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Introduction: Following directly and supplementing FTRs #426 and #427, this interview with Peggy Seagrave highlights many of the key points of discussion in the remarkable new book authored by Peggy and her husband Sterling–Gold Warriors: America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold. (The Seagraves authored The Yamato Dynasty, which was the focal point of FTR#‘s 426, 427.) Centered on the pivotally important (but little known) “Golden Lily” operation executed by the Japanese prior to and during World War II, this program sets forth the role played by this war loot in the postwar world. In addition to providing much of the foundation for the postwar Japanese economy (the world’s second largest), the plunder secreted by Japan in the Philippines provided a vast financial reserve that was used to finance US intelligence operations during the Cold War. Moreover, this vast pool of clandestine wealth was the source for a number of overlapping funds used to fix elections in a number of countries, control the Japanese political establishment in the postwar period and buttress major financial institutions around the world. In addition, this “black gold” was partially recovered by the late Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who utilized the loot to finance his regime and to manipulate both Japan and the United States. The corrupting influence of this vast pool of wealth continues to be felt around the world.
Program Highlights Include: The role of the Japanese underworld in that nation’s military and corporate imperialism; the rehabilitation of key Japanese war criminals, who served as kingmakers in the postwar “reformed,” “democratic” Japan; the secret provision at the 1944 Breton Woods conference to use Axis plunder to finance anti-Communist operations; the roles of Secretary of War Henry Stimson’s proteges John J. McCloy, Robert Lovett and Robert B. Anderson in administering the postwar disbursement of the Golden Lily assets; the recovery of the Golden Lily caches in the Philippines by OSS (and later CIA) officer Severino Diaz Garcia Santa Romana; CIA General Edward Lansdale’s partnership with Santa Romana in the manipulation of the Golden Lily loot; the marriage of the Golden Lily plunder with Nazi gold in order to form the pivotal Black Eagle Trust; then Vice-President Richard Nixon’s collusion with the Japanese to fix the US Presidential election; the role of the “M‑Fund” in the corruption of postwar Japan and the perpetuation of Japanese oligarchy; the use of Golden Lily loot to finance right-wing militias in the United States; the role of the Black Eagle Trust in manipulating international currency standards; the apparent role of acting NYSE head John Reed in secreting away Golden Lily gold accounts for Citibank; the deliberate frustration of reparations lawsuits by former POW’s against Japanese corporations; US State Department officials’ professional connections to corporations that were defendants in those lawsuits.
1. (Note: the entire program is based on the book Gold Warriors. Although some text excerpts are presented here, the usual complete footnoting process is omitted for obvious reasons. Readers are emphatically encouraged to obtain and read the book. Be sure to visit the web site.) Beginning with discussion of the structure of Japanese imperialism in the 20th century, the program sets forth the profound operational relationship of Japan’s major corporations, its underworld syndicates and the Patriotic societies. The zaibatsu-the giant Japanese family trusts that dominate that nation’s economy use both the yakuza-the deadly Japanese criminal organizations-and the Patriotic societies (such as the Black Dragon and Black Ocean societies) as cooperative agents in the process of conquest and economic plunder. In this regard, Japan’s military functioned in seamless coordination with these entities (as well as the Emperor and his family) as partners in the conquest, brutalization and looting of Asia prior to, and during World War II. (For more on the zaibatsu, see Miscellaneous Archive Show-available from Spitfire-as well as FTR#‘s 290, 426, 427. For more about the Patriotic Societies, see FTR#‘s 291, 296, as well as RFA#7‑available from Spitfire.)
2. One of the principal elements of discussion concerns the role of Princes Takeda and Chichibu in stashing vast amounts of looted in wealth in the Philippines, for eventual recovery and use on behalf of Japan’s postwar economic recovery. (See FTR#‘s 290, 427.)
