Seagrave, Sterling and Seagrave, Peggy. Gold Warriors: America's Secret Recovery of Yamashita's Gold. New York: Verso, 2003. 332 pages.

When Japan was defeated in 1945, it became known to U.S. insiders such as General Douglas MacArthur, Harry Truman, and John Foster Dulles, that vast amounts of gold bullion and other treasure had been buried at dozens of locations in the Philippines. This gold was war booty from Japan's brutal imperialism in Korea, Manchuria, and China, stretching back to the turn of the century. The massive burial effort was sanctioned by Hirohito, and POWs were used to do the digging. After the bullion was trucked in, the laborers were buried alive so that the locations could be kept secret.

Over the years, hundreds of adventurers have followed dozens of cryptic treasure maps, and much of the gold has been recovered. Ferdinand Marcos got some of it during the 1970s, but this book shows that the U.S. got a good chunk of it also, immediately after the war. Truman decided to keep it secret, and intelligence agents deposited the gold in banks around the world. This secret stash helped insure U.S. hegemony. It not only meant that the U.S. could control the price of gold (which is why the dollar was based on it), but it was also used to finance foreign aid and covert operations. Even today, according to the authors, certain events in high finance, and the piracy and exploitation behind them, cannot be fully understood without knowing about these secret deposits.
ISBN 1-85984-542-8

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