,” Coombs has said. An officer of theBundesbank, who knew as much about the extent of the crisisas anyone outside London, Washington, and New York, hassaid that in Frankfurt they were “mentally prepared”—or“braced” might be a better word—for the huge touch that wasabout to be put on them, but that right up to the time ofCoombs’ call they had been hoping the speculative attack onthe pound would subside²⁹³ of its own accord, and even after thecall they had no idea how much they might be asked for. Inany event, as soon as Coombs was off the wire theBundesbank’s governor called a board of managers’ meeting,and, as things turned out, the meeting was to remain insession all day long.
Still, all this was preparatory. Actual requests, in specificamounts, had to be made by the head of one central bank ofthe head of another. At the time Coombs was making hissoftening-up calls, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank was inthe bank’s limousine²⁹⁴, somewhere between New Canaan andLiberty Street, and the bank’s limousine, in flagrantnonconformity with the James Bond style of high-levelinternational dealings, was not equipped with a telephone.
HAYES, the man being awaited, had been president of theFederal Reserve Bank of New York for a little over eight years,having been chosen for the job, to his own and almosteveryone else’s bewilderment, not from some position ofcomparable eminence²⁹⁵ or from the Federal Reserve’s own ranksbut from among the swarming²⁹⁶ legions of New Yorkcommercial-bank vice-presidents. Unorthodox as the appointmentseemed at the time, in retrospect it seems providential. A studyof Hayes’ early life and youthful career gives the impressionthat everything was somehow intended to prepare him fordealing with this sort of international monetary crisis, just asthe life of a writer or a painter sometimes seems to haveconsisted primarily of preparation for the execution of a singlework of art. If Divine Providence²⁹⁷, or perhaps its financialdepartment, when the huge sterling crisis was imminent, hadneeded an assessment²⁹⁸ of Hayes’ qualifications for coping withthis task and had hired the celestial²⁹⁹ equivalent of an executiverecruiter to report on him, the dossier might have readsomething like this:
“Born in Ithaca, New York, on July 4, 1910; grew up mostlyin New York City. Father a professor of Constitutional law atCornell, later a Manhattan investment counsellor; mother aformer schoolteacher, enthusiastic suffragette, settlement-houseworker, and political liberal. Both parents birdwatchers. Familyatmosphere intellectual, freethinking, and public-spirited. Attendedprivate schools in New York City and Massachusetts and wasusually his school’s top-ranking student. Then went to Harvard(freshman year only) and Yale (three years: mathematicsmajor, Phi Beta Kappa in junior year, ineffectual oar²³ on classcrew, graduated 1930 as top B.A. of class). Studied at NewCollege, Oxford³⁰⁰, as Rhodes Scholar 1931–33; there became firmAnglophile, and wrote thesis on ‘Federal Reserve Policy and theWorking of the Gold Standard in the Years 1923–30,’ althoughhe had no thought of ever joining the Federal Reserve. Wishesnow he had the thesis, in case it contains blinding youthfulilluminations, but neither he nor New College can find it.
Entered New York commercial banking in 1933, and roseslowly but steadily (1938 annual salary twenty-seven hundreddollars). Attained³⁰¹ title (albeit feeble title) of assistant secretary atNew York Trust Company in 1942; after a Navy stint¹⁷³, in 1947became an assistant vice-president and two years later head ofNew York Trust’s foreign department despite total lack ofprevious experience in foreign banking. Apparently learned fast;astounded his colleagues and superiors, and gained reputationamong them as foreign-exchange wizard by predicting preciseamount of 1949 pound devaluation ($4.03 to $2.80) a fewweeks before it occurred.
“Was appointed president of Federal Reserve Bank of NewYork in 1956, to his utter astonishment³⁰² and that of New Yorkbanking community, most of which had never heard of thisrather shy man. Reacted calmly by taking his family on atwo-month vacation in Europe. The consensus³⁰³ now is thatFederal Reserve Bank’s directors had almost implausibleprescience, or luck, in picking a foreign-exchange expert justwhen the dollar was weakening and international monetaryco?peration becoming crucially important. Is liked by Europeancentral bankers, who call him Al (which often comes outsounding more like All). Earns seventy-five thousand dollars ayear, making him the second-highest-paid federal official afterthe President of the United States, Federal Reserve Banksalaries being intended to be more or less competitive inbanking terms rather than in government-employee terms. Isvery tall and very thin. Tries to observe regular commutinghours and keep his private life sacrosanct³⁰⁴, as a matter ofprinciple; considers regular evening work at an office‘outrageous.’ Complains that his son has a low opinion ofbusiness; attributes this to ‘reverse snobbery’—but even thenremains calm.
“Conclusion: this is the very man for the job of representingthe United States’ central bank in a sterling crisis.”
And, indeed, Hayes readily fits the picture of a perfectlyplanned and perfectly¹⁴¹ tooled piece of machinery to perform acertain complex task, but there are other sides to him, and hischaracter contains as many paradoxes³⁰⁵ as the next man’s.
Although hardly anyone in banking ever tries to describe Hayeswithout using the words “scholarly” and “intellectual,” Hayestends to think of himself as an indifferent scholar andintellectual but an effective man of action, and on the latterscore the events of November 25, 1964, seem to bear him out.
Although in some ways he is the complete banker—inconformity with H. G. Wells’ notion of such a banker, heseems to “take money for granted as a terrier takes rats,” andto be devoid³⁰⁶ of philosophical³⁰⁷ curiosity about it—he has adistinctly unbankerlike philosophical curiosity about almosteverything else. And although casual acquaintances sometimespronounce him dull, his close friends speak of a rare capacityfor enjoyment³⁰⁸ and an inner serenity³⁰⁹ that seem to make himimmune to the tensions and distractions³¹⁰ that fragment the livesof so many of his contemporaries. Doubtless the inner serenitywas put to a severe test as Hayes rode in the bank cartoward Liberty Street. When he arrived at his desk at aboutfive-thirty, Hayes’ first act was to punch Coombs’ button on hisinteroffice phone and get the foreign-department chief’s latestappraisal of the situation. He learned that, as he had expected,the Bank of England’s sickening dollar drain was continuingunabated. Worse than that, though; Coombs said his contactswith local bankers who were also on emergency early-morningvigil (men in the foreign departments of the huge commercialbanks like the Chase Manhattan and the First National City)indicated that overnight there had accumulated a fantastic pileof orders to unload pounds on the New York market as soonas it opened. The Bank of England, already almost inundated,could expect a new tidal wave from New York to hit in fourhours. The need for haste thus became even more urgent.
Hayes and Coombs agreed that the project of putting togetheran international package of credits to Britain should beannounced as soon as possible after the New Yorkopening—perhaps as early as ten o’clock. So that the bankwould have a single center for all its foreign communications,Hayes decided to forsake³¹¹ his own office—a spacious³¹² one withpanelled walls and comfortable chairs grouped around afireplace—and let Coombs’ quarters, down the hall, which weremuch smaller and more austere³¹³ but more efficiently³¹⁴ arranged,serve as the command post. Once there, he picked up one ofthree telephones and asked the operator to get him LordCromer, at the Bank of England. When the connection wasmade, the two men—the key figures in the proposed rescueoperation—reviewed their plans a final time, checking the sumsthey had tentatively decided to ask of each central bank andagreeing on who would call whom first.
In the eyes of some people, Hayes and Lord Cromer makean oddly assorted³¹⁵ pair. Besides being a deep-dyed aristocrat,George Rowland Stanley Baring, third Earl of Cromer, is adeep-dyed banker. A scion²²⁵ of the famous London merchantbank of Baring Brothers, the third Earl and godson of amonarch went to Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, andspent twelve years as a managing director of his family’s bankand then two years—from 1959 to 1961—as Britain’s economicminister and chief representative of his country’s Treasury inWashington. If Hayes had acquired his mastery of the arcanaof international banking by patient study, Lord Cromer, who isno scholar, acquired his by heredity, instinct, or osmosis. IfHayes, despite his unusual physical stature³¹⁶, could easily beoverlooked in a crowd, Lord Cromer, who is of average heightbut debonair and dashing, would cut a figure anywhere. IfHayes is inclined to be a bit hesitant about casual intimacies,Lord Cromer is known for his hearty³¹⁷ manner, andhas—doubtless unintentionally—both flattered and obscurelydisappointed many American bankers who have been awed³¹⁸ byhis title by quickly encouraging them to call him Rowley.
“Rowley is very self-confident and decisive,” an Americanbanker has said. “He’s never afraid to barge³¹⁹ in, because he’sconvinced of the reasonableness of his own position. But thenhe’s a reasonable man. He’s the kind of man who in a crisiswould be able to grab the telephone and do something aboutit.” This banker confesses that until November 25, 1964, hehad not thought Hayes was that kind of man.
Beginning at about six o’clock that morning, Hayes did grabthe phone, right along with Lord Cromer. One after another,the leading central bankers of the world—among them PresidentKarl Blessing³²⁰, of the Deutsche Bundesbank; Dr. Guido Carli, ofthe Bank of Italy; Governor Jacques Brunet, of the Bank ofFrance; Dr. Walter Schwegler, of the Swiss National Bank; andGovernor Per ?sbrink, of the Swedish Riksbank—picked uptheir phones and discovered, some of them with considerablesurprise, the degree of gravity that the sterling crisis hadreached in the past day, the fact that the United States hadcommitted itself to a short-term loan of one billion dollars, andthat they were being asked to dig deep into their own nations’
reserves to help tide sterling over. Some first heard all thisfrom Hayes, some from Lord Cromer; in either case, theyheard it not from a casual or official acquaintance but from afellow-member of that esoteric fraternity the Basel club. Hayes,whose position as representative of the one country that hadalready pledged a huge sum cast him almost automatically asthe leader of the operation, was careful to make it clear ineach of his calls that his part in the proceedings³²¹ was to putthe weight of the Federal Reserve behind a request thatformally came from the Bank of England. “The pound’ssituation is critical, and I understand the Bank of England isrequesting a credit line of two hundred and fifty million dollarsfrom you,” he would say, in his calm way, to one Continentalcentral-bank governor or another. “I’m sure you understandthat this is a situation where we all have to stand together.”
(He and Coombs always spoke⁷⁶ English, of course. Despite thefact that he had recently been taking French refresher lessons,and that at Yale he made one of the most impressive academicrecords in memory, Hayes doggedly³²² remained a dub³²³ atlanguages and still did not trust himself to carry on animportant business conversation in anything but English.) Inthose cases in which he was on particularly close terms withhis Continental counterpart, he spoke more informally, using acentral-bankers’ jargon in which the conventional numerical unitis a million dollars. Hayes would say smoothly in such cases,“Do you think you can come in for, say, a hundred and fifty?”
Regardless of the degree of formality of the approach Hayesmade, the first response, he says, was generally cageyness, notunmixed with shock. “Is it really as bad as all that, Al? Wewere still hoping that the pound would recover on its own” isthe kind of thing he recalls having heard several times. WhenHayes assured them that it was indeed as bad as all that, andthat the pound would certainly not recover on its own, theusual response was something like “We’ll have to see what wecan do and then call you back.” Some of the Continentalcentral bankers have said that what impressed them mostabout Hayes’ first call was not so much what he said as whenhe said it. Realizing that it was still well before dawn in NewYork, and knowing Hayes’ addiction³²⁴ to what are commonlythought of as bankers’ hours, these Europeans perceived thatthings must be grave the moment they heard his voice. Assoon as Hayes had broken the ice at each Continental bank,Coombs would take over and get down to details with hiscounterparts.
The first round of calls left Hayes, Lord Cromer, and theirassociates on Liberty and Threadneedle Streets relatively hopeful.
Not one bank had given them a flat no—not even, to theirdelight, the Bank of France, although French policy had alreadybegun moving sharply away from co?peration with Britain andthe United States in monetary matters, among others.
Furthermore, several governors had surprised them bysuggesting that their countries’ subscriptions³²⁵ to the loan mightactually be bigger than those suggested. With thisencouragement, Hayes and Lord Cromer decided to raise theirsights. They had originally been aiming for credits of two and ahalf billion dollars; now, on reconsideration, they saw that therewas a chance for three billion. “We decided to up the ante alittle here and there,” Hayes says. “There was no way ofknowing precisely what sum would be the least that would dothe job of turning the tide. We knew we would be relying to alarge extent on the psychological effect of ourannouncement—assuming we would be able to make theannouncement. Three seemed to us a good, round figure.”
But difficulties lay ahead, and the biggest difficulty, it becameclear as the return calls from the various banks began to comein, was to get the thing done quickly. The hardest point toconvey, Hayes and Coombs found, was that each passingminute meant a further loss of a million dollars or more to theBritish reserves, and that if normal channels were followed theloans would unquestionably come too late to avert³²⁷ devaluationof the pound. Some of the central banks were required by lawto consult their governments before making a commitment andsome were not, but even those that were not insisted on doingso, as a courtesy; this took time, especially since more thanone Finance Minister, unaware³²⁸ that he was being sought toapprove an enormous loan on an instant’s notice, with littleevidence of the necessity for it beyond the assurance of LordCromer and Hayes, was temporarily unavailable. (One happenedto be engaged in debate in his country’s parliament.) And evenin cases where the Finance Minister was at hand, he wassometimes reluctant to act in such a shotgun way.
Governments move more deliberately³²⁹ in money matters thancentral bankers do. Some of the Finance Ministers said, ineffect, that upon proper submission³³⁰ of a balance sheet of theBank of England, along with a formal written application for theemergency credit, they would gladly consider the matter.
Furthermore, some of the central banks themselves showed amaddening inclination¹⁰⁴ to stand on ceremony. Theforeign-exchange chief of one bank is said to have replied tothe request by saying, “Well, isn’t this convenient! We happento have a board meeting scheduled for tomorrow. We’ll takethe matter up then, and afterward we’ll get in touch with you.”
The reply of Coombs, who happened to be the man on thewire in New York, is not recorded in substance, but its manneris reported to have been uncharacteristically vehement³³¹. EvenHayes’ celebrated²³⁸ imperturbability³³² was shaken a time or two, orso those who were present have said; his tone remained ascalm and even as ever, but its volume rose far above theusual level.
The problems that the Continental central banks faced inmeeting the challenge are well exemplified by the situation atthe richest and most powerful of them, the DeutscheBundesbank. Its board of managers was already sitting inemergency session as a result of Coombs’ early call whenanother New York call—this one from Hayes to PresidentBlessing—gave the Bundesbank its first indication of exactly howmuch it was being asked to put up. The amounts the variouscentral banks were asked for that morning have never beenmade public, but, on the basis of what has become known, itis reasonable to assume that the Bundesbank was asked forhalf a billion dollars—the highest quota⁷¹ of the lot, and certainlythe largest sum that any central bank other than the FederalReserve had ever been called upon to supply to another on afew hours’ notice. Hard on the heels of Hayes’ call conveyingthis jarring information, Blessing heard from Lord Cromer, inLondon, who confirmed everything that Hayes had said aboutthe seriousness of the crisis and repeated the request. Wincinga bit, perhaps, the Bundesbank managers agreed in principlethat the thing had to be done. But right there their problemsbegan. Proper procedure must be adhered to, Blessing and hisaides decided. Before taking any action, they must consult withtheir economic partners in the European Common Market andthe Bank for International Settlements, and the key man to beconsulted, since he was then serving as president of the Bankfor International Settlements, was Dr. Marius W. Holtrop,governor of the Bank of the Netherlands, which, of course, wasalso being asked to contribute. A rush person-to-person callwas put through from Frankfurt to Amsterdam. Dr. Holtrop,the Bundesbank managers were informed, wasn’t inAmsterdam; by chance, he had taken a train that morning toThe Hague to meet his country’s Finance Minister forconsultation on other matters. For the Bank of the Netherlandsto make any such important commitment without theknowledge of its governor was out of the question, and,similarly, the Bank of Belgium, a nation whose monetary policiesare linked inextricably with the Netherlands’, was reluctant toact until Amsterdam had given its O.K. So for an hour ormore, as millions of dollars continued to drain out of the Bankof England and the world monetary order stood in jeopardy,the whole rescue operation was hung up while Dr. Holtrop,crossing the Dutch lowlands by train, or perhaps already inThe Hague and tied up in a traffic jam, could not be found.
ALL this, of course, meant agonizing³³³ frustration³³⁴ in New York.
As morning began here at last, Hayes’ and Coombs’ campaigngot a boost from Washington. The leading governmentmonetary authorities—Martin at the Federal Reserve Board,Dillon and Roosa at the Treasury—had all been intimatelyinvolved in the previous day’s planning for the rescue, and ofcourse part of the planning had been the decision to let theNew York bank, as the Federal Reserve System’s and theTreasury’s normal operating arm in international monetarydealings, serve as campaign headquarters. So the members ofthe Washington contingent²⁶⁹ had slept at home and come totheir offices at the normal hour. Now, having learned fromHayes of the difficulties that were developing, Martin, Dillon,and Roosa pitched in with transatlantic calls of their own toemphasize the extent of America’s concern over the matter. Butno number of calls from anywhere could hold back theclock—or, for that matter, find Dr. Holtrop—and Hayes andCoombs finally had to abandon their idea of having a creditbundle ready in time for an announcement to the world at ornear 10 A.M. in New York. And there were other reasons, too,for a fading of the early hopes. As the New York marketsopened, the extent of the alarm that had spread around thefinancial world overnight was only too clearly revealed. Thebank’s foreign-exchange trading desk, on the seventh floor,reported that the assault on the pound at the New Yorkopening had been fully²¹³ as terrifying as they had expected, andthat the atmosphere in the local exchange market had reacheda state not far from panic. From the bank’s securitiesdepartment came an alarming report that the market forUnited States government bonds was coming under the heaviestpressure in years, reflecting an ominous⁴⁴ lack of confidence inthe dollar on the part of bond traders. This intelligence servedas a grim reminder³³⁵ to Hayes and Coombs of something theyknew already—that a fall of the pound in relation to the dollarcould quite possibly be followed, in a kind of chain reaction, bya forced devaluation of the dollar in relation to gold, whichmight cause monetary chaos everywhere. If Hayes and Coombshad been permitting themselves any moments of idle reverie inwhich to picture themselves simply as good Samaritans, thiswas just the news to bring them back to reality. And thenword arrived that the wild tales flying around Wall Streetshowed signs of crystallizing into a single tale, demoralizinglycredible because it was so specific. The British government, itwas being said, would announce a sterling devaluation ataround noon New York time. Here was something that couldbe authoritatively³³⁶ refuted, at least in respect to timing³³⁷, sinceBritain would obviously not devalue while the credit negotiationswere under way. Torn between the desire to quell³³⁹ a destructiverumor and the need to keep the negotiations³³⁸ secret until theywere concluded, Hayes compromised. He had one of hisassociates call a few key Wall Street bankers and traders tosay, as emphatically as possible, that the latest devaluationrumor was, to his firm knowledge, false. “Can you be morespecific?” the associate was asked, and he replied, becausethere was nothing else he could reply, “No, I can’t.”
This unsupported word was something, but it was notenough; the foreign-exchange and bond markets were onlymomentarily reassured. There were times that morning, Hayesand Coombs now admit, when they put down their telephones,looked at each other across the table in Coombs’ office, andwordlessly exchanged the thought: It isn’t going to be done intime. But—in the best tradition of melodrama³⁴⁰, which sometimesseems to survive stubbornly in nature at a time when it isdead in art—just when things looked darkest, good news beganto arrive. Dr. Holtrop had been tracked down in a restaurantin The Hague, where he was having lunch with theNetherlands’ Minister of Finance, Dr. J. W. Witteveen;moreover, Dr. Holtrop had endorsed³⁴¹ the rescue operation, andas for the matter of consulting his government, that was noproblem, since the responsible representative of his governmentwas sitting across the table from him. The chief obstacle wasthus overcome, and after Dr. Holtrop had been reached thedifficulties began narrowing down to annoyances³⁴² like thenecessity for continually apologizing to the Japanese for routingthem out of bed as midnight arrived and passed in Tokyo. Thetide had turned. Before noon in New York, Hayes andCoombs, and Lord Cromer and his deputies in London as well,knew that they had agreement in principle from ten Continentalcentral banks—those in West Germany, Italy, France, theNetherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Sweden, Austria, andJapan—and also from the Bank for International Settlements.
There remained the wait while each central bank wentthrough the painfully slow process of completing whateverformalities were required to make its action legal and proper.
The epitome of orderliness, the Bundesbank, could not act untilit had obtained ratification³⁴³ from the members of its board ofdirectors, most of whom were in provincial³⁴⁴ outposts scatteredaround Germany. The two leading Bundesbank deputies dividedup the job of calling the absent directors and persuading themto go along—a job that was made more delicate by the factthat the absent directors were being asked to approvesomething that, in effect, the bank’s home office had alreadyundertaken to do. At midafternoon by Continental time, whilethe two deputies were busy at this exercise in doubletalk,Frankfurt got a new call from London. It was Lord Cromer,no doubt sounding as exasperated³⁴⁵ as his situation permitted,and what he had to say was that the rate of British reserveloss had become so rapid that the pound could not surviveanother day. Formalities notwithstanding, it was a case of nowor never. (The Bank of England’s reserve loss that day hasnever been announced. The Economist later passed along aguess that it may have run to five hundred million dollars, orabout a quarter of all that remained in Britain’s reservecoffers.) After Lord Cromer’s call, the Bundesbank deputiestempered their tact¹¹² with brevity; they got unanimous approvalfrom the directors, and shortly after five o’clock Frankfurt timethey were ready to tell Lord Cromer and Hayes that theBundesbank was in for the requested half-billion dollars.
Other central banks were coming in, or were already in.
Canada and Italy put up two hundred million dollars each, anddoubtless were glad to do it, inasmuch as their own currencieshad been the beneficiaries of much smaller but otherwisesimilar international bailout operations in 1962 and earlier in1964, respectively. If a subsequent report in the London Timesis to be accepted, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, noone of which ever announced the amount of its participation,each contributed two hundred million dollars, too. Switzerland isknown to have come through with a hundred and sixty milliondollars and Sweden with a hundred million dollars, whileAustria, Japan, and the Bank for International Settlementsrounded out the bundle with still undisclosed amounts. Bylunchtime in New York, it was all over but the shouting, andthe last part of the task was to make the shouting as effectiveas possible to give it the fastest and most forcible impact onthe market.
