THE SPOILS OF WAR

The Secret Story of WWII Japanese & Nazi Gold

By David Guyatt

copyright 2002 for

The use of suspect gold to launder drug profits is well established.  One example of such laundering activities concerns a rogue airline that had the reputation of flying anything to anywhere.  Over a two-year period between 1989-91, the airline made four flights carrying gold bullion weighing 160 tonnes with a market value of two billion dollars.  Each of the four flights carried boxes with twelve bars of gold to a box that overall weighed 41 tonnes per flight.  All the boxes were palletised for easy loading and accompanied by a guard.  The flights originated from Medellin, Columbia, and were airlifted to London and apparently cleared both ends without customs inspection. [1]  

 The amount of gold shipped was more than the gold reserves of most central banks.  The question then arises: where did this gold originate?  The likelihood is that it was part of the vast amounts of gold plundered in WWII by the Axis powers.  

The story about what really happened to the loot plundered by the Nazis and Japanese during WWII remains one of the best-kept secrets of the last fifty years.  Few outside of the charmed circle of initiated insiders possess any knowledge whatsoever of the true dimensions of what can be described as the biggest cover-up of all time.  

But it is not just public awareness of what exactly “happened” to this plunder in the post war years that is the cause of supreme unease amongst the powers that be.  It is the sheer magnitude of treasure forcibly confiscated by the Axis powers that causes trepidation.  Were the actual dollar numbers involved to be revealed, it would lay bare an even more sensitive secret – one that has endured for a hundred or more years.   

A decades long propaganda campaign had served to focus public attention on the gold stolen from governments – known as monetary gold – as a means of eclipsing from public view far larger amounts of privately held gold that was also stolen. 

The heavy cloak of disinformation and double-talk had still another layer.  By putting the spotlight on Nazi plunder from the very beginning, public attention was diverted away from the industrial scale looting undertaken by Japan’s special plunder teams known as the “Golden Lily.”  And it is here that the real story dwells.  

THE PRINCE OF PLUNDER  

History should have recorded him as the world’s most ruthless and avaricious bandit of all time.  Instead, it has passed him by virtually unnoticed, thanks to the onset of the cold war and the well-laid designs of western elites.   

Prince Chichibu was the younger brother of Japan’s Emperor Hirohito and had been named by the Emperor to head the ultra-secret Golden Lily – a secretive group tasked with looting China of its wealth – both government and privately owned hard assets.  Beginning in 1937, with the Rape of Nanking, the plunder teams set to work with a vengeance.  The spoils were far larger than had been imagined.  It is believed that 6,000 metric tonnes of gold, plus a bounty of silver and precious gemstones fell in to the hands of Japan’s imperial treasury as a consequence. [2]  

The phenomenal wealth of East and Southeast Asia had accrued over thousands of years and Japan wanted it all.  Over the next seven years the Orient was wrung dry of its precious metals, solid gold religious artefacts and an unbelievable quantity of gemstones.  

Most of this was shipped by the Japanese to the Philippines as a collecting point, for onward shipment to Tokyo.  However, by 1943 the sea-lanes had been cut by US submarines and the decision was taken to bury the plunder throughout the Philippines.  This was based on Japan’s expectation of a negotiated truce that would leave them ruling the Philippines.  Thereafter, the recovery of the plunder could take place in secret over many years making Japan one of the wealthiest nations in the world.   

That, however, was not to be.  The United States had its own well-laid plans to become the imperial world power of post WWII.  These plans had been formulated before the Second World War by The Council on Foreign Relations an organisation founded by wealthy Americans in the wake of WWI, in tandem with England’s Royal Institute of International Affairs, known as “Chatham House” for short.   

The CFR plan called for a “Grand Area” that was to come under US control.  Included was the Western Hemisphere, Western Europe, the Far East and the former British Empire.  The latter was being actively dismantled for this purpose.  Also listed was the Middle East, whose colossal oil resources were eyed with great passion.  In fact, if it was possible to achieve, the entire planet was to come under US domination. [3]  

In this scheme, Japan and Germany were assigned the role of the “great workshops” of productivity.  In short, there was no place for a separate imperial power and Japan (and Germany) had to be thoroughly defeated.   Roosevelt’s call for “unconditional surrender” of the Axis powers not only smashed Japan’s comfortable view of what would be, but also sealed the fate of the post WWII world.  

