During WWII the Japanese Imperial Army systematically looted all the conquered Asian countries of their
national treasures (This included; gold, silver, precious stones/gems, golden statues, etc.). During the earlier
part of the war, WWII looted treasures were being shipped back to Japan for badly needed war finances.
However, when American patrolling naval vessels made the shipping of these looted treasures to Japan
much too risky to continue with due to almost certain loss, another plan was devised.
Investigative reports show that a great bulk of World War II treasures reached the Philippines from the latter
part of 1943 through October, 1944, at that period when Field Marshall Count Terauchi was in-charge of the
Japanese Imperial Forces in the Southeast area of the Pacific. He had ordered Admiral Masaharu (then
over-all military commander of the Philippines before Yamashita) and several other Admirals and Generals
(including Yamashita) that all war booties taken from their respective occupied territories comprising Java,
Sumatra, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Burma, and Northern India be collected and thereafter transferred to
the Philippines.
national treasures (This included; gold, silver, precious stones/gems, golden statues, etc.). During the earlier
part of the war, WWII looted treasures were being shipped back to Japan for badly needed war finances.
However, when American patrolling naval vessels made the shipping of these looted treasures to Japan
much too risky to continue with due to almost certain loss, another plan was devised.
Investigative reports show that a great bulk of World War II treasures reached the Philippines from the latter
part of 1943 through October, 1944, at that period when Field Marshall Count Terauchi was in-charge of the
Japanese Imperial Forces in the Southeast area of the Pacific. He had ordered Admiral Masaharu (then
over-all military commander of the Philippines before Yamashita) and several other Admirals and Generals
(including Yamashita) that all war booties taken from their respective occupied territories comprising Java,
Sumatra, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Burma, and Northern India be collected and thereafter transferred to
the Philippines.
It is estimated that the total worth of this war loot ranged up to 3 billion 1940's dollars - the equivalent of
over $100 billion today. According to various post war estimates, the amount of gold bullion alone was
4,000 to 6,000 tons.
Index
- The Merkers Treasure
- Safehaven Operations
- Bormann’s Aktion Feuerland
- Corruption Overtakes Safehaven
- Operation Andrew, Sweden and Nazi Gold
- Turkey, Argentina and Nazi Gold
- Portugal, Spain and Nazi Gold
- Switzerland and Nazi Gold
- Nazi Gold Stories From Argentina
- The Emperor's Golden Lily
- The Black Eagle Trust
- Nazi Gold & The United States
MAIN PAGE and INDEX
The Emperor's Golden Lily While the size of the Bormann treasure is not known with any accuracy, it undoubtedly is the largest Nazi treasure that has not been recovered. The only other treasure remaining from WWII that could rival it in size is the Golden Lily treasure collected for the Japanese Emperor. While the Nazi treasure has been the subject of numerous searches and research, the Japanese treasure has been largely left unexplored. While the Nazis appointed a special unit of the SS, Devisenschutzkommando to take charge of the looting of Europe, the Japanese likewise had a special unit. Whereas, the Nazi unit employed Frenchmen to locate gold and currency on a ten percent commission, the unit was plagued by individuals seeking to enrich themselves rather than the Third Reich and much gold was siphoned off into private treasures. Seeking to avoid a similar problem, Hirohito appointed Prince Takeda Tsuneoshi as chief financial officer of the Kwantung Army. Several princes were involved with the Golden Lily operation. After the Japanese invaded China in 1937, the Golden Lily operation conducted a parallel operation. Loot was amassed and trucked to Korea for shipment to the Japanese homeland.
In
1939, the Japanese invaders suffered a stinging defeat at Nomonhan
after a border clash with the Soviets. It’s worth noting that this was
the first battle in which the Japanese Unit 731 employed biological
warfare, using typhoid bacteria. The experiment was a failure. In 1941,
Roosevelt signed a secret agreement with Britain and the Netherlands
agreeing to go to their defence if their colonies in Southeast Asia were
attacked. In 1940, Prince Chichibu was appointed to head the Golden
Lily. He and Takeda traveled throughout China and Southeast Asia,
overseeing the looting and shipping the treasure back to Japan aboard
hospital ships. By 1943, the United States submarine blockade of the
home islands became effective. This forced Prince Chichibu to move his
Golden Lily headquarters from Singapore to Luzon. He spent the next two
and half years inventorying and hiding the treasure in a series of
vaults, tunnels, and caves. The treasure was hidden in a total of 172
sites. The hope was Japan could arrange a cease-fire and be allowed to
hang onto the Philippines as a territory and then recover the treasure
at their leisure.