The task brought to the fore another Federal Reserve Bankman, its vice-president in charge of public information, ThomasOlaf Waage. Waage (his name rhymes with “saga”) had beenpresent and active in Coombs’ office almost all morning,constantly on the phone as liaison³⁴⁶ man with Washington. Aborn-and-bred New Yorker, the son of a Norwegian-born localtug pilot and fishing-boat captain, Waage is a man of broadand unfeigned outside interests—among them opera,Shakespeare, Trollope, and his ancestral heritage, sailing—andone consuming passion, which is striving to convey not only thefacts but also the drama, suspense³⁴⁷, and excitement of centralbanking to a skeptical³⁴⁸ and often glassy-eyed public. In short, abanker who is a hopeless romantic. So now he was overjoyedwhen Hayes assigned to him the job of preparing a newsrelease that would inform the world, as emphatically as possible,about the rescue operation. While Hayes and Coombs struggledto tie up the loose ends of their package, Waage was busyco?rdinating timing with his counterparts at the Federal ReserveBoard and the Treasury Department in Washington, whichwould share in the issuing of the American announcement, andat the Bank of England, which, Hayes and Lord Cromer hadagreed, would issue a simultaneous announcement of its own.
“Two o’clock in the afternoon New York time was the hour weagreed upon for the announcements, when it began to look asif we’d have something to announce by that time,” Waagerecalls. “That was too late to catch the Continental and Londonmarkets that day, of course, but it left the whole afternoonahead until the New York markets closed, at around five, andif the sterling market could be dramatically reversed here beforeclosing time, chances were the recovery would continue on theContinent and in London next day, when the Americanmarkets would be closed for Thanksgiving. As for the amountof the combined credit we were planning to announce, it stillstood at three billion dollars. But I remember that a last-minutesnag of a particularly embarrassing sort developed. Very late inthe game, when we thought the whole package was in hand,Charlie Coombs and I counted up what had been pledged, justto make sure, and we got only two billion eight hundred andfifty million. Apparently, we’d mislaid a hundred and fifty milliondollars somewhere. That’s just what we’d done—we’dmiscalculated. So it was all right.”
The package was assembled in time to meet the newschedule, and statements from the Federal Reserve, theTreasury, and the Bank of England duly went out to the newsmedia simultaneously, at 2 P.M. in New York and 7 P.M. inLondon. As a result of Waage’s influence, the American version,though it fell somewhat short of the mood of, say, the lastscene of “Die Meistersinger,” was nevertheless exceptionallystirring as bank utterances³⁴⁹ go, speaking with a certain subduedflamboyance of the unprecedented nature of the sum involvedand of how the central banks had “moved quickly to mobilizea massive counterattack on speculative selling of the pound.”
The London release had a different kind of distinction,achieving something of the quintessential Britishness that seemsto be reserved for moments of high crisis. It read simply, “TheBank of England have made arrangements under which$3,000M. are made available for the support of sterling.”
APPARENTLY, the secrecy³⁵⁰ of the operation had been successfullypreserved and the announcement struck the New Yorkforeign-exchange market all of a heap, because the reaction wasas swift and as electric as anyone could have wished.
Speculators against the pound decided instantly and with nohesitation that their game was up. Immediately after theannouncement, the Federal Reserve Bank put in a bid forpounds at $2.7868—a figure slightly above the level at whichthe pound had been forcibly maintained all day by the Bank ofEngland. So great was the rush of speculators to get free oftheir speculative positions by buying pounds that the FederalReserve Bank found very few pounds for sale at that price.
Around two-fifteen, there were a strange and heartening fewminutes in which no sterling was available in New York at anyprice. Pounds were eventually offered for sale again at a higherprice, and were immediately gobbled up, and thus the pricewent on climbing all afternoon, to a closing of just above $2.79.
Triumph! The pound was out of immediate danger; the thinghad worked. Tributes to the success of the operation began topour in from everywhere. Even the magisterial³⁵¹ Economist wasto declare shortly, “Whatever other networks break down, itseems, the central bankers [have an] astonishing capacity forinstant results. And if theirs is not the most desirable possiblemechanism, geared always to short-term support of the statusquo, it happens to be the only working one.”
So, with the pound riding reasonably high again, the FederalReserve Bank shut up for Thanksgiving, and the bankers wenthome. Coombs recalls having drunk a Martini unaccustomedlyfast. Hayes, home in New Canaan, found that his son, Tom,had arrived from Harvard. Both his wife and his son noticedthat he seemed to be in an unusual state of excitement, andwhen they asked about it he replied that he had just beenthrough the most completely satisfying day of his entire workingcareer. Pressed for details, he gave them a condensed andsimplified account of the rescue operation, keeping constantly inmind the fact that his audience consisted of a wife who had nointerest in banking and a son who had a low opinion ofbusiness. The reaction he got when his recital³⁵² was concludedwas of a sort that might warm the heart of a Waage, or ofany earnest explicator of banking derring-do to theunsympathetic layman³⁵³. “It was a little confusing at first,” Mrs.
Hayes has said, “but before you were finished you had us onthe edge of our chairs.”
Waage, home in Douglaston, told his wife of the day’s eventsin his characteristic way. “It was St. Crispin’s Day,” heexclaimed as he burst through his doorway³⁵⁴, “and I was withHarry!”
IIIHAVING first become interested in the pound and its perils³⁵⁵ atthe time of the 1964 crisis, I found myself hooked by thesubject. Through the subsequent three and a half years, Ifollowed its ups and downs in the American and British press,and at intervals³⁵⁶ went down to the Federal Reserve Bank torenew my acquaintance with its officers and see what additionalenlightenment I could garner³⁵⁷. The whole experience was aresounding vindication³⁵⁸ of Waage’s thesis that central bankingcan be suspenseful³⁵⁹.
The pound wouldn’t stay saved. A month after the big 1964crisis, the speculators resumed their assaults, and by the end ofthat year the Bank of England had used up more than half abillion of its new three-billion-dollar credit. Nor did the comingof the new year bring surcease. In 1965, after a relativelybuoyant January, the pound came under pressure again inFebruary. The November credit had been for a term of threemonths; now, as the term ran out, the nations that had madeit decided to extend it for another three months, so that Britainwould have more time to put its economy in order. But late inMarch the British economy was still shaky, the pound wasback below $2.79, and the Bank of England was back in themarket. In April, Britain announced a tougher budget, and arally followed, but the rally proved to be short-lived. By earlysummer, the Bank of England had drawn, and committed tothe battle against the speculators, more than a third of thewhole three billion. Heartened, the speculators pressed theirattack. Late in June, high British officials, let it be known thatthey now considered the sterling crisis over, but they werewhistling in the dark; in July the pound sank again, despitefurther belt-tightening in the British domestic economy. By theend of July, the world foreign-exchange market had becomeconvinced that a new crisis was shaping up. By late August,the crisis had arrived, and in some ways it was a moredangerous one than that of the previous November. Thetrouble was the market seemed to believe that the centralbanks were tired of pouring money into the battle and wouldnow let sterling fall, regardless of the consequences. About thattime, I telephoned a leading local foreign-exchange man I knowto ask him what he thought of the situation, and he replied,“To my knowledge, the New York market is one hundred percent convinced that devaluation of sterling is coming thisfall—and I don’t mean ninety-five per cent, I mean onehundred per cent.” Then, on September 11th, I read in thepapers that the same group of central banks, this time with theexception of France, had come through with another last-minuterescue package, the amount not being announced at thetime—it was subsequently reported to have been around onebillion—and over the next few days I watched the market priceof the pound rise, little by little, until by the end of the monthit was above $2.80 for the first time in sixteen months.
The central banks had done it again, and somewhat later Iwent down to the Federal Reserve Bank to learn the details. Itwas Coombs I saw, and I found him in a sanguine³⁶⁰ andextraordinarily talkative mood. “This year’s operation wasentirely different from last year’s,” he told me. “It was anaggressive move on our part, rather than a last-ditch-defensiveone. You see, early this September we came to the conclusionthat the pound was grossly oversold—that is, the amount ofspeculation against it was way out of proportion to what wasjustified by the economic facts. Actually, during the first eightmonths of the year, British exports had risen more than fiveper cent over the corresponding period in 1964, and Britain’s1964 balance-of-payments deficit seemed likely to be cut in halfin 1965. Very promising³⁶¹ economic progress, and the bearishspeculators seemed not to have taken account of it. They hadgone right on selling the pound short, on the basis of technicalmarket factors. They were the ones who were in an exposedposition now. We decided the time was ripe for an officialcounterattack.”
The counterattack, Coombs went on to explain, was plotted inleisurely fashion this time—not on the telephone but face toface, over the weekend of September 5th in Basel. The FederalReserve Bank was represented by Coombs, as usual, and alsoby Hayes, who cut short his long-planned vacation on Corfu tobe there. The coup⁸⁰ was planned with military precision. It wasdecided not to announce the amount of the credit package thistime, in order to further confuse and disconcert the enemy, thespeculators. The place chosen for the launching was the tradingroom of the Federal Reserve Bank, and the hour chosen was9 A.M. New York time—early enough for London and theContinent to be still conducting business—on September 10th. Atzero hour, the Bank of England fired a preliminary salvo byannouncing that new central-bank arrangements would shortlyenable “appropriate action” to be taken in the exchangemarkets. After allowing fifteen minutes for the import of thisdemurely menacing message to sink in, the Federal ReserveBank struck. Using, with British concurrence³⁶², the new bundle ofinternational credit as its ammunition, it simultaneously placedwith all the major banks operating in the New York exchangemarket bids for sterling totalling nearly thirty million dollars, atthe then prevailing rate of $2.7918. Under this pressure, themarket immediately moved upward, and the Federal ReserveBank pursued the movement, raising its bid price step by step.
At $2.7934, the bank temporarily ceased operations—partly tosee what the market would do on its own, partly just toconfuse things. The market held steady, showing that at thatlevel there were now as many independent buyers of sterlingas there were sellers, and that the bears—speculators—werelosing their nerve. But the bank was far from satisfied;returning vigorously to the market, it bid the price on up to$2.7945 in the course of the day. And then the snowball beganto roll by itself—with the results I had read about in mynewspapers. “It was a successful bear squeeze,” Coombs toldme with a certain grim relish³⁶³, which was easy to sympathizewith; I found myself musing²⁸⁸ that for a banker to rout hisopponents, to smite³⁶⁴ them hip¹⁵⁷ and thigh³⁶⁵ and drive them tocover, and not for personal or institutional profit but, rather, forthe public good, must be a source of rare, unalloyedsatisfaction.
I later learned from another banker just how painfully thebears had been squeezed. Margins³⁶⁶ of credit on currencyspeculation being what they are—for example, to commit amillion dollars against the pound a speculator might need toput up only thirty or forty thousand dollars in cash—mostdealers had made commitments running into the tens ofmillions. When a dealer’s commitment was ten million pounds,or twenty-eight million dollars, each change of one-hundredth ofa cent in the price of the pound meant a change of athousand dollars in the value of his account. Between the$2.7918 on September 10th, then, and the $2.8010 that thepound reached on September 29th, such a dealer on the shortside of the pound would have lost ninety-two thousanddollars—enough, one might suppose, to make him think twicebefore selling sterling short again.
An extended period of calm followed. The air of impendingcrisis that had hung over the exchanges during most of thepreceding year disappeared, and for more than six months theworld sterling market was sunnier than it had been at anytime in recent years. “The battle for the pound sterling is nowended,” high British officials (anonymous, and wisely so)announced in November, on the first anniversary of the 1964rescue. Now, the officials said, “we’re fighting the battle for theeconomy.” Apparently, they were winning that battle, too,because when Britain’s balance-of-payments position for 1965was finally calculated, it showed that the deficit had been notmerely halved, according to predictions, but more than halved.
And meanwhile the pound’s strength enabled the Bank ofEngland not merely to pay off all its short-term debts to othercentral banks but also to accumulate in the open market, inexchange for its newly desirable pounds, more than a billionfresh dollars to add to its precious reserves. Thus, betweenSeptember, 1965, and March, 1966, those reserves rose fromtwo billion six hundred million dollars to three billion sixhundred million—a fairly safe figure. And then the poundbreezed nicely through a national election campaign—as always,a stormy time for the currency. When I saw Coombs in thespring of 1966, he seemed as cocky and blasé about sterling asan old-time New York Yankee rooter about his team.
I had all but concluded that following the fortunes of thepound was no longer any fun when a new crisis exploded. Aseamen’s strike contributed to a recurrence³⁶⁷ of Britain’s tradedeficit, and in early June of 1966 the quotation was back below$2.79 and the Bank of England was reported to be back inthe market spending its reserves on the defense. On June 13th,with something of the insouciance³⁶⁸ of veteran firemen respondingto a routine call, back came the central banks with a newbundle of short-term credits. But these helped only temporarily,and toward the end of July, in an effort to get at the root ofthe pound’s troubles by curing the deficit once and for all,Prime Minister Wilson imposed on the British people the moststringent set of economic restraints ever applied³⁶⁹ in his countryin peacetime—high taxes, a merciless squeeze on credit, a freezeon wages and prices, a cut in government welfare spending,and a limit of a hundred and forty dollars on the annualamount that each Briton could spend on travel abroad. TheFederal Reserve, Coombs told me later, helped by moving intothe sterling market immediately after the British announcementof the austerity program, and the pound reacted satisfactorily tothis prodding³⁷⁰. In September, for good measure, the FederalReserve increased its swap line with the Bank of England fromseven hundred and fifty million to one billion three hundredand fifty million dollars. I saw Waage in September, and hespoke warmly of all the dollars that the Bank of England wasagain accumulating. “Sterling crises have become a bore,” theEconomist remarked at about this time, with the mostreassuring sort of British phlegm.
Calm again—and again for just a little more than six months.
In April of 1967, Britain was free of short-term debt and hadample reserves. But within a month or so came the first of aseries of heartbreaking setbacks. Two consequences of the briefArab-Israeli war—a huge flow of Arab funds out of sterling intoother currencies, and the closing of the Suez Canal, one ofBritain’s main trade arteries—brought on a new crisis almostovernight. In June, the Bank of England (under new leadershipnow, for in 1966 Lord Cromer had been succeeded asgovernor by Sir Leslie O’Brien) had to draw heavily on itsswap line with the Federal Reserve, and in July the Britishgovernment found itself forced to renew the painful economicrestraints of the previous year; even so, in September thepound slipped down to $2.7830, its lowest point since the 1964crisis. I called my foreign-exchange expert to ask why the Bankof England—which in November, 1964, had set its last-linetrench at $2.7860, and which, according to its latest statement,now had on hand reserves amounting to more than two and ahalf billion dollars—was letting the price slide so dangerouslynear the absolute bottom (short of devaluation) of $2.78. “Well,the situation isn’t quite as desperate as the figure suggests,” hereplied. “The speculative pressure so far isn’t anything like asstrong as it was in 1964. And the fundamental economicposition this year—up to now, at least—is much better. Despitethe Middle East war, the austerity program has taken hold. Forthe first eight months of 1967, Britain’s international paymentshave been nearly in balance. The Bank of England is evidentlyhoping that this period of weakness of the pound will passwithout its intervention.”
At about that time, however, I became aware of a disturbingportent in the air—the apparent abandonment by the British oftheir long-standing taboo against bandying about the word“devaluation.” Like other taboos³⁷¹, this one seemed to have beenbased on a combination of practical logic³²⁶ (talk about devaluationcould easily start a speculative stampede and thereby bring iton) and superstition³⁷². But now I found devaluation being freelyand frequently discussed in the British press, and, in severalrespected journals, actually advocated. Nor was that all. PrimeMinister Wilson, it is true, continued to follow a careful patharound the word, even in the very act of pledging, as he didover and over, that his government would abstain³⁷³ from thedeed; there would be “no change in existing policy” as to“overseas monetary matters,” he said, delicately, on oneoccasion. On July 24th, though, Chancellor of the ExchequerJames Callaghan spoke openly in the House of Commonsabout devaluation, complaining that advocacy of it as a nationalpolicy had become fashionable, declaring that such a policywould represent a breach of faith with other nations and theirpeople and also pledging that his government would neverresort to it. His sentiments were familiar and reassuring; hisstraightforward expression of them was just the opposite. In thedarkest days of 1964, no one had said “devaluation” inParliament.
All through the autumn, I had a feeling that Britain was beingovertaken by a fiendish concatenation of cruel mischances,some specifically damaging to the pound and others merelycrushing to British morale. The previous spring, oil from awrecked, and wretched, tanker³⁷⁴ had defiled³⁷⁵ the beaches ofCornwall; now an epidemic³⁷⁶ was destroying tens, and ultimatelyhundreds, of thousands of head of cattle. The economicstraitjacket that Britain had worn for more than a year hadswelled unemployment to the highest level in years and madethe Labour Government the most unpopular government in thepostwar era. (Six months later, in a poll sponsored by theSunday Times, Britons would vote Wilson the fourth mostvillainous man of the century, after Hitler, de Gaulle, and Stalin,in that order.) A dock strike in London and Liverpool thatbegan in mid-September and was to drag on for more thantwo months decreased still further the already hobbled exporttrade, and put an abrupt⁹⁵ end to Britain’s remaining hope ofending the year with its international accounts in balance. Earlyin November, 1967, the pound stood at $2.7822, its lowestpoint in a decade. And then things went downhill fast. On theevening of Monday the thirteenth, Wilson took the occasion ofhis annual appearance at the Lord Mayor of London’sbanquet—the very platform he had used for his fierycommitment to the defense of sterling in the crisis three yearsearlier—to implore³⁷⁸ the country and the world to disregard, asdistorted by temporary factors, his nation’s latest foreign-tradestatistics, which would be released the next day. On Tuesdaythe fourteenth, Britain’s foreign-trade figures, duly released,showed an October deficit of over a hundred millionpounds—the worst ever reported. The Cabinet met at lunch onThursday the sixteenth, and that afternoon, in the House ofCommons, Chancellor Callaghan, upon being asked to confirmor deny rumors of an enormous new central-bank credit thatwould be contingent upon still further unemployment-breedingausterity measures, replied with heat, and with what was latercalled a lack of discretion³⁷⁹, “The Government will take whatdecisions are appropriate in the light of our understanding ofthe needs of the British economy, and no one else’s. And that,at this stage, does not include the creation of any additionalunemployment.”
With one accord, the exchange markets decided that thedecision to devalue had been taken and that Callaghan hadinadvertently let the cat out of the bag. Friday the seventeenthwas the wildest day in the history of the exchange markets,and the blackest in the thousand-year history of sterling. Inholding it at $2.7825—the price decided on this time as thelast-line trench—the Bank of England spent a quantity ofreserve dollars that it may never see fit to reveal; Wall Streetcommercial bankers who have reason to know have estimatedthe amount at somewhere around a billion dollars, which wouldmean a continuous, day-long reserve drain of over two millionper minute. Doubtless the British reserves dropped below thetwo-billion-dollar mark, and perhaps far below it. Late on aSaturday—November 18th—full of confused alarms, Britainannounced its capitulation. I heard about it from Waage, whotelephoned me that afternoon at five-thirty New York time. “Asof an hour ago, the pound was devalued to two dollars andforty cents, and the British bank rate went to eight per cent,”
he said. His voice was shaking a little.
ON Saturday night, bearing in mind that scarcely anything but amajor war upsets world financial arrangements more thandevaluation of a major currency, I went down to the capital ofworld finance, Wall Street, to look around. A nasty wind waswhipping papers through empty streets, and there was theusual rather intimidating³⁸⁰ off-hours stillness in that part-time city.
There was something unusual, though: the presence of rows oflighted windows in the otherwise dark buildings—for the mostpart, one lighted row per building. Some of the rows I couldidentify as the foreign departments of the big banks. The heavydoors of the banks were locked and barred; foreign-departmentmen evidently ring to gain entrance on weekends, or useinvisible side or rear entrances. Turning up my coat collar, Iheaded up Nassau Street toward Liberty to take a look at theFederal Reserve Bank. I found it lighted not in a single linebut—more hospitably³⁸¹, somehow—in an irregular pattern over itsentire Florentine fa?ade, yet it, too, presented to the street aformidably closed front door. As I looked at it, a gust⁷⁴ of windbrought an incongruous burst of organ music—perhaps fromTrinity Church, a few blocks away—and I realized that in tenor³⁸² fifteen minutes I hadn’t seen anyone. The scene seemed tome to epitomize one of the two faces of central banking—thecold and hostile face, suggesting men in arrogant³⁸³ secrecymaking decisions that affect all the rest of us but that we canneither influence nor even comprehend, rather than the morecongenial face of elegant and learned men of affairs beneficentlysaving faltering currencies over their truffles and wine at Basel.
This was not the night for the latter face.
On Sunday afternoon, Waage held a press conference in aroom on the tenth floor of the bank, and I attended it, alongwith a dozen other reporters, mostly regulars on the FederalReserve beat. Waage discoursed³⁸⁴ generally on the devaluation,parrying questions he didn’t want to answer, sometimes byreplying to them, like the teacher he once was, with questionsof his own. It was still far too early, he said, to tell how greatthe danger was that the devaluation might lead to “another1931.” Almost any prediction, he said, would be a matter oftrying to outguess millions of people and thousands of banksaround the world. The next few days would tell the story.
Waage seemed stimulated³⁸⁵ rather than depressed; his attitudewas clearly one of apprehension³⁸⁷ but also of resolution. On theway out, I asked him whether he had been up all night. “No,last evening I went to ‘The Birthday Party,’ and I must sayPinter’s world makes more sense than mine does, these days,”
he replied.
The outlines of what had happened Thursday and Fridaybegan to emerge during the next few days. Most of therumors that had been abroad turned out to have been moreor less true. Britain had been negotiating for another hugecredit to forestall³⁸⁸ devaluation—a credit of the order ofmagnitude of the three-billion-dollar 1964 package, with theUnited States again planning to provide the largest share.
Whether Britain had devalued from choice or necessityremained debatable. Wilson, in explaining the devaluation to hispeople in a television address, said that “it would have beenpossible to ride out this present tide of foreign speculationagainst the pound by borrowing from central banks andgovernments,” but that such action this time would have been“irresponsible,” because “our creditors³⁸⁹ abroad might well insiston guarantees about this or that aspect of our nationalpolicies”; he did not say explicitly that they had done so. Inany event, the British Cabinet had—with what grim reluctancemay be imagined—decided in principle on devaluation as earlyas the previous weekend, and then determined³⁹⁰ the exactamount of the devaluation at its Thursday-noon meeting. Atthat time, the Cabinet had also resolved to help insure theeffectiveness of the devaluation by imposing new austeritymeasures on the nation, among them higher corporate³⁹¹ taxes, acutback in defense spending, and the highest bank rate in fiftyyears. As for the two-day delay in putting the devaluation intoeffect, which had been so costly⁶⁶ to British reserves, officialsnow explained that the time had been necessary forconferences with the other leading monetary powers. Suchconferences were required by international monetary rulesbefore a devaluation, and, besides, Britain had urgently neededassurances from its leading competitors in world trade that theydid not plan to vitiate the effect of the British devaluation withmatching devaluations of their own. Some light was now shed,too, on the sources of the panic selling of pounds on Friday.
