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Forty million in gold bars
The program was a fabrication. He papered it so it looked real, nobody had been briefed into it, and nobody at the CIA questioned what he was doing. The reason on paper for the gold was a special continuity-of-government activity, the kind of program that exists so that if something terrible happens, people have a sanitized hideout to go to.
The gold came from the agency itself. It came to approximately 303 bars of about one kilogram each, and the FBI found them in his house when it raided the place in May, along with a bunch of Rolexes.
Moving value around in the field is nothing new. In Afghanistan, there were guys carrying briefcases with $100,000 in cash each, because things have to be paid for. Gold stacked in a house is another matter, and what he meant to do with it is unknown.
Why has gold long served as field currency?
Gold is dense, durable, and accepted almost everywhere, which makes it useful where local money cannot be trusted. During World War II, Allied services such as the American Office of Strategic Services handed gold coins to agents working behind enemy lines. A bar changes hands without leaving an electronic record, unlike a bank transfer. One kilogram of gold equals about 32.15 troy ounces.
Why do governments plan secret hideouts?
Continuity-of-government planning in the United States began in the 1950s, when the Eisenhower administration prepared relocation sites for officials in case of nuclear attack. Mount Weather in Virginia and Raven Rock in Pennsylvania were among them. A bunker built under the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia was meant to house Congress, and it stayed secret until a 1992 Washington Post report revealed it. The Greenbrier bunker was decommissioned after that story ran.
Why are some gold bars one kilogram?
Kilogram bars are a common size in countries that use the metric system, and they are easier to carry and divide than the large bars used in wholesale trading. The London Good Delivery bar that anchors wholesale trading holds roughly 400 troy ounces, which is about 12.4 kilograms. Each kilogram bar therefore represents about one-twelfth of a standard wholesale bar.
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