Besides
using the Philippines to hide the treasure in the last year of the war,
Japan hid gold at sea by scuttling ships. The cruiser, Nachii was
torpedoed by a submarine in Manila Bay. The submarine then machined
gunned any survivors to ensure secrecy. President Marcos recovered the
gold from the Nachii in the 1970s. In 1997, A Japanese television crew
filmed the recovery of 1,800 gold bars worth $150 million. The Igorot
Hill people had discovered the gold. After the death of Prince Chichibu
in the 1950s, a member of the Imperial family confided that the Golden
Lily had amassed over $100 billion in treasure, much of which was hidden
in the Philippines. He also confirmed that the prince had escaped from
MacArthur’s advancing forces by submarine.
The
hospital ship, Tenno Maru, arrived at Yoksuka Naval Base loaded with
causalities from the Philippines and 2,000 metric tons of gold. Days
later it moved to Maizura Naval Base, where additional treasure was put
aboard. The ship then sailed at night. Its crew was murdered and the
ship sunk in the bay. In a secret operation in 1987, Japan recovered the
gold. Another hospital ship, Awa Maru was sunk mistakenly off the coast
of China in April 1945. Aboard the ship was 40 metric tons of gold, 12
metric tons of platinum, 150,000 carats of diamonds, a large quantity of
titanium, and other strategic materials. Old mines in the Japanese
mountains served as repositories for portions of the Golden Lily
treasure. Near the Olympic Village of Nagano, a tunnel complex was dug
by Korean slave labourers. A ten kilometer tunnel completed the complex.
This complex was used to hide portions of the Golden Lily.
The
Allies had made it clear that they intended to prosecute Japanese war
criminals in the same manner as Nuremberg. However, unlike Germany, only
a few generals and admirals were ever convicted. The archives in Japan
had vanished. The United States took exclusive control over Japan,
unlike the four zones in Germany. President Truman appointed MacArthur
as the Supreme Commander. For six years after the surrender of Japan,
MacArthur held virtually unchallenged power. As Supreme Commander he
ignored the Far Eastern commission of eleven nations. MacArthur had the
power to reform the country, but instead left it in the same hands that
bombed Pearl Harbor. The only reform implemented was the successful land
reform that went ahead before it could be blocked. Washington D.C. was
at least partially responsible for the lack of reforms. The liberals in
Washington wanted reform while the conservatives blocked all reform
efforts. The conservative Democrats and the Republicans held Congress
until the 1946 election when the Republicans regained a majority of
seats, putting Congress solidly in the conservative camp.
There
were great plans for reforms, such as the dissolution of the zaibatsu,
conglomerates, banking reforms, and a new constitution as well as
restitution payments to nations ravaged by Japan. None of these plans
were ever implemented. MacArthur killed those plans and was soon backing
away from punishment of war criminals. To protect the ruling elite,
MacArthur soon banned all labor demonstrations and canceled the right of
labor unions to strike.
Just
as the denazification of Germany had been sabotaged, the
democratization of Japan was sabotaged by MacArthur and his staff with
additional help coming from the former ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew,
and former President Herbert Hoover. Grew had been ambassador to Japan
appointed to the post by Hoover in 1932 and was acting secretary of
state in 1945. His wife was a grand niece of Commodore Perry and her
mother was a Cabot. Grew was from the top society of Boston and was deaf
to those beneath his stature in society. Grew’s family had long time
ties to Asia. The Grews had been bankers, who underwrote the opium
clipper ships of the 1800s.
Grew
had started sabotaging the democratization of Japan during the war.
During the war Grew held private talks with Japan’s ambassador to
Switzerland and promised that the United States would not prosecute
Hirohito and that he would be allowed to keep his throne. Such a promise
was adamantly opposed by both the Roosevelt and the Truman
administrations, which both called for unconditional surrender and
prosecution of war criminals.
Grew
however, knew he had the backing of some of the most powerful figures
in American politics and high finance. He left it up to Bonner Fellers
to see to it. Fellers was a former OSS agent attached to MacArthur’s
command who had been stationed in Cairo in 1941. While stationed in
Cairo to observe the British operations in North Africa, he transmitted
reports back to his superiors using the black code. The Italians had
broken the black code and within minutes of Feller’s transmissions,
Rommel knew the positions of British forces and battle plan. After being
transferred to the states for a brief period Fellers was attached to
MacArthur’s command.
