William Martin.(former chairman of Federal Reserve Board)(Brief Article)(Obituary)

Economist (US), The, August, 1998

IT MAY be difficult to believe, but there was a time when the chairman of America's Federal Reserve Board was not the most listened-to person in Washington and in Wall Street; when markets were not moved by every opaque statement made by the man who controls interest rates. An agency under the thumb of the Treasury Department, and consequently the president, the Fed was often dictated to by politicians intent on doling out fiscal and monetary goodies in an election year.

William McChesney Martin changed this when he became head of the Fed in 1951, and for 19 years, the longest tenure of any Fed chairman, the plain-talking man from Missouri was responsible for turning the Federal Reserve into essentially the fourth branch of American government. If Alan Greenspan...

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