Australian dispatch about GATA

11:30p EDT Thursday, June 3, 1999

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

A quick dispatch on the New York gold show -- that is,
the Northeast Investment in Mining Conference -- just
ended tonight at the Marriot Marquis hotel on Times
Square in New York.

The bad news is that observers said this was the least
well attended Northeast gold show in about five years,
which I suppose is only to be expected, given the
depressed condition of the precious metals markets. The
sinking price of gold, which took some bad knocks even
as we convened, bore heavily on the meeting. I counted
as participants only two major mining companies and two
widely recognized juniors -- the former being Harmony
and Durban Roodeport Deep, the latter being Bema Gold
and Campbell Resources.

While dozens of exploration and pre-production
companies were represented, GATA's delegation had to
wonder how many of them would still be around in even
six months without a substantial rebound in the POG.
The people from these companies were hard sells even
for GATA's $20 raffle tickets -- and we could hardly
blame them.

Enough of the bad news -- not that any of us needs to
hear it, but we have to be straight with you. This
remains a frightful struggle against long odds.

But GATA can do only what it can do and we do have some
good news:

* Several speakers at the conference yesterday and
today, including the conference's gracious organizers,
referred to GATA and urged support for us.

* A lawyer whose firm represents Goldman Sachs, the
investment banking company generally believed to be the
worst enemy of gold, attended the conference and was
keeping an eye on GATA.

* GATA Chairman Bill Murphy was interviewed at length
yesterday and today by reporters from some major news
organizations: Reuters, Bloomberg, Bridge News, Dow
Jones, and, most important, The Wall Street Journal.
Despite extensive publicity about GATA around the
world, like the story in the Sunday London Times two
weeks ago, we haven't yet cracked the New York
financial press. We hope that this will change shortly,
and we really don't care what they say about us as long
as they spell our name right. (No matter what is said
about us, our friends will know us and find us.)

* The senior partner of GATA's law firm, Berger amp;
Montague of Philadelphia -- Merrill G. Davidoff --
attended both days of the show and helped signify our
seriousness.

* We distributed hundreds of handbills and made some
promising international contacts for moral,
evidentiary, and financial support.

* It was especially valuable and, for me, touching that
several GATA supporters took time out from their jobs
and traveled long distances at their own expense to
help us staff our booth and carry our message to every
corner of the show. This gives us courage. We are
blessed to have such friends.

* And most important of all, there was GATA Chairman
Bill Murphy's 20-minute speech this afternoon. It was
the best attended and most anticipated event of the
conference. It was standing room only, since there were
more than 300 people in the hall already when Bill
began to speak. Bill quickly electrified the crowd by
recounting GATA's formation, purposes, progress, and
plans, and by making our appeal for support. I will
distribute his speech to you and post it at our
Internet site, www.gata.org, in a few days, once we all
get back home and settled and move the speech out of
one computer and into another.

So give me a couple of days to catch up on what
happened in the rest of the world while we were holed
up in New York. I hope to bring you more news soon. In
the meantime, please post and distribute this dispatch
as may seem useful to our cause.

As always, thanks for your interest.

CHRIS POWELL
Secretary, Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
(GATAComm@aol.com)

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