Robert Roosa - Postwar Years

Postwar Years

From 1946 he worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, ultimately reaching the position of vice president in the bank's research department. He then joined the Treasury, under John F. Kennedy, as Undersecretary for Monetary Affairs, where he helped to address the balance of payments problem facing America at that time. One of his solutions was the creation of bonds that would attract and allow foreign holders of dollars to turn them into long-term assets as an alternative to buying U.S. gold. Known as Roosa bonds, they were bought with dollars, but denominated and repaid in Swiss francs. Roosa believed that the international monetary system should be based on a reference and that the reference should be the U.S. dollar. He continued under the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson until 1964.

Roosa joined the Wall Street firm of Brown Brothers Harriman as a partner, in 1965. He was a director at the Council on Foreign Relations between 1966 and 1981, and a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation. He also became a member of the influential Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty in 1979. He was also a member of the Trilateral Commission. From 1975 to 1986, he was chairman of the Brookings Institution. Roosa retired from Brown Brothers in 1991.