Business: Greenbacks Under the Gun

As the buck dropped and bullion soared, the Administration talked action

Trying to cope with the worst dollar disaster yet, the Carter Administration last week seemed in peril of following what has become a distressingly familiar pattern: a portentous roll of publicity drums that builds up to a toot on an uncertain trumpet. Early in the week the dollar came under a concentrated cannonade from some financial Guns of August, and its steady, summer-long retreat turned into a disorderly rout. It fell 4½% against the Swiss franc in a single day, while the price...