In addition to the Philippines, treasure plundered by the Japanese is believed to have been stashed in Indonesia and, probably Korea, too.  But the Philippine Islands were the key.  Here treasure sites were excavated – usually using prisoners of war as slave labour.  The plunder was then stashed in these sites and booby traps were set to deter would be treasure hunters.  With the prisoners of war still inside the sites were sealed and disguised – leading hundreds to die a grisly death in the name of greed and secrecy.  

THE BLACK EAGLE FUND  

The quantity of gold and other treasures buried was phenomenal.  Japanese cartographers made maps of each site and trusted accountants marked them with three digits signifying the Yen values of the gold, diamonds and other assets buried in each. 

A site bearing the designation “777” was valued at 777 billion yen.  With 1945 exchange rates fluctuating between 3.50 and 4.00 yen to the dollar, just one triple seven site was worth almost US$200 billion – a king’s ransom by any measure.  There were many triple seven (“777”) sites as well as triple nine and lesser sites.   

Not only were these figures based on 1945 values -- when a dollar was really a dollar – but also when the price of gold was $35.00 an ounce.  Today the price of gold is closer to $300 an ounce.  But add to this the fact that in the Philippines alone there were over 170 burial sites, and a picture forms of a wealth so unimaginable that it almost defies belief. [4]  

With the defeat of Japanese forces in the Philippines in 1945, a project of the utmost secrecy was launched to recover the buried Golden Lily plunder.  This project was placed under the day-to-day control of Captain Edward Lansdale and OSS operative Severino Garcia Santa Romana.  In 1945, Lansdale had been ordered to Manila as part of General Willoughby’s G2 military intelligence team.  On arrival, Lansdale met up with Santa Romana and set to work.  The CIA would later recruit both officers.  

Over the next few years numerous plunder sites were located and the stolen assets recovered.  The gold, gemstones and other treasure were deposited in over 170 bank accounts spread across more than forty countries – all of whom were signatories of the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement.  Collectively, the recovered loot came to be known as the Black Eagle Trust or fund. 

Even to this day the mere mention of the Black Eagle Fund causes unease, and the entire subject remains cloaked in official secrecy.  For example, during a 1999 discussion on this subject, one highly placed banker familiar with the existence and arrangements of this slush fund cautioned: “if you wish to discuss certain aspects of military program finance on the internet, you may be doing so in contravention of several statutes and regulations, both in the United States and in any NATO-member jurisdiction.”  

A RARE LIE  

According to official figures, the present volume of above ground gold stocks is approximately 142,000 metric tonnes.  This, it is claimed, accounts for all the gold mined over six thousand years. [5]   In contrast to these figures, just one of the many “777” Golden Lily sites would have held, using a conservative estimate, upwards of 90,000 metric tonnes. [6]    

Clearly, official figures don’t remotely begin to mesh with the volumes of “black gold” stolen by the Axis powers.  One major reason for this is simply that the official statistics have never included gold production in China, Southeast Asia and the former Soviet Union.    

Since the latter was the world’s second largest gold producer after South Africa, this was bound to distort the accuracy of official statistics.  Curiously, despite the end of the cold war no apparent effort has been made to “update” these figures following access to strategic information of the former Soviet Union, who is now a member of the powerful G8 group of nations.  Meanwhile, China and the Orient have had a love affair with gold dating back 6,000 years.  This obviously had to come from somewhere.  

Is it really possible that the official gold mining figures are just so much flim-flam, designed to hide the real picture?  Could a conspiracy so flagrant and so large be perpetrated under the noses of an unsuspecting public?   

To answer these questions we need do no more than hop across the street to gold’s sister market -- diamonds.  Diamonds are said to be rare which accounts for their value.  But like gold, they are not nearly so rare as we have been told.  One example of their abundance is the Argyle mine in Australia, which was discovered in 1979.  The mine was estimated to have over one billion carats – the majority of which were of gem quality.  This is in stark contrast to South Africa’s entire diamond reserves of 200 million carats noted in a 1980 US Geological Survey.  