The
groundwork for sabotaging the peace in Japan had been laid out by Grew
and Hoover. Fellers was friends with both and had acquired a reputation
of being an expert on Japan. He had been stationed in the Philippines in
the 1930s and had made frequent trips to Japan during that time. Hoover
used Fellers during the occupation of Japan to convey ideas to
MacArthur. MacArthur used Fellers in turn to push his presidential
ambitions to Hoover and the Republican hierarchy.
As
president, Hoover showed little concern about foreign affairs. However,
after his defeat and as the war clouds descended on Europe, he took an
active interest in foreign affairs. In 1938, Hoover met with Hitler.
Even at this late date, Hoover still would have aligned the country with
Hitler to defeat Stalin. He was also a friend with Japanese royalty
from his time spent in China. Hoover wanted Japan to be a conservative
Pacific outpost strongly opposed to communism. He wanted Japan to be
allied with the US and to act as an Asian base for the Republican Party
and its Wall Street cronies. Once he could cleanse the emperor of any
guilt over the war, he could cleanse the government and Japanese
factories would be humming again.
Hoover’s
and Grew’s plan to cleanse the emperor and the Japanese government of
any war crimes had to be kept secret. There were still far too many,
bitter war memories from Pearl Harbor, the Bataan death march, and
Japanese forced labour camps. As late as 1945, Congress had voted that
Hirohito should be tried as a war criminal. Fellers and another Grew
protégé, Max Bishop, engineered the cleansing process. First, to
discover the true extent of Hirohito’s guilt, they questioned Japanese
officials and indicted war criminals in secret. Once all the facts had
been assembled, they sanitized each incriminating bit of information by
suborning witnesses. Before the trials could begin, several adverse
witnesses conveniently died. American POWs on their way home were forced
by US intelligence to sign documents forbidding them to talk about the
harsh treatment they received at the hands of the Japanese.
While
MacArthur was quietly trying to stop the trials, he received a blunt
reminder from the Joint Chiefs to get serious about bringing the Emperor
to trial. Despite such orders, MacArthur would not permit a trial of
Hirohito. MacArthur even put Hirohito on the public relations circuit,
showing him shaking hands and portraying him as a great pacifist. Behind
the scenes, MacArthur and Fellers were castigating anyone not falling
in line with the opinion that the war was the fault of the military.
MacArthur’s
list of war criminals was remarkably short. Of 300 cases investigated
only 28 appeared before the court. Only seven were executed. All of
those hung were Choshu and not Satsuma. This may have been a payoff to
the royal court from a long-standing feud dating back to the early days
of the Meiji Restoration. Even post war maps omitted the name Choshu
after renaming the prefecture Yamaguchi.
Chief
prosecutor was Joseph Keenan, the eleven-member panel of judges
consisted of a judge from each Allied nation. Some of the criminals high
on the list were granted pardons arbitrarily. For instance, the British
decided not to prosecute a naval officer who ordered the machine
gunning of 600 British sailors trying to stay afloat after their ship
had been sunk. MacArthur ordered that not a single bit of information
about biological warfare and Unit 731 be admitted in the trials.81
While
Herbert Hoover kept Fellers and MacArthur busy in Japan, nursing
MacArthur’s political ambition, he guided Grew stateside. At the end of
the war Grew resigned from the State Department and moved to Wall
Street, where he became the leading spokesman for the Japan crowd. Grew
became the co-chairman of the American Council on Japan (ACJ). The ACJ
was a political action committee formed by wealthy conservatives
immediately after the war to lobby Washington and to fight any efforts
to reform Japan. The ACJ was backed by Newsweek, a newsmagazine
founded in 1937 by Averell Harriman. His brother was a director. While
Harriman was equally guilty in supplying Hitler before the war, he is
normally associated with the Democratic Party. Newsweek’s
pro-Japanese stance had his blessing. His role as a leading fundraiser
of Democratic causes obviously came at a cost as he was looking out for
his financial interests and those of his clients. The magazine hailed
the Wall Street vision for Japan. Chief organizers for the AJC were
Harry Kern, Newsweek foreign editor, Compton Pakenham, Newsweek’s
bureau chief in Tokyo, and James Kauffman, a New York lawyer who served
the interest of General Electric, Standard Oil, Ford, National Cash
register, Ottis Elevator, and Dillon Reed in Japan.
