>>208
(www.nytimes.com, Dec. 1, 1997)
U.S. Melted Down Gold Items From Nazis
ttps://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/01/world/us-melted-down-gold-items-from-nazis.html

Seven years after World War II ended,
the United States melted down gold plates, buttons, coins and smoking-pipe ornaments that were
apparently looted from Hitler's victims,
and turned the gold over to European central banks.

...At the time the coins, buttons and pipe ornaments were smelted,
sorting out the ownership of private gold was far from Washington's top objective.
With the cold war well under way, all of the focus was on the economic stabilization of Europe
-- thus the rush to melt down gold and send it back to Europe.

...The Swiss memorandum began:
''On 17 August 1944 we concluded with the Japanese Government a clearing agreement of an absolutely confidential nature,
in accordance with which 40 percent of the franc payments by the British and American Governments
for prisoners of war and internees in Japan are utilized for the transfer of Swiss claims in Japan, and
60 percent are at the free disposal of the Japanese Government.''