One of the goals of this conference is to determine what direction GATA should take in order to expose and defeat The Gold Cartel. Therefore, I believe it will be both helpful and insightful for the attendees at this conference to know where we have already been.

One important point to make is that from day one GATA has gone the route Americans are supposed to in our democracy – that is we have called on our politicians and press to have our opinions and facts be reviewed.

Only a couple of months after I was on CNBC I met with New Jersey Congressman James Saxton, chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, and his staff in the nation’s Capital.

GATA’s mission at the time was to dissuade Congress from allowing the IMF to sell its gold.

A year later on May 10, 2000 a GATA delegation, consisting of Frank Veneroso, Reg Howe, Chris Powell and I, met with the Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. A short meeting became a long one and the Speaker quickly arranged another meeting with Alabama Congressman Spencer Bachus, chairman of the House Sub-Committee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy - the committee with gold oversight. The Congressman brought 8 of his staff. After that meeting we met with the chief economist of the Senate Banking Committee. The next day I dropped off this GDBC document off at the offices of all the Senate and House banking committee members.

In the early years countless numbers of individuals in the GATA Army sent thousands of letters to Senators and Congressman asking them to investigate the manipulation of the gold price, etc. I have copies of many of them in my office.

In February 2001 and I went to the Indaba gold conference in Cape Town. In addition to having the pleasure of seeing Brett Kebble again, I met the indomitable Peter George, who took me out to the countryside to meet with a significant South African gold advocate, Chris Hellinger, at his estate/vineyard in Franschoek. We discussed the lack of attention given to GATA by the business press (what else is new). Chris and Peter’s friends said, we’ll fix that. Over lunch they pledged a full page $50,000 ad in Business Day, the WSJ of South Africa.

Peter and I went furiously to work and two days later there it was with a bold headline: GOLD PRICE MANIPULATION. In the ad we denounced the big hedgers like Barrick and AngloGold for aiding The Gold Cartel in their suppression of the price of gold. As AngloGold had just announced a new round of hedging with the price of gold around $258, they were not thrilled. As I went around the conference that morning, I could see many of the attendees reading the ad, some with big frowns on their faces. Nevertheless, AngloGold eventually made a significant contribution to GATA. Barrick? They are an entirely different story as the Blanchard & Co suit against them for gold price manipulation in New Orleans Federal Court attests.

During this period I toured South Africa to present GATA’s case. Before leaving Cape Town I met with South Africa’s Minister of Mines, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.

In Durban I met with the leader of the Zulu’s, King Goodwill Zwelethini, the great grandson of Africa’s greatest general, SHAKA. GATA’s action plan was based around SHAKA’s "Enveloping Horn" battle strategy. It served SHAKA well and worked extremely well for us too.

While in Johannesburg I met with the National Miners Union and many others. It was then off to Pretoria where I made a presentation before the South African Reserve Bank and other government officials.

This trip was a prelude to our GATA African Gold Summit in Durban, South Africa on May 10, 2001. Five sub-Saharan nations attended, as did many of the major gold producers, the mining union and COSATU, the country’s major trade union, the South African Reserve Bank, etc. It made prime time TV on SABC.

Later that year the New African ran a four article Gold Special Report featuring GATA’s efforts in all of them. One title was Why King Gold has no clothes … manipulation of the world gold market exposed.

Another one was With friends like these … How the Clinton Administration and its friends, who had publicly pledged to help Africa out of poverty, rigged the gold market to Africa’s detriment.

Not long after returning home I met with two of President Bush’s boyhood friends from Midland, Texas. President Clinton and Treasury Secretary’s Rubin and Summer’s were disasters for the gold price. GATA hoped President Bush and the Republican’s might be different and were willing to give it the old college try.

Tom Craddick, the most powerful state politician in Texas, was one of the two. He was intrigued but told me to forget my mounds of evidence. Two things about the President he said: one is his focus on loyalty, the other is to get right to the point. He asked if I would send him a two page executive summary which he would sent to the President on his private fax.

A few days letter I received my second letter in three months from Lawrence Lindsay, who was the President’s economic advisor at the time. The postmark on the letter was the same day GATA’s executive summary was faxed to the President. Lindsay made reference to Reg Howe’s suit against The Gold Cartel in my letter and therefore declined further comment.

This effort didn’t help GATA, nor Lindsay either. He was fired less than a year later for having the audacity to tell the truth about how much the Iraq War would cost.

In February 2002 we took aim at Washington again and GATA delivered a presentation at the Washington Press Club, which was filmed by C-Span and subsequently televised.