Diamonds may be a “girls best friend” but that is about as far as it goes.  As a true store of value in a true and unfettered free market, diamonds would be worth considerably less.  What keeps the value high is the restricted access to gem quality stones which are rigidly controlled by the “cartel.”  The cartel is thought to be controlled by the South African Oppenheimer family and De Beers, via the London based Central Selling Organisation or CSO. [7]  

Any one person or group that has a stranglehold on gold, platinum and diamonds also has a strategic stranglehold on world commerce.  Industrial diamonds are the backbone of productive industry and without adequate supplies of these, production would grind to a halt.  Such a situation came close to happening during WWII. 

In a Washington Post article on 18^th October 1988, former director of the CIA accused De Beers and the Oppenheimer family of refusing to sell the US a large quantity of industrial diamonds necessary for war production.  In a 2^nd November 1988 letter, Sir Phillip Oppenheimer retorted angrily to these charges calling them “unsubstantiated.” 

Documentary filmmaker and author, Jani Farrel-Roberts, has exhaustively investigated the diamond trade for many years and undertook to discover what truth, if any, lay behind Admiral Turner’s astonishing allegations.  Access to government documents under the Freedom of Information Act as well as extensive interviews with attorneys who had spent years investigating De Beers on behalf of the US government convinced her that De Beers had indeed “…rationed diamonds supplies to the United States, depriving it of essential war tools at a time when De Beers had ample diamonds to supply all Allied needs. [8]    

But more shocks were to come.  Unearthed in the mounds of declassified documents obtained by Farrell-Roberts was a highly sensitive report on a secret British American investigation detailing how Hitler’s Germany acquired all the industrial diamonds it needed for its own war effort.  Completed in 1944, the report concluded that the Nazi’s were getting their diamonds from the same syndicate that supplied the Allies.   

Major A. W. Schmidt, the senior US investigating officer, stated in the report that this trade was protected by senior officials in the British Governments Ministry of Economic Warfare and accused these officials of being treasonous and of prolonging the war. [9]   Schmidt additionally reported that measures taken to curtail the flow of diamonds to Germany were “…sabotaged, not by the British Government, but by the representatives of the Diamond Trading Corporation in London through their domination of the Diamond Committee of the MEW [Ministry of Economic Warfare].” [10]  

THE PRIORY OF SION EXPLAINED?  

the Minister of Economic Warfare during this period [1942-5] was Lord Selborne.  Amongst his other associations, Selborne was a member of the top level “circle of initiates” of the secret society formed by South African gold and diamond magnate, Cecil Rhodes – who founded De Beers.  Following Rhodes death this powerful and secretive group was run by Lord Alfred Milner with Lord Selborne in the deputy leader slot. [11]   .  Following Milner’s death in 1925, he assumed the leadership of the “group.”  Among his other wartime duties he headed Churchill’s Special Operations Executive (SOE).   

Lord Selborne would later come to the attention of millions of readers of “The Messianic Legacy,” the best selling sequel about the mystery of treasure hidden in Rennes le Chateau in the French Pyrennes.  This story was first brought to public attention in the smash selling book “Holy Blood – Holy Grail” by the same authors.  Lord Selborne was identified as one of the principals who in 1956, applied for export licenses of ancient parchments said to directly relate to the Rennes le Chateau mystery. [12]  

Did this mysterious treasure really have ancient roots or was it of a more contemporary origin?  There are good reasons to believe it may rather have been part of the gold plundered by the Nazi’s that was being buried, rather than ancient loot being dug up.   