Grew’s
cochairman at ACJ was another agent of Herbert Hoover, William Castle.
Castle was a wealthy plantation owner from Hawaii and a former
ambassador to Japan. Ambassador positions at the state department were
regarded by the wealthy as their own providence. Grew’s assistant at the
ACJ was Eugene Dooman, who was raised in Japan. They regarded their
mission to stop any excesses in reforming Japan. Right wing business
leaders were careful to denounce cartels and monopolies in principle,
but fought vigorously against any effort to break up Japanese
conglomerates. They looked toward restoring trade with Japan and saw
that Japan was Asia’s only industrial base. Once the financial elite of
Japan could be restored to power, the quicker business could resume.
In
the summer of 1947, Kauffman visited Tokyo on behalf of Dillon Reed and
made a personal assessment of Truman’s plan to break apart the
zaibatsu. Truman’s plans were classified secret. However, Undersecretary
of Defence William Draper leaked the documents to Newsweek. The reader
should recall that William Draper played a prominent role in sabotaging
the 4-Ds program in postwar Germany. In December, as the nation was
gearing up for the presidential election, Newsweek denounced the overall plan for Japan as costly.
In
Congress, the attack was led by Republican Senator William Knowland a
wealthy newspaper publisher from California. Knowland claimed the Truman
policy on Japan was written by communists, paving the way for Joe
McCarthy. Knowland and Congressman Walter Judd a Republican from
Minnesota, led the China lobby on Capitol Hill and blamed the loss of
China to communism on Truman. Herbert Hoover meanwhile continued to lead
MacArthur on about his chances of being nominated for the Republican
ticket. MacArthur was particularly sensitive to Newsweek’s charges of communism. Those charges enraged the general and he halted all further implementation of the reform program.
The
final deathblow for reform in Japan came early in 1948. In February,
William Draper and Percy Johnson, a Wall Street banker, toured Japan to
review the policy. Johnston was chairman of Chemical Bank, which had a
long time relationship with Mitsui Bank. The outcome was predictable. Of
the original list of 325 Japanese companies that were to be broken
apart, only 20 remained on the Draper-Johnston list. Not a single
Japanese bank would be restructured. The Japanese banks changed their
names as a precaution and hid their past.
By
1952, when the occupation ended, all leftists had once again been
purged and the conservatives were in control of Japan. The Emperor’s
fortune still laid under the waters of Tokyo Bay and in other locations.
The first recovery of a portion of the Golden Lily is known as the
Santa Romana recovery. In the Philippines during the waning days of the
war, Filipino guerrillas observed the Japanese transporting heavy bronze
cases and hiding them in a cave. An OSS major was with the group that
observed the burial. After the treasure was hidden in the cave, the
entrance was dynamited shut and concealed. The OSS agent reopened the
cave and found the cases to contain gold. Following the war, between
1945 and 1948, the gold was recovered. The operation was known to Wiliam
Donovan, MacArthur, Fellers, Edward Langsdale, and Herbert Hoover.
Later, Allen Dulles knew of the operation. Donovan and Langsdale were
assigned the recovery. No attempt was ever made to return the gold to
its rightful heirs. Instead, the gold was deposited in 176 bank accounts
in 42 different countries. It became the basis of the CIA off the books
financing. This financing was done by issuing gold certificates to
influential people, binding them to the CIA. One account in Langsdale’s
name in the Geneva branch of Union Banque Suisse contained 20,000 metric
tons of gold. The insiders squirreled some of the bullion away for
private use. Documents confirm that one of the largest accounts was in
the name of MacArthur.
Other
documents indicated Herbert Hoover had an account containing $100
million in gold bullion. One can be certain that Hoover’s deep concern
over Japan was based on his ability to smell a big payoff in gold from
his previous experiences in China and Australia. The large holding of
gold by Hoover was confirmed after his death, when his son sought out
government approval to dispose of a large sum of gold bullion. The large
accounts of MacArthur and Hoover suggest that the cleansing of Hirohito
came at a high price.