By no means all of it had been wanton speculation by thosefamous—although invisible and perhaps nonexistent—gnomes ofZurich. On the contrary, much of it had been a form ofself-protection, called hedging, by large international corporations,many of them American, that made short sales of sterlingequivalent to what they were due to be paid in sterling weeksor months later. The evidence of this was supplied by thecorporations themselves, some of them being quick to assuretheir stockholders that through their foresight³⁹² they hadcontrived to lose little or nothing on the devaluation.
International Telephone & Telegraph, for example, announcedon Sunday that the devaluation would not affect its 1967earnings, because “management anticipated the possibility ofdevaluation for some time.” International Harvester and TexasInstruments reported that they had protected themselves bymaking what amounted to short sales of sterling. The SingerCompany said it might even have accidentally made a profit onthe deal. Other American companies let it be known that theyhad come out all right, but declined to elaborate, on theground that if they revealed the methods they had used theymight be accused of taking advantage of Britain in its extremity.
“Let’s just say we were smart” was the way a spokesman forone company put it. And perhaps that, if lacking in grace andelegance, was fair enough. In the jungle of internationalbusiness, hedging on a weak foreign currency is considered awholly legitimate use of claws for self-defense. Selling short forspeculative purposes enjoys less respectability, and it isinteresting to note that the ranks of those who speculatedagainst sterling on Friday, and talked about it afterward,included some who were far from Zurich. A group ofprofessional men in Youngstown, Ohio—veteran stock-marketplayers, but never before international currencyplungers—decided on Friday that sterling was about to bedevalued, and sold short seventy thousand pounds, netting aprofit of almost twenty-five thousand dollars over the weekend.
The pounds sold had, of course, ultimately been bought withdollars by the Bank of England, thus adding a minuscule³⁹³ dropto Britain’s reserve loss. Reading about the little coup in theWall Street Journal, to which the group’s broker hadreported it, presumably with pride, I hoped the apprenticegnomes of Youngstown had at least grasped the implications ofwhat they were doing.
So much for Sunday and moral speculation. On Monday, thefinancial world, or most of it, went back to work, and thedevaluation began to be put to its test. The test consisted oftwo questions. Question One: Would the devaluation accomplishits purpose for Britain—that is, stimulate³⁸⁶ exports and reduceimports sufficiently³⁹⁴ to cure the international deficit and put anend to speculation against the pound? Question Two: Would it,as in 1931, be followed by a string of competitive devaluationsof other currencies, leading ultimately to a devaluation of thedollar in relation to gold, worldwide monetary chaos, andperhaps a world depression? I watched the answers beginningto take shape.
On Monday, the banks and exchanges in London remainedfirmly closed, by government order, and all but a few traderselsewhere avoided taking positions in sterling in the Bank ofEngland’s absence from the market, so the answer to thequestion of the pound’s strength or weakness at its newvaluation was postponed³⁹⁵; On Threadneedle and ThrogmortonStreets, crowds of brokers³⁹⁶, jobbers³⁹⁷, and clerks milled aroundand talked excitedly—but made no trades—in a city where theunion Jack³⁷⁷ was flying from all flagstaffs because it happened tobe the Queen’s wedding anniversary. The New York stockmarket opened sharply lower, then recovered. (There was noreally rational explanation for the initial drop; securities menpointed out that devaluation just generally sounds depressing.)By nightfall on Monday, it had been announced that elevenother currencies—those of Spain, Denmark, Israel, Hong Kong,Malta, Guyana, Malawi, Jamaica, Fiji, Bermuda, andIreland—were also being devalued. That wasn’t so bad, becausethe disruptive effect of a currency devaluation is in directproportion to the importance of that currency in world trade,and none of those currencies were of great importance. Themost ominous move was Denmark’s, because Denmark mighteasily be followed by its close economic allies Norway, Sweden,and the Netherlands, and that would be pretty serious. Egypt,which was an instant loser of thirty-eight million dollars onpounds held in its reserves at the time of devaluation, heldfirm, and so did Kuwait, which lost eighteen million.
On Tuesday, the markets everywhere were going full blast.
The Bank of England, back in business, set the new tradinglimits of the pound at a floor of $2.38 and a ceiling of $2.42,whereupon the pound went straight to the ceiling, like a balloonslipped from a child’s hand, and stayed there all day; indeed,for obscure reasons inapplicable to balloons, it spent much ofthe day slightly above the ceiling. Now, instead of paying dollarsfor pounds, the Bank of England was supplying pounds fordollars, and thereby beginning the process of rebuilding itsreserves. I called Waage to share what I thought would be hisjubilation, but found him taking it all calmly. The pound’sstrength, he said, was “technical”—that is, it was caused by theprevious week’s short sellers’ buying pounds back to cash intheir profits—and the first objective test of the new poundwould not come until Friday. Seven more small governmentsannounced devaluations during the day. In Malaysia, which haddevalued its old sterling-backed pound but not its new dollar,based on gold, and which continued to keep both currencies incirculation, the injustice³⁹⁸ of the situation led to riots, and overthe next two weeks more than twenty-seven people were killedin them—the first casualties of devaluation. Apart from thispainful reminder that the counters in the engrossing³⁹⁹ game ofinternational finance are people’s livelihoods⁴⁰⁰, and even theirlives, so far so good.
But on Wednesday the twenty-second a less localized portentof trouble appeared. The speculative attack that had so longbattered and at last crushed the pound now turned, aseveryone had feared it might, on the dollar. As the one nationthat is committed to sell gold in any quantity to the centralbank of any other nation at the fixed³⁸ price of thirty-five dollarsan ounce, the United States is the keystone of the worldmonetary arch, and the gold in its Treasury—which on thatWednesday amounted to not quite thirteen billion dollars’
worth—is the foundation. Federal Reserve Board ChairmanMartin had said repeatedly that the United States would underany condition continue to sell it on demand, if necessary downto the last bar. Despite this pledge, and despite PresidentJohnson’s reiteration⁴⁰¹ of it immediately after Britain’s devaluation,speculators now began buying gold with dollars in hugequantities, expressing the same sort of skepticism toward officialassurances that was shown at about the same time by NewYorkers who took to accumulating and hoarding⁴⁰³ subway tokens.
Gold was suddenly in unusual demand in Paris, Zurich, andother financial centers, and most particularly in London, theworld’s leading gold market, where people immediately began totalk about the London Gold Rush. The day’s orders for gold,which some authorities estimated at over fifty million dollars’
worth, seemed to come in from everywhere—except,presumably, from citizens of the United States or Britain, whoare forbidden by law to buy or own monetary gold. And whowas to sell the stuff to these invisible multitudes so suddenlyrepossessed by the age-old lust²³⁷ for it? Not the United StatesTreasury, which, through the Federal Reserve, sold gold only tocentral banks, and not other central banks, which did notpromise to sell it at all. To fill this vacuum, still anotherco?perative international group, the London gold pool, had beenestablished in 1961. Provided by its members—the United States,Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, West Germany,Belgium, and, originally, France—with gold ingots in quantitiesthat might dazzle a Croesus (fifty-nine per cent of the totalcoming from the United States), the pool was intended to quellmoney panics by supplying gold to non-governmental buyers inany quantity demanded, at a price effectively the same as theFederal Reserve’s, and thereby to protect the stability of thedollar and the system.
And that is what the pool did on Wednesday. Thursday,though, was much worse, with the gold-buying frenzy⁴⁰⁴ in bothParis and London breaking even the records set during theCuban missile crisis of 1962, and many people, high British andAmerican officials among them, became convinced of somethingthey had suspected from the first—that the gold rush was partof a plot by General de Gaulle and France to humble first thepound and now the dollar. The evidence, to be sure, was allcircumstantial, but it was persuasive⁴⁰⁵. De Gaulle and hisMinisters had long been on record as wishing to relegate⁴⁰⁶ thepound and the dollar to international roles far smaller thantheir current ones. A suspicious amount of the gold buying,even in London, was traceable to France. On Monday evening,thirty-six hours before the start of the gold rush, France’sgovernment had let slip, through a press leak, that it intendedto withdraw from the gold pool (according to subsequentinformation, France hadn’t contributed anything to the poolsince the previous June anyhow), and the French governmentwas also accused of having had a hand in spreading falserumors that Belgium and Italy were about to withdraw, too.
And now it was coming out, bit by bit, that in the days justbefore the devaluation France had been by far the mostreluctant nation to join in another credit package to rescuesterling, and that, for good measure, France had withheld⁴⁰⁷ untilthe very last minute its assurance that it would maintain itsown exchange rate if Britain devalued. All in all, there was agood case for the allegation that de Gaulle & Co. had beenplaying a mischievous⁴⁰⁸ part, and, whether it was true or not, Icouldn’t help feeling that the accusations⁴⁰⁹ against them wereadding a good deal of spice to the devaluation crisis—spice thatwould become more piquant⁴¹⁰ a few months later, when thefranc would be in dire³⁴ straits, and the United States forced bycircumstances to come to its aid.
ON Friday, in London, the pound spent the whole day tight upagainst its ceiling, and thus came through its first reallysignificant post-devaluation test with colors flying. Only a fewsmall governments had announced devaluations since Monday,and it was now evident that Norway, Sweden, and theNetherlands were going to hold firm. But on the dollar frontthings looked worse than ever. Friday’s gold buying in Londonand Paris had far exceeded the previous day’s record, andestimates were that gold sales in all markets over the precedingthree days added up to something not far under thebillion-dollar mark; there was near pandemonium⁴¹¹ all day inJohannesburg as speculators scrambled⁴¹² to get their hands onshares in gold-mining companies; and all over Europe peoplewere trading in dollars not only for gold but for othercurrencies as well. If the dollar was hardly in the position thatthe pound had occupied a week earlier, at least there wereuncomfortable parallels. Subsequently, it was reported that inthe first days after devaluation the Federal Reserve, soaccustomed to lending support to other currencies, had beenforced to borrow various foreign currencies, amounting toalmost two billion dollars’ worth, in order to defend its own.
Late Friday, having attended a conference at which Waagewas in an unaccustomed mood of nervous jocularity that mademe nervous, too, I left the Federal Reserve Bank half believingthat devaluation of the dollar was going to be announced overthe weekend. Nothing of the sort happened; on the contrary,the worst was temporarily over. On Sunday, it was announcedthat central-bank representatives of the gold-pool countries,Hayes and Coombs among them, had met in Frankfurt andformally agreed to continue maintaining the dollar at its presentgold-exchange rate with their combined resources. This seemedto remove any doubt that the dollar was backed not only bythe United States’ thirteen-billion-dollar gold hoard⁴⁰² but also bythe additional fourteen billion dollars’ worth of gold in thecoffers of Belgium, Britain, Italy, the Netherland, Switzerland,and West Germany. The speculators were apparently impressed.
On Monday, gold buying was much lower in London andZurich, continuing at a record pace only in Paris—and this inspite of a sulphurous press audience granted that day by deGaulle himself, who, along with bemusing opinions on variousother matters, hazarded the view that the trend of events wastoward the decline of the dollar’s international importance. OnTuesday, gold sales dropped sharply everywhere, even in Paris.
“A good day today,” Waage told me on the phone thatafternoon. “A better day tomorrow, we hope.” On Wednesday,the gold markets were back to normal, but, as a result of theweek’s doings, the Treasury had lost some four hundred andfifty tons of gold—almost half a billion dollars’ worth—in fulfillingits obligations to the gold pool and meeting the demands offoreign central banks.
Ten days after devaluation, everything was quiet. But it wasonly a trough between succeeding shock waves. FromDecember 8th to 18th, there came a new spell of wildspeculation against the dollar, leaching⁴¹³ another four hundredtons or so of gold out of the pool; this, like the previous wave,was eventually calmed by reiterations on the part of the UnitedStates and its gold-pool partners of their determination tomaintain the status quo. By the end of the year, the Treasuryhad lost almost a billion dollars’ worth of gold since Britain’sdevaluation, reducing its gold stock to below thetwelve-billion-dollar mark for the first time since 1937. PresidentJohnson’s balance-of-payments program, announced January1st, 1968 and based chiefly on restrictions⁴¹⁴ on American banklending and industrial investments abroad, helped keepspeculation down for two months. But the gold rush was notto be quelled⁴¹⁵ so simply. All pledges notwithstanding, it hadpowerful economic and psychological forces behind it. In alarger sense, it was an expression of an age-old tendency todistrust all paper currencies in times of crisis, but morespecifically it was the long-feared sequel to sterling devaluation,and—perhaps most specifically of all—it was a vote of noconfidence in the determination of the United States to keep itseconomic affairs in order, with particular reference to a level ofcivilian consumption beyond the dreams of avarice⁴¹⁶ at a timewhen ever-increasing billions were being sent abroad to supporta war with no end in sight. The money in which the worldwas supposed to be putting its trust looked to the goldspeculators like that of the most reckless and improvidentspendthrift.
When they returned to the attack, on February29th—choosing that day for no assignable reason except that asingle United States senator, Jacob Javits, had just remarked,with either deadly seriousness or casual indiscretion, that hethought his country might do well to suspend temporarily allgold payments to foreign countries—it was with such ferocitythat the situation quickly got out of hand. On March 1st, thegold pool dispensed⁴¹⁷ an estimated forty to fifty tons in London(as against three or four tons on a normal day); on March5th and 6th, forty tons per day; on March 8th, overseventy-five tons; and on March 13th, a total that could not beaccurately estimated but ran well over one hundred tons.
Meanwhile, the pound, which could not possibly escape afurther devaluation if the dollar were to be devalued in relationto gold, slipped below its par of $2.40 for the first time. Stillanother reiteration of the now-familiar pledges, this time fromthe central-bankers’ club at Basel on March 10th, seemed tohave no effect at all. The market was in the classic state ofchaos, distrustful of every public assurance and at the mercy ofevery passing rumor¹⁰³. A leading Swiss banker grimly called thesituation “the most dangerous since 1931.” A member of theBasel club, tempering desperation with charity, said that thegold speculators apparently didn’t realize their actions wereimperilling the world’s money. The New York Times, in aneditorial, said, “It is quite clear that the international paymentssystem … is eroding⁴¹⁸.”
On Thursday, March 14th, panic was added to chaos. Londongold dealers, in describing the day’s action, used the un-Britishwords “stampede,” “catastrophe¹⁶¹,” and “nightmare.” The exactvolume of gold sold that day was unannounced, asusual—probably it could not have been precisely counted, in anycase—but everyone agreed that it had been an all-time record;most estimates put the total at around two hundred tons, ortwo hundred and twenty million dollars’ worth, while the WallStreet Journal put it twice that high. If the former estimatewas right, during the trading day the United States Treasuryhad paid out through its share of the gold pool alone onemillion dollars in gold every three minutes and forty-twoseconds; if the Journal figure was right (as a subsequentTreasury announcement made it appear to be), a million everyone minute and fifty-one seconds. Clearly, this wouldn’t do.
Like Britain in 1964, at this rate the United States would havea bare cupboard in a matter of days. That afternoon, theFederal Reserve System raised its discount rate from four anda half to five per cent—a defensive measure so timid andinadequate that one New York banker compared it to apopgun, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, as theSystem’s foreign-exchange arm, was moved to protest byrefusing to go along with the token raise. Late in the day inNew York, and toward midnight in London, the United Statesasked Britain to keep the gold market closed the next day,Friday, to prevent further catastrophe and clear the way to theweekend, when face-to-face international consultations⁴¹⁹ could beheld⁴²⁰. The bewildered American public, largely unaware of thegold pool’s existence, probably first sensed the general shape ofthings when it learned on Friday morning that Queen ElizabethII had met with her Ministers on the crisis between midnightand 1 A.M.
On Friday, a day of nervous waiting, the London marketswere closed, and so were foreign-exchange desks nearlyeverywhere else, but gold shot up to a big premium⁴²¹ in theParis market—a sort of black market, from the Americanstandpoint—and in New York sterling, unsupported by thefirmly locked Bank of England, briefly⁴²² fell below its officialbottom price of $2.38 before rallying. Over the weekend, thecentral bankers of the gold-pool nations (the United States,Britain, West Germany, Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands, andBelgium, with France still conspicuously missing and, indeed,uninvited this time) met in Washington, with Coombsparticipating for the Federal Reserve along with ChairmanMartin. After two full days of rigidly secret discussions, whilethe world of money waited with bated breath, they announcedtheir decisions late on Sunday afternoon. Thethirty-five-dollar-an-ounce official monetary price of gold wouldbe kept for use in all dealings among central banks; the goldpool would be disbanded, and the central banks would supplyno more gold to the London market, where privately tradedgold would be allowed to find its own price; sanctions would betaken against any central bank seeking to profit from the pricedifferential between the central-bank price and the free-marketprice; and the London gold market would remain closed for acouple of weeks, until the dust settled. During the first fewmarket days under the new arrangements, the pound ralliedstrongly, and the free-market price of gold settled at betweentwo and five dollars above the central-bank price—a differentialconsiderably smaller than many had expected.
The crisis had passed, or that crisis had. The dollar hadescaped devaluation, and the international monetary mechanismwas intact. Nor was the solution a particularly radical⁹⁹ one; afterall, gold had been on a two-price basis in 1960, before thegold pool had been formed. But the solution was a temporary,stopgap one, and the curtain was not down on the drama yet.
Like Hamlet’s ghost, the pound, which had started the action,was offstage now. The principal actors onstage as summerapproached were the Federal Reserve and the United StatesTreasury, doing what they could in a technical way to keepthings on an even keel; the Congress, complacent⁴²³ withprosperity, preoccupied⁴²⁴ with coming elections, and thereforeresistant to higher taxes and other uncomfortable retrenchingmeasures (on the very afternoon of the London panic, theSenate Finance Committee had voted down an income-taxsurcharge); and, finally, the President, calling for “a program ofnational austerity” to defend the dollar, yet at the same timecarrying on at ever-increasing expense the Vietnam war, whichhad become as menacing to the health of America’s money as,in the view of many, it was to that of America’s soul.
Ultimately, it appeared, the nation had just three possibleeconomic courses: to somehow end the Vietnam war, root ofthe payments problem and therefore heart of the matter; toadopt a full wartime economy, with sky-high taxes, wage andprice controls, and perhaps rationing⁴²⁵; or to face forceddevaluation of the dollar and perhaps a depression-breedingworld monetary mess.
Looking beyond the Vietnam war and its incredibly broadworldwide monetary implications, the central bankers went onplugging away. Two weeks after the stopgap solution of thedollar crisis, those of the ten most powerful industrial countriesmet in Stockholm and agreed, with only France dissenting⁴²⁶, onthe gradual creation of a new international monetary unit tosupplement gold as the bedrock underlying⁴²⁷ all currencies. It willconsist (if action follows on resolution) of special drawing rightson the International Monetary Fund, available to nations inproportion to their existing reserve holdings. In bankers’ jargonthe rights will be called S.D.R.’s; in popular jargon they were atonce called paper gold. The success of the plan in achieving itsends—averting dollar devaluation, overcoming the worldshortage of monetary gold, and thus postponing⁴²⁸ indefinitely thethreatened mess—will depend on whether or not men andnations can somehow at last, in a triumph of reason, achievewhat they have failed to achieve in almost four centuries ofpaper money: that is, to overcome one of the oldest and leastrational of human traits, the lust for the look and feel of golditself, and come to give truly equal value to a pledge written ona piece of paper. The answer to that question will come in thelast act, and the outlook for a happy ending is not bright.
AS the last act was beginning to unfold—after the sterlingdevaluation but before the gold panic—I went down to LibertyStreet and saw Coombs and Hayes. I found Coombs lookingbone-tired but not sounding disheartened about three yearsspent largely in a losing cause. “I don’t see the fight for thepound as all having been in vain,” he said. “We gained thosethree years, and during that time the British put through a lotof internal measures to strengthen themselves. If they’d beenforced to devalue in 1964, there’s a good chance thatwage-and-price inflation would have eaten up any benefit theyderived and put them back in the same old box. Also, overthose three years there have been further gains in internationalmonetary co?peration. Goodness knows what would havehappened to the whole system with devaluation in 1964.
Without that three-year international effort—that rearguardaction, you might say—sterling might have collapsed in muchgreater disorder⁴²⁹, with far more damaging repercussions⁴³⁰ thanwe’ve seen even now. Remember that, after all, our effort andthe effort of the other central-banks wasn’t to hold up sterlingfor its own sake. It was to hold it up for the sake ofpreserving the system. And the system has survived.”
Hayes, on the surface, seemed exactly as he had when I lastsaw him, a year and a half earlier—as placid⁴³¹ and unruffled asif he had been spending all that time studying up on Corfu. Iasked him whether he was still living up to his principle ofkeeping bankers’ hours, and he replied, smiling very slightly,that the principle had long since yielded to expediency—that, asa time consumer, the 1967 sterling crisis had made the 1964crisis seem like child’s play, and that the subsequent dollarcrisis was turning out to be more of the same. A side benefitof the whole three-and-a-half-year affair, he said, was that itsfrequently excruciating melodrama had contributed something toMrs. Hayes’ interest in banking, and even something, if not somuch, to the position of business in Tom’s scale of values.
When Hayes spoke of the devaluation, however, I saw thathis placidity⁴³² was a mask. “Oh, I was disappointed, all right,” hesaid quietly. “After all, we worked like the devil to prevent it.
And we nearly did. In my opinion, Britain could have gotenough assistance from abroad to hold the rate. It could havebeen done without France. Britain chose to devalue. I thinkthere’s a good chance that the devaluation will eventually be asuccess. And the gain for international co?peration is beyondquestion. Charlie Coombs and I could feel that at Frankfurt inNovember, at the gold-pool meeting—a sense everyone therehad that now is the time to lock arms. But still …” Hayespaused, and when he spoke again his voice was full of suchquiet force that I saw the devaluation through his eyes—not asjust a severe professional reverse but as an ideal lost and anidol fallen. He said, “That day in November, here at the bank,when a courier brought me the top-secret British documentinforming us of the decision to devalue, I felt physically⁴³³ sick.
Sterling would not be the same. It would never again commandthe same amount of faith around the world.”