Nazi loot would certainly account for Lord Selborne’s interest in these matters and would also bring in to sharp focus the August 1956, date mentioned above.  Just months earlier in May 1955, the Federal Republic of Germany had recovered it’s sovereignty, following the cessation of Allied military rule.  Consequently, the outflow of plunder and assets orchestrated under the Nazi capital flight programme “Operation Eagle’s Flight,” was put into reverse gear by Reichsleiter Martin Bormann.  This soon resulted in a massive influx of capital into the newly risen Germany.  More than anything else, this is believed to account for Germany’s miraculous post war recovery. [13]  

Behind Bormann’s programme of repatriating Nazi assets was the idea, developed in 1943, of using them in a confederated post war Europe under Germany’s covert control in what was even then called a “European Economic Community” or EEC. [14]   Even though this pre-dated the actual foundation of the EEC in March 1957, it was not a new idea.  Half a century earlier in 1899, W T Stead, a close confidant of Cecil Rhodes, had authored a book titled “The United States of Europe” along with “The Americanisation of the World.”  [15]  

Since these are issues that remain current a century later, one cannot help but acknowledge the foresight of Stead and Rhodes and also wonder if Bormann was part of this overall strategy – knowingly or not?  Bormann was not a Rhodes scholar but some influential Germans of that period were, and others had close affiliations with members of the secret society founded by Rhodes who formed the ruling elite of England during the war years. [16]   Normally regarded as Anglo-American in tone, the Rhodes Trust and Scholars had a rather more “teutonic” flavour. [17]  

The secretive nature of Rhodes secret society – arguably fronted by the Rhodes Scholarships – throws up other curiosities as well.  Only 3 of the 47 individuals who had been appointed trustees of Rhodes Trust between the years 1902 – 1995 – have been Rhodes Scholars.  Furthermore, of the 17 Rhodes Trust Secretaries and Wardens of Rhodes House appointed during these same years, not one has been a Rhodes scholar.  This is less than half a percent overall.  Democratic representation seems not to be an issue. [18]  

In the latter months of the war, Bormann looked to SS Major Otto Skorzeny to play a crucial role in spiriting away Nazi loot before Germany surrendered. [19]   In early 1944, Hitler’s “favourite commando” was sent on a secret mission to the Corbieres region of the French Pyrennes, on the instructions of SS leader, Heinrich Himmler.  What the purpose of this mission was remains unknown. [20]    

These curiosities multiply even further.  Pierre Plantard, the central character of the Rennes le Chateau mystery and supposed head of the ancient Order, the Prieure of Sion, is reported to have transferred a “large quantity of gold to Switzerland in 1952.” [21]   Despite claims that the Priory of Sion has a 1000-year history dating back to the Order of warrior knights, the Knights Templar - chartered in 1151 - it only surfaced in 1956.   

It is said that the founding of the Priory of Sion was an artful ploy by Charles de Gaulle to conceal the true activities that were taking place in France at that time.  These had more to do with laundering suspect gold bullion and political intrigue than ancient treasure, religious cults or biblical bloodlines.  The latter were an accrual of old myths and legends cobbled together to form a diversionary cover story [22]  

The selection of Annemasse on the French Swiss border for Priory’s headquarters in 1956 is also interesting.  This small border town is reported to be the centre for the “Gladio” stay-behind units formed to fight behind the lines in the event the Soviet Union invaded Western Europe.  The prospect of Russia over-running Europe was most unlikely - a fact known by the US and European military and intelligence community of the day.  The Europe-wide Gladio operation had far darker designs.  Its principal objective was directed at keeping the allegiance of Western European nations securely in the US economic orbit as well as moving their political infrastructure further to the right. [23]  

RICH KNIGHTS OR POOR KNIGHTS?  

Whether the Priory of Sion really had any historical relationship with the Knights of Malta (SMOM) – who are sometimes referred to as the “poor knights” – remains unknown.  But different factions of Malta Knights continually enter the story of gold and treasure plundered during WWII. 

An intriguing example of this involved the CIA front company and Australian headquartered Nugan Hand Bank.  Nugan hand Bank was active in laundering WWII gold bullion recovered by Philippine President, Ferdinand Marcos.  It was also very active in the Golden Triangle narcotics traffic.  The bank was closed in 1980’s following the “assisted” suicide of the banks co-founder, Frank Nugan.   