Over the ensuing years a number of significant developments occurred, some of which are highlighted in your handout. At this point I would like to briefly cover what is in the handout material and why GATA has included it all for your perusal and reference. As you can see, there a great deal of material here. What is critical to keep in mind is ALL of this material hangs together in terms of what GATA has uncovered. Whether it was written today or 4 years ago, it all complements each other.

*Frank Veneroso presentation paper for the GATA African Gold Summit - Facts, Evidence and Logical Inference A Presentation On Gold Supply/Demand, Gold Derivatives and Gold Loans. IMO it is pivotal to comprehending what lies ahead for the price of gold – BECAUSE Frank’s work reveals the true status of the central bank gold reserves, which are far less than recognized by the mainstream gold world.

*A MONTHLY REVIEW OF GOLD FROM FRANK VENEROSO in which he destroys the gold demand work by industry spokesmen GFMS and the World Gold Council. Two quotes from Frank’s piece:

"I believe the most recent GFMS statistics are now distorted to the point of the ridiculous."

"The GFMS estimates of gold demand are so removed from historical trends and current market reports that they have become ludicrous. In a sense, with their recent statistical shenanigans, GFMS has now fully discredited itself."

And to think the investment world relies on the World Gold Council and GFMS for their statistical supply/demand work.

*Gibson's Paradox Revisited: Professor Summers Analyzes Gold Prices by Reg Howe – a brilliant piece which reviews a paper co-authored by former treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers, then a professor of political economy at Harvard.

Herein lies a key to the Gold Cartel’s motive for rigging the price of gold. A quote from Gibson’s Paradox:

"Assuming, as Barsky and Summers assert, that the Gibson paradox operates in a truly free gold market as it did under the gold standard, gold prices will move inversely to real long-term rates, falling when rates rise and rising when they fall."

In other words by suppressing the price of gold, the US held its interest rates lower than they would have been if gold were allowed to trade freely.

*One of James Turk’s wonderful efforts, "More Proof." Through a completely different calculation, James comes up with similar gold loan numbers as Frank Veneroso. Which in turn supports Reg Howe’s derivatives work, which also leads to similar numbers and conclusions. From these independent and unique studies, it is easy to articulate the central banks have half the gold they say they have – a pivotal point GATA is making at this conference.

* A brief paper I wrote - The Bank of Italy Confirms Gold Cartel, IMF Gold Deception

This bombshell finding was gathered by GATA’s Harry Potter, the brilliant Andrew Hepburn. The bottom line is Andrew caught the IMF in a blatant lie regarding how they instruct central banks to account for their true gold holdings.

Andrew asked the IMF the following:

Why does the IMF insist that members record swapped gold as an asset when a legal change in ownership has occurred?

The IMF answered:

Yet, the following can be found on the central bank of The Philippines website:

"Beginning January 2000, in compliance with the requirements of the IMF's reserves and foreign currency liquidity template under the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS), gold swaps undertaken by the BSP with non-central banks shall be treated as collateralized loan. Thus, gold under the swap arrangement remains to be part of reserves and a liability is deemed incurred corresponding to the proceeds of the swap."

Andrew received the same feedback from the ECB.

Harry Potter story …

*Oleg V. Mozhaiskov, Deputy Chairman Bank of Russia: "Perspectives on Gold: Central Bank Viewpoint," presented to The London Bullion Market Association Bullion Market Forum at the Baltschug Kempinsky Hotel, Moscow on June 3-4, 2004

The only words Deputy Chairman said in English were: "Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee. The only reason we were able to read the speech was because the Chairman of the Moscow Norodny Bank of London translated the speech into English. Not one of the bullion dealer attendees GATA contacted would do so for us.

*Dr. Eckart Woertz: "The Role of Gold in the Unified GCC Currency, " prepared for the Gulf Research Council in Dubai. In this fine piece Dr. Eckart covers The manipulation of the gold market since the Nineties.

*Reg Howe latest on derivatives titled: Gold Derivatives: "Skewing the World" – Reg will be touching on that shortly.

*Antal Fekete: "A REVISIONIST THEORY AND HISTORY OF MONEY"- off topic but a superlative piece for those interested in gold and money.

*Another one by Reg Howe – "Free Gold: Grease the Banks."

*Separate pamphlet: Not Free, Not Fair: The Long-Term Manipulation of the Gold Price by John Embry and Andrew Hepburn.

The study represents a most thorough and detailed examination of GATA’s allegations that the gold market has been subjected to severe price manipulation over the past many years.

I’m sure you will be hearing more on this from John at dinner this evening.

Tomorrow I will address the main point I would like to drive home at this conference, talk about GATA and the press, etc.

Open the forum to any questions some of you might have.