3. Supplementing the focal point of FTR#426, the program sets forth the deliberate subversion of Japanese reform by General Douglas MacArthur and his staff, acting on behalf of political and economic interests that sought a preservation of the status quo. In order to maintain the Japanese business and political infrastructure, the Emperor and the royal family were absolved of war guilt and notorious war criminals such as Nobosuke Kishi, Yoshio Kodama and Royichi Sasakawa were rehabilitated. Kishi, Kodama and Sasakawa became key movers on the postwar Japanese political stage. (For more about Kodama and Sasakawa, see FTR#‘s 291, 296, as well as RFA#7‑available from Spitfire.) Another of the significant players for Japan during the war-Kakuei Tanaka-evolved into one of the major controllers of the postwar clandestine monies, the “M” Fund in particular. (For more about the M‑Fund, see FTR#290.)
4. One of the more important postwar US intelligence operatives was a former OSS and CIA agent Severino Diaz Garcia Santa Romana-nicknamed “Santy.” The discoverer of much of the gold hidden in the Philippines by Prince Chichibu and General Yamashita under “Golden Lily” (see FTR#427), Santa Romana worked with General Edward Lansdale to secret the gold into foreign bank accounts. There, it was subsequently utilized for a number of purposes, in particular the financing of postwar US intelligence operations. As Ms. Seagrave explains, a pivotal event in the recovery of the Philippines Golden Lily caches was the torture of General Yamashita’s driver, who eventually yielded the whereabouts of the repositories.
5. At the epicenter of the events set forth in Gold Warriors, a vast engine of clandestine wealth known as the Black Eagle Trust grew from the synthesis of the Santa Romana recoveries with Nazi loot recovered at the close of the war in Europe. Named for the black eagle imprinted on ingots of Nazi gold bullion, the Black Eagle Trust was the outgrowth of planning engaged in at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944. (Bretton Woods laid the groundwork for the postwar international economy.) Stemming from planning by the influential Secretary of War Henry Stimson and his power-elite proteges John J. McCloy, Robert Lovett and Robert B. Anderson, the Black Eagle Trust was used to finance US covert intelligence operations throughout the Cold War. Black Eagle gold was used to fix elections in many countries and to provide an underpinning for many of the world’s most important financial institutions. In addition, other (related) funds had much to do with the behind-the-scenes maneuvering on the Japanese, Philippine and U.S. political stages.
6. Next, the program focuses on the decisive role of Golden Lily loot and other “black” (clandestine) monies played in the affairs of postwar Japan. The most important of these funds was the “M‑Fund,” deriving its name from General William Frederic Marquat, a key MacArthur aide involved with the administration of Japan’s postwar economy. As discussed above, that economy was entirely derivative from the institutions of Imperial Japan. (The M‑Fund is discussed in FTR#290.) Initially administered by the U.S., the M‑Fund was disbursed in conjunction with resurrected Japanese war criminals and profiteers, such as Msrs. Kishi, Kodama and Tanaka. Eventually, then Vice-President Richard Nixon effected the transfer of control of the M‑Fund back to the Japanese, in exchange for kickbacks from this multi-billion dollar fund to Nixon’s campaign to win the presidency. After becoming Prime Minister, Tanaka used the vast wealth of the M‑Fund to systematically manipulate the political topography of Japan. A central vehicle for this control was the issuance of bonds, such as the “57’s”, named for the year of Emperor Hirohito’s reign. These certificates could be redeemed or deemed “counterfeit” at the discretion of the controllers of the fund‑a deliberate caprice that was used to devastating, Machiavellian effect. Among those ruined by the “57’s” was former Deputy Attorney General Norbert Schlei (see FTR#290.)
7. “A related legal battle was that of former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Norbert Schlei, who had to fight for his survival after being stung by the U.S. Treasury Department for asking too many questions about Japan’s secret M‑Fund. While Schlei was indicted, prosecuted, bankrupted, and professionally ruined for trying to negotiate a financial certificate based on the M‑Fund, former Secretary of State Alexander Haig-according to eyewitnesses-went to Japan and negotiated a similar certificate successfully, with the help of a personal letter from President George H.W. Bush. Why one man succeeded while the other was destroyed is a chilling story of financial collusion between Washington and Tokyo.” (Gold Warriors-America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold; by Sterling Seagrave and Peggy Seagrave; Verso [HC]; Copyright 2003 by Sterling Seagrave and Peggy Seagrave; ISBN 1–85984-542–8; p. 9.)