Brigadier General Erle Cocke who was the Washington office of the bank, was a Knight of Malta.  In an April 2000 deposition that directly related to gold plundered during the war, Cocke stated that he was a “…Grand Commander in the Knight of Malta…” [24]  

But according to Guy Stair Sainty, an acknowledged expert on Knightly Orders – and a member of the “False Orders committee of the five Order of St. John,” the title “Grand Commander” does not exist in the genuine Order recognised by the Vatican, and Cocke’s name does not appear on the official membership roll. [25]    

Names that do appear either as members of as recipients of SMOM awards, include many senior CIA officers – for example, Bill Casey, Vernon Walters and James Jesus Angleton.  The former Nazi spymaster, Reinhard Gehlen, was awarded SMOM’s Cross of Merito Melitense in 1948.  Immediately the war, Gehlen went to work for the CIA and later assumed command of the West German intelligence organisation the BND, when born in 1955.  Post WWII, Gehlen worked closely with Otto Skorzeny and his boss, Martin Bormann. [26]  

But if Erle Cocke Jr. was not a member of the official Order of SMOM, the likelihood is that he was a member of the Shickshinny Knights of Malta of Pennsylvania.  A so-called “false order,” the Shickshinny knights were composed of individuals who leaned to the extreme political right.  The Order’s “Armed Services Committee,” included such military notables as British Admiral, Sir Barry Domville – a former head of Naval intelligence who was imprisoned in WWII for his pro-Nazi activities.  Domville headed a pro-Hitler group called “The Link” which was intimately associated with the powerful and traitorous pro-Nazi “Right Club.” 

Membership of this “club” was composed of over 250 leading lights of Britain’s Establishment.  Included was John Milner Bailey, the son of Sir Abe Bailey - another South African gold mining millionaire who was a contemporary of Rhodes.  Sir Abe was also the main financial supporter of the Rhodes-Milner group after Rhodes death and was an “initiate” of Rhodes secret society.  A close friend of both Rhodes and Milner, he named his son after the latter.  Significantly, John Milner Bailey was the largest financial contributor to the “Right Club,” and had married Winston Churchill’s daughter Diana, some years earlier.  

The Rhodes group was not only zealously anti-Bolshevik – which it typified as a tyranny – and generally pro-German (if not always pro-Hitler) but was the moving force behind the formation of the Anglo-American “special relationship.”   

These reasons probably account for Admiral Domville’s membership of the Shickshinny Knights of Pennsylvania – a state that boasted a large “White Russian” community.  Indeed, the Shickshinny Knights are a “Russian” Order of Knighthood – albeit one that pre-dated the arrival of Bolshevism in Russia. [27]  

Another leading member of the Shickshinny Armed Services Committee was Colonel, Philip J. Corso, who had served in US Army intelligence for many years, including the latter years of WWII.  At that time he worked on Operation Paperclip, recruiting former Nazi scientists to work for the United States. [28]   By the middle 1950’s, Corso was working with West German paramilitary types connected to Gehlen’s BND intelligence organisation.  It is not hard to conclude that the “paramilitary” activities described were part of Operation Gladio. [29]  

And it is with the Shickshinny Knights that this story of WWII plunder comes full circle – almost anyway.  Two other members of the Armed Services Committee” were members of General Douglas MacArthur’s WWII inner circle of trusted confidants.  It will be remembered that MacArthur ran Japan in the post war years as though by divine right. [30]    

THE “M” FUND  

The two MacArthur intimates were the German born, General Charles Willoughby, who headed MacArthur’s intelligence apparatus (for whom Ed Lansdale worked) and Brigadier General Bonner Fellers, MacArthur’s military secretary.  Not mentioned as a Shickshinny Knight is Major General William Marquat, MacArthur’s deputy, economic supremo and of MacArthur’s “inner circle.

General Marquat was placed in charge of a massive slush fund that came to be known as the “M-fund.”  This fund merged several prior secret funds including the “Yotsuya Fund” – that was created by General Willoughby using proceeds from black market operations.  Another merged fund was the “Keenan Fund” named after Joseph Keenan, the chief prosecutor of war crimes trials that was composed of money derived from confiscated property.  But the M-fund was predominantly created from sales of Japanese war loot including industrial diamonds, gold, platinum and silver plundered from nations occupied by Japan during the war. [31]  

Marquat’s slush fund was used to influence Japanese politics in the immediate post-war years as well as for other sensitive projects.  The main aim was to ensure that Japan would snugly fit into the US scheme of things rather than choose non-alignment.  Political payoffs were the price needed to ensure this happened as planned. 

