Word: pounded
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Peculiar Breeds. But Wilson is accustomed to life on the edge of the precipice. In retrospect, last week looked positively rosy. In the money marts of the world, the British pound was triumphantly steady, and even rose a bit. With a minimum of grumbling, Britain had accepted a tough austerity budget. Wilson's recent tour of Allied capitals produced surprising warmth and a fresh estimate of Britain's stature. And Wilson is holding the line in Britain's overseas defense system, stretching from Germany to Aden, and in Malaysia, where a beefed-up British expeditionary force...
...Wilson himself later noted, he could have instantly devalued the pound and thrown the blame on Tory mismanagement. He even had a precedent: Attlee's first Labor government had devalued the pound in 1949. But devaluation would amount to a declaration of insolvency as well as a withdrawal into the concept of a "Little England" of no more political importance in the world than Sweden or Belgium...
...pound was safe for the moment, but after Christmas came another crisis. In a by-election for the supposedly safe Labor seat of Smethwick, Wilson's close friend and new Foreign Secretary Patrick Gordon Walker lost to a Tory. But Wilson was deaf to appeals that he hold a snap national election, arguing that this would undermine all that had been done to defend the pound. In effect, it would mean running out on the U.S. and the other allies who had come to Britain's aid. Wilson prevailed, and the assurance gained from the decision carried over...
...what he once called the "gnomes"-the world financiers. Assembled by the Economic Club of New York at the Waldorf, they got a Yorkshireman's earful. Wilson began by ribbing those "who have backed with good money" their belief that Britain would be forced to devalue the pound and who are now "licking their wounds, as I warned them they would." He added the neatly cynical point that if he had intended to devalue the pound, "political considerations would have dictated doing it on that very first day" when he took office -thus enabling him to blame...
...fiery and fighting speech and an impressive affirmation of Wilson's determination to continue to defend the pound, and use every orthodox monetary and fiscal tool to get Britain's creaking economy moving again. Not everyone was convinced that Wilson's new budget (TIME, April 16) can do the job as well as he hopes. One banker reminded the Prime Minister of the fate of King Canute who ordered the tide to recede - and ended up a wetback. Replied Wilson cockily: "I, unlike Canute, have waited until high tide before giving my command...