Customer Reviews

Gold Warriors: America's Secret Recovery of Yamashita's Gold

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This book is earth-shattering and faith-shaking, a well-documented tale of deceit at the highest levels of the US government. So controversial and potentially explosive are the findings of this book, to wit, that the White House recovered most of the Nazi and Japanese loot and created a secret slush fund for covert political operations world-wide, that the authors go the extra mile and offer, at a nominal price, two CD-ROMS containing 60,000 pages of supporting documentation including the Japanese treasure maps used by the US to recover the gold and other valuables.

Major players include Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Nixon, both Allen and John Foster Dulles, Douglas MacArthur, John McCloy, and the famous unconventional warrior Edward Lansdale. What we learn from this book is that those writing about "blowback" (the consequences of unwise US actions) have barely scratched the surface. What we learn is that rather than truly seeking to help the Japanese, Chinese, and other looted nations recover in the aftermath of WWII, the most senior leaders of the US government, no doubt with the best of intentions, actually conspired with Nazi bankers and the Japanese imperial family to create a Black Eagle Trust controlled by a very select hand-picked cabal in Washington.

Originally used to fight communism, the Black Eagle Trust, according to the authors and as thoroughly documented by the book and the two CD-ROMS (which I am happy to have in hand), quickly became a global slush fund used to bribe national leaders and manipulate elections around the world. This fund remains in existence today, making the Swiss Holocaust funds seem like loose-change. According to the authors, major banks are "addicted" to the funds and would face collapse if public investigations resulted in a forced return of this gold and related certificates to the rightful owners.

The authors have produced a magnificent work of both scholarship and investigative journalism. They document the extent of Japanese looting of Korea (beginning in 1895) and China as well as the other countries in the "co-prosperity sphere." They document the manner in which Japan hid most of the gold in the Philippines (some in Indonesia), and were forced to leave it there from 1943 onwards, when US submarine interdiction became too effective to risk shipments homeward.

I found the level of detail in this book to be quite gripping. The ingenious nature of the Japanese burial sites, with caverns below the more obvious tunnels, with sea-water protection, with maps created in reverse--and the in-bred cruelty of the Japanese, thinking nothing of burying all of the US and other national slave labor *and the Japanese engineers* alive as the final stage of protecting the looted treasure, leave one stunned.

The authors document the central role played by Lansdale in recognizing the opportunity and then briefing MacArthur and then President Truman. According to the authors, the architects of the Black Eagle Trust were three advisors to President's Roosevelt's Secretary of War, Henry Stimson: John McCloy (later head of the World Bank), Robert Lovett (later Secretary of Defense), and Robert Anderson (later Secretary of the Treasury). They made the case to Roosevelt, and presumably to Truman after Roosevelt died, that it would be impractical to return the looted gold to the rightful owners, in part because many of the looted countries were now under Soviet control.

The authors, who conducted many interviews in support of the work, including interviews of former CIA deputy director Ray Cline, who they say was involved with Lansdale and the gold in the 1940's and remained involved with the black gold through the 1980's, provide copies of documents showing the redirection of the looted gold to 176 bank accounts in 42 countries. The gold was then used to support the creation of gold bearer certificates that were in turned used to bribe the most senior officials around the world.

The authors tell a shocking tale of how quickly MacArthur chose to collaborate with the very leadership of Japan that declared war on the USA and was responsible for genocide and looting in Asia on a scale rarely achieved by anyone else. Bringing the story up to date, the authors show how prior attempts to investigate the Black Eagle Trust have led to the ruin of individuals such as Norbert Schlei, at one time deputy attorney general to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. While I have no direct knowledge and cannot be certain myself, I believe the authors have provided a sufficiently compelling case to warrant an international investigation concurrently with a General Accounting Office investigation to be chartered by Congress with unlimited supeona powers specifically directed against classified personalities and archives.