The M-fund was operated jointly by Americans and Japanese until the late 1950’s but was then turned over exclusively to Japanese control by Vice President Nixon.  It has since been alleged that in return for this largesse, Nixon secured a promise that Japan would assist him to become the US president.  

By 1960 the M-fund is believed to have been worth $35 billion but has since multiplied at a truly staggering rate.  By 1995 it was said to be worth a cool half trillion dollars and is under the complete control of shadowy Japanese politicians and has been the cause for several political murders.  

THE SPOILS OF WAR  

The key to understanding the secrecy that embraces this story is that much – probably most - of gold that was plundered by Japan and Germany was already “black” gold that didn’t officially exist.  Consequently, when the United States re-plundered this metal it did so in complete secrecy.  Not only was there the fear of crippling the price of gold – and the world economy with it - were it discovered that monumental quantities of gold existed, in addition to official stocks, but the use to which it was to be put, also demanded secrecy.  

How can fabulous volumes of gold exist when all the world’s bankers and economists continue to tell us that this metal is so rare?  The answer is as prosaic as it is damning.  

Mining industry sources reveal that as much as 30% of annual production of gold is quietly filtered into the “private market” and does not, therefore, impact on the official figures.  In years past, off-market sales by the mining industry have been reported to be as high as 80%.  The reasons for selling into the private market are varied but the central one is the avoidance of tax.  In addition, as we have already noted, gold production in the former Soviet Union – the world’s second largest producer after South Africa – and that of China and Southeast Asia have never been included in official gold mining statistics.   

Prior to the American Gold Rush of 1848, the amount of gold said to be in existence amounts to a miserly 10,000 tonnes.  This, we are told, is the sum total of gold mined throughout the world during the preceding 5,850 years, for which mining records exist (and If you believe that, I have a nice parcel of valuable land set in the attractive Atlantic trench to sell you).  Unsurprisingly, when pressed to verify the accuracy of these figures, it was admitted that they were nothing more than industry “estimates.” [32]   Never-the-less, this estimate has been incorporated into current day official mining figures and punched out as actual fact.  It is not hard, therefore, to conclude that there are, indeed, very substantial volumes of black gold in existence.   

The total quantity of gold buried in the Philippines during WWII has been reported to be over 1 million tonnes - or roughly 90% of the worlds “actual” gold stock. [33]   During the course of a seven-year investigation into the subject, this writer has accumulated information from a variety of sources suggesting this is indeed, a more accurate figure.  In other words, official statistics represent a modest 10% of reality.  

One knowledgeable source told this writer that one family, the Oppenheimer’s, effectively control the world’s gold, diamond and platinum market. [34]   The Oppenheimer business empire of today was, of course, drawn largely from the old business empire of Cecil Rhodes.   During the course of his life, Sir Harry Oppenheimer held Rhodes in the highest regard, referring to him as “the Colossus.”  Sir Harry, who later converted from Judaism to Christianity, was made a Knight of St. John – the British equivalent to the Catholic SMOM. [35]    

He shares this distinction with other notable Establishment figures such as Sir Otto Beit, the son of the German born Alfred Beit - a contemporary of Cecil Rhodes in South Africa’s Kimberley diamond fields and also a shareholder in De Beers.  Alfred Beit also generously helped to finance Rhodes secret society.  

Lord Carrington is also a Knight of St. John and a former director of Rio Tinto Zinc, Hambros Bank and was also Co-President of Chatham House (all are, or were at one time, associated with the Rhodes-Milner group). [36]   Lord Carrington is also a leading light of the secretive Bilderberg Group.  Since its inception in 1954 (the same year that the London gold market reopened following  its closure in 1939) Bilderberg has had a large German representation over the years.  

