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Ford library confirms Fed letter tying Germany to gold price suppression
5:16p ET Friday, November 18, 2011
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
Thanks to our friend A.F. in Australia, the Gerald Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has confirmed the authenticity of the letter written to the president by Federal Reserve Board Chairman Arthur Burns on June 3, 1975, revealing the participation of the West German central bank, the Bundesbank, and the chancellor of West Germany at that time, Helmut Schmidt, in the international gold price suppression scheme.
The Burns letter long has been cited by GATA among its proofs of the scheme, and it was cited in an essay by the German journalist Lars Schall, distributed by GATA on November 13, about his unsuccessful effort to obtain comment about the letter from Schmidt:
http://www.gata.org/node/10668
The letter itself can be found here:
http://www.gata.org/files/FedArthurBurnsOnGold-6-03-1975.pdf
The e-mail from the Ford library confirming the authenticity of the letter is appended.
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
* * *
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Dear A.F.:
This is in response to your e-mail of November 15, 2011, concerning the authenticity of the June 3, 1975, memorandum from Federal Reserve Board Chairman Arthur Burns to President Ford located at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
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I can confirm that the original copy of the seven-page memorandum from Chairman Burns to President Ford is among our holdings at the Ford Presidential Library. It is open to the public and available to any on-site researcher who might request to view it in our research room.
Here is its exact file location:
White House Central Files, FI - Finance, FI 9 Monetary Systems, Box 23, Folder FI 9 1/16/75-6/30/75.
This is the link to the FI-Finance finding aid from our website.
See FI 9: Monetary Systems.
http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/guides/Finding%20Aids/WHCFFI.HTM
The declassification of this document is as follows:
In 2004, a researcher submitted a request to Ford Library Mandatory Review rchivist Donna Lehman for declassification review of the document. Mrs. Lehman accurately determined that the Federal Reserve Board and the Department of State were the equity holders for this document.
Review decisions by both the FRB and State Department resulted in the document being declassified in full, and the document was marked accordingly by Mrs. Lehman on June 28, 2005 -- hence the initials "dal" on the declassified stamp -- and placed in the open WHCF-Finance, FI 9 file.
I also want to clarify a possible discrepancy concerning when the document was actually declassified and opened at the Ford Library. In his September 29, 2009, Internet article on the website EconomicPolicyJournal.com, Robert Wenzel indicated I stated that the Burns memo to President Ford was not declassified until September 15, 2009. At that time, in confirming the existence of the Burns memo to Mr. Wenzel via telephone, I located a photocopy of it in another open collection within our holdings, the Arthur Burns Papers (Box B52, FRB Subject File, Folder: Gold, June 1975). This photocopy of the memo within the Arthur Burns Papers was marked for declassification and released on September 15, 2009.
If you have any further questions, please contact us via e-mail.
Thank you for your interest in the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Sincerely,
Mark Fischer, Archivist
Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
1000 Beal Avenue
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
Phone: 734-205-0558
* * *
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