The End

1 maiden   

n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的

参考例句：

• The prince fell in love with a fair young maiden.王子爱上了一位年轻美丽的少女。
• The aircraft makes its maiden flight tomorrow.这架飞机明天首航。

2 dozed   

v.打盹儿，打瞌睡( doze的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He boozed till daylight and dozed into the afternoon. 他喝了个通霄，昏沉沉地一直睡到下午。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• I dozed off during the soporific music. 我听到这催人入睡的音乐，便不知不觉打起盹儿来了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 dignified   

a.可敬的，高贵的

参考例句：

• Throughout his trial he maintained a dignified silence. 在整个审讯过程中，他始终沉默以保持尊严。
• He always strikes such a dignified pose before his girlfriend. 他总是在女友面前摆出这种庄严的姿态。

4 varied   

adj.多样的，多变化的

参考例句：

• The forms of art are many and varied.艺术的形式是多种多样的。
• The hotel has a varied programme of nightly entertainment.宾馆有各种晚间娱乐活动。

5 soot   

n.煤烟，烟尘；vt.熏以煤烟

参考例句：

• Soot is the product of the imperfect combustion of fuel.煤烟是燃料不完全燃烧的产物。
• The chimney was choked with soot.烟囱被煤灰堵塞了。

6 adorn   

vt.使美化，装饰

参考例句：

• She loved to adorn herself with finery.她喜欢穿戴华丽的服饰。
• His watercolour designs adorn a wide range of books.他的水彩设计使许多图书大为生色。

7 illuminate   

vt.照亮，照明；用灯光装饰；说明，阐释

参考例句：

• Dreams kindle a flame to illuminate our dark roads.梦想点燃火炬照亮我们黑暗的道路。
• They use games and drawings to illuminate their subject.他们用游戏和图画来阐明他们的主题。

8 vault   

n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室

参考例句：

• The vault of this cathedral is very high.这座天主教堂的拱顶非常高。
• The old patrician was buried in the family vault.这位老贵族埋在家族的墓地里。

9 par   

n.标准，票面价值，平均数量；adj.票面的，平常的，标准的

参考例句：

• Sales of nylon have been below par in recent years.近年来尼龙织品的销售额一直不及以往。
• I don't think his ability is on a par with yours.我认为他的能力不能与你的能力相媲美。

10 hordes   

n.移动着的一大群( horde的名词复数 )；部落

参考例句：

• There are always hordes of tourists here in the summer. 夏天这里总有成群结队的游客。
• Hordes of journalists jostled for position outside the conference hall. 大群记者在会堂外争抢位置。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 dour   

adj.冷酷的，严厉的；（岩石）嶙峋的；顽强不屈

参考例句：

• They were exposed to dour resistance.他们遭受到顽强的抵抗。
• She always pretends to be dour,in fact,she's not.她总表现的不爱讲话，事实却相反。

12 mire   

n.泥沼，泥泞；v.使...陷于泥泞，使...陷入困境

参考例句：

• I don't want my son's good name dragged through the mire.我不想使我儿子的名誉扫地。
• He has rescued me from the mire of misery.他把我从苦海里救了出来。

13 debonair   

adj.殷勤的，快乐的

参考例句：

• He strolled about,look very debonair in his elegant new suit.他穿了一身讲究的新衣服逛来逛去，显得颇为惬意。
• He was a handsome,debonair,death-defying racing-driver.他是一位英俊潇洒、风流倜傥、敢于挑战死神的赛车手。

14 stylish   

adj.流行的，时髦的；漂亮的，气派的

参考例句：

• He's a stylish dresser.他是个穿着很有格调的人。
• What stylish women are wearing in Paris will be worn by women all over the world.巴黎女性时装往往会引导世界时装潮流。

15 epitome   

n.典型，梗概

参考例句：

• He is the epitome of goodness.他是善良的典范。
• This handbook is a neat epitome of everyday hygiene.这本手册概括了日常卫生的要点。

16 reverent   

adj.恭敬的，虔诚的

参考例句：

• He gave reverent attention to the teacher.他恭敬地听老师讲课。
• She said the word artist with a gentle,understanding,reverent smile.她说作家一词时面带高雅，理解和虔诚的微笑。

17 obeisance   

n.鞠躬，敬礼

参考例句：

• He made obeisance to the king.他向国王表示臣服。
• While he was still young and strong all paid obeisance to him.他年轻力壮时所有人都对他毕恭毕敬。

18 possessed   

adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的

参考例句：

• He flew out of the room like a man possessed.他像着了魔似地猛然冲出房门。
• He behaved like someone possessed.他行为举止像是魔怔了。

19 epic   

n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的

参考例句：

• I gave up my epic and wrote this little tale instead.我放弃了写叙事诗，而写了这个小故事。
• They held a banquet of epic proportions.他们举行了盛大的宴会。

20 sinister   

adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的

参考例句：

• There is something sinister at the back of that series of crimes.在这一系列罪行背后有险恶的阴谋。
• Their proposals are all worthless and designed out of sinister motives.他们的建议不仅一钱不值，而且包藏祸心。

21 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

22 landmark   

n.陆标，划时代的事，地界标

参考例句：

• The Russian Revolution represents a landmark in world history.俄国革命是世界历史上的一个里程碑。
• The tower was once a landmark for ships.这座塔曾是船只的陆标。

23 oar   

n.桨，橹，划手；v.划行

参考例句：

• The sailors oar slowly across the river.水手们慢慢地划过河去。
• The blade of the oar was bitten off by a shark.浆叶被一条鲨鱼咬掉了。

24 banking   

n.银行业，银行学，金融业

参考例句：

• John is launching his son on a career in banking.约翰打算让儿子在银行界谋一个新职位。
• He possesses an extensive knowledge of banking.他具有广博的银行业务知识。

25 dual   

adj.双的；二重的，二元的

参考例句：

• The people's Republic of China does not recognize dual nationality for any Chinese national.中华人民共和国不承认中国公民具有双重国籍。
• He has dual role as composer and conductor.他兼作曲家及指挥的双重身分。

26 monetary   

adj.货币的，钱的；通货的；金融的；财政的

参考例句：

• The monetary system of some countries used to be based on gold.过去有些国家的货币制度是金本位制的。
• Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。

27 throttles   

n.控制油、气流的阀门( throttle的名词复数 )；喉咙，气管v.扼杀( throttle的第三人称单数 )；勒死；使窒息；压制

参考例句：

• The Vimy, throttles full open, began to roll slowly down the field. “维米号”开足了马力，在机场上开始慢慢滑行。 来自英汉非文学 - 百科语料821
• Throttles dense solutions of paper mill stock for headbox flow control, etc. 用于压头箱流体控制的造纸厂原料的稠密流体节流，等等。 来自互联网

28 virtue   

n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力

参考例句：

• He was considered to be a paragon of virtue.他被认为是品德尽善尽美的典范。
• You need to decorate your mind with virtue.你应该用德行美化心灵。

29 treasury   

n.宝库；国库，金库；文库

参考例句：

• The Treasury was opposed in principle to the proposals.财政部原则上反对这些提案。
• This book is a treasury of useful information.这本书是有价值的信息宝库。

30 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。

31 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

32 privately   

adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地

参考例句：

• Some ministers admit privately that unemployment could continue to rise.一些部长私下承认失业率可能继续升高。
• The man privately admits that his motive is profits.那人私下承认他的动机是为了牟利。

33 dividends   

红利( dividend的名词复数 )； 股息； 被除数； （足球彩票的）彩金

参考例句：

• Nothing pays richer dividends than magnanimity. 没有什么比宽宏大量更能得到厚报。
• Their decision five years ago to computerise the company is now paying dividends. 五年前他们作出的使公司电脑化的决定现在正产生出效益。

34 dire   

adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的

参考例句：

• There were dire warnings about the dangers of watching too much TV.曾经有人就看电视太多的危害性提出严重警告。
• We were indeed in dire straits.But we pulled through.那时我们的困难真是大极了，但是我们渡过了困难。

35 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

36 advantageous   

adj.有利的；有帮助的

参考例句：

• Injections of vitamin C are obviously advantageous.注射维生素C显然是有利的。
• You're in a very advantageous position.你处于非常有利的地位。

37 bureaucrats   

n.官僚( bureaucrat的名词复数 )；官僚主义；官僚主义者；官僚语言

参考例句：

• That is the fate of the bureaucrats, not the inspiration of statesmen. 那是官僚主义者的命运，而不是政治家的灵感。 来自辞典例句
• Big business and dozens of anonymous bureaucrats have as much power as Japan's top elected leaders. 大企业和许多不知名的官僚同日本选举出来的最高层领导者们的权力一样大。 来自辞典例句

38 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

39 steadily   

adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地

参考例句：

• The scope of man's use of natural resources will steadily grow.人类利用自然资源的广度将日益扩大。
• Our educational reform was steadily led onto the correct path.我们的教学改革慢慢上轨道了。

40 cupidity   

n.贪心，贪财

参考例句：

• Her cupidity is well known.她的贪婪尽人皆知。
• His eyes gave him away,shining with cupidity.他的眼里闪着贪婪的光芒，使他暴露无遗。

41 aristocrats   

n.贵族( aristocrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Many aristocrats were killed in the French Revolution. 许多贵族在法国大革命中被处死。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• To the Guillotine all aristocrats! 把全部贵族都送上断头台！ 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

42 nominally   

在名义上，表面地； 应名儿

参考例句：

• Dad, nominally a Methodist, entered Churches only for weddings and funerals. 爸名义上是卫理公会教徒，可只去教堂参加婚礼和葬礼。
• The company could not indicate a person even nominally responsible for staff training. 该公司甚至不能指出一个名义上负责职员培训的人。

43 shuddering   

v.战栗( shudder的现在分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动

参考例句：

• 'I am afraid of it,'she answered, shuddering. “我害怕，”她发着抖，说。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记
• She drew a deep shuddering breath. 她不由得打了个寒噤，深深吸了口气。 来自飘（部分）

44 ominous   

adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的

参考例句：

• Those black clouds look ominous for our picnic.那些乌云对我们的野餐来说是个不祥之兆。
• There was an ominous silence at the other end of the phone.电话那头出现了不祥的沉默。

45 ominously   

adv.恶兆地，不吉利地；预示地

参考例句：

• The wheels scooped up stones which hammered ominously under the car. 车轮搅起的石块，在车身下发出不吉祥的锤击声。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Mammy shook her head ominously. 嬷嬷不祥地摇着头。 来自飘（部分）

46 reposed   

v.将（手臂等）靠在某人（某物）上( repose的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Mr. Cruncher reposed under a patchwork counterpane, like a Harlequin at home. 克朗彻先生盖了一床白衲衣图案的花哨被子，像是呆在家里的丑角。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记
• An old man reposed on a bench in the park. 一位老人躺在公园的长凳上。 来自辞典例句

47 inundated   

v.淹没( inundate的过去式和过去分词 )；（洪水般地）涌来；充满；给予或交予（太多事物）使难以应付

参考例句：

• We have been inundated with offers of help. 主动援助多得使我们应接不暇。
• We have been inundated with every bit of information imaginable. 凡是想得到的各种各样的信息潮水般地向我们涌来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

48 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

49 dabble   

v.涉足，浅赏

参考例句：

• They dabble in the stock market.他们少量投资于股市。
• Never dabble with things of which you have no knowledge.绝不要插手你不了解的事物。

50 stimulating   

adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的

参考例句：

• shower gel containing plant extracts that have a stimulating effect on the skin 含有对皮肤有益的植物精华的沐浴凝胶
• This is a drug for stimulating nerves. 这是一种兴奋剂。

51 fore   

adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部

参考例句：

• Your seat is in the fore part of the aircraft.你的座位在飞机的前部。
• I have the gift of fore knowledge.我能够未卜先知。

52 dabbling   

v.涉猎( dabble的现在分词 )；涉足；浅尝；少量投资

参考例句：

• She swims twice a week and has been dabbling in weight training. 她一周游两次泳，偶尔还练习一下举重。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The boy is dabbling his hand in the water. 这孩子正用手玩水。 来自辞典例句

53 assay   

n.试验，测定

参考例句：

• The assay result of that material is rich in iron.化验结果表明那种物质含铁量丰富。
• The ore assay 75 percent of gold.这种矿石经分析证明含金百分之七十五。

54 citadel   

n.城堡；堡垒；避难所

参考例句：

• The citadel was solid.城堡是坚固的。
• This citadel is built on high ground for protecting the city.这座城堡建于高处是为保护城市。

55 incipiently   

adv.起初地，早期地

参考例句：

56 faltering   

犹豫的，支吾的，蹒跚的

参考例句：

• The economy shows no signs of faltering. 经济没有衰退的迹象。
• I canfeel my legs faltering. 我感到我的腿在颤抖。

57 deficit   

n.亏空，亏损；赤字，逆差

参考例句：

• The directors have reported a deficit of 2.5 million dollars.董事们报告赤字为250万美元。
• We have a great deficit this year.我们今年有很大亏损。

58 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

59 gallant   

adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的

参考例句：

• Huang Jiguang's gallant deed is known by all men. 黄继光的英勇事迹尽人皆知。
• These gallant soldiers will protect our country.这些勇敢的士兵会保卫我们的国家的。

60 sterling   

adj.英币的(纯粹的，货真价实的)；n.英国货币(英镑)

参考例句：

• Could you tell me the current rate for sterling, please?能否请您告诉我现行英国货币的兑换率？
• Sterling has recently been strong,which will help to abate inflationary pressures.英国货币最近非常坚挺，这有助于减轻通胀压力。

61 imposing   

adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的

参考例句：

• The fortress is an imposing building.这座城堡是一座宏伟的建筑。
• He has lost his imposing appearance.他已失去堂堂仪表。

62 belittle   

v.轻视，小看，贬低

参考例句：

• Do not belittle what he has achieved.不能小看他取得的成绩。
• When you belittle others,you are actually the one who appears small.当你轻视他人时， 真正渺小的其实是你自己。

63 equilibrium   

n.平衡，均衡，相称，均势，平静

参考例句：

• Change in the world around us disturbs our inner equilibrium.我们周围世界的变化扰乱了我们内心的平静。
• This is best expressed in the form of an equilibrium constant.这最好用平衡常数的形式来表示。

64 annually   

adv.一年一次，每年

参考例句：

• Many migratory birds visit this lake annually.许多候鸟每年到这个湖上作短期逗留。
• They celebrate their wedding anniversary annually.他们每年庆祝一番结婚纪念日。

65 affluent   

adj.富裕的，富有的，丰富的，富饶的

参考例句：

• He hails from an affluent background.他出身于一个富有的家庭。
• His parents were very affluent.他的父母很富裕。

66 costly   

adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的

参考例句：

• It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
• This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用，左不过贵了些。

67 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

68 torrent   

n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发

参考例句：

• The torrent scoured a channel down the hillside. 急流沿着山坡冲出了一条沟。
• Her pent-up anger was released in a torrent of words.她压抑的愤怒以滔滔不绝的话爆发了出来。

69 foul   

adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规

参考例句：

• Take off those foul clothes and let me wash them.脱下那些脏衣服让我洗一洗。
• What a foul day it is!多么恶劣的天气！

70 lockers   

n.寄物柜( locker的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• I care about more lockers for the teachers. 我关心教师要有更多的储物柜。 来自辞典例句
• Passengers are requested to stow their hand-baggage in the lockers above the seats. 旅客须将随身携带的行李放入座位上方的贮藏柜里。 来自辞典例句

71 quota   

n.（生产、进出口等的）配额，（移民的）限额

参考例句：

• A restricted import quota was set for meat products.肉类产品设定了进口配额。
• He overfulfilled his production quota for two months running.他一连两个月超额完成生产指标。

72 quotations   

n.引用( quotation的名词复数 )；[商业]行情（报告）；（货物或股票的）市价；时价

参考例句：

• The insurance company requires three quotations for repairs to the car. 保险公司要修理这辆汽车的三家修理厂的报价单。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• These quotations cannot readily be traced to their sources. 这些引语很难查出出自何处。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

73 quotation   

n.引文，引语，语录；报价，牌价，行情

参考例句：

• He finished his speech with a quotation from Shakespeare.他讲话结束时引用了莎士比亚的语录。
• The quotation is omitted here.此处引文从略。

74 gust   

n.阵风，突然一阵（雨、烟等），（感情的）迸发

参考例句：

• A gust of wind blew the front door shut.一阵大风吹来，把前门关上了。
• A gust of happiness swept through her.一股幸福的暖流流遍她的全身。

75 rout   

n.溃退，溃败；v.击溃，打垮

参考例句：

• The enemy was put to rout all along the line.敌人已全线崩溃。
• The people's army put all to rout wherever they went.人民军队所向披靡。

