Gold (30 page)

The silver dominoes began to fall
:
Green,
The New World of Gold,
21.

But some scholars think
:
See especially Marc Flandreau,
The Glitter of Gold: France, Bimetallism, and the Emergence of the International Gold Standard, 1848–1873
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).

In 1861, when the costs
:
Bernstein,
The Power of Gold,
262.

As the cost of wheat shot up in Europe, America had a bumper crop
:
Ibid., 268.

In 1890, a banking crisis in Argentina
:
Ibid., 252–53, 268.

The havoc that followed
:
Ibid., 270–72.

The government had $40 million
:
Ibid., 272.

In American terms, the Morgans had been rich forever
:
Ron Chernow,
The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance
(New York: Grove Press, 1990), 17ff.

As the sense of crisis heightened
:
Ibid., 74 ff.

For all its harshness
:
Ibid., 74ff.

The system solved two main problems
:
Author interview with Professor Michael Woodford, Columbia University. (In case there is any doubt about Professor Woodford's position: he does not at all support a return to the gold standard.)

Barry Eichengreen
:
“A Critique of Pure Gold,”
National Interest,
August 24, 2011,
http://www.nationalinterest.org/article/critique-pure-gold-5741
.

It had 20,000 tons of bullion
:
Timothy Green,
Central Bank Gold Reserves: An Historical Perspective Since 1845
(London: World Gold Council, 1999), 18,
http://www.gold.org/download/pub_archive/pdf/Rs23.pdf
.

C
HAPTER
4: C
AMP
D
AVID
C
OUP

Gold is surging out of the Bank of England
:
Gold movements and decrease of U.S. gold stock: Bernstein,
The Power of Gold,
311–23.

On April 5 he signed Executive Order 6102
:
For the text of the order, see
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=14611
.

A challenger immediately tested the law
:
“Lawyer Indicted as Gold Hoarder,”
New York Times,
October 6, 1933,
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=FA0815FB3E541A7A93C4A9178BD95F478385F9
; “Frederick Campbell, Lawyer, Is Dead Here,”
New York Times,
December 27, 1937,
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F60D14F93C5D12738DDDAE0A94DA415B878FF1D3
.

In 1930 the United States
:
Green,
Central Bank Gold Reserves,
17.

As soon as he had issued the gold confiscation order, Roosevelt obtained the authority
:
Roosevelt and Morgenthau rigging price: Bernstein,
The Power of Gold,
321–22.

“We fight together on sodden battlefields”
:
http://www.centerfor financialstability.org/brettonwoods.php
.

A newly discovered transcript
:
Annie Lowry, “Transcript of 1944 Bretton Woods Conference Found at Treasury,”
New York Times,
October 25, 2012,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/business/transcript-of-1944-bretton-woods-meeting-found-at-treasury.html
.

“Now the advantage is ours here”
:
Fred Andrews, “A Grudge Match for Global Finance,” review of Benn Sterl,
The Battle of Bretton Woods, New York Times,
March 2, 2013,
http://nytimes.com/2013/03/03/business/bretton-woods-monetary-agreement-examined-in-a-new-book.html
.

For a while, that's how it did work, with Japan and Europe, “eager for dollars they could spend”
:
How U.S. share of world economy dropped from 35 percent to 27 percent: Roger Lowenstein, “The Nixon Shock,”
Bloomberg Businessweek,
August 4, 2011,
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/the-nixon-shock-08042011.html
.

Surplus dollar holdings
:
Bernstein,
The Power of Gold,
334.

In a span of only thirteen years
:
U.S. finances deteriorate: Bernstein, citing Jacques Rueff, ibid., 338–39.

“Gold!” he intoned, the standard that “has no nationality”
:
Berstein,
The Power of Gold,
329.

Two years later
:
De Gaulle pulls out of Gold Pool: Ibid., 339–41.

On March 11, 1968, only days after the huge bullion transfer from the United States, the pool vowed to hold the line at $35
:
Clyde H. Farnsworth, “U.S. Wins Backing from Gold Pool to Hold $35 Price,”
New York Times,
March 11, 1968,
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F30E11FE3A55157493C3A81788D85F4C8685F9
.

A week later the pool folded
:
Edwin L. Dale, Jr., “7 Nations Back Dual Gold Price, Bar Selling to Private Buyers; Pledge Support of the Dollar,”
New York Times,
March 18, 1968,
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=FA0D14F93E541A7493CAA81788D85F4C8685F9
.

Connally's biographer believed that the assassination enhanced Connally's reputation
:
Charles Ashman,
Connally: The Adventures of Big Bad John
(New York: Morrow, 1974), 15.

Herbert Stein, who knew Connally and saw him in operation
:
Description of Connally as “forceful, colorful, charming”: Herbert Stein,
Presidential Economics: The Making of Economic Policy from Roosevelt to Reagan and Beyond
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985), 162.

“I can play it round or I can play it flat”
:
Ibid., 163.

One of Nixon's closest aides
:
“Connally Awed Nixon, as Haldeman Diaries Tell,”
Baltimore Sun,
May 20, 1994,
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1994-05-20/news/1994140195_1_connally-nixon-new-party
.

Crucial to the success of the two-step plan was secrecy
:
Stein,
Presidential Economics,
166.

Two days later
:
H. Erich Heinemann, “Speculative Attacks Grow on U.S. Currency Abroad; Nervous Foreign Dealers Sell Dollars as Federal Reserve Bolsters Monetary Defenses with a Swap Deal,”
New York Times
, August 13, 1971,
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F40C13F9395C1A7493C1A81783D85F458785F9
.

An envoy from the Bank of England
:
Stein,
Presidential Economics,
167.