Edwin
Pauley, a rich oilman, had been dispatched to Japan to assess Japan’s
ability to pay reparations. Pauly was informed of the $2 billion dollars
of gold in Tokyo Bay shortly after his arrival in Japan. Yet, Pauley
concluded Japan was in shambles and could not pay its fair share of
expenses of the American occupation, let alone to anyone else’s
rebuilding efforts. Largely due to Pauley’s assessment, Japan’s bill for
reparations came to only one billion dollars. If such a sum had been
distributed equally to the next of kin of the 20 million people who died
as a result of Japan’s aggression, each would have received the paltry
sum of $30. In the immediate post war scramble for reparations, the
wealthy in Japan who had profited from the war and hid their profits
submitted their own claim for reparations, totalling $5 billion. Many of
these claims were paid.
Instead
of cash payment to countries, Japan was ordered to provide industrial
equipment. Even such token payments were suspended by Washington when
the equipment was claimed as collateral for bonds issued before the war
by American firms. Two of the largest American firms making such claims
were Morgan Bank and Dillon Reed. By 1950, Japan owed Morgan Bank over
$600 million in interest, penalties, and principle just for the 1924
earthquake loans. In 1951, Japan arranged for refinancing of the loans
through Smith Barney and Guaranty Trust. By 1952, Japan had repaid all
prewar investments by American corporations and compensated them for all
property damage. While all prewar Japanese bonds held by companies
affiliated with the ACJ were repaid, companies not affiliated were not
so fortunate. The reader should ponder long and hard how a country so
shattered was able to pay off such a colossal debt in such a short time.84
The
issue of Japan’s compensation is still an issue. In 1998, one month
before Prince Akihito’s visit to Britain, Congress passed the following
resolution.
Whereas
the government of Germany has formally apologized to the victims of the
Holocaust and gone to great lengths to provide financial compensation
to the victims and to provide for their needs and recovery; and Whereas
by contrast the Government of Japan has refused to fully acknowledge the
crimes it committed during World War II and to provide Reparations to
its victims: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the House of
Representatives (the Senate concurring), That it is the sense of the
Congress that the Government of Japan should.
1.Formally
issue a clear and unambiguous apology for the atrocious war crimes
committed by the Japanese military during World War II; and:
2.
Immediately pay reparations to the victims of those crimes including
United States military and civilian prisoners of, people of Guam who
were subjected to violence and imprisonment, survivors of the "Rape of
Nanking" from December 1937, until February, 1938, and the women who
were forced into sexual slavery and known by the Japanese military as
"comfort women."85
One intriguing theory that sheds additional light on the fate of the Golden Lily comes from David Guyatt, author and researcher. Guyatt
theorizes that the total mined supply of gold has been deliberately
understated and that the supply of gold is much larger than the 140,000
tons reported. This additional supply of black gold is controlled by
extremely right wing fascists. One reported trader in this market is the
son of George Bush.
His
theory revolves around the year 1954. London Bullion Market was shut
down in 1939 at the onset of war. Even before the war, England’s gold
reserves were extremely low. The war was an additional drain on those
reserves, as evident by the destroyer trade and England’s reliance on
the Lend Lease program. As well as the concession of Portugal to accept
the pound in trade rather than demand gold. In short, England was
walking among the financially dead at the war’s end. However, in 1954,
just nine short years from the end of the war, England had apparently
acquired enough supply of gold to reopen the bullion market.
The
Bilderberg group held its first meeting in 1954. The Bilderberg group
was founded by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands and former officer in
the SS. Bernhard had also worked in I.G. Farben’s notorious NW7 group,
which served as spies for the Third Reich. The Prince is also associated
with the Knights of Templar, through its Dutch variety. Bernhard was
appointed to govern the Dutch order in 1954. John Foster Dulles was
reported to have been one of the most helpful Americans in establishing
the Bilderberg group. Incidentally, in 1954 Dulles testified in favor of
a bill designed to return vested enemy assets such as GAF, to their
previous owners. From the beginning, the Bilderberg group had several
members of the intelligence community associated with it. Sir Colin
Gubbins, Britain’s wartime SOE head, was a founding member. Walter
Bedell Smith was a co-chairman of the group in the US.
The
year 1954 was significant in a number of other ways. A memorandum of
agreement between the CIA and the Justice Department that allowed the
CIA to police itself was dated February 18, 1954. In effect, it allowed
the CIA free reign as the Justice department would turn a blind eye
towards matters of national security. Another noteworthy aspect of 1954
was the merger of the Schroder Bank and the Wagg family to form the city
based merchant bank, J. Henry Schroder Wagg & Co. Wackenhut
Corporation, a corporation with deep ties to both the military and
intelligence communities, was formed in 1954.