76 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

77 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

78 fluctuations   

波动，涨落，起伏( fluctuation的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He showed the price fluctuations in a statistical table. 他用统计表显示价格的波动。
• There were so many unpredictable fluctuations on the Stock Exchange. 股票市场瞬息万变。

79 severely   

adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地

参考例句：

• He was severely criticized and removed from his post.他受到了严厉的批评并且被撤了职。
• He is severely put down for his careless work.他因工作上的粗心大意而受到了严厉的批评。

80 coup   

n.政变；突然而成功的行动

参考例句：

• The monarch was ousted by a military coup.那君主被军事政变者废黜了。
• That government was overthrown in a military coup three years ago.那个政府在3年前的军事政变中被推翻。

81 abridgment   

n.删节，节本

参考例句：

• An abridgment of the book has been published for young readers.他们为年轻读者出版了这本书的节本。
• This abridgment provides a concise presentation of this masterpiece of Buddhist literature.这个删节本提供了简明介绍佛教文学的杰作。

82 smoothly   

adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地

参考例句：

• The workmen are very cooperative,so the work goes on smoothly.工人们十分合作，所以工作进展顺利。
• Just change one or two words and the sentence will read smoothly.这句话只要动一两个字就顺了。

83 thereby   

adv.因此，从而

参考例句：

• I have never been to that city,,ereby I don't know much about it.我从未去过那座城市，因此对它不怎么熟悉。
• He became a British citizen,thereby gaining the right to vote.他成了英国公民，因而得到了投票权。

84 vagaries   

n.奇想( vagary的名词复数 )；异想天开；异常行为；难以预测的情况

参考例句：

• The vagaries of fortune are indeed curious.\" 命运的变化莫测真是不可思议。” 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• The vagaries of inclement weather conditions are avoided to a certain extent. 可以在一定程度上避免变化莫测的恶劣气候影响。 来自辞典例句

85 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

86 prudent   

adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的

参考例句：

• A prudent traveller never disparages his own country.聪明的旅行者从不贬低自己的国家。
• You must school yourself to be modest and prudent.你要学会谦虚谨慎。

87 pounce   

n.猛扑；v.猛扑，突然袭击，欣然同意

参考例句：

• Why do you pounce on every single thing I say?干吗我说的每句话你都要找麻烦？
• We saw the tiger about to pounce on the goat.我们看见老虎要向那只山羊扑过去。

88 speculative   

adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的

参考例句：

• Much of our information is speculative.我们的许多信息是带推测性的。
• The report is highly speculative and should be ignored.那个报道推测的成分很大，不应理会。

89 straightforward   

adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的

参考例句：

• A straightforward talk is better than a flowery speech.巧言不如直说。
• I must insist on your giving me a straightforward answer.我一定要你给我一个直截了当的回答。

90 disastrous   

adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的

参考例句：

• The heavy rainstorm caused a disastrous flood.暴雨成灾。
• Her investment had disastrous consequences.She lost everything she owned.她的投资结果很惨，血本无归。

91 bankruptcy   

n.破产；无偿付能力

参考例句：

• You will have to pull in if you want to escape bankruptcy.如果你想避免破产，就必须节省开支。
• His firm is just on thin ice of bankruptcy.他的商号正面临破产的危险。

92 evaluation   

n.估价，评价；赋值

参考例句：

• I attempted an honest evaluation of my own life.我试图如实地评价我自己的一生。
• The new scheme is still under evaluation.新方案还在评估阶段。

93 unwilling   

adj.不情愿的

参考例句：

• The natives were unwilling to be bent by colonial power.土著居民不愿受殖民势力的摆布。
• His tightfisted employer was unwilling to give him a raise.他那吝啬的雇主不肯给他加薪。

94 fulfill   

vt.履行，实现，完成；满足，使满意

参考例句：

• If you make a promise you should fulfill it.如果你许诺了，你就要履行你的诺言。
• This company should be able to fulfill our requirements.这家公司应该能够满足我们的要求。

95 abrupt   

adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的

参考例句：

• The river takes an abrupt bend to the west.这河突然向西转弯。
• His abrupt reply hurt our feelings.他粗鲁的回答伤了我们的感情。

96 abrogated   

废除（法律等）( abrogate的过去式和过去分词 )； 取消； 去掉； 抛开

参考例句：

• The president abrogated an old law. 总统废除了一项旧法令。
• This law has been abrogated. 这项法令今已取消。

97 parity   

n.平价，等价，比价，对等

参考例句：

• The two currencies have now reached parity.这两种货币现已达到同等价值。
• Women have yet to achieve wage or occupational parity in many fields.女性在很多领域还没能争取到薪金、职位方面的平等。

98 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

99 radical   

n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的

参考例句：

• The patient got a radical cure in the hospital.病人在医院得到了根治。
• She is radical in her demands.她的要求十分偏激。

100 contagious   

adj.传染性的，有感染力的

参考例句：

• It's a highly contagious infection.这种病极易传染。
• He's got a contagious laugh.他的笑富有感染力。

101 vaults   

n.拱顶( vault的名词复数 )；地下室；撑物跳高；墓穴

参考例句：

• It was deposited in the vaults of a bank. 它存在一家银行的保险库里。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They think of viruses that infect an organization from the outside.They envision hackers breaking into their information vaults. 他们考虑来自外部的感染公司的病毒，他们设想黑客侵入到信息宝库中。 来自《简明英汉词典》

102 rumors   

n.传闻( rumor的名词复数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷v.传闻( rumor的第三人称单数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷

参考例句：

• Rumors have it that the school was burned down. 有谣言说学校给烧掉了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Rumors of a revolt were afloat. 叛变的谣言四起。 来自《简明英汉词典》

103 rumor   

n.谣言，谣传，传说

参考例句：

• The rumor has been traced back to a bad man.那谣言经追查是个坏人造的。
• The rumor has taken air.谣言流传开了。

104 inclination   

n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好

参考例句：

• She greeted us with a slight inclination of the head.她微微点头向我们致意。
• I did not feel the slightest inclination to hurry.我没有丝毫着急的意思。

105 convertible   

adj.可改变的，可交换，同意义的；n.有活动摺篷的汽车

参考例句：

• The convertible sofa means that the apartment can sleep four.有了这张折叠沙发，公寓里可以睡下4个人。
• That new white convertible is totally awesome.那辆新的白色折篷汽车简直棒极了。

106 ripple   

n.涟波，涟漪，波纹，粗钢梳；vt.使...起涟漪，使起波纹； vi.呈波浪状，起伏前进

参考例句：

• The pebble made a ripple on the surface of the lake.石子在湖面上激起一个涟漪。
• The small ripple split upon the beach.小小的涟漪卷来，碎在沙滩上。

107 speculation   

n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机

参考例句：

• Her mind is occupied with speculation.她的头脑忙于思考。
• There is widespread speculation that he is going to resign.人们普遍推测他要辞职。

108 recipients   

adj.接受的；受领的；容纳的；愿意接受的n.收件人；接受者；受领者；接受器

参考例句：

• The recipients of the prizes had their names printed in the paper. 获奖者的姓名登在报上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The recipients of prizes had their names printed in the paper. 获奖者名单登在报上。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

109 halved   

v.把…分成两半( halve的过去式和过去分词 )；把…减半；对分；平摊

参考例句：

• The shares have halved in value . 股价已经跌了一半。
• Overall operating profits halved to $24 million. 总的营业利润减少了一半，降至2，400 万元。 来自《简明英汉词典》

110 preeminent   

adj.卓越的，杰出的

参考例句：

• Washington was recognized as the preeminent spokesman of American Negroes by 1895. 到1895年,华盛顿被公认为美国黑人的卓越代言人。
• He is preeminent because his articles are well written. 他的文章写得很漂亮,卓尔不群。

111 diligent   

adj.勤勉的，勤奋的

参考例句：

• He is the more diligent of the two boys.他是这两个男孩中较用功的一个。
• She is diligent and keeps herself busy all the time.她真勤快，一会儿也不闲着。

112 tact   

n.机敏，圆滑，得体

参考例句：

• She showed great tact in dealing with a tricky situation.她处理棘手的局面表现得十分老练。
• Tact is a valuable commodity.圆滑老练是很有用处的。

113 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。

114 uncertainty   

n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物

参考例句：

• Her comments will add to the uncertainty of the situation.她的批评将会使局势更加不稳定。
• After six weeks of uncertainty,the strain was beginning to take its toll.6个星期的忐忑不安后，压力开始产生影响了。

115 continental   

adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的

参考例句：

• A continental climate is different from an insular one.大陆性气候不同于岛屿气候。
• The most ancient parts of the continental crust are 4000 million years old.大陆地壳最古老的部分有40亿年历史。

116 irrational   

adj.无理性的，失去理性的

参考例句：

• After taking the drug she became completely irrational.她在吸毒后变得完全失去了理性。
• There are also signs of irrational exuberance among some investors.在某些投资者中是存在非理性繁荣的征象的。

117 advisers   

顾问，劝告者( adviser的名词复数 )； （指导大学新生学科问题等的）指导教授

参考例句：

• a member of the President's favoured circle of advisers 总统宠爱的顾问班子中的一员
• She withdrew to confer with her advisers before announcing a decision. 她先去请教顾问然后再宣布决定。

118 explicitly   

ad.明确地，显然地

参考例句：

• The plan does not explicitly endorse the private ownership of land. 该计划没有明确地支持土地私有制。
• SARA amended section 113 to provide explicitly for a right to contribution. 《最高基金修正与再授权法案》修正了第123条，清楚地规定了分配权。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

119 extolled   

v.赞颂，赞扬，赞美( extol的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school. 他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Tessenow decried the metropolis and extolled the peasant virtues. 特森诺夫痛诋大都市，颂扬农民的美德。 来自辞典例句

120 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

121 conspicuously   

ad.明显地，惹人注目地

参考例句：

• France remained a conspicuously uneasy country. 法国依然是个明显不太平的国家。
• She figured conspicuously in the public debate on the issue. 她在该问题的公开辩论中很引人注目。

122 dealer   

n.商人，贩子

参考例句：

• The dealer spent hours bargaining for the painting.那个商人为购买那幅画花了几个小时讨价还价。
• The dealer reduced the price for cash down.这家商店对付现金的人减价优惠。

123 dealers   

n.商人( dealer的名词复数 )；贩毒者；毒品贩子；发牌者

参考例句：

• There was fast bidding between private collectors and dealers. 私人收藏家和交易商急速竞相喊价。
• The police were corrupt and were operating in collusion with the drug dealers. 警察腐败，与那伙毒品贩子内外勾结。

124 diffused   

散布的，普及的，扩散的

参考例句：

• A drop of milk diffused in the water. 一滴牛奶在水中扩散开来。
• Gases and liquids diffused. 气体和液体慢慢混合了。

125 simultaneously   

adv.同时发生地，同时进行地

参考例句：

• The radar beam can track a number of targets almost simultaneously.雷达波几乎可以同时追着多个目标。
• The Windows allow a computer user to execute multiple programs simultaneously.Windows允许计算机用户同时运行多个程序。

126 misgivings   

n.疑虑，担忧，害怕；疑虑，担心，恐惧( misgiving的名词复数 )；疑惧

参考例句：

• I had grave misgivings about making the trip. 对于这次旅行我有过极大的顾虑。
• Don't be overtaken by misgivings and fear. Just go full stream ahead! 不要瞻前顾后， 畏首畏尾。甩开膀子干吧！ 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

127 outlay   

n.费用，经费，支出；v.花费

参考例句：

• There was very little outlay on new machinery.添置新机器的开支微乎其微。
• The outlay seems to bear no relation to the object aimed at.这费用似乎和预期目的完全不相称。

128 exchequer   

n.财政部；国库

参考例句：

• In Britain the Chancellor of the Exchequer deals with taxes and government spending.英国的财政大臣负责税务和政府的开支。
• This resulted in a considerable loss to the exchequer.这使国库遭受了重大损失。

129 electorate   

n.全体选民；选区

参考例句：

• The government was responsible to the electorate.政府对全体选民负责。
• He has the backing of almost a quarter of the electorate.他得到了几乎1/4选民的支持。

130 imminent   

adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的

参考例句：

• The black clounds show that a storm is imminent.乌云预示暴风雨即将来临。
• The country is in imminent danger.国难当头。

131 strictly   

adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地

参考例句：

• His doctor is dieting him strictly.他的医生严格规定他的饮食。
• The guests were seated strictly in order of precedence.客人严格按照地位高低就座。

132 defensive   

adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的

参考例句：

• Their questions about the money put her on the defensive.他们问到钱的问题，使她警觉起来。
• The Government hastily organized defensive measures against the raids.政府急忙布置了防卫措施抵御空袭。

133 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

134 ammunition   

n.军火，弹药

参考例句：

• A few of the jeeps had run out of ammunition.几辆吉普车上的弹药已经用光了。
• They have expended all their ammunition.他们把弹药用光。

135 intensify   

vt.加强；变强；加剧

参考例句：

• We must intensify our educational work among our own troops.我们必须加强自己部队的教育工作。
• They were ordered to intensify their patrols to protect our air space.他们奉命加强巡逻，保卫我国的领空。

136 immediate   

adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的

参考例句：

• His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
• We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。

137 chancellor   

n.(英)大臣；法官；(德、奥)总理；大学校长

参考例句：

• They submitted their reports to the Chancellor yesterday.他们昨天向财政大臣递交了报告。
• He was regarded as the most successful Chancellor of modern times.他被认为是现代最成功的财政大臣。

138 reassured   

adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词)

参考例句：

• The captain's confidence during the storm reassured the passengers. 在风暴中船长的信念使旅客们恢复了信心。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• The doctor reassured the old lady. 医生叫那位老妇人放心。 来自《简明英汉词典》

139 jargon   

n.术语，行话

参考例句：

• They will not hear critics with their horrible jargon.他们不愿意听到评论家们那些可怕的行话。
• It is important not to be overawed by the mathematical jargon.要紧的是不要被数学的术语所吓倒.

140 arsenal   

n.兵工厂，军械库

参考例句：

• Even the workers at the arsenal have got a secret organization.兵工厂工人暗中也有组织。
• We must be the great arsenal of democracy.我们必须成为民主的大军火库。

141 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

142 legitimate   

adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法

参考例句：

• Sickness is a legitimate reason for asking for leave.生病是请假的一个正当的理由。
• That's a perfectly legitimate fear.怀有这种恐惧完全在情理之中。

143 legitimately   

ad.合法地；正当地，合理地

参考例句：

• The radio is legitimately owned by the company. 该电台为这家公司所合法拥有。
• She looked for nothing save what might come legitimately and without the appearance of special favour. 她要的并不是男人们的额外恩赐，而是合法正当地得到的工作。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

144 withhold   

v.拒绝，不给；使停止，阻挡

参考例句：

• It was unscrupulous of their lawyer to withhold evidence.他们的律师隐瞒证据是不道德的。
• I couldn't withhold giving some loose to my indignation.我忍不住要发泄一点我的愤怒。

145 prevailing   

adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的

参考例句：

• She wears a fashionable hair style prevailing in the city.她的发型是这个城市流行的款式。
• This reflects attitudes and values prevailing in society.这反映了社会上盛行的态度和价值观。

146 maneuver   

n.策略[pl.]演习；v.(巧妙)控制；用策略

参考例句：

• All the fighters landed safely on the airport after the military maneuver.在军事演习后，所有战斗机都安全降落在机场上。
• I did get her attention with this maneuver.我用这个策略确实引起了她的注意。

147 gambling   

n.赌博；投机

参考例句：

• They have won a lot of money through gambling.他们赌博赢了很多钱。
• The men have been gambling away all night.那些人赌了整整一夜。

148 gnomes   

n.矮子( gnome的名词复数 )；侏儒；（尤指金融市场上搞投机的）银行家；守护神

参考例句：

• I have a wonderful recipe: bring two gnomes, two eggs. 我有一个绝妙的配方：准备两个侏儒，两个鸡蛋。 来自互联网
• Illusions cast by gnomes from a small village have started becoming real. 53侏儒对一个小村庄施放的幻术开始变为真实。 来自互联网

149 rigidly   

adv.刻板地，僵化地

参考例句：

• Life today is rigidly compartmentalized into work and leisure. 当今的生活被严格划分为工作和休闲两部分。
• The curriculum is rigidly prescribed from an early age. 自儿童时起即已开始有严格的课程设置。

150 rigid   

adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的

参考例句：

• She became as rigid as adamant.她变得如顽石般的固执。
• The examination was so rigid that nearly all aspirants were ruled out.考试很严，几乎所有的考生都被淘汰了。

151 anonymity   

n.the condition of being anonymous

参考例句：

• Names of people in the book were changed to preserve anonymity. 为了姓名保密，书中的人用的都是化名。
• Our company promises to preserve the anonymity of all its clients. 我们公司承诺不公开客户的姓名。

152 addicted   

adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的

参考例句：

• He was addicted to heroin at the age of 17.他17岁的时候对海洛因上了瘾。
• She's become addicted to love stories.她迷上了爱情小说。

153 defenders   

n.防御者( defender的名词复数 )；守卫者；保护者；辩护者

参考例句：

• The defenders were outnumbered and had to give in. 抵抗者寡不敌众，只能投降。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• After hard fighting,the defenders were still masters of the city. 守军经过奋战仍然控制着城市。 来自《简明英汉词典》

154 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

155 gatherings   

聚集( gathering的名词复数 )； 收集； 采集； 搜集

参考例句：

• His conduct at social gatherings created a lot of comment. 他在社交聚会上的表现引起许多闲话。
• During one of these gatherings a pupil caught stealing. 有一次，其中一名弟子偷窃被抓住。

156 considerably   

adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上

参考例句：

• The economic situation has changed considerably.经济形势已发生了相当大的变化。
• The gap has narrowed considerably.分歧大大缩小了。

157 hip   

n.臀部，髋；屋脊

参考例句：

• The thigh bone is connected to the hip bone.股骨连着髋骨。
• The new coats blouse gracefully above the hip line.新外套在臀围线上优美地打着褶皱。

158 poker   

n.扑克；vt.烙制

参考例句：

• He was cleared out in the poker game.他打扑克牌，把钱都输光了。
• I'm old enough to play poker and do something with it.我打扑克是老手了，可以玩些花样。

159 indifference   

n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎

参考例句：

• I was disappointed by his indifference more than somewhat.他的漠不关心使我很失望。
• He feigned indifference to criticism of his work.他假装毫不在意别人批评他的作品。

160 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

161 catastrophe   

n.大灾难，大祸

参考例句：

• I owe it to you that I survived the catastrophe.亏得你我才大难不死。
• This is a catastrophe beyond human control.这是一场人类无法控制的灾难。

162 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

163 milestone   

n.里程碑；划时代的事件

参考例句：

• The film proved to be a milestone in the history of cinema.事实证明这部影片是电影史上的一个里程碑。
• I think this is a very important milestone in the relations between our two countries.我认为这是我们两国关系中一个十分重要的里程碑。

164 machinery   

n.(总称)机械，机器；机构

参考例句：

• Has the machinery been put up ready for the broadcast?广播器材安装完毕了吗？
• Machinery ought to be well maintained all the time.机器应该随时注意维护。

165 inadequate   

adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的

参考例句：

• The supply is inadequate to meet the demand.供不应求。
• She was inadequate to the demands that were made on her.她还无力满足对她提出的各项要求。

166 revolving   

adj.旋转的，轮转式的；循环的v.（使）旋转( revolve的现在分词 )；细想

参考例句：

• The theatre has a revolving stage. 剧院有一个旋转舞台。
• The company became a revolving-door workplace. 这家公司成了工作的中转站。

167 swap   

n.交换；vt.交换，用...作交易

参考例句：

• I will swap you my bicycle for your radio.我想拿我的自行车换你的收音机。
• This comic was a swap that I got from Nick.这本漫画书是我从尼克那里换来的。

168 complement   

n.补足物，船上的定员；补语；vt.补充，补足

参考例句：

• The two suggestions complement each other.这两条建议相互补充。
• They oppose each other also complement each other.它们相辅相成。

169 initiation   

n.开始

参考例句：

• her initiation into the world of marketing 她的初次涉足营销界
• It was my initiation into the world of high fashion. 这是我初次涉足高级时装界。

170 triumphant   

adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的

参考例句：

• The army made a triumphant entry into the enemy's capital.部队胜利地进入了敌方首都。
• There was a positively triumphant note in her voice.她的声音里带有一种极为得意的语气。

171 minor   

adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修

参考例句：

• The young actor was given a minor part in the new play.年轻的男演员在这出新戏里被分派担任一个小角色。
• I gave him a minor share of my wealth.我把小部分财产给了他。

172 hunches   

预感，直觉( hunch的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• A technical sergeant hunches in a cubicle. 一位技术军士在一间小屋里弯腰坐着。
• We often test our hunches on each other. 我们经常互相检验我们的第六感觉。

173 stint   

v.节省，限制，停止；n.舍不得化，节约，限制；连续不断的一段时间从事某件事

参考例句：

• He lavished money on his children without stint.他在孩子们身上花钱毫不吝惜。
• We hope that you will not stint your criticism.我们希望您不吝指教。