8. In addition to the M‑Fund, the related Yotsuya and Keenan Funds were employed by the MacArthur group, Landsdale and their Japanese allies to manipulate Japanese and Asian affairs in a cynical (and often bloody) fashion. Administered by MacArthur’s fascist intelligence chief General Charles Willoughby, the Yotsuya Fund was used in conjunction with the Japanese criminal syndicates to efffect some of the more gruesome machinations of the early Cold War period in Japan. (For more about Willoughby, see-among other programs-RFA#‘s 10, 11, 15, 37-available from Spitfire, as well as FTR#‘s 54, 120.) “General Willoughby, MacArthur’s ‘lovable fascist’ and head of G‑2 at SCAP, controlled the Yotsuya Fund and worked energetically with Kodama and his legions of yakuza to suppress any kind of leftist activity or public protest during the occupation. Because democracy tolerated dissent, the concept of democracy had long been regarded by Japan’s ruling elite as ‘a poisonous idea from the West’. In Japan, even the mildest kind of dissent was not tolerated. During the McCarthy era in America, the suppression of dissent became synonymous with anti-communism. But the witchhunt in Japan during that epoch was far more severe and bloody.” (Ibid.; p. 110.)
9. The Keenan Fund was yet another of these pools of “black” money. “The Keenan Fund, by contrast, was controlled by a civilian: Joseph B. Keenan, another MacArthur intimate who was chief prosecutor in the Tokyo war crimes trials. . . .Simply put, it was used to bribe witnesses at the war crimes trials, or to grease the intermediaries who persuaded the witnesses to falsify their testimony.” (Ibid.; pp. 111–112.)
10. Eventually, the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos learned of the Golden Lily plunder and the use of the clandestine funds by MacArthur and the Japanese. He then used this information to recover some of the treasure entombed the Philippines, and to blackmail both the Japanese and the Americans. It should be noted that this blackmail evolved into deep political collusion, in which the Marcos-controlled Golden Lily loot was trafficked around the world as part of various U.S. and Japanese covert machinations.
11. In addition, some of the Golden Lily caches in the Philippines were recovered by various “private” organizations, themselves intimately linked to elements of U.S. intelligence and reactionaries evolved from the MacArthur infrastructure. Among the participants in these recoveries were the John Birch Society and General John Singlaub-the later closely associated with the former World Anti-Communist League and the off-the-shelf intelligence operations associated with the Iran-Contra affair. (For more about the John Birch Society, see RFA#‘s 10–12-available from Spitfire. For more about WACL, see RFA#‘s14, 15, 36, 37. For more about the Iran-Contra affair and the machinations of Singlaub and Company, see RFA#‘s 29–35. All of these programs are available from Spitfire.)
12. “Included here are handwritten letters and diagrams showing how a group of senior U.S. Government officials and Pentagon generals hoped to use Golden Lily treasure to create a new private FBI and a military-industrial complex controlled by them, in partnership with the John Birch Society, the Moonies and far-right tycoons. This is confirmed by tape recordings of a 1987 conference in Hong Kong that included retired U.S. Army General John Singlaub and General Robert Schweitzer of the National Security Council under President Reagan.” (Ibid.; p. 11.)
13. Recently, former Citibank CEO John Reed took over as acting head of the New York Stock Exchange. While presiding over Citibank’s operations, Reed was the focal point of litigation by the heirs to Santa Romana, who had secreted significant amounts of “black gold” in accounts at Citibank. The residual assets from Golden Lily, the Black Eagle Trust, the M‑Fund etc. continue to occupy a decisive position in the clandestine affairs of governments and financial institutions around the world.
14. In what the Seagraves describe as the “last battle of the Pacific War,” surviving victims of Japanese atrocities, including American former POW’s sued for compensation for their wartime suffering. The federal government effectively blocked these suits, maintaining that international diplomatic relations took precedence over legal ethics and morality.
