On the weekend of August 26-27, monetary officials of the world’s major countries reached preliminary agreement on a plan which would provide for a supplement to existing world reserve assets. The agreement, reached in London by the Group of Ten, represented the result of four years of discussions and has been hailed by some as the major development in international finance during the last two decades. While it is probably too early to judge the long-range significance of the proposal, it would be useful to understand why it was made and to review some of its major details.