If this story is true, and I personally think that it is, then the US government, in active collusion with the very people the American people fought to defeat in WWII, has been guilty of fraud and depravity on a global scale and against the best interests of both the American people, and the against the rightful owners of the looted gold and other treasures. The authors may well have uncovered the last really big secret of the post-WW II era, and in so doing, opened the way for a restoration of the balance of power among diverse nations, and a sharp delimitation of the abuses that appear to characterize American leadership when it thinks it can rely on secret gold and stolen oil to engage in imperial adventures and domestic improprieties. As an American citizen and voter, and as a person of faith who believes that we must do unto others as we would have them do unto us, I find this book to be shocking, credible, and a basis for popular outrage and demands for truth and reconciliation.

I don't know what angers me more: the absolutely startling facts unraveled in this book, or the sad reality that such jaw-dropping research is at a sub-15000 ranking in terms of sales on Amazon and has garnered only 3 reviews.

I happened to buy this book perchance while casually browsing the non-fic section at an airport. Now I recall my hair standing on its end as I read it on my flight. The only other book I recall seething with anger with while reading was "The Rape of Nanking".

"Gold Warriors" is more than a nail in the coffin of Japan's "serious, sober and deliberate" plundering of Asia's treasure from 1895 until 1945, and its collusion after the war with American officials to recover and use the loot as a secret political action slush fund to denounce communism. It is in fact a journey into the darkest recesses of history and the human soul.

The authors are not afraid to name names, and the excruciatingly detailed research is a marvel. The sheer scale and limits of the underlying deceit are mind blowing.

Some very minor observations. The authors may know their Philippines well, but their statements on Japan could be corrected. The book has some minor errors (that I could figure out) --

(1) The Japanese ship they repeatedly call the "Huzi" should actually be "Fuji"
(2) The important Japanese Sea port is "Maizuru" not "Maisaru"
(3) "Tairiki" is not a Japanese word: they probably meant "Tairiku Ronin", i.e., a Continental adventurer (in reference to Chinese carpetbaggers)
(4) Their mysterious "Lord Ichivara" should most likely be "Ishihara" (Ichivara is somewhat implausible)

Anyway, these are minor cavils. I highly recommend this book for any one interested in the shenanigans of power, it will leave you aghast. If this piques your interest, click over to the website bowstring.net and download two CD full of documents etc.

In 1947, Gen. Douglas MacArthur ordered the immediate termination of all investigations of Japanese war crimes and the immediate suspension of the arrest of any suspected war criminals.

In June 2000, Sen. Orrin Hatch (Utah) said, "You mean our federal government can just say, 'To hell with you, Bataan Death Marchers, and you people who were mistreated (by the Japanese), we are just going to waive all your rights.'"

As disturbing and painful as it may be to read, this is a book all victims of the Japanese, and their next of kins, must read. It's documentation and research is beyond reproach. For many of us, this book will be our 'fall from innocence', if that is still possible.

Fred Baldassarre
Son of a Bataan Survivor

Absolutely astonishing book - and while one fellow above bashed the supporting references, I note that he didn't delve into the 2 CDs of supporting material (such as scans of maps made by the Japanese military showing where the gold was hidden in the Phillipines & all the boobytraps).

A lot of this makes sense, intuitively. For example, where in the heck did Ferdinand & Imelda Marcos get all of that wealth? I've read that they "looted the Phillipine people" - hello? Where did the Phillipine people get billions of dollars (American) to loot in the first place?

Secondly, if you read more about how the world's economy was changed fundamentally after World War II, this book provides some missing pieces. It's a brilliant strategy, really - the USA essentially cornering the market on gold, forcing the rest of the world to adopt gold (and pegging it to the dollar) as the new standard, and thus, you are left with (for all practical purposes) endless funds for covert wars against Communist/ leftist regimes.

Why people are shocked by this is puzzling. In the 1950's and 1960's it wasn't considered any sort of problem to be meddling in the world's politics; and the history of US involvement repressing elections in Latin America is well documented. And we won't even get into some of the covert actions (like Iran-Contra) that we KNOW about, so an educated student of history has to assume there are far more details than we have even been told.

