Fed's Plosser - May need rate hike before end 2014

WASHINGTON May 1 (Reuters) - A leading Federal Reserve inflation-focused hawk said on Tuesday U.S. monetary policy needs to be easy to help the recovery, but added that the Fed may need to rethink its conditional promise to hold rates at rock-bottom levels until late 2014.

"While I believe monetary accommodation is still called for, in the absence of some shock that derails the economy, we may well need to begin to gradually scale back the level of accommodation well before the end of 2014," said Philadelphia Federal Reserve President Charles Plosser.