An Open Letter to Members of the Press

It is time to wake up to what has been going on in the gold market. I can understand some initial reticence about grasping what The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee has been telling you: that the gold market is being manipulated. No one wants to believe that, but enough is enough. It is time to start asking some hard questions of your traditional sources of information who have been feeding you disinformation to keep you off guard about what certain bullion dealers have been doing with " a little help from their friends."

You are not floating down that big river of "De Nile" alone. The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee has contacted the most prominent gold producers since February. Most have not even bothered to respond to us thus far and we are still waiting for them to give us support. In general, they are a sad lot (with a few stalwart exceptions for which we always be grateful).

It appears that some producers have either joined in with the bullion dealers and "officialdoms" that are a part of a "collusive effort' to knock down the price of gold, while others have allowed themselves to be put in the unfortunate position of being forced by their own bankers to forward sell at the bottom of the market. I call these nefarious bullion dealers "Hannibal Lechter,", as the most accurate way to categorize the cannibalistic way they have conducted their affairs in the gold market. The cunning "Hannibal" has recruited speculators along the way to facilitate the move down in the price of gold.

Who can blame the speculators? After all, until very recently they could borrow gold at 1% interest rates and use the proceeds to invest elsewhere. In essence, they had Alan Greenspans's infamous comment serving as protection for their principal, ie., "central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise." When the price of gold was about to explode, they recruited the Bank of England to help them out by announcing a "future" gold sale (no other central bank has acted in this manner in over 20 years). The speculators also had the comfort of knowing that in difficult financial "stress" times, "Hannibal Lechter" would recruit a hedge fund or two to borrow hundreds of tonnes of gold to sell in the
market place to add more pressure on the gold price.

What has been a total shock to me is how "Hannibal Lechter" has "Silenced the Lambs." And the "Lambs" are you the press (except for a few more stalwarts for which we will also be forever grateful). Most of you are unwilling to question the pablum that is presented day after day to you by the establishment crowd. What is most bothersome is that you refuse to mention
the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee or air the reasonable evidence that we have gathered that the gold market has been manipulated to a significant degree.

Right or wrong, it is not unreasonable that our view point be heard. The United States Congress wants to listen to what we have to say. Why don't you? What is so threatening about just printing what we have to say? If we are way off base, no one will care and that will be the end of it.

There is not one of you that who not defend The First Amendment and the freedom of speech principle. Most of you will criticize China for their crackdown on individual freedoms. But are you any different? Do you represent "The Peoples Republic of America?" - "The United States of China?" I suggest that, unconsciously, you have sunk to a lower level than the Chinese whom you berate and that you are "hypocrites." I say that because GATA is challenging some of the "power structure" and some of the "big money" in the United States in the sense that we are suggesting that some of them are part of a vast manipulation of the gold market.

Freedom of the press rules in the U.S. unless it challenges that structure. This is becoming all too clear to me. It never dawned on me at the time, but this is not a new experience. Here is a letter to you from my former wife, Karen, who is still my best friend:

"Shining Path" Terrorist Bombing

Lima, Peru
Late October, 1993
Karen Brown

I had just finished a long, treacherous journey by horse through uncharted territory 17,000 feet in the Andes N.E. of Cuzco. I had traveled there with 4 others to meet the medicine men of the last authentic ancestors of the Incas, five villages in total, untouched by civilization. I was the first white woman whom many of the villagers had ever seen. After finishing the journey, I stayed in Cuzco an extra week to unwind and process the experience.

To get back to the U.S. it was necessary to go through Lima. For some reason I had misread my flight time leaving Cuzco. I had an extra hour so I went to the plaza and found myself in the cathedral lighting candles (a very unusual thing for me to do since I am not Catholic or religious). When I left the cathedral I walked around the plaza and a message kept running through my mind liked a continuous re-looping tape "Ye though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil".