Back to the book, the story about how Nixon eventually surrenders control of the secret gold to the Japanese power structure in exchange for covert funds for his presidential campaign sure sounds like the Nixon we are all familiar with.

This is an extraordinary book, one can only wonder how many more details will surface in upcoming years...

"Gold Warriors" recounts Japan's criminal looting of Asia between 1895-1945, the subsequent recovery of the treasure and how the loot was used. It filled in many blanks for me, such as why so few of Japan's wartime leaders were tried for war crimes and more importantly, how the criminal Hirohito and others in Japan's Imperial family avoided trial and execution. The Seagraves also make a convincing case for several important points:

- Japan was not an impoverished country at the end of WWII, but rather, was far better off than when the war began because of the looted treasure held by war criminal who escaped trial;
- its 50-year pillaging of Asia went far beyond government and cultural treasure, and included centuries of wealth earned by criminal gangs, expatriate Chinese, etc.;
- a large source of unvouchered funds, i.e., Japanese war loot, was available for the post-war U.S. struggle against Communism;
- the Marcos' wealth came not from looting their own people but recovery of Japanese war loot stashed in their country;
- the close connections between the Yakuza, Japanese military and industry during the war, and their subsequent morphing into the Liberal Democratic Party;
- the extensive involvement of the Imperial family in planning, executing and documenting the pillaging of Asia, and the subsequent collusion by MacArthur and the U.S. government in hiding this fact, in exchange for a share of the spoils; and
- the shocking but previously well known abuse of Allied POWs and civilians by the Japanese Imperial family and military during the war.

As compelling as the Seagraves' account is, there are several poorly documented facts that detract from the above, such as reference to the San Francisco earthquake and fire of "1907" (last time I checked, it occurred in 1906); to New York Senator "Anthony" D'Amotto and several place names in Japan that are incorrect.

More incredible and unsubstantiated are the authors claims that Marcos' built two large underground vaults to hold 200,000 and 500,000 metric tonnes of gold that were subsequently filled, and frequent reference to deposits of 10,000 or so tonnes of gold in a bank here, or another deposit there. Japan undoubtedly stole vast quantities of treasure during the war but the amounts claimed by the Seagraves defy credibility. They would far exceed the total estimated production of gold in world history, reasonably estimated to be ~ 150,000 tonnes. Further, the authors frequently mention that only some of the treasure sites have been discovered in the Phillipines, with many as yet unrecovered. And, what about Japanese war loot hidden in Indonesia or taken back to Japan? That vast quantities were stolen and hidden by the criminals behind Japan's war effort is beyond question, but the amounts claimed by the Seagraves' defy credibility.

Another example is the numerous reference to "tonnes of platinum" included among the Japanese war booty. This is highly dubious, as Asia is not a major platinum producing region, and the two major sources of platinum before WWII - South Africa and Russia - had not produced more than a few metric tonnes. Again, the Seagraves' assertions lack credibility.

The most egregious example of the Seagraves' unsupported assertions is that the US decided to conceal the vast quantities of gold discovered at the end of the war because it would have caused the value of the dollar and other currencies "to collapse". The Seagraves are good storytellers, but poor economists. An increase in the US supply of gold at the end of the war would have caused the value of the dollar to rise, not collapse. Further, had large quantities of gold been added to "official supplies" it would have caused price levels to fall and as a result, another bout of deflation. The US would have wanted to avoid this at all costs, given the pre-war Depression and skewing of post-war monetary policy toward an inflationary bias.

The Seagraves put forth an excellent thesis, but would do themselves and their readers a large favor by re-releasing this book without the factual errors and better documentation of their fantastic claims about the quantities of platinum and gold looted by Japan. Telling readers on practically every other page that the information is available on their CDs as additional materials is a poor substitute for a well documented book.