The real issue is conflict of interest. During the Clinton Administration, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Foley was adamant in rejecting compensation for POW’s and other slave laborers, insisting that ‘The peace treaty put aside all claims against Japan.’ His Deputy Chief of Mission, Christopher J. LaFleur, echoed this dogma at every opportunity.
It was a matter of some interest to victims that Foley’s wife was a well-paid consultant to Sumitomo, one of Japan’s biggest zaibatsu conglomerates, heavily involved in wartime slave labor and a target of the lawsuits. The moment Foley ended his tenure as ambassador and returned to America, he signed on as a paid advisor and lobbyist to another huge conglomerate-Mitsubishi-one of the biggest wartime users of slave labor.
Of greater significance, perhaps, is that Lafleur is married to the daughter of former prime minister and finance minister Miyazawa, one of the three Japanese who secretly negotiated the 1951 treaty with John Foster Dulles. (Miyazawa also is considered by professor Lausier and others to be the financial overseer of the M‑Fund.) Conflict of interest does not seem to be an obstacle in diplomatic appointments to Tokyo.) (Ibid.; p. 12.)
Great Interview I’ve listened to it multiple times over the years. This book was great anyone interested in Japan, fascism, drugs, banking and the CIA should get a copy.
Here’s my review
https://www.globalresearch.ca/gold-warriors-americas-secret-recovery-of-yamashitas-gold/5642011
The Trump casino is open for business. Re-opened really. Not his Atlantic City casinos. Those all went bankrupt. No, it’s a much higher stakes casino: secretly bribing this historically corrupt president. Although, after the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling, it’s not even clear you’d have to do it in secret. And anyone on the planet can play in it. As long as they have deep pockets and an ability to somehow direct the contents of those pockets into Donald Trump’s bank accounts.
It’s that gross corruption, increasingly out in the open, that brings us to a fascinating pair of stories about the incredible corruption potential found in the ‘crown jewel’ of President Trump’s commercial real estate portfolio: The 40 Wall Street building.
Or at least the former ‘crown jewel’ in Trump’s portfolio. It turns out Trump has been overstating the value for this property so egregiously that it ended up the centerpiece of the New York state’s civil lawsuit against Trump over the systematic defrauding of banks he engaged in for years with routine misrepresentation of his properties’ valuations. A lawsuit he ended up losing and that resulted in $489 million fine (with interest) that could be more than enough to wipe out Trump’s cash reserves. And that’s on top of the $114 million mortgage Trump still owes on the property.
Even worse, given the cratering of commercial real estate post-pandemic, the income generated from the property may not be enough to even cover the mortgage payments. Adding to the crisis is the fact that Trump has such a toxic reputation at this point many of the remaining tenants have indicated they would like to relocate at the earliest convenience. It’s the kind of situation that had Donald Trump facing the potential loss of his former crown jewel.
Or at least that would have been the case had Trump lost the 2024 election. At this point, who knows how he’ll be able to turn the situation around. Or if he’ll somehow end up getting the fine dropped entirely. Given that it’s a state-level fine, Trump can’t just pardon himself and the opinion from New York Attorney General Letitia James last month was that Trump still had to pay the fine, president or not. We’re obviously in uncharted territory here when it comes to what a president can and cannot do.
But that massive civil fine and the depressed valuation of what was once Trump’s crown jewel is just part of what makes the 40 Wall Street property so grimly fascinating in the context of a Trump second term. Because there’s another very strange dimension to this story: it turns out Donald Trump’s ownership of the 40 Wall Street tower doesn’t actually include the ground beneath the tower. Instead, the original builders signed a long-term lease with the investors who own the land. As a result of that unusual ownership arrangement, it’s actually possible for those investors to take control of the entire tower should Donald Trump fail to make his rent payments.
Now, as we’re going to see, a scenario that involves Trump handing over ownership of the tower to the land owners appears to be highly unlikely at this point. In part because the investors appear to be on very friendly terms with Trump.
So who are these investors? That’s not 100% clear, which is also part of this story. It turns out two LLCs own the land, and technically it would be possible for the true owners of those LLCs to change hands without any public disclosure. But we do have a vague idea of some of the original investors: Stephanie von Bismarck, Joachim Ferdinand von Grumme-Douglas and siblings Anita, Christian, and Walter Hinneberg.
