On the podium, the podcast where Olympic and Paralympic athletes share their remarkable personal journeys.

We make you proud to have believed until the end.

Search for on the podium.

We're ready to go, we're ready to have fun, we're ready to party.

Wherever you found, this podcast.

Hello and welcome to the witness history podcast from the BBC World Service, with me, Ben Henderson.

With inflation driving up the cost of living around the world, I'm taking you back to 1971,

when inflation was also a huge problem, causing the US President, Richard Nixon,

to make one of the most dramatic moves in economic history, abandoning the gold standard.

It became known as the Nixon Shock.

I've been speaking to someone who is at the heart of decision making.

I just saw that a big shot was about to occur, which was going to change the international monetary system and the global economy.

Forever.

This is Bob Hallmatz, economic adviser to Henry Kissinger, then the president's head of national security.

The world has just found out about Nixon's plans and foreign governments are livid.

The primary sentiment was, what happened?

Tell us more, we need more to tell.

This is going to have a big effect on us.

We need to know, why haven't the Americans told us in advance?

And all these I had to answer in my most diplomatic way.

The global economy had changed forever.

To explain what happened, we need to go back to 1944.

...