The systematic looting of Asia by Japan during and prior to world war 2 is an important story that needs to be told. I actually believe the premise of the authors - that large stores of gold and other treasure remain hidden in the Philippines and elsewhere, and that that those stores that have been recovered have been used as a source of "black" funding for the Japanese LDP, for hidden CIA operations and so forth.

Unfortunately, the authors do a very poor job of supporting their assertions.

First, a significant amount of the background they site in endnotes is to their own previous books which I found similarly defective. Many of their most controversial assertions have no source citations at all. Or they cite some guy's assertion about something as "the guy told us personally". Not top-flight journalism or history.

Second, perhaps they just have a poor editor, but many of the things they say about Japan and the Japanese language are simply wrong (including sections of Japanese dialogue they say have been "checked by experts"). For example they refer several times to a gold-laden ship being sunk in the Japanese military harbor of "Maisaru" which is a place name I have not been able to locate or even find the Japanese characters for (I suspect they mean Maizuru, which is still a military port). Another example - a mysterious Japanese person named "Ichivara" appears at one point in the narrative and the authors assert that "Ichivara is a very common Japanese name", though anyone with even passing familiarity with Japan and its language will know that it is true (No "v" sound in the language), nor does their offering of an alternate spelling (Ichibarra) make it any different.

Third, they make factual assertsions that simply are not true, or cannot be true. For example, they cite that secret loads of gold were flown into Las Vegas because it is a "duty free port by state". This will come as a surprise to anyone with any passing familiarity with the US constitution, which explicitly prohibits the favoring of the ports of any US state over those of any other, and forbits individual states from imposing duties. Oh and the planeload in question supposedly carried $5 billion in question. If you do the valuation at just about any price for gold in the last 30 years, I think you end up with several hundred tons of gold, more than any aircraft can carry. Oh, and this magical plane, originating from Manila and heading for Nevada was suddenly diverted to Zurich. I guess it doesn't need fuel, either. Another example refers to American concerns that the World Bank would freeze assets, which they can't do.

After a while it just gets tedious. As I said, the story seems important, but once you find the authors saying things about certain subjects that are just plain wrong and doing so with an air of great authority, you have to start wondering if the whole thing isn't just all innuendo.

A shame, because I think they are onto something important, but I think they have done enough damage to their own credibility already without having to worry about being murdered by the dark conspiracy.

This another of Seagrave's entertaining reads, awesome in conjuring up images of lust for power, greed, evil, diabolical cabals, and corrupt government. Their were some errors I believe in detailing the size of the various hoards of gold, diamonds, silver etc. and the names are sometimes a little off but otherwise this was a wonderful book for a long weekend. Some of the other readers were more critical but I know from personal experience that there is a lot here that is right on the money and should not be dismissed so lightly.

Many of the earlier reviewers of "Gold Warriors" have admired the voluminous references presented by the Seagraves to support their incredible assertions. However, I'd like to point out that my personal investigations into a sample of their sources have exposed the Seagraves' quite cynical "research" methods. They are prepared to use sources that are laughably insubstantial, and then present these sources as if they are highly credible. The Seagraves also deliberately misrepresent the words of a source to make it fit the story that they wish to convey.

The whole of page 62 of "Gold Warriors" is given over to the Seagraves' theorising that nearly 400 Allied Prisoners of War were massacred after stowing gold bullion in a mine on Sado Island, Japan. This is outrageous. The source that they use, "Betrayal in High Places", is a book that looks extremely unreliable when first picked up, and its claims fail to be confirmed by any other historical source. In any case, "Betrayal in High Places" does not actually claim that any stolen gold was stored by the POWs!

I am one of the authors of a recent historical paper, published in the Journal of Military History, which has proven the Sado Island Massacre story to be pure fiction. The Seagraves are smart enough to have worked this out for themselves, but they have chosen to legitimise this fantasy in order to sell their books and CDs.