174 habitually   

ad.习惯地，通常地

参考例句：

• The pain of the disease caused him habitually to furrow his brow. 病痛使他习惯性地紧皱眉头。
• Habitually obedient to John, I came up to his chair. 我已经习惯于服从约翰，我来到他的椅子跟前。

175 outweighs   

v.在重量上超过( outweigh的第三人称单数 )；在重要性或价值方面超过

参考例句：

• Her need to save money outweighs her desire to spend it on fun. 她省钱的需要比她花钱娱乐的愿望更重要。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Its clarity in algebraic and analytical operations far outweighs any drawbacks. 文化代数和解析运算中的清晰性远远胜过任何缺点。 来自辞典例句

176 luncheon   

n.午宴，午餐，便宴

参考例句：

• We have luncheon at twelve o'clock.我们十二点钟用午餐。
• I have a luncheon engagement.我午饭有约。

177 astuteness   

n.敏锐；精明；机敏

参考例句：

• His pleasant, somewhat ordinary face suggested amiability rather than astuteness. 他那讨人喜欢而近乎平庸的脸显得和蔼有余而机敏不足。 来自互联网
• Young Singaporeans seem to lack the astuteness and dynamism that they possess. 本地的一般年轻人似乎就缺少了那份机灵和朝气。 来自互联网

178 alleged   

a.被指控的，嫌疑的

参考例句：

• It was alleged that he had taken bribes while in office. 他被指称在任时收受贿赂。
• alleged irregularities in the election campaign 被指称竞选运动中的不正当行为

179 unwillingness   

n. 不愿意，不情愿

参考例句：

• Her unwillingness to answer questions undermined the strength of her position. 她不愿回答问题，这不利于她所处的形势。
• His apparent unwillingness would disappear if we paid him enough. 如果我们付足了钱，他露出的那副不乐意的神情就会消失。

180 flouting   

v.藐视，轻视( flout的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• By selling alcohol to minors,the shop is deliberately flouting the law. 向未成年人出售烈性酒，是商店故意犯罪法。 来自口语例句
• By selling alcohol to minor, the shop is deliberately flouting the law. 向未成年人出售烈性酒，是商店故意犯法。 来自互联网

181 humble   

adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低

参考例句：

• In my humble opinion,he will win the election.依我拙见，他将在选举中获胜。
• Defeat and failure make people humble.挫折与失败会使人谦卑。

182 situated   

adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的

参考例句：

• The village is situated at the margin of a forest.村子位于森林的边缘。
• She is awkwardly situated.她的处境困难。

183 heartily   

adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很

参考例句：

• He ate heartily and went out to look for his horse.他痛快地吃了一顿，就出去找他的马。
• The host seized my hand and shook it heartily.主人抓住我的手，热情地和我握手。

184 deference   

n.尊重，顺从；敬意

参考例句：

• Do you treat your parents and teachers with deference?你对父母师长尊敬吗？
• The major defect of their work was deference to authority.他们的主要缺陷是趋从权威。

185 admiration   

n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕

参考例句：

• He was lost in admiration of the beauty of the scene.他对风景之美赞不绝口。
• We have a great admiration for the gold medalists.我们对金牌获得者极为敬佩。

186 swapper   

交易者，以物易物者

参考例句：

187 breach   

n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破

参考例句：

• We won't have any breach of discipline.我们不允许任何破坏纪律的现象。
• He was sued for breach of contract.他因不履行合同而被起诉。

188 frightful   

adj.可怕的；讨厌的

参考例句：

• How frightful to have a husband who snores!有一个发鼾声的丈夫多讨厌啊！
• We're having frightful weather these days.这几天天气坏极了。

189 dwindling   

adj.逐渐减少的v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The number of wild animals on the earth is dwindling. 地球上野生动物的数量正日渐减少。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He is struggling to come to terms with his dwindling authority. 他正努力适应自己权力被削弱这一局面。 来自辞典例句

190 resolute   

adj.坚决的，果敢的

参考例句：

• He was resolute in carrying out his plan.他坚决地实行他的计划。
• The Egyptians offered resolute resistance to the aggressors.埃及人对侵略者作出坚决的反抗。

191 functionary   

n.官员；公职人员

参考例句：

• No functionary may support or cover up unfair competition acts.国家官员不得支持、包庇不正当竞争行为。
• " Emigrant," said the functionary,"I am going to send you on to Paris,under an escort."“ 外逃分子，”那官员说，“我要把你送到巴黎去，还派人护送。”

192 broker   

n.中间人，经纪人；v.作为中间人来安排

参考例句：

• He baited the broker by promises of higher commissions.他答应给更高的佣金来引诱那位经纪人。
• I'm a real estate broker.我是不动产经纪人。

193 pusillanimity   

n.无气力，胆怯

参考例句：

194 battering   

n.用坏，损坏v.连续猛击( batter的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The film took a battering from critics in the US. 该影片在美国遭遇到批评家的猛烈抨击。
• He kept battering away at the door. 他接连不断地砸门。 来自《简明英汉词典》

195 commentator   

n.注释者，解说者；实况广播评论员

参考例句：

• He is a good commentator because he can get across the game.他能简单地解说这场比赛，是个好的解说者。
• The commentator made a big mistake during the live broadcast.在直播节目中评论员犯了个大错误。

196 rhetoric   

n.修辞学，浮夸之言语

参考例句：

• Do you know something about rhetoric?你懂点修辞学吗？
• Behind all the rhetoric,his relations with the army are dangerously poised.在冠冕堂皇的言辞背后，他和军队的关系岌岌可危。

197 dread   

vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧

参考例句：

• We all dread to think what will happen if the company closes.我们都不敢去想一旦公司关门我们该怎么办。
• Her heart was relieved of its blankest dread.她极度恐惧的心理消除了。

198 daunted   

使（某人）气馁，威吓( daunt的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She was a brave woman but she felt daunted by the task ahead. 她是一个勇敢的女人，但对面前的任务却感到信心不足。
• He was daunted by the high quality of work they expected. 他被他们对工作的高品质的要求吓倒了。

199 prospect   

n.前景，前途；景色，视野

参考例句：

• This state of things holds out a cheerful prospect.事态呈现出可喜的前景。
• The prospect became more evident.前景变得更加明朗了。

200 demurring   

v.表示异议，反对( demur的现在分词 )

参考例句：

201 intensification   

n.激烈化，增强明暗度；加厚

参考例句：

• The intensification of the immunological response represents the body's natural defense. 增强免疫反应代表身体的自然保卫。 来自辞典例句
• Agriculture in the developing nations is not irreversibly committed, to a particular pattern of intensification. 发展中国家的农业并没有完全为某种集约化形式所束缚。 来自辞典例句

202 trench   

n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕

参考例句：

• The soldiers recaptured their trench.兵士夺回了战壕。
• The troops received orders to trench the outpost.部队接到命令在前哨周围筑壕加强防卫。

203 morale   

n.道德准则，士气，斗志

参考例句：

• The morale of the enemy troops is sinking lower every day.敌军的士气日益低落。
• He tried to bolster up their morale.他尽力鼓舞他们的士气。

204 sociologist   

n.研究社会学的人，社会学家

参考例句：

• His mother was a sociologist,researching socialism.他的母亲是个社会学家，研究社会主义。
• Max Weber is a great and outstanding sociologist.马克斯·韦伯是一位伟大的、杰出的社会学家。

205 garrison   

n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防

参考例句：

• The troops came to the relief of the besieged garrison.军队来援救被围的守备军。
• The German was moving to stiffen up the garrison in Sicily.德军正在加强西西里守军之力量。

206 taboo   

n.禁忌，禁止接近，禁止使用；adj.禁忌的；v.禁忌，禁制，禁止

参考例句：

• The rude words are taboo in ordinary conversation.这些粗野的字眼在日常谈话中是禁忌的。
• Is there a taboo against sex before marriage in your society?在你们的社会里，婚前的性行为犯禁吗？

207 reassuring   

a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的，使人放心的

参考例句：

• He gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. 他轻拍了一下她的肩膀让她放心。
• With a reassuring pat on her arm, he left. 他鼓励地拍了拍她的手臂就离开了。

208 extravagant   

adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的

参考例句：

• They tried to please him with fulsome compliments and extravagant gifts.他们想用溢美之词和奢华的礼品来取悦他。
• He is extravagant in behaviour.他行为放肆。

209 materialistic   

a.唯物主义的，物质享乐主义的

参考例句：

• She made him both soft and materialistic. 她把他变成女性化而又实际化。
• Materialistic dialectics is an important part of constituting Marxism. 唯物辩证法是马克思主义的重要组成部分。

210 inscribed   

v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接

参考例句：

• His name was inscribed on the trophy. 他的名字刻在奖杯上。
• The names of the dead were inscribed on the wall. 死者的名字被刻在墙上。 来自《简明英汉词典》

211 chronic   

adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的

参考例句：

• Famine differs from chronic malnutrition.饥荒不同于慢性营养不良。
• Chronic poisoning may lead to death from inanition.慢性中毒也可能由虚弱导致死亡。

212 brew   

v.酿造，调制

参考例句：

• Let's brew up some more tea.咱们沏些茶吧。
• The policeman dispelled the crowd lest they should brew trouble.警察驱散人群，因恐他们酿祸。

213 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

214 predecessors   

n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身

参考例句：

• The new government set about dismantling their predecessors' legislation. 新政府正着手废除其前任所制定的法律。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Will new plan be any more acceptable than its predecessors? 新计划比原先的计划更能令人满意吗？ 来自《简明英汉词典》

215 redeem   

v.买回，赎回，挽回，恢复，履行（诺言等）

参考例句：

• He had no way to redeem his furniture out of pawn.他无法赎回典当的家具。
• The eyes redeem the face from ugliness.这双眼睛弥补了他其貌不扬之缺陷。

216 symbolize   

vt.作为...的象征，用符号代表

参考例句：

• Easter eggs symbolize the renewal of life.复活蛋象征新生。
• Dolphins symbolize the breath of life.海豚象征着生命的气息。

217 affluence   

n.充裕，富足

参考例句：

• Their affluence is more apparent than real.他们的富有是虚有其表。
• There is a lot of affluence in this part of the state because it has many businesses.这个州的这一部分相当富有，因为它有很多商行。

218 emulation   

n.竞争；仿效

参考例句：

• The young man worked hard in emulation of his famous father.这位年轻人努力工作，要迎头赶上他出名的父亲。
• His spirit of assiduous study is worthy of emulation.他刻苦钻研的精神，值得效法。

219 retrospect   

n.回顾，追溯；v.回顾，回想，追溯

参考例句：

• One's school life seems happier in retrospect than in reality.学校生活回忆起来显得比实际上要快乐。
• In retrospect,it's easy to see why we were wrong.回顾过去就很容易明白我们的错处了。

220 monarch   

n.帝王，君主，最高统治者

参考例句：

• The monarch's role is purely ceremonial.君主纯粹是个礼仪职位。
• I think myself happier now than the greatest monarch upon earth.我觉得这个时候比世界上什么帝王都快乐。

221 civilized   

a.有教养的，文雅的

参考例句：

• Racism is abhorrent to a civilized society. 文明社会憎恶种族主义。
• rising crime in our so-called civilized societies 在我们所谓文明社会中日益增多的犯罪行为

222 bleak   

adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的

参考例句：

• They showed me into a bleak waiting room.他们引我来到一间阴冷的会客室。
• The company's prospects look pretty bleak.这家公司的前景异常暗淡。

223 depressed   

adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的

参考例句：

• When he was depressed,he felt utterly divorced from reality.他心情沮丧时就感到完全脱离了现实。
• His mother was depressed by the sad news.这个坏消息使他的母亲意志消沉。

224 unemployed   

adj.失业的，没有工作的；未动用的，闲置的

参考例句：

• There are now over four million unemployed workers in this country.这个国家现有四百万失业人员。
• The unemployed hunger for jobs.失业者渴望得到工作。

225 scion   

n.嫩芽，子孙

参考例句：

• A place is cut in the root stock to accept the scion.砧木上切开一个小口,来接受接穗。
• Nabokov was the scion of an aristocratic family.纳博科夫是一个贵族家庭的阔少。

226 irony   

n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄

参考例句：

• She said to him with slight irony.她略带嘲讽地对他说。
• In her voice we could sense a certain tinge of irony.从她的声音里我们可以感到某种讥讽的意味。

227 mooring   

n.停泊处；系泊用具，系船具；下锚v.停泊，系泊（船只）(moor的现在分词)

参考例句：

• However, all the best mooring were occupied by local fishing boats. 凡是可以泊船的地方早已被当地渔船占去了。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译
• Her mind was shaken loose from the little mooring of logic that it had. 就像小船失去了锚，她的思绪毫无逻辑地四处漂浮，一会为这个想法难受，一会为那个念头生气。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

228 pegged   

v.用夹子或钉子固定( peg的过去式和过去分词 )；使固定在某水平

参考例句：

• They pegged their tent down. 他们钉好了账篷。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She pegged down the stairs. 她急忙下楼。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

229 defiance   

n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗

参考例句：

• He climbed the ladder in defiance of the warning.他无视警告爬上了那架梯子。
• He slammed the door in a spirit of defiance.他以挑衅性的态度把门砰地一下关上。

230 unstable   

adj.不稳定的，易变的

参考例句：

• This bookcase is too unstable to hold so many books.这书橱很不结实，装不了这么多书。
• The patient's condition was unstable.那患者的病情不稳定。

231 burgeoning   

adj.迅速成长的，迅速发展的v.发芽，抽枝( burgeon的现在分词 )；迅速发展；发（芽），抽（枝）

参考例句：

• Our company's business is burgeoning now. 我们公司的业务现在发展很迅速。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• These efforts were insufficient to contain the burgeoning crisis. 这些努力不足以抑制迅速扩散的危机。 来自辞典例句

232 riddled   

adj.布满的；充斥的；泛滥的v.解谜，出谜题(riddle的过去分词形式)

参考例句：

• The beams are riddled with woodworm. 这些木梁被蛀虫蛀得都是洞。
• The bodies of the hostages were found riddled with bullets. 在人质的尸体上发现了很多弹孔。 来自《简明英汉词典》

233 props   

小道具； 支柱( prop的名词复数 )； 支持者； 道具； （橄榄球中的）支柱前锋

参考例句：

• Rescuers used props to stop the roof of the tunnel collapsing. 救援人员用支柱防止隧道顶塌陷。
• The government props up the prices of farm products to support farmers' incomes. 政府保持农产品价格不变以保障农民们的收入。

234 accurately   

adv.准确地，精确地

参考例句：

• It is hard to hit the ball accurately.准确地击中球很难。
• Now scientists can forecast the weather accurately.现在科学家们能准确地预报天气。

235 nagging   

adj.唠叨的，挑剔的；使人不得安宁的v.不断地挑剔或批评（某人）( nag的现在分词 )；不断地烦扰或伤害（某人）；无休止地抱怨；不断指责

参考例句：

• Stop nagging—I'll do it as soon as I can. 别唠叨了—我会尽快做的。
• I've got a nagging pain in my lower back. 我后背下方老是疼。 来自《简明英汉词典》

236 illustrated   

adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• His lecture was illustrated with slides taken during the expedition. 他在讲演中使用了探险时拍摄到的幻灯片。
• The manufacturing Methods: Will be illustrated in the next chapter. 制作方法将在下一章说明。

237 lust   

n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望

参考例句：

• He was filled with lust for power.他内心充满了对权力的渴望。
• Sensing the explorer's lust for gold, the chief wisely presented gold ornaments as gifts.酋长觉察出探险者们垂涎黄金的欲念，就聪明地把金饰品作为礼物赠送给他们。

238 celebrated   

adj.有名的，声誉卓著的

参考例句：

• He was soon one of the most celebrated young painters in England.不久他就成了英格兰最负盛名的年轻画家之一。
• The celebrated violinist was mobbed by the audience.观众团团围住了这位著名的小提琴演奏家。

239 forum   

n.论坛，讨论会

参考例句：

• They're holding a forum on new ways of teaching history.他们正在举行历史教学讨论会。
• The organisation would provide a forum where problems could be discussed.这个组织将提供一个可以讨论问题的平台。

240 groaned   

v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦

参考例句：

• He groaned in anguish. 他痛苦地呻吟。
• The cart groaned under the weight of the piano. 大车在钢琴的重压下嘎吱作响。 来自《简明英汉词典》

241 patriot   

n.爱国者，爱国主义者

参考例句：

• He avowed himself a patriot.他自称自己是爱国者。
• He is a patriot who has won the admiration of the French already.他是一个已经赢得法国人敬仰的爱国者。

242 nemesis   

n.给以报应者，复仇者，难以对付的敌手

参考例句：

• Uncritical trust is my nemesis.盲目的相信一切害了我自己。
• Inward suffering is the worst of Nemesis.内心的痛苦是最厉害的惩罚。

243 brilliance   

n.光辉，辉煌，壮丽，（卓越的）才华，才智

参考例句：

• I was totally amazed by the brilliance of her paintings.她的绘画才能令我惊歎不已。
• The gorgeous costume added to the brilliance of the dance.华丽的服装使舞蹈更加光彩夺目。

244 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

245 brass   

n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器

参考例句：

• Many of the workers play in the factory's brass band.许多工人都在工厂铜管乐队中演奏。
• Brass is formed by the fusion of copper and zinc.黄铜是通过铜和锌的熔合而成的。

246 adjourned   

（使）休会， （使）休庭( adjourn的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The court adjourned for lunch. 午餐时间法庭休庭。
• The trial was adjourned following the presentation of new evidence to the court. 新证据呈到庭上后，审讯就宣告暂停。

247 interception   

n.拦截；截击；截取；截住，截断；窃听

参考例句：

• Aerial photography can provide valuable information on precipitation, evapotraspiration, interception, and runoff. 航空摄影可提供有关降水量、蒸发蒸腾量、入渗和径流量的有价值的资料。
• Light interception and distribution in hedgerow orchards with different alleyway widths is indicated in Fig. 56. 图56显示篱壁果园不同行间宽度的光能截取和分配的情况。

248 postpone   

v.延期，推迟

参考例句：

• I shall postpone making a decision till I learn full particulars.在未获悉详情之前我得从缓作出决定。
• She decided to postpone the converastion for that evening.她决定当天晚上把谈话搁一搁。

249 violation   

n.违反(行为)，违背(行为)，侵犯

参考例句：

• He roared that was a violation of the rules.他大声说，那是违反规则的。
• He was fined 200 dollars for violation of traffic regulation.他因违反交通规则被罚款200美元。

250 lining   

n.衬里，衬料

参考例句：

• The lining of my coat is torn.我的外套衬里破了。
• Moss makes an attractive lining to wire baskets.用苔藓垫在铁丝篮里很漂亮。

251 chagrin   

n.懊恼；气愤；委屈

参考例句：

• His increasingly visible chagrin sets up a vicious circle.他的明显的不满引起了一种恶性循环。
• Much to his chagrin,he did not win the race.使他大为懊恼的是他赛跑没获胜。

252 maple   

n.槭树，枫树，槭木

参考例句：

• Maple sugar is made from the sap of maple trees.枫糖是由枫树的树液制成的。
• The maple leaves are tinge with autumn red.枫叶染上了秋天的红色。

253 hush   

int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静

参考例句：

• A hush fell over the onlookers.旁观者们突然静了下来。
• Do hush up the scandal!不要把这丑事声张出去！

254 uproar   

n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸

参考例句：

• She could hear the uproar in the room.她能听见房间里的吵闹声。
• His remarks threw the audience into an uproar.他的讲话使听众沸腾起来。

255 paraphrasing   

v.释义，意译( paraphrase的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• I'm paraphrasing but this is honestly what he said. 我是在转述，但这的确是他说的意思。 来自柯林斯例句

256 bickering   

v.争吵( bicker的现在分词 )；口角；（水等）作潺潺声；闪烁

参考例句：

• The children are always bickering about something or other. 孩子们有事没事总是在争吵。
• The two children were always bickering with each other over small matters. 这两个孩子总是为些小事斗嘴。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

257 depleted   

adj. 枯竭的, 废弃的 动词deplete的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• Food supplies were severely depleted. 食物供应已严重不足。
• Both teams were severely depleted by injuries. 两个队都因队员受伤而实力大减。

258 influential   

adj.有影响的，有权势的

参考例句：

• He always tries to get in with the most influential people.他总是试图巴结最有影响的人物。
• He is a very influential man in the government.他在政府中是个很有影响的人物。

259 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

260 tranquil   

adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的

参考例句：

• The boy disturbed the tranquil surface of the pond with a stick. 那男孩用棍子打破了平静的池面。
• The tranquil beauty of the village scenery is unique. 这乡村景色的宁静是绝无仅有的。

261 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。

262 intervention   

n.介入，干涉，干预

参考例句：

• The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
• Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。

263 unprecedented   

adj.无前例的，新奇的

参考例句：

• The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
• A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。

264 exacerbate   

v.恶化，增剧，激怒，使加剧

参考例句：

• WMO says a warming climate can exacerbate air pollution.世界气象组织说，气候变暖可能会加剧空气污染。
• In fact efforts will merely exacerbate the current problem.实际上努力只会加剧当前的问题。