Indeed, the first Bilderberg chairman, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, is by birth, a German prince who prior to the war was a member of the Nazi leaning I G Farben intelligence department: N W 7.  Perhaps it is just coincidence that Martin Bormann was the protégé of Herman Schmitz, Farben’s president, who taught Bormann everything he knew about financial camouflage and capital flight. [37] ?   

Although Lord Carrington did not attend the first Bilderberg meeting there were many from the ruling British Establishment that did.  For example, Sir Oliver (later Lord) Franks, once a director of the Rockerfeller Foundation and the Schroder bank (that positively rumbled with Nazi and Bormann connections before, during & after the war).  Interestingly, Lord Franks was appointed a Rhodes Trustee in 1957.   

Another attendee was Sir Colin Gubbins, who became Executive Director of the SOE in 1942, and thus would have reported to Lord Selbourne.  Yet another present at the first meeting was Hugh Gaitskell who was the Principal Private Secretary to the Minister of Economic Warfare (Hugh Dalton) until 1942, when Churchill replaced Dalton with Lord Selbourne.  Gaitskell was also a Rockerfeller Fellow between 1933-4. 

Not least amongst those at the 1954 Bilderberg conference was Ralph Assheton – later Lord Clitheroe.  Assheton was Deputy CEO of RTZ Chemicals (Rio Tinto Zinc) during the years 1973-87.  1973 also saw him appointed a director of Halliburton, a position he held until 2002. [38]   During that period he would certainly have been aware that the late Ferdinand Marcos was a large Halliburton shareholder via several cloaked foundations he owned that were managed by Swiss banks.  These included the Winthrop Foundation, The Palmy Foundation, The Xandy Corp and the Scolari Foundation. [39]  

Meanwhile, Peter Carrington is also a member of the Trilateral Commission.  The Trilateral Commission – which can be said to be the Bilderberg group dressed in another frock (membership critically includes Japan’s elite) - has been deeply involved in black gold, according to several accounts.  Prior to the ousting of Ferdinand Marcos as president of the Philippines, representatives of the Trilateral Commission tried to persuade him to turn over 63,000 metric tonnes of gold to them.  Marcos didn’t like the terms presented and refused.  A few days later his reign as President came to an abrupt end. [40]  

But the last word about the involvement of the Trilateral Commission in plundered gold comes from Mr. Goldfinger himself – Severino Garcia Santa Romana.  Prior to his death in 1974, Sta. Romana told his wife that he was a senior member (indeed, he claimed to be the head) of the Trilateral Commission that he said “controlled world finance.”  He also revealed he was deeply involved with a secret society known as the “Illuminati” which he maintained had set in motion a fifty year plan to “corner the major part of the worlds gold supply” [41]  

It is, of course, impossible to verify this claim.  But it can be no more an outrageous idea than that propounded by Cecil Rhodes for his secret society.  For it to succeed, Rhodes wrote in 1891, to his friend W T Stead, would require “…gradually absorbing the wealth of the world…” [42]   Controlling the world’s supply of gold, platinum and diamonds would undoubtedly be one way of achieving this ambition.  

But in what is undoubtedly a complex story riddled with many mysteries, there is one additional strand worthy of a brief note.  This is the extreme right-wing World Ant-Communist League (WACL).  Colonel Philip Corso, who we mentioned earlier, was a member of this group.  So to, were the late Ferdinand Marcos, and the CIA’s deputy director of intelligence, Ray Cline.  Perhaps the most notorious member was the one time chairman, General John Singlaub, a covert operator of considerable talent.   

In 1986, a business company called Nippon Star that had a tangled ownership and shadowy connections, set out to recover some of the gold buried in the Philippines.  This was to be used to fund right-wing activities.  Sitting behind Nippon Star were a group of former military and intelligence officers.  These included the CIA’s Ray Cline; General John Vessey, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; General Robert Schweitzer formerly of the Pentagon and National Security Council and, not least… General John Singlaub. [43]  

Whoever now controls the spoils of war buried in the Philippines by the Japanese Golden Lily has arguably “cornered” the major part of world’s gold supply.  Whether this was by design or default it would seem that Santa Romana’s boast has come true.   

ENDS