When I boarded the flight for Lima, somehow I knew the journey was not over, although I had no idea what was in store for me. I had an 11 hour layover and I was told in advance that it was not safe for a tall, blonde, American woman traveling alone to stay at the airport for that length of time. So, it had been arranged for me to stay at the Crillon Hotel, the finest, safest hotel in Lima. A representative from the hotel met my flight and escorted me to the hotel. He said another representative would escort me back to catch my flight to Miami. I was told not to wander around the city, I should stay within the hotel.

I relaxed in my room on the 12th floor, ordered a late lunch, etc. etc. Later I had the thought to run down to the lobby to get a chocolate bar, but something stopped me and I suddenly felt I had to lay down. Before laying down I went to look out the window and had the feeling of deja vu (I now remember having recurring nightmares almost 10 years earlier in NY of what was about to happen). As I crossed the room, I heard and felt a sound so overwhelming, it was like the earth had opened up underneath me. I remember hoping it was earthquake, not something else. When I saw the smoke coming through my window, I knew it had been a bomb.

I heard screaming from the streets, chaos in the hotel and gunfire which seemed unending. I knew I was in trouble. There was no way out. I was stuck high above in a hotel that was on fire and afraid to leave my room because of the ongoing gunfire. I calmly took a breath and retrieved the stones the shamans in the mountains had given me. I performed a small ceremony which they taught me, asking for assistance and quietly put my stones away. I turned out the lights and huddled in the corner of my room. I could still hear the gunfire and my room was filling with smoke.

Several moments later there was pounding on my door. I was afraid to open in fear that it was terrorists. Then I heard a voice in English say, "Miss Brown are you in there, we've come to get you out". I was so relieved to open the door and have the four armed men identify themselves as being from the U.S. embassy. They said they had a car waiting a few blocks away. Three men grabbed my bags and one grabbed me and ran me through the mayhem in the lobby, down the dark streets and into a van that was waiting for me. They got me to the airport just in time to catch my scheduled flight.

I asked what had happened. They told me that one of the leaders of the "Sendero Luminoso (the Shining Path)" had been arrested. There was a government dinner in the hotel and it was bombed in retaliation. I later found out at the airport that 14 people had been shot & killed in the lobby (good thing I didn't go down for that chocolate bar).

I was grateful to arrive in Miami, and quite shaken. I read the papers and watched the news for two days, and I saw no reports of what happened. I almost felt as if I had been dreaming. I called a friend in NY who has very close ties to Peru through Washington D.C. He was astounded to hear my story, he knew of nothing of the event and was surprised since he stays aware of everything happening in Peru. He later called me and said he had checked with Washington and indeed what I told him was true. I was relieved to learn that I wasn't a psycho.

However, I was absolutely amazed to pick up the Sunday New York Times business section shortly thereafter and read a full page story totally opposite of what I experienced. They reported on how times have changed in Peru, that the "Shining Path" was no longer a threat, it was safe and a good time to invest.

I later consulted a very wealthy, well known and influential friend of mine in California about my shock of reading the story. I was told that a lot of money had been poured into Peru by Americans. The NY Times ran the counter story to cover up what happened. I was also told that the U.S. press is totally jaded and controlled by certain powerful people and it is difficult to sort out the truth from what you read here-- unfortunate, but true.

Suppression! Suppression! Suppression! Say it is not so!

The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee has sent a 21 page document to Senator Phil Gramm, who is Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. This document articulates some of the evidence of manipulation that we have accumulated and his staff has found it to be quite "interesting."

GATA asks you to be just as discerning, for if we are correct, one of the great financial scandals in American history will unfold in the months and years to come and it will have to do partly with what we have uncovered. Do not recoil from investigating what we have to say BEFORE a crisis develops. The sooner this "outrage" is uncovered, the less will be the financial pain down the road for the average American.

GATA has made it this far with the support of good citizens all over the world who can "smell" that something is very wrong in the gold market. Donations have come to GATA from "a people's army" - individuals who want a wrong righted. The Gold Anti Trust Action Committee surges forward in their behalf and informs them as best we can at our website, www.gata.org.

We are unpaid volunteers searching for "truth, justice and the American Way." What is wrong about doing a story on that?

Bill Murphy
Chairman, The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee