Although there are several, one of the more colorful and dramatic of the eurodollar’s origin stories has to do with Russian dollars. For all kinds of reasons in the fifties, the Soviet Union had accumulated dollar balances with Western banks; including some located or headquartered in the United States. As the Cold War continued to darken, hardened Soviet Communists got cold feet on their money.
Rather than leaving it up to foreign adversaries, the Russians withdrew from US financials and “deposited” their “cash” into largely Western European institutions less likely to go strictly along with any American demands. There was no shortage of countries willing to play in such middle ground.
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