Please read the article of the Japan Times if you haven't read the book yet.

If you want more, read the backcover and prologue on the authors' website.

You can also order it from the JREF Shop (thanks) and post your review there.

I'd like to discuss with those having read the book what they think about it.

The numbers (gold, money in $) involved are so huge that it is hard to believe, especially that most are only estimations (and gold price fluctuates a lot over decades).

But what seems fairly certain is that Japan recovered most of the plunder from Korea and China, and a (small ?) part from South-East Asia. The total SE Asian treasures must not have accounted for half of all treasures from Asia, as China always had a much larger population than the whole of SE Asia, and was historically richer. What is more, the Japanese have had several more years' time to plunder China than SE Asia, as they started in 1905 in Manchuria and 1937 in Eastern China (the richest part).

But from what the Seagraves say, the Marcos would have recovered at least US$1,63-trillion worth of gold, and this only from a few caches out of the 175 existing ones. Santa Romana would have received a share worth US$50-billlion. Of course, we don't know what the US and Japan recovered from these 175 sites, but it seems that lots of them are still there. As a results, I'd say that there are/were several trillion $ worth only in the Philippines, and the part taken to Japan from Korea, China and what made it from SE Asia was certainly at least as big as this total, and most of it is either hidden in Japan (mountain tunnels, hidden mines, Imperial palace, zaibatsu...) or was taken by the US government (to finance the cold war against communism, and this way also assure its political control of many Latin American, or even European and Asian countries, including Japan).

If it is dubious that the Imperial family needs to be several richer than the entire Japanese population bare a few elite politicians, we could argue that the US made "good use" (bare a few "justified" assassinations) of this money (the M-fund or Black Eagle Trust) to "protect" (or corrupt) its allies during the cold war.

The Seagraves wonder what this money is used for now that the cold war is over. That disappoints me that they couldn't answer such a straightforward question. There are the Muslims now. America has got control (even superficial, at the top) of the whole world yet. Bush said it's time to crusade against the Talibans, Iraqi and even Irani, and maybe Syrian too. Who knows if they aren't going to "help" the poor Sudanese in Dafur in their combat against Islam. Probably not as there is not much to gain - but why not as there is money to spend and time (and Muslims) to kill.