"How Richard Nixon "Goldfingered" the World" by Adrian Ash

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But in closing the "gold window" at the Federal Reserve – and destroying the Bretton Woods exchange standard – Nixon was in fact only completing a process begun before the First World War started in 1914. He locked America's gold reserves deep inside government vaults, safe from the predations of foreign governments demanding hard assets in payment of debt. More crucially in the great arc of 20th century politics, however, Nixon also kept US gold far removed from the private circulation of wealth that had preceding the five decades of "total war" in Europe and Asia...back before those evil days when bureaucrats worldwide moved to close down the free movement of gold, locking it deep inside nationalized vaults, safe from the free decisions of private individuals to move and spend their wealth – in the form of gold bullion – as they saw fit.