The Seagraves further illustrate their manipulative ways when they cite an innocent travel book as the source of their further assertion,
"more than a thousand Korean slave laborers ... on Sado Island also vanished without a trace" (bottom of p62).

This is just another dishonest misquote. The travel book (Waycott: "Sado: Japan's Island of Exile") actually says,
"...During these years, forced labor was certainly used: of the tens of thousands of Koreans imported to work for Imperial Japan, more than 1,000 are known to have been sent to Sado. Of these, 145 are said to have 'escaped' (but where to?) and a dozen or so - surely a low estimate - were killed. Their existence became public knowledge in 1991, after records were released of Mitsubishi's distribution of cigarette rations to its workers."

Westcott's travel book is actually quite pleasant and informative, and there is nothing dishonest about his speculation - but it's only a travel book! Historically, it's clear from post-war Korean records that many "escapes" were indeed successful (often into the local community, or by fishing boat back to nearby Korea). It's also true that a relatively small number of Koreans were killed in mining accidents, and that no "massacre" occurred. Waycott doesn't allege a massacre in any case - but the Seagraves do!
(Page 62 of "Gold Warriors" can be previewed online here on Amazon, for those who would care to check for themselves...)

The Seagraves are obviously misusing these sources quite deliberately. I think it's very reprehensible for modern authors to push this type of mean deception masquerading as history. This is not a victimless crime. (My mum's brother died as a prisoner of the Japanese in WW2, and it is upsetting to see authors such as the Seagraves take these liberties with the emotions of dead POWs' families.)

Not content with pocketing their customers' money for this book, the Seagraves also use their book to continually push their privately-sold CDs, which they claim contain the "evidence" to back up their assertions. In fact, most of the documents on the CDs are just correspondence between "treasure hunters" - who also make their money by selling their Treasure Maps to the gullible... These are hardly independent or authoritative people! Many of the "certificates", which have been laboriously translated (possibly to tire out the reader) can easily be seen to be fakes once you look at images of the "originals". They have cut-and-pasted values for the gold on deposit!

The CDs even torpedo the Seagraves' own assertions in some places. On CD#1 (Jones.PDF file, page 65), a 1997 letter from "R. A. Medland, Senior Manager, Commonwealth Bank Group Investigations/Security Dept." [Melbourne, Australia] says that the gold deposit certificates are, "utter rubbish"! There's also a scary-looking photo of a sleazy Indonesian "lawyer" displaying the "certificates", and a hilarious document very reminiscent of a "Nigerian Letter", purportedly from President Suharto of Indonesia, on the same CD.

Gee, it's a pity these Certificates are rubbish - they were for 420 tonnes and 120 tonnes of Gold !
(US total annual production in 1940 was 155 tonnes, just to show how incredibly unrealistic these numbers are.)

I must honestly say that, as a student of history and government, I was completely taken aback by the contents of this book. I have always approached the study of history with an open mind and a willingness to embrace all sides and perspectives in an equal & non-judgemental approach. However, this book has stirred my emotions greatly and has shown me that history, as I have come to know it, is littered with false pretense and gross ammounts of misinformation. After reading this novel I began to question all that I had learned about Japan, US foregin policy, and the definition of "democracy" as I have come to know it. There exists in theory "two sides to every arguement", but (as this book will show to those fortunate enough to read it) the truth of the matter is that for every arguement, and every piece of history, there are only two sides that are shown to us - with countless other facts hidden until someone is brave enough to share them with the world, and help shed some light on the history that truely exists...

I had heard rumors that Allied (primarily American) forces had
overrun and discovered huge quantities of Nazi, and in this
case, Japanese seized riches, and had always wanted a
documentary of this.
Wow--by page 4, even with my preconceived expectations, my
jaw had dropped. These events have shaped dramatically
the world we live in. There is so much unexplained even
now, but this book is a step forward. If power corrupts,
and absolute power corrupts absolutely, try power with
limitless funding.