However,
more significant was that 1954 was the year the U.S. had forecasted
that the Soviet Union would have thermo nuclear weapons. With their
greater numerical strength, a massive military build up had been
launched, costing taxpayers billions, while the corporations reaped fat
profits. It was also the year in which General James Doolittle concluded
his study of the CIA and reached the conclusion that the agency was not
as adept as the KGB. The MK-Ultra, the mind control program of the CIA,
began in 1954.
Perhaps
the most noteworthy of all events in 1954 was a strange audit of the
gold supply in Fort Knox. Every bar, totalling almost three quarters of a
million, was weighed singularly. Moreover, every hundredth bar was
drilled and a small sample taken to be assayed. No single assayer was
used so the extent of the audit could not be deduced. No reasonable
explanation for such a detailed and secret audit has been uncovered.
A
partial list of significant events of 1954 follows: After learning
about the Japanese treasures in November 1953, Marcos starts digging for
gold in the Philippines. Fred Meuser, Lockheed's European Director,
transfers to Geneva to live, this event figures in later. The Four-Power
Treaty is signed in Paris to terminate the occupation regime in
Germany. Germany joins NATO. Geneva Accord reached regarding peace
between France and Indochina. Additionally, 1954 was the year that
Edward Landsdale arrived in Vietnam to take over the opium trade. The
Israeli Mossad and US CIA formed an intelligence "partnership." Nazi
gold was moved from Argentina to the Philippines in 1954 after the Mosad
determined it was located in Argentina.
Guyatt
provides a more extensive list of events revolving around 1954 than
provided above. However, the essential events to support his theory have
been covered and we can now begin to look more directly at the Golden
Lily and its recovery. Research done by the Seagraves has found 172
treasure sites of the Golden Lily in the Philippines. One of those sites
audited by Japanese accountants contained a staggering 777 billion yen
or the equivalent of $194 billion. Estimates for all 172 sites comes to a
staggering $100 trillion. Over the years, numerous right wing groups
have aided and abetted the CIA by laundering plundered items from the
Golden Lily.
One
of the latest recoveries, which raised scandalous headlines in 1994
involving former UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, was part of an
operation involving the CIA and former General John Singlaub. The
operation, dubbed Nippon Star, had recovered in excess of 500 metric
tons of gold recovered from the Philippines. Singlaub, who is very
active in right wing extremist groups and political intrigue in Central
and South America, headed the team. Singlaub was part of the
military/CIA intelligence complex before retiring. The team consisted of
Gunther Russbacher, a CIA agent, five other Americans, and a handful of
Filipinos. The recovered gold contained Nazi gold and gold stole from
China by the Japanese. Kurt Waldheim served as the intermediary between
the Austrian National Bank and Philippine President Ramos.
What
is intriguing about this sale, besides the extraordinary size, is this
operation was also known to the Knights of Malta. A document from the
Knights of Malta entitled the Landsdale Project references 500 MT.
Moreover, it refers to a meeting of Washington people to discuss the
ramifications of another Landsdale project. While a number of former
intelligence officials and military leaders are known members of the
Knights of Malta, their knowledge of a secret CIA operation raises
further questions. Who else was in on this operation? What were the
ramifications of the second Landsdale Project? Was the Vatican a part of
this operation? For now, those questions and others will have to go
unanswered.
The
stated reason for the transfer to Austria was to provide backing for
the Euro dollar. However, the presence of Waldheim as an intermediary
only raises questions of connections to Nazis and fascism. Even before
Waldheim took his office in the UN, the CIA and military intelligence
must have known about his former background as an SS officer. It is
inconceivable that the US did not know of his background, since he was
in an automatic arrest category following the war.
One
of the earliest documents attesting to Marcos’s recovering the treasure
of the Golden Lily is a gold certificate dated 1956. This was before
Marcos had become a member of the senate. Swiss Bank Corporation
(Schweizerische Bank GESELLSCHAFT M.H.C.) issued the certificate for a
deposit of 7,120 metric tons of gold. Marcos collaborated with
Japanese-American investigator Minoru Fukimatsu. Together they
interviewed over 300 witnesses and somehow accessed secret Japanese
government archives in determining the locations of the treasure.