The purchase by the five German investors was made on December 7, 1982. Today, the Hinnebergs appearing to control the LLC that owns 80 percent of 40 Wall Street, with Joachim von Grumme-Douglas owning the other percent. It’s unclear if Stephanie von Bismarck is still an owner.
As we’re going to see, these weren’t ordinary investors. The Hinnebergs come from one of the largest shipping-broker dynasties on the planet. And Stephanie von Bismarck and Joachim Ferdinand von Grumme-Douglas both appear to be closely related and both hail from prominent German aristocratic families. The Hinnebergs also appear to be not just very chummy with Donald Trump but they’ve been involved with organized similar kinds of ‘anti-elite’ political movements in their home city of Hamburg, Germany. And, again, we don’t actually know who else is involved with this investment group. These are potentially just the public faces.
But there’s another very interesting piece of history related to these German investors: Donald Trump wasn’t the first person to lease the tower from these investors after they purchased the land in 1982. Prior to their purchase, the group of investors — George Comfort, Henry Loeb and Clifford Michel — had been leasing the tower from the land owners. But just three weeks after the German land purchase, the investors leasing the tower transferred the leasehold to an entity that was later found to serve as a vehicle for hiding the wealth of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Following Marco’s exile in 1986, the US government eventually seized control of the tower.
So with the transfer of the lease to Ferdinand Marcos just three weeks after the purchase of the land beneath the tower, we have to ask: was this mystery German investment group directly involved with the laundering of the vast Golden Lily WWII plunder that Marcos had been recovering? Because that timing sure is remarkable. They buy the land, and Marcos gets the lease. Was that all just happenstance? Because if not, that is a really interesting detail on the history Marco’s vast international Golden Lily-related money-laundering operations.
That’s all part of what makes the evolving story about 40 Wall Street so a darkly fascinating story to keep an eye on. Not only do we still not know the complete identities of the mystery land owners who potentially have enormous leverage over Trump — and therefore favors to ask of him — but it’s also possible this same mystery investor group has some sort of relationship to the Ferdinand Marco Golden Lily chapter of history. A chapter of history that remains wildly under-appreciated to this day in terms of the role it played in the financing of the elite international far right and the real ‘Deep State’. An international far right that has more or less captured control of the US government at this point. So while we can be confident President Trump is going to be engaging in an orgy of gross corruption when it comes to his private business concerns and all the conflicts of interest that entails, keep in mind that when it comes to the corruption involving Trump’s ‘crown jewel’ at 40 Wall Street, the corruption could end up being a lot more historically significant:
“No Trump property, however, has experienced a fall like 40 Wall, which was once considered to be the single most valuable property in his portfolio. “What a fuc king mess that building is,” says one real-estate professional who is familiar with its state. “You could charge a nickel a foot and no one wants to pay the Trump Organization rent.” Of the 75 tenants listed on 40 Wall’s rental rolls in 2015, the last time it refinanced its mortgage, more than 40 have left. Around two dozen others have long-term leases that appear to be set to expire in the next two years. Although the Trump Organization claims 40 Wall is still 75 percent leased, a few floors are entirely vacant and sitting on the sublet market. Its ground-level retail space is almost totally empty. In today’s world, the 1930s-vintage skyscraper is likely best suited for conversion to residential use; to survive as an office building, it needs expensive upgrades. Either way, it will require a landlord and lenders willing to invest hundreds of millions in capital, a potentially tall order for a convicted felon whose largest source of personal wealth is his founder’s stake in the profitless company that owns Truth Social, a meme stock that fluctuates with his poll numbers. And that’s before you even get to the dealbreaker: the fact that Trump doesn’t own the land beneath his own building and must pay rent to a secretive group of foreign investors who have a contractual option to jack it up in a few years.”
40 Wall Street isn’t just another building in Donald Trump’s real estate portfolio. It was his crown jewel. The kind of crown jewel that Trump routinely overvalued to defraud banks, according to a New York State civil lawsuit. A lawsuit Trump lost in 2024, resulting in the kind of potential penalties that could have wiped out Trump’s cash reserves. And that’s with a $114 million mortgage on the property coming due in 2025.