Then Connally took over the meeting
:
Lewis E. Lehrman, “The Nixon Shock Heard 'Round the World,”
Wall Street Journal
, August 15, 2011,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904007304576494073418802358.html
.

The retreat had had a storied place in American affairs
:
See for example entry on Camp David at
http://www.nps.gov
.

Calling the situation a “ferment”
:
Heinemann, “Speculative Attacks Grow on U.S. Currency Abroad.”

On the brink of dismantling the global financial system, he worried about interrupting the hit TV western
Bonanza
:
Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw,
The Commanding Heights: The Battle Between
Government and the Marketplace That Is Remaking the Modern World
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), 62.

President Lyndon Johnson had made it policy
:
Edward Hudson, “Lorne Greene, TV Patriarch, Is Dead,”
New York Times
, September 12, 1987,
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/12/arts/lorne-greene-tv-patriarch-is-dead.html
.

“The P. was down in his study with the lights off and the fire going”
:
Yergin and Stanislaw,
The Commanding Heights,
63.

One dealer characterized the trading as more like a flea market
:
“Tailspin in Dollar Sector of Eurobonds Is Severe,”
New York Times,
August 16, 1971,
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=FB0D10FD3D591A7493C4A81783D85F458785F9
.

“In the past seven years”
:
Text of Nixon Shock speech available at the American Presidency Project, University of California, Santa Barbara,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=3115&st=&st1
.

The first market with a chance to react was Tokyo
:
“Exchanges in Tokyo Unloading Dollars,”
New York Times
, August 16, 1971,
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F70A12FD3D591A7493C4A81783D85F458785F9
.

As dismay spread around the globe, the White House awaited the American response
:
Stein,
Presidential Economics,
180.

“When you wake up in the morning, do you care about the price of gold?”
:
Floyd Norris, “In a Focus on Gold, History Repeats Itself,”
New York Times
, February 2, 2012,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/business/in-rise-of-gold-bugs-history-repeats-itself.html?pagewanted=all
.

C
HAPTER
5: T
HE
D
ISCOVERY OF
I
NVISIBLE
G
OLD

“While I was working in the field”
:
Ralph J. Roberts,
A Passion for Gold: An Autobiography
(Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2002), 28.

“On those trips into the mountains”
:
Ibid., 47.

He stepped off the bus in Winnemucca
:
Ibid., 29.

There was a working gold mine in the heart of Willow Creek
:
Ibid., 34.

Mining in Nevada had a long pedigree
:
“Outline of Nevada Mining History,” Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology, quarterly newsletter, Fall 1993,
http://www.nbmg.unr.edu/dox/nl/n120.htm
.

To explain what had happened, Roberts hypothesized
:
Roberts,
A Passion for Gold,
34.

In 1939, when Roberts began his explorations
:
Ibid., 40–43.

The writers described huge tables of Triassic rock
:
Arnold Hague and S. F. Emmons, “Descriptive Geology,” in
United States Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel
, ed. Clarence King (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1877), 601. The volumes have been digitized by the Boston Public Library and are available online. The geology volume can be accessed at
http://www.archive.org/stream/descriptivegeolo00hagu#page/n11/mode/2up
.

He struck out along the Antler range in his happiest state—alone
:
Roberts,
A Passion for Gold,
41.

When the ocean plate and continental plate collided
:
Dean G. Heitt, “Newmont's Reserve History of the Carlin Trend, 1965–2001,” in
Gold Deposits of the Carlin Trend
, eds. Tommy B. Thompson, Lewis Teal, and Richard O. Meeuwig (Reno: Nevada Bureau of Mines and
Geology Bulletin 111, University of Nevada), 2002, 35ff,
http://www.nbmg.unr.edu/dox/b111/history.pdf
.

“As I approached the western margin of the range”
:
Roberts,
A Passion for Gold,
44.

Ralph Jackson Roberts was born in 1911
:
Ibid., 12–19.

Even the Roberts Mountains of north-central Nevada
:
Ibid., 83.

“Our eyes met and held for a long moment”
:
Roberts's wife, Arleda: Ibid., 28–29, 51–53.

He saw that the feature called the Roberts Mountains thrust presented a continuous geological relationship
:
Ibid., 84.

William Vanderburg
:
J. Alan Coope,
Carlin Trend Exploration History: Discovery of the Carlin Deposit
(Reno: Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology Special Publication 13, University of Nevada, 1991), 5,
http://www.nbmg.unr.edu/dox/sp13.pdf
.

“Bill wanted to show me this unusual ore”
:
Roberts,
A Passion for Gold,
86.

“When we entered Maggie Creek Canyon”
:
Ibid., 87.

“My excitement grew”
:
Ibid., 88.

In 1960 Roberts put his thoughts
:
“Alinement of Mining Districts in North-Central Nevada,” United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 400-B, 1960, B17–B19.

One man stayed behind
:
John Seabrook, “A Reporter at Large: Invisible Gold,”
New Yorker
, April 24, 1989, 69–70.

John Sealy Livermore
:
Ibid., 62. See also “John Sealy Livermore, 1918–2013,” obituary in
Napa Valley Register
, February 14, 2013,
http://napavalleyregister.com/obituaries/john-sealy-livermore/article_3048b3d8-7646-11e2-9e18-0019bb2963f4.html
.

Livermore's search for invisible gold began in 1949 at the Standard mine
:
Seabrook, “A Reporter at Large: Invisible Gold,” 65.

“We did some churn drilling”
:
John Sealy Livermore, “Prospector, Geologist, Public Resource Advocate: Carlin Mine Discovery, 1961; Nevada Gold Rush, 1970s,”
Western Mining in the Twentieth Century Oral History Series
(Berkeley: University of California, 2001), 29; navigate from
http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/projects/mining/
.