Another
gold certificate was issued on January 17, 1963 by Unions Bank of
Switzerland. The certificate was issued to Adnan Kasogi. Adnan Kasogi
was actually Adnan Khashoggi, a Marcos crony. Khashoggi's name was
misspelled, but that is often the case in these certificates. Khashoggi
was a Lockheed agent and partner of Yoshio Kodama. Kodama was a Japanese
rear admiral during the war and also a member of the Japanese Yakuza
crime clan. Kodama was charged with shipping the loot to the Philippines
during the war. This gold certificate was issued just before Lockheed
paid the first known bribe to Prince Bernhard. Lockheed was being used
by the CIA to funnel money worldwide. Moreover, Lockheed’s European
Sales Director, Dutchman Fred Meuser, had been a member of Prince
Bernhard’s wartime air force squadron. An additional member of the
Lockheed bribe team was CIA officer Nicholas Deak. Deak had founded a
money brokering firm that was used to funnel money to Kodama. Deak’s
company later merged with Lionel C. Perera, who founded the money firm
of Perera, Manfra & Brookes. Perera was attached to the Chief of
Military Government Finance Office at the Third Army’s headquarters in
Germany at war's end, where he interviewed Colonel Rauch. Rauch was the
SS colonel responsible for hiding the Reich Bank gold reserves.
With
so many figures involved directly with both the Nazi and the Japanese
treasures, such an event as the Lockheed bribery cannot be dismissed as
mere happenstance. However, the intrigue does not stop there. Marcos,
Kodama, and Singlaub were all members of the World Anti-Communist
League, a right wing extremist group populated with known war criminals
and fascists. Under the Reagan administration, the World Anti-Communist
League was granted tax-exempt status. That raises the possibility that
the World Anti-Communist League was being used as a front for the CIA.
Moreover, the intrigue continues. Guyatt goes on to claim that a letter
from Henry Kissinger was sent to Marcos on Trilateral notepaper.
Kissinger demanded that Marcos sell "63,321 tons of gold to 2000 US and
European banks admittedly controlled by the Trilateral." The letter was
dated February 21, 1986. Marcos refused and was overthrown as a result
of his refusal. Imelda Marcos, however, chose to sell the gold to avoid
criminal charges, and the gold was transferred aboard the US Eisenhower
to the United States.
Additional evidence of Marco’s recovering the Golden Lily treasure comes from the Filipino newspaper, The Inquirer.
In 1998 the paper published an article entitled "Soldiers of Fortune."
The article revealed that all members of the 16th Infantry Battalion had
signed a joint affidavit declaring that, together with members of the
51st Engineering Brigade, they had recovered 60,000 metric tons of gold
from thirty sites between 1973 and 1985. Both units operated in strict
secrecy under Marcos’ henchman Fabian Ver.
Whether
Guyatt’s theory of a secret gold treaty being reached in 1954 is
correct or not, it is obvious from his findings and those of the
Seagraves that considerable treasure has been recovered from the Golden
Lily, ending up in the hands of those involved in intelligence and right
wing causes. Was this gold put to private use or the use of the CIA?
It’s most likely that a portion was skimmed for private use while the
bulk of the remainder was used to fund clandestine CIA operations. It is
interesting to note that those connected with the secret recoveries:
Herbert Hoover, MacArthur, Allen Dulles, and others were the very ones
that worked the hardest in derailing the reform of Japan and Nazi
Germany. Their sole objective was to reestablish the cartels and get on
with business as usual, and to hell with war crimes. Moreover, it seems
certain that a large portion of the Nazi treasure and the Golden Lily
was used in rebuilding Germany and Japan with the explicit approval of
the right wing in America.
While
the largest portions of the Nazi hoard and the Golden Lily remains
shrouded under a curtain of mystery and controversy a good deal is known
about smaller caches that have been recovered. Until recently, little
was known about America’s acquisition of treasures from the war. Much
mystery still remains and undoubtedly more caches will surface with
additional time. Although Congress passed legislation requiring the
return to Germany of much of this material, the bulk of it remains
stored in the American archives and private collections. The legislation
has been supported by court rulings. Only after Clinton authorized
Eizenstat to reach a settlement on unclaimed assets has the New York
Federal Reserve admitted to holding two tons of Nazi gold. There has
been little effort to return the war booty.
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