But even at the height of its value, the building was an investment oddity: Trump didn’t actually own the ground beneath it. Instead, a secretive group of foreign investors owns that ground. And thanks to this bizarre ownership structure and the fact that the commercial real estate market has been hammered so significantly in recent years, this secretive group of investors were potentially in a position of enormous leverage over Donald Trump. The kind of leverage that could have potentially allowed them to take control of the entire building. At least, they would have had that leverage had Trump lost the election. It’s a different ballgame now:
And as the article notes, the ownership structure of the tower and the ground beneath it is so opaque that it’s possible for the ownership of LLCs that technically own the land to change hands without a public disclosure. So while we know this group of secretive wealthy German investors definitely owned the land when Trump first bought the tower back in the 90s, we don’t actually know who exactly owns those LLCs today:
And as we can see in the following Real Deal article from January 6, 2017, while we may not know exactly who owns these LLCs that owns the land beneath the tower, it’s pretty clear the owners are very pro-Trump. The Hinneberg brothers even appear to have a history of MAGA-adjacent ‘anti-elite’ political organizing.
But we also learn a very interesting fun fact about that history of the shady ownership of this building: Ferdinand Marcos acquired the lease to the tower just three weeks after the German investors took ownership of the land in 1982. Which raises the fascinating question as to whether or not the leasing of the tower to Marcos was the intended plan all along. Because if that’s the case, there could be a whole Golden Lily-laundering angle to this story that has yet to be revealed:
“That suddenly matters a great deal. Trump will be sworn in as President of the United States on Jan. 20. The commander-in-chief owing regular lease payments to a bunch of foreign businessmen might not be concerning if it weren’t for the fact that no one seems to know exactly who they are.”
As we can see, the ownership structure of the land beneath the tower isn’t just a mystery at the start of Trump’s second term. It was was a mystery 8 years ago during his first term. For all the public attention directed at Trump and his many blatant conflicts of interest, we still never really learned who ultimately owned the land beneath Trump’s ‘crown jewel’. But we do at least have an idea of some of the initial people behind this investment: Stephanie von Bismarck, Joachim Ferdinand von Grumme-Douglas and siblings Anita, Christian, and Walter Hinneberg. With Christian Hinneberg signing the deed as the buyer on behalf of 40 Wall Street Holdings Corp. And overall, it looks like the Hinnebergs control the holding company today while Stephanie von Bismarck may or may not have divested:
Also note this interesting detail about Ferdinand Marcos acquiring the lease to the tower back in the 1980s: it was just three weeks after the German investors took ownership of the land in 1982 when the lease for the tower was transferred to Marcos. Which, again, raises intriguing questions about the money-laundering potential of this property. The 1980s overlapped with Marco’s vast fortune derived from his recovery of the Golden Lily plunder, after all. Was the purchase of the land beneath the tower by this German investment group part of a larger plan in coordination with Marcos to find an overseas place to invest his bast illicit fortune? If so, that would add a whole new wild dimension to this story:
So what’s Trump’s relationship with this mysterious investment group? Well, as we can see, the Hinneberg brothers — two of the biggest ship brokers in the world — are note only quite chummy with Trump but also appear to be ideologically aligned with the MAGA ‘anti-elite’ agenda. Again, these are two of the wealthiest shipping brokers on the planet...pushing ‘anti-elite’ right-wing politics. And as we saw, the Hinnebergs appear to control the majority stake in the investment group. Although that’s still speculation since we don’t really know the ownership structure:
And then we to the other known investors like Joachim von Grumme-Douglas and Stephanie von Bismarck, who both appear to be closely related to German aristocrats and each other:
And, again, that’s just who we know about. There could be other mystery investors involved with this investment. The kind of investment that, in the context of today’s distressed commercial real estate environment, makes these investors some of Donald Trump’s best friends once that mortgage comes due. The kind of best friends the president will be incredibly eager to please through whatever means necessary.