265 amassing   

v.积累，积聚( amass的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The study of taxonomy must necessarily involve the amassing of an encyclopaedic knowledge of plants. 分类学研究一定要积累广博的植物知识。 来自辞典例句
• Build your trophy room while amassing awards and accolades. 建立您的奖杯积累奖项和荣誉。 来自互联网

266 initiating   

v.开始( initiate的现在分词 )；传授；发起；接纳新成员

参考例句：

• He is good at initiating projects but rarely follows through with anything. 他善于创建项目，但难得坚持完成。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Only the perchlorate shows marked sensitiveness and possibly initiating properties. 只有高氯酸盐表现有显著的感度和可能具有起爆性能。 来自辞典例句

267 scattered   

adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的

参考例句：

• Gathering up his scattered papers,he pushed them into his case.他把散乱的文件收拾起来，塞进文件夹里。

268 extremity   

n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度

参考例句：

• I hope you will help them in their extremity.我希望你能帮助在穷途末路的他们。
• What shall we do in this extremity?在这种极其困难的情况下我们该怎么办呢？

269 contingent   

adj.视条件而定的；n.一组，代表团，分遣队

参考例句：

• The contingent marched in the direction of the Western Hills.队伍朝西山的方向前进。
• Whether or not we arrive on time is contingent on the weather.我们是否按时到达要视天气情况而定。

270 consultation   

n.咨询；商量；商议；会议

参考例句：

• The company has promised wide consultation on its expansion plans.该公司允诺就其扩展计划广泛征求意见。
• The scheme was developed in close consultation with the local community.该计划是在同当地社区密切磋商中逐渐形成的。

271 prospects   

n.希望，前途(恒为复数)

参考例句：

• There is a mood of pessimism in the company about future job prospects. 公司中有一种对工作前景悲观的情绪。
• They are less sanguine about the company's long-term prospects. 他们对公司的远景不那么乐观。

272 confirmation   

n.证实，确认，批准

参考例句：

• We are waiting for confirmation of the news.我们正在等待证实那个消息。
• We need confirmation in writing before we can send your order out.给你们发送订购的货物之前，我们需要书面确认。

273 braced   

adj.拉牢的v.支住( brace的过去式和过去分词 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来

参考例句：

• They braced up the old house with balks of timber. 他们用梁木加固旧房子。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The house has a wooden frame which is braced with brick. 这幢房子是木结构的砖瓦房。 来自《简明英汉词典》

274 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

• He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
• We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。

275 temperament   

n.气质，性格，性情

参考例句：

• The analysis of what kind of temperament you possess is vital.分析一下你有什么样的气质是十分重要的。
• Success often depends on temperament.成功常常取决于一个人的性格。

276 eloquently   

adv. 雄辩地(有口才地, 富于表情地)

参考例句：

• I was toasted by him most eloquently at the dinner. 进餐时他口若悬河地向我祝酒。
• The poet eloquently expresses the sense of lost innocence. 诗人动人地表达了失去天真的感觉。

277 participation   

n.参与，参加，分享

参考例句：

• Some of the magic tricks called for audience participation.有些魔术要求有观众的参与。
• The scheme aims to encourage increased participation in sporting activities.这个方案旨在鼓励大众更多地参与体育活动。

278 vilest   

adj.卑鄙的( vile的最高级 )；可耻的；极坏的；非常讨厌的

参考例句：

279 remodelled   

v.改变…的结构[形状]( remodel的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Oh, thanks. We remodelled it last year. 是吗？谢谢。我们去年改建的。 来自口语例句
• Kathy: Oh, thanks. We remodelled it last year. 凯西：是吗？谢谢。我们去年改建的。 来自互联网

280 metropolitan   

adj.大城市的，大都会的

参考例句：

• Metropolitan buildings become taller than ever.大城市的建筑变得比以前更高。
• Metropolitan residents are used to fast rhythm.大都市的居民习惯于快节奏。

281 forgo   

v.放弃，抛弃

参考例句：

• Time to prepare was a luxuary he would have to forgo.因为时间不够，他不得不放弃做准备工作。
• She would willingly forgo a birthday treat if only her warring parents would declare a truce.只要她的父母停止争吵，她愿意放弃生日宴请。

282 grassy   

adj.盖满草的；长满草的

参考例句：

• They sat and had their lunch on a grassy hillside.他们坐在长满草的山坡上吃午饭。
• Cattle move freely across the grassy plain.牛群自由自在地走过草原。

283 recess   

n.短期休息，壁凹（墙上装架子，柜子等凹处）

参考例句：

• The chairman of the meeting announced a ten-minute recess.会议主席宣布休会10分钟。
• Parliament was hastily recalled from recess.休会的议员被匆匆召回开会。

284 afterward   

adv.后来；以后

参考例句：

• Let's go to the theatre first and eat afterward. 让我们先去看戏，然后吃饭。
• Afterward,the boy became a very famous artist.后来，这男孩成为一个很有名的艺术家。

285 sporadic   

adj.偶尔发生的 [反]regular；分散的

参考例句：

• The sound of sporadic shooting could still be heard.仍能听见零星的枪声。
• You know this better than I.I received only sporadic news about it.你们比我更清楚，而我听到的只是零星消息。

286 abreast   

adv.并排地；跟上(时代)的步伐，与…并进地

参考例句：

• She kept abreast with the flood of communications that had poured in.她及时回复如雪片般飞来的大批信件。
• We can't keep abreast of the developing situation unless we study harder.我们如果不加强学习，就会跟不上形势。

287 recapitulate   

v.节述要旨，择要说明

参考例句：

• Let's recapitulate the main ideas.让我们来概括一下要点。
• It will be helpful to recapitulate them.在这里将其简要重述一下也是有帮助的。

288 musing   

n. 沉思，冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• "At Tellson's banking-house at nine," he said, with a musing face. “九点在台尔森银行大厦见面，”他想道。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记
• She put the jacket away, and stood by musing a minute. 她把那件上衣放到一边，站着沉思了一会儿。

289 portentous   

adj.不祥的，可怕的，装腔作势的

参考例句：

• The present aspect of society is portentous of great change.现在的社会预示着重大变革的发生。
• There was nothing portentous or solemn about him.He was bubbling with humour.他一点也不装腔作势或故作严肃，浑身散发着幽默。

290 casually   

adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地

参考例句：

• She remarked casually that she was changing her job.她当时漫不经心地说要换工作。
• I casually mentioned that I might be interested in working abroad.我不经意地提到我可能会对出国工作感兴趣。

291 eligible   

adj.有条件被选中的；(尤指婚姻等)合适(意)的

参考例句：

• He is an eligible young man.他是一个合格的年轻人。
• Helen married an eligible bachelor.海伦嫁给了一个中意的单身汉。

292 crux   

adj.十字形；难事，关键，最重要点

参考例句：

• The crux of the matter is how to comprehensively treat this trend.问题的关键是如何全面地看待这种趋势。
• The crux of the matter is that attitudes have changed.问题的要害是人们的态度转变了。

293 subside   

vi.平静，平息；下沉，塌陷，沉降

参考例句：

• The emotional reaction which results from a serious accident takes time to subside.严重事故所引起的情绪化的反应需要时间来平息。
• The controversies surrounding population growth are unlikely to subside soon.围绕着人口增长问题的争论看来不会很快平息。

294 limousine   

n.豪华轿车

参考例句：

• A chauffeur opened the door of the limousine for the grand lady.司机为这个高贵的女士打开了豪华轿车的车门。
• We arrived in fine style in a hired limousine.我们很气派地乘坐出租的豪华汽车到达那里。

295 eminence   

n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家

参考例句：

• He is a statesman of great eminence.他是个声名显赫的政治家。
• Many of the pilots were to achieve eminence in the aeronautical world.这些飞行员中很多人将会在航空界声名显赫。

296 swarming   

密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去

参考例句：

• The sacks of rice were swarming with bugs. 一袋袋的米里长满了虫子。
• The beach is swarming with bathers. 海滩满是海水浴的人。

297 providence   

n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝

参考例句：

• It is tempting Providence to go in that old boat.乘那艘旧船前往是冒大险。
• To act as you have done is to fly in the face of Providence.照你的所作所为那样去行事，是违背上帝的意志的。

298 assessment   

n.评价；评估；对财产的估价，被估定的金额

参考例句：

• This is a very perceptive assessment of the situation.这是一个对该情况的极富洞察力的评价。
• What is your assessment of the situation?你对时局的看法如何？

299 celestial   

adj.天体的；天上的

参考例句：

• The rosy light yet beamed like a celestial dawn.玫瑰色的红光依然象天上的朝霞一样绚丽。
• Gravity governs the motions of celestial bodies.万有引力控制着天体的运动。

300 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

301 attained   

（通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况）

参考例句：

• She has attained the degree of Master of Arts. 她已获得文学硕士学位。
• Lu Hsun attained a high position in the republic of letters. 鲁迅在文坛上获得崇高的地位。

302 astonishment   

n.惊奇，惊异

参考例句：

• They heard him give a loud shout of astonishment.他们听见他惊奇地大叫一声。
• I was filled with astonishment at her strange action.我对她的奇怪举动不胜惊异。

303 consensus   

n.(意见等的)一致，一致同意，共识

参考例句：

• Can we reach a consensus on this issue?我们能在这个问题上取得一致意见吗？
• What is the consensus of opinion at the afternoon meeting?下午会议上一致的意见是什么？

304 sacrosanct   

adj.神圣不可侵犯的

参考例句：

• In India,the cow is a sacrosanct animal.牛在印度是神圣的动物。
• Philip Glass is ignorant of establishing an immutable, sacrosanct urtext.菲利普·格拉斯不屑于创立不变的、神圣的原始文本。

305 paradoxes   

n.似非而是的隽语，看似矛盾而实际却可能正确的说法( paradox的名词复数 )；用于语言文学中的上述隽语；有矛盾特点的人[事物，情况]

参考例句：

• Contradictions and paradoxes arose in increasing numbers. 矛盾和悖论越来越多。 来自辞典例句
• As far as these paradoxes are concerned, the garden definitely a heterotopia. 就这些吊诡性而言，花园无疑地是个异质空间。 来自互联网

306 devoid   

adj.全无的，缺乏的

参考例句：

• He is completely devoid of humour.他十分缺乏幽默。
• The house is totally devoid of furniture.这所房子里什么家具都没有。

307 philosophical   

adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的

参考例句：

• The teacher couldn't answer the philosophical problem.老师不能解答这个哲学问题。
• She is very philosophical about her bad luck.她对自己的不幸看得很开。

308 enjoyment   

n.乐趣；享有；享用

参考例句：

• Your company adds to the enjoyment of our visit. 有您的陪同，我们这次访问更加愉快了。
• After each joke the old man cackled his enjoyment.每逢讲完一个笑话，这老人就呵呵笑着表示他的高兴。

309 serenity   

n.宁静，沉着，晴朗

参考例句：

• Her face,though sad,still evoked a feeling of serenity.她的脸色虽然悲伤，但仍使人感觉安详。
• She escaped to the comparative serenity of the kitchen.她逃到相对安静的厨房里。

310 distractions   

n.使人分心的事[人]( distraction的名词复数 )；娱乐，消遣；心烦意乱；精神错乱

参考例句：

• I find it hard to work at home because there are too many distractions. 我发觉在家里工作很难，因为使人分心的事太多。
• There are too many distractions here to work properly. 这里叫人分心的事太多，使人无法好好工作。 来自《简明英汉词典》

311 forsake   

vt.遗弃，抛弃；舍弃，放弃

参考例句：

• She pleaded with her husband not to forsake her.她恳求丈夫不要抛弃她。
• You must forsake your bad habits.你必须革除你的坏习惯。

312 spacious   

adj.广阔的，宽敞的

参考例句：

• Our yard is spacious enough for a swimming pool.我们的院子很宽敞，足够建一座游泳池。
• The room is bright and spacious.这房间很豁亮。

313 austere   

adj.艰苦的；朴素的，朴实无华的；严峻的

参考例句：

• His way of life is rather austere.他的生活方式相当简朴。
• The room was furnished in austere style.这间屋子的陈设都很简单朴素。

314 efficiently   

adv.高效率地，有能力地

参考例句：

• The worker oils the machine to operate it more efficiently.工人给机器上油以使机器运转更有效。
• Local authorities have to learn to allocate resources efficiently.地方政府必须学会有效地分配资源。

315 assorted   

adj.各种各样的，各色俱备的

参考例句：

• There's a bag of assorted sweets on the table.桌子上有一袋什锦糖果。
• He has always assorted with men of his age.他总是与和他年令相仿的人交往。

316 stature   

n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材

参考例句：

• He is five feet five inches in stature.他身高5英尺5英寸。
• The dress models are tall of stature.时装模特儿的身材都较高。

317 hearty   

adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的

参考例句：

• After work they made a hearty meal in the worker's canteen.工作完了，他们在工人食堂饱餐了一顿。
• We accorded him a hearty welcome.我们给他热忱的欢迎。

318 awed   

adj.充满敬畏的，表示敬畏的v.使敬畏，使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The audience was awed into silence by her stunning performance. 观众席上鸦雀无声，人们对他出色的表演感到惊叹。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I was awed by the huge gorilla. 那只大猩猩使我惊惧。 来自《简明英汉词典》

319 barge   

n.平底载货船，驳船

参考例句：

• The barge was loaded up with coal.那艘驳船装上了煤。
• Carrying goods by train costs nearly three times more than carrying them by barge.通过铁路运货的成本比驳船运货成本高出近3倍。

320 blessing   

n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿

参考例句：

• The blessing was said in Hebrew.祷告用了希伯来语。
• A double blessing has descended upon the house.双喜临门。

321 proceedings   

n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报

参考例句：

• He was released on bail pending committal proceedings. 他交保获释正在候审。
• to initiate legal proceedings against sb 对某人提起诉讼

322 doggedly   

adv.顽强地，固执地

参考例句：

• He was still doggedly pursuing his studies.他仍然顽强地进行着自己的研究。
• He trudged doggedly on until he reached the flat.他顽强地、步履艰难地走着，一直走回了公寓。

323 dub   

vt.（以某种称号）授予，给...起绰号，复制

参考例句：

• I intend to use simultaneous recording to dub this film.我打算采用同期录音的方法为这部影片配音。
• It was dubbed into Spanish for Mexican audiences.它被译制成西班牙语以方便墨西哥观众观看。

324 addiction   

n.上瘾入迷，嗜好

参考例句：

• He stole money from his parents to feed his addiction.他从父母那儿偷钱以满足自己的嗜好。
• Areas of drug dealing are hellholes of addiction,poverty and murder.贩卖毒品的地区往往是吸毒上瘾、贫困和发生谋杀的地方。

325 subscriptions   

n.（报刊等的）订阅费( subscription的名词复数 )；捐款；（俱乐部的）会员费；捐助

参考例句：

• Subscriptions to these magazines can be paid in at the post office. 这些杂志的订阅费可以在邮局缴纳。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Payment of subscriptions should be made to the club secretary. 会费应交给俱乐部秘书。 来自《简明英汉词典》

326 logic   

n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性

参考例句：

• What sort of logic is that?这是什么逻辑？
• I don't follow the logic of your argument.我不明白你的论点逻辑性何在。

327 avert   

v.防止，避免；转移(目光、注意力等)

参考例句：

• He managed to avert suspicion.他设法避嫌。
• I would do what I could to avert it.我会尽力去避免发生这种情况。

328 unaware   

a.不知道的，未意识到的

参考例句：

• They were unaware that war was near. 他们不知道战争即将爆发。
• I was unaware of the man's presence. 我没有察觉到那人在场。

329 deliberately   

adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地

参考例句：

• The girl gave the show away deliberately.女孩故意泄露秘密。
• They deliberately shifted off the argument.他们故意回避这个论点。

330 submission   

n.服从，投降；温顺，谦虚；提出

参考例句：

• The defeated general showed his submission by giving up his sword.战败将军缴剑表示投降。
• No enemy can frighten us into submission.任何敌人的恐吓都不能使我们屈服。

331 vehement   

adj.感情强烈的；热烈的；(人)有强烈感情的

参考例句：

• She made a vehement attack on the government's policies.她强烈谴责政府的政策。
• His proposal met with vehement opposition.他的倡导遭到了激烈的反对。

332 imperturbability   

n.冷静；沉着

参考例句：

• The imperturbability of the mountains hung upon him like a suit of armor. 高山的宁静象一套盔甲似的罩在他的身上。
• You must want imperturbability more than you want approval, control and security. 你必须想要不受侵扰的安宁大于想要赞同、控制和安全。

333 agonizing   

adj.痛苦难忍的；使人苦恼的v.使极度痛苦；折磨(agonize的ing形式)

参考例句：

• I spent days agonizing over whether to take the job or not. 我用了好些天苦苦思考是否接受这个工作。
• his father's agonizing death 他父亲极度痛苦的死

334 frustration   

n.挫折，失败，失效，落空

参考例句：

• He had to fight back tears of frustration.他不得不强忍住失意的泪水。
• He beat his hands on the steering wheel in frustration.他沮丧地用手打了几下方向盘。

335 reminder   

n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示

参考例句：

• I have had another reminder from the library.我又收到图书馆的催还单。
• It always took a final reminder to get her to pay her share of the rent.总是得发给她一份最后催缴通知，她才付应该交的房租。

336 authoritatively   

命令式地，有权威地，可信地

参考例句：

• "If somebody'll come here and sit with him," he snapped authoritatively. “来个人到这儿陪他坐着。”他用发号施令的口吻说。
• To decide or settle(a dispute, for example) conclusively and authoritatively. 判定结论性、权威性地决定或解决（纠纷等）

337 timing   

n.时间安排，时间选择

参考例句：

• The timing of the meeting is not convenient.会议的时间安排不合适。
• The timing of our statement is very opportune.我们发表声明选择的时机很恰当。

338 negotiations   

协商( negotiation的名词复数 )； 谈判； 完成（难事）； 通过

参考例句：

• negotiations for a durable peace 为持久和平而进行的谈判
• Negotiations have failed to establish any middle ground. 谈判未能达成任何妥协。

339 quell   

v.压制，平息，减轻

参考例句：

• Soldiers were sent in to quell the riots.士兵们被派去平息骚乱。
• The armed force had to be called out to quell violence.不得不出动军队来镇压暴力行动。

340 melodrama   

n.音乐剧；情节剧

参考例句：

• We really don't need all this ridiculous melodrama!别跟我们来这套荒唐的情节剧表演！
• White Haired Woman was a melodrama,but in certain spots it was deliberately funny.《白毛女》是一出悲剧性的歌剧，但也有不少插科打诨。

341 endorsed   

vt.& vi.endorse的过去式或过去分词形式v.赞同( endorse的过去式和过去分词 )；在（尤指支票的）背面签字；在（文件的）背面写评论；在广告上说本人使用并赞同某产品

参考例句：

• The committee endorsed an initiative by the chairman to enter discussion about a possible merger. 委员会通过了主席提出的新方案，开始就可能进行的并购进行讨论。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The government has broadly endorsed a research paper proposing new educational targets for 14-year-olds. 政府基本上支持建议对14 岁少年实行新教育目标的研究报告。 来自《简明英汉词典》

342 annoyances   

n.恼怒( annoyance的名词复数 )；烦恼；打扰；使人烦恼的事

参考例句：

• At dinner that evening two annoyances kept General Zaroff from perfect enjoyment one. 当天晚上吃饭时，有两件不称心的事令沙洛夫吃得不很香。 来自辞典例句
• Actually, I have a lot of these little annoyances-don't we all? 事实上我有很多类似的小烦恼，我们不都有这种小烦恼吗？ 来自互联网

343 ratification   

n.批准，认可

参考例句：

• The treaty is awaiting ratification.条约正等待批准。
• The treaty is subject to ratification.此条约经批准后才能生效。

344 provincial   

adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人

参考例句：

• City dwellers think country folk have provincial attitudes.城里人以为乡下人思想迂腐。
• Two leading cadres came down from the provincial capital yesterday.昨天从省里下来了两位领导干部。

345 exasperated   

adj.恼怒的

参考例句：

• We were exasperated at his ill behaviour. 我们对他的恶劣行为感到非常恼怒。
• Constant interruption of his work exasperated him. 对他工作不断的干扰使他恼怒。

346 liaison   

n.联系，（未婚男女间的）暖昧关系，私通

参考例句：

• She acts as a liaison between patients and staff.她在病人与医护人员间充当沟通的桥梁。
• She is responsible for liaison with researchers at other universities.她负责与其他大学的研究人员联系。

347 suspense   

n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑

参考例句：

• The suspense was unbearable.这样提心吊胆的状况实在叫人受不了。
• The director used ingenious devices to keep the audience in suspense.导演用巧妙手法引起观众的悬念。

348 skeptical   

adj.怀疑的，多疑的

参考例句：

• Others here are more skeptical about the chances for justice being done.这里的其他人更为怀疑正义能否得到伸张。
• Her look was skeptical and resigned.她的表情是将信将疑而又无可奈何。

349 utterances   

n.发声( utterance的名词复数 )；说话方式；语调；言论

参考例句：

• John Maynard Keynes used somewhat gnomic utterances in his General Theory. 约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯在其《通论》中用了许多精辟言辞。 来自辞典例句
• Elsewhere, particularly in his more public utterances, Hawthorne speaks very differently. 在别的地方，特别是在比较公开的谈话里，霍桑讲的话则完全不同。 来自辞典例句

350 secrecy   

n.秘密，保密，隐蔽

参考例句：

• All the researchers on the project are sworn to secrecy.该项目的所有研究人员都按要求起誓保守秘密。
• Complete secrecy surrounded the meeting.会议在绝对机密的环境中进行。

351 magisterial   

adj.威风的，有权威的；adv.威严地

参考例句：

• The colonel's somewhat in a magisterial manner.上校多少有点威严的神态。
• The Cambridge World History of Human Disease is a magisterial work.《剑桥世界人类疾病史》是一部权威著作。

352 recital   

n.朗诵，独奏会，独唱会

参考例句：

• She is going to give a piano recital.她即将举行钢琴独奏会。
• I had their total attention during the thirty-five minutes that my recital took.在我叙述的35分钟内，他们完全被我吸引了。

353 layman   

n.俗人，门外汉，凡人

参考例句：

• These technical terms are difficult for the layman to understand.这些专门术语是外行人难以理解的。
• He is a layman in politics.他对政治是个门外汉。

354 doorway   

n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径

参考例句：

• They huddled in the shop doorway to shelter from the rain.他们挤在商店门口躲雨。
• Mary suddenly appeared in the doorway.玛丽突然出现在门口。

355 perils   

极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境）

参考例句：

• The commander bade his men be undaunted in the face of perils. 指挥员命令他的战士要临危不惧。
• With how many more perils and disasters would he load himself? 他还要再冒多少风险和遭受多少灾难？

356 intervals   

n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息

参考例句：

• The forecast said there would be sunny intervals and showers. 预报间晴，有阵雨。
• Meetings take place at fortnightly intervals. 每两周开一次会。

357 garner   

v.收藏；取得

参考例句：

• He has garnered extensive support for his proposals.他的提议得到了广泛的支持。
• Squirrels garner nuts for the winter.松鼠为过冬储存松果。

358 vindication   

n.洗冤，证实

参考例句：

• There is much to be said in vindication of his claim.有很多理由可以提出来为他的要求作辩护。
• The result was a vindication of all our efforts.这一结果表明我们的一切努力是必要的。

359 suspenseful   

adj.悬疑的，令人紧张的

参考例句：

• If his experiences then had been carefully recorded, it would undoubtedly have made a suspenseful and moving book. 若是把他所经历的事实记录下来，那就是一部充满着大智大勇，惊心动魄的小说。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Lily is an atmospheric and suspenseful tale of love, loss and obsession. 这是一个关于爱情、失落与迷恋的故事，充满情调与悬疑色彩。 来自互联网

360 sanguine   

adj.充满希望的，乐观的，血红色的

参考例句：

• He has a sanguine attitude to life.他对于人生有乐观的看法。
• He is not very sanguine about our chances of success.他对我们成功的机会不太乐观。

361 promising   

adj.有希望的，有前途的

参考例句：

• The results of the experiments are very promising.实验的结果充满了希望。
• We're trying to bring along one or two promising young swimmers.我们正设法培养出一两名有前途的年轻游泳选手。

362 concurrence   

n.同意；并发

参考例句：

• There is a concurrence of opinion between them.他们的想法一致。
• The concurrence of their disappearances had to be more than coincidental.他们同时失踪肯定不仅仅是巧合。

363 relish   

n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味

参考例句：

• I have no relish for pop music.我对流行音乐不感兴趣。
• I relish the challenge of doing jobs that others turn down.我喜欢挑战别人拒绝做的工作。

364 smite   

v.重击；彻底击败；n.打；尝试；一点儿

参考例句：

• The wise know how to teach,the fool how to smite.智者知道如何教导，愚者知道怎样破坏。
• God will smite our enemies.上帝将击溃我们的敌人。

365 thigh   

n.大腿；股骨

参考例句：

• He is suffering from a strained thigh muscle.他的大腿肌肉拉伤了，疼得很。
• The thigh bone is connected to the hip bone.股骨连着髋骨。

366 margins   

边( margin的名词复数 )； 利润； 页边空白； 差数

参考例句：

• They have always had to make do with relatively small profit margins. 他们不得不经常设法应付较少的利润额。
• To create more space between the navigation items, add left and right margins to the links. 在每个项目间留更多的空隙，加左或者右的margins来定义链接。

367 recurrence   

n.复发，反复，重现

参考例句：

• More care in the future will prevent recurrence of the mistake.将来的小心可防止错误的重现。
• He was aware of the possibility of a recurrence of his illness.他知道他的病有可能复发。

368 insouciance   

n.漠不关心

参考例句：

• He replied with characteristic insouciance:"So what?"他以一贯的漫不经心回答道：“那又怎样？”
• What explains this apparent insouciance?用什么能够解释这种视而不见呢？

369 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

370 prodding   

v.刺，戳( prod的现在分词 )；刺激；促使；（用手指或尖物）戳

参考例句：

• He needed no prodding. 他不用督促。
• The boy is prodding the animal with a needle. 那男孩正用一根针刺那动物。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

371 taboos   

禁忌( taboo的名词复数 )； 忌讳； 戒律； 禁忌的事物（或行为）

参考例句：

• She was unhorsed by fences, laws and alien taboos. 她被藩蓠、法律及外来的戒律赶下了马。
• His mind was charged with taboos. 他头脑里忌讳很多。

372 superstition   

n.迷信，迷信行为

参考例句：

• It's a common superstition that black cats are unlucky.认为黑猫不吉祥是一种很普遍的迷信。
• Superstition results from ignorance.迷信产生于无知。

373 abstain   

v.自制，戒绝，弃权，避免

参考例句：

• His doctor ordered him to abstain from beer and wine.他的医生嘱咐他戒酒。
• Three Conservative MPs abstained in the vote.三位保守党下院议员投了弃权票。

374 tanker   

n.油轮

参考例句：

• The tanker took on 200,000 barrels of crude oil.油轮装载了二十万桶原油。
• Heavy seas had pounded the tanker into three parts.汹涌的巨浪把油轮撞成三载。

375 defiled   

v.玷污( defile的过去式和过去分词 )；污染；弄脏；纵列行进

参考例句：

• Many victims of burglary feel their homes have been defiled. 许多家门被撬的人都感到自己的家被玷污了。
• I felt defiled by the filth. 我觉得这些脏话玷污了我。 来自《简明英汉词典》

376 epidemic   

n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的

参考例句：

• That kind of epidemic disease has long been stamped out.那种传染病早已绝迹。
• The authorities tried to localise the epidemic.当局试图把流行病限制在局部范围。

377 jack   

n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克

参考例句：

• I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
• He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。

378 implore   

vt.乞求，恳求，哀求

参考例句：

• I implore you to write. At least tell me you're alive.请给我音讯，让我知道你还活着。
• Please implore someone else's help in a crisis.危险时请向别人求助。

379 discretion   

n.谨慎；随意处理

参考例句：

• You must show discretion in choosing your friend.你择友时必须慎重。
• Please use your best discretion to handle the matter.请慎重处理此事。

380 intimidating   

vt.恐吓，威胁( intimidate的现在分词)

参考例句：

• They were accused of intimidating people into voting for them. 他们被控胁迫选民投他们的票。
• This kind of questioning can be very intimidating to children. 这种问话的方式可能让孩子们非常害怕。

381 hospitably   

亲切地，招待周到地，善于款待地

参考例句：

• At Peking was the Great Khan, and they were hospitably entertained. 忽必烈汗在北京，他们受到了盛情款待。
• She was received hospitably by her new family. 她的新家人热情地接待了她。

382 tenor   

n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意

参考例句：

• The tenor of his speech was that war would come.他讲话的大意是战争将要发生。
• The four parts in singing are soprano,alto,tenor and bass.唱歌的四个声部是女高音、女低音、男高音和男低音。

383 arrogant   

adj.傲慢的，自大的

参考例句：

• You've got to get rid of your arrogant ways.你这骄傲劲儿得好好改改。
• People are waking up that he is arrogant.人们开始认识到他很傲慢。

384 discoursed   

演说（discourse的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• He discoursed on an interesting topic. 他就一个有趣的题目发表了演讲。
• The scholar discoursed at great length on the poetic style of John Keats. 那位学者详细讲述了约翰·济慈的诗歌风格。

385 stimulated   

a.刺激的

参考例句：

• The exhibition has stimulated interest in her work. 展览增进了人们对她作品的兴趣。
• The award has stimulated her into working still harder. 奖金促使她更加努力地工作。

386 stimulate   

vt.刺激，使兴奋；激励，使…振奋

参考例句：

• Your encouragement will stimulate me to further efforts.你的鼓励会激发我进一步努力。
• Success will stimulate the people for fresh efforts.成功能鼓舞人们去作新的努力。

387 apprehension   

n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑

参考例句：

• There were still areas of doubt and her apprehension grew.有些地方仍然存疑，于是她越来越担心。
• She is a girl of weak apprehension.她是一个理解力很差的女孩。

388 forestall   

vt.抢在…之前采取行动；预先阻止

参考例句：

• I left the room to forestall involvements.我抢先离开了这房间以免受牵累。
• He followed this rule in order to forestall rumors.他遵守这条规矩是为了杜绝流言蜚语。

389 creditors   

n.债权人，债主( creditor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They agreed to repay their creditors over a period of three years. 他们同意3年内向债主还清欠款。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Creditors could obtain a writ for the arrest of their debtors. 债权人可以获得逮捕债务人的令状。 来自《简明英汉词典》

390 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

391 corporate   

adj.共同的，全体的；公司的，企业的

参考例句：

• This is our corporate responsibility.这是我们共同的责任。
• His corporate's life will be as short as a rabbit's tail.他的公司的寿命是兔子尾巴长不了。

392 foresight   

n.先见之明，深谋远虑

参考例句：

• The failure is the result of our lack of foresight.这次失败是由于我们缺乏远虑而造成的。
• It required a statesman's foresight and sagacity to make the decision.作出这个决定需要政治家的远见卓识。

393 minuscule   

adj.非常小的；极不重要的

参考例句：

• The human race only a minuscule portion of the earth's history.人类只有占有极小部分地球历史。
• As things stand,Hong Kong's renminbi banking system is minuscule.就目前的情况而言，香港的人民币银行体系可谓微不足道。

394 sufficiently   

adv.足够地，充分地

参考例句：

• It turned out he had not insured the house sufficiently.原来他没有给房屋投足保险。
• The new policy was sufficiently elastic to accommodate both views.新政策充分灵活地适用两种观点。

395 postponed   

vt.& vi.延期，缓办，（使）延迟vt.把…放在次要地位；[语]把…放在后面（或句尾）vi.（疟疾等）延缓发作（或复发）

参考例句：

• The trial was postponed indefinitely. 审讯无限期延迟。
• The game has already been postponed three times. 这场比赛已经三度延期了。

396 brokers   

n.（股票、外币等）经纪人( broker的名词复数 )；中间人；代理商；（订合同的）中人v.做掮客（或中人等）( broker的第三人称单数 )；作为权力经纪人进行谈判；以中间人等身份安排…

参考例句：

• The firm in question was Alsbery & Co., whiskey brokers. 那家公司叫阿尔斯伯里公司，经销威士忌。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• From time to time a telephone would ring in the brokers' offices. 那两排经纪人房间里不时响着叮令的电话。 来自子夜部分

397 jobbers   

n.做零活的人( jobber的名词复数 )；营私舞弊者；股票经纪人；证券交易商

参考例句：

• Civil war may mean disaster for other businessmen, but stock-jobbers thrive on it. 别项生意碰到开火就该倒楣，做公债却是例外。 来自子夜部分
• Dupont strongly recommends Solar Simulator to its jobbers and paint shops. 杜邦公司强烈建议太阳模拟器的批发商和油漆店。 来自互联网

398 injustice   

n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利

参考例句：

• They complained of injustice in the way they had been treated.他们抱怨受到不公平的对待。
• All his life he has been struggling against injustice.他一生都在与不公正现象作斗争。

399 engrossing   

adj.使人全神贯注的，引人入胜的v.使全神贯注( engross的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• He told us an engrossing story. 他给我们讲了一个引人入胜的故事。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• It might soon have ripened into that engrossing feeling. 很快便会发展成那种压倒一切的感情的。 来自辞典例句

400 livelihoods   

生计，谋生之道( livelihood的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• First came the earliest individualistic pioneers who depended on hunting and fishing for their livelihoods. 走在最前面的是早期的个人主义先驱者，他们靠狩猎捕鱼为生。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• With little influence over policies, their traditional livelihoods are threatened. 因为马赛族人对政策的影响力太小，他们的传统生计受到了威胁。

401 reiteration   

n. 重覆, 反覆, 重说

参考例句：

• The reiteration of this figure, more than anything else, wrecked the conservative chance of coming back. 重申这数字，比其它任何事情更能打消保守党重新上台的机会。
• The final statement is just a reiteration of U.S. policy on Taiwan. 艾瑞里？最后一个声明只是重复宣读美国对台政策。

402 hoard   

n./v.窖藏，贮存，囤积

参考例句：

• They have a hoard of food in the basement.地下室里有他们贮藏的食物。
• How many curios do you hoard in your study?你在你书房里聚藏了多少古玩？

403 hoarding   

n.贮藏；积蓄；临时围墙；囤积v.积蓄并储藏（某物）( hoard的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• After the war, they were shot for hoarding. 战后他们因囤积而被枪决。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Actually he had two unused ones which he was hoarding up. 其实他还藏了两片没有用呢。 来自英汉文学

404 frenzy   

n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动

参考例句：

• He was able to work the young students up into a frenzy.他能激起青年学生的狂热。
• They were singing in a frenzy of joy.他们欣喜若狂地高声歌唱。

405 persuasive   

adj.有说服力的，能说得使人相信的

参考例句：

• His arguments in favour of a new school are very persuasive.他赞成办一座新学校的理由很有说服力。
• The evidence was not really persuasive enough.证据并不是太有说服力。

406 relegate   

v.使降级，流放，移交，委任

参考例句：

• We shall relegate this problem to the organizing committee.我们将把这个问题委托组织委员会处理。
• She likes to relegate difficult questions to her colleagues.她总是把困难的问题推给她同事。

407 withheld   

withhold过去式及过去分词

参考例句：

• I withheld payment until they had fulfilled the contract. 他们履行合同后，我才付款。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• There was no school play because the principal withheld his consent. 由于校长没同意，学校里没有举行比赛。 来自《简明英汉词典》

408 mischievous   

adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的

参考例句：

• He is a mischievous but lovable boy.他是一个淘气但可爱的小孩。
• A mischievous cur must be tied short.恶狗必须拴得短。

409 accusations   

n.指责( accusation的名词复数 )；指控；控告；（被告发、控告的）罪名

参考例句：

• There were accusations of plagiarism. 曾有过关于剽窃的指控。
• He remained unruffled by their accusations. 对于他们的指控他处之泰然。

410 piquant   

adj.辛辣的，开胃的，令人兴奋的

参考例句：

• Bland vegetables are often served with a piquant sauce.清淡的蔬菜常以辛辣的沙司调味。
• He heard of a piquant bit of news.他听到了一则令人兴奋的消息。

411 pandemonium   

n.喧嚣，大混乱

参考例句：

• The whole lobby was a perfect pandemonium,and the din was terrific.整个门厅一片嘈杂，而且喧嚣刺耳。
• I had found Adlai unperturbed in the midst of pandemonium.我觉得艾德莱在一片大混乱中仍然镇定自若。

412 scrambled   

v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞

参考例句：

• Each scrambled for the football at the football ground. 足球场上你争我夺。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• He scrambled awkwardly to his feet. 他笨拙地爬起身来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

413 leaching   

n.滤取，滤去v.（将化学品、矿物质等）过滤( leach的现在分词 )；（液体）过滤，滤去

参考例句：

• The lack of humus and the excessive leaching make this soil almost useless for agricultural purpose. 缺少腐殖质和过度淋滤使这种土壤对农业几乎无用。 来自辞典例句
• The deep oxidation and groundwater leaching solubilizes much of the loosely bound uranium. 深部氧化和地下水淋蚀使大部分固定得比较松散的铀溶解。 来自辞典例句

414 restrictions   

约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则）

参考例句：

• I found the restrictions irksome. 我对那些限制感到很烦。
• a snaggle of restrictions 杂乱无章的种种限制

415 quelled   

v.（用武力）制止，结束，镇压( quell的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Thanks to Kao Sung-nien's skill, the turmoil had been quelled. 亏高松年有本领，弹压下去。 来自汉英文学 - 围城
• Mr. Atkinson was duly quelled. 阿特金森先生被及时地将了一军。 来自辞典例句

416 avarice   

n.贪婪；贪心

参考例句：

• Avarice is the bane to happiness.贪婪是损毁幸福的祸根。
• Their avarice knows no bounds and you can never satisfy them.他们贪得无厌，你永远无法满足他们。

417 dispensed   

v.分配( dispense的过去式和过去分词 )；施与；配（药）

参考例句：

• Not a single one of these conditions can be dispensed with. 这些条件缺一不可。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• They dispensed new clothes to the children in the orphanage. 他们把新衣服发给孤儿院的小孩们。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

418 eroding   

侵蚀，腐蚀( erode的现在分词 )； 逐渐毁坏，削弱，损害

参考例句：

• The coast is slowly eroding. 海岸正慢慢地被侵蚀。
• Another new development is eroding the age-old stereotype of the male warrior. 另一个新现象是，久已形成的男人皆武士的形象正逐渐消失。

419 consultations   

n.磋商（会议）( consultation的名词复数 )；商讨会；协商会；查找

参考例句：

• Consultations can be arranged at other times by appointment. 磋商可以通过预约安排在其他时间。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Consultations are under way. 正在进行磋商。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

420 beheld   

v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟

参考例句：

• His eyes had never beheld such opulence. 他从未见过这样的财富。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The soul beheld its features in the mirror of the passing moment. 灵魂在逝去的瞬间的镜子中看到了自己的模样。 来自英汉文学 - 红字

421 premium   

n.加付款；赠品；adj.高级的；售价高的

参考例句：

• You have to pay a premium for express delivery.寄快递你得付额外费用。
• Fresh water was at a premium after the reservoir was contaminated.在水库被污染之后，清水便因稀而贵了。

422 briefly   

adv.简单地，简短地

参考例句：

• I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
• He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。

423 complacent   

adj.自满的；自鸣得意的

参考例句：

• We must not become complacent the moment we have some success.我们决不能一见成绩就自满起来。
• She was complacent about her achievements.她对自己的成绩沾沾自喜。

424 preoccupied   

adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式)

参考例句：

• He was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to notice anything wrong. 他只顾想着心事，没注意到有什么不对。
• The question of going to the Mount Tai preoccupied his mind. 去游泰山的问题盘踞在他心头。 来自《简明英汉词典》

425 rationing   

n.定量供应

参考例句：

• Wartime austerities included food rationing and shortage of fuel. 战时的艰苦包括食物配给和燃料短缺。
• Food rationing was abolished in that country long ago. 那个国家早就取消了粮食配给制。

426 dissenting   

adj.不同意的

参考例句：

• He can't tolerate dissenting views. 他不能容纳不同意见。
• A dissenting opinion came from the aunt . 姑妈却提出不赞同的意见。

427 underlying   

adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的

参考例句：

• The underlying theme of the novel is very serious.小说隐含的主题是十分严肃的。
• This word has its underlying meaning.这个单词有它潜在的含义。

428 postponing   

v.延期，推迟( postpone的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• He tried to gain time by postponing his decision. 他想以迟迟不作决定的手段来争取时间。 来自辞典例句
• I don't hold with the idea of postponing further discussion of the matter. 我不赞成推迟进一步讨论这件事的想法。 来自辞典例句

429 disorder   

n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调

参考例句：

• When returning back,he discovered the room to be in disorder.回家后，他发现屋子里乱七八糟。
• It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder.里面七零八落地装着许多信件。

430 repercussions   

n.后果，反响( repercussion的名词复数 )；余波

参考例句：

• The collapse of the company will have repercussions for the whole industry. 这家公司的垮台将会给整个行业造成间接的负面影响。
• Human acts have repercussions far beyond the frontiers of the human world. 人类行为所产生的影响远远超出人类世界的范围。 来自《简明英汉词典》

431 placid   

adj.安静的，平和的

参考例句：

• He had been leading a placid life for the past eight years.八年来他一直过着平静的生活。
• You should be in a placid mood and have a heart-to- heart talk with her.你应该心平气和的好好和她谈谈心。

432 placidity   

n.平静，安静，温和

参考例句：

• Miss Pross inquired,with placidity.普洛丝小姐不动声色地问。
• The swift and indifferent placidity of that look troubled me.那一扫而过的冷漠沉静的目光使我深感不安。

433 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。