Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

February 29, 2000

To: Gregory Zuckerman
      John Conner
      Charles Casparino
      Wall Street Journal
      New York, New York

From: Bill Murphy
           Chairman, Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee

Dear Gregory, John and Charles,

It has come to my attention that you were besieged with emails after the Editor-in-chief of the GOLD-EAGLE website, I. M Vronsky, sent you an email congratulating you for your investigative reporting of the T-Bill market. As I understand it, Mr. Vronsky suggested that you also investigate the manipulation of the gold market - and many readers of his web site have urged you on.

As Chairman of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA), I think I know a great deal about this subject and invite you to look into what we believe will prove up to be one of the great financial scandals in American history.

This is a complex situation and cannot be articulated with "sound-bite" wording in a letter to you. However, I have one and one half year's worth of documentation on the manipulation of the gold market and would be happy to share my efforts should you be interested in pursuing this matter.

On March 29th I will be a guest speaker at the Committee for Monetary Research and Education's Spring Dinner Meeting in New York and my topic is 'The Gold Market Mystery." Also speaking at that dinner are Owen F. Humpage of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Tracy G. Herrrick, Chief Investment Strategist of Jefferies & Company, Inc., James J. Leisenring, Vice Chairman, Financial Accounting Standards Boards, Martin Mayer, prolific financial book author, and Henry J. Reuss, former Chairman of the House Banking Committee.

The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee extends an invitation to all of you to be our guests at that dinner so that you can become better acquainted with the reasoning behind our claims.

In the meantime, there is much that can be accomplished if you have the inclination. My colleague Chris Powell, GATA Treasurer/Secretary, is sending you two articles from the British press for your perusal. One was written by acclaimed Financial Times journalist, Barry Riley; the other from The Economist.

From the Feb. 12 FT article: "The gold manipulation might well have started out as a minor smoothing operation that got out of control."

From the February Economist article: "Until recently it has been easy to dismiss them (gold bugs) as flat-earthers, clinging to outdated ideas. Now, however, it is harder to explain why the gold price remains so low."

Chris Powell is also sending you our center spread open letter (that GATA placed in the Dec. 9 issue of Roll Call) to Alan Greenspan and Lawrence Summers. In that letter we requested that both gentlemen answer 11 specific questions about possible gold market activity by the Fed and the Treasury.

Thus far, Alan Greenspan has responded to those questions to Senator Lieberman, who made a similar request in GATA's behalf. We have been told in writing by Senator Lieberman that the Treasury would respond to us no later than February 22, but to date we have not received that response.

GATA strongly believes that the gold market has been manipulated the past couple of years by certain bullion banks - mostly headquartered in New York - and a certain facet of U.S. officialdom.

I have a financial web site, www.LeMetropoleCafe.com, and have documented much of our findings over the past 18 months. This material can be found in the Library at that web site. It is my pleasure to offer you a complementary press membership to "The Caf." If you care to look further into this issue, I can identify some of the more important significant commentary about the manipulation. That commentary is extensive and it is detailed.

There are many other Senators and Congressman that also requesting answers to GATA's questions from the Treasury in behalf of their outraged constituents. Our next step is to formally request a full Congressional inquiry, or investigation, into the gold market which we believe has greatly benefited a number of New York financial institutions at the expense of so many unsuspecting others.

If you think we are mad because our investments have gone poorly, you are correct. We are upset because we have invested in a game that was fraudulently rigged against us. In hindsight, we never had a chance. In the meantime, the "in the know" crowd was borrowing gold at 1% gold lease rates and investing those funds in all kinds of investments, thereby making a fortune.

I am a former professional athlete (starting wide receiver with the Boston Patriots in 1968) and thus used to being banged around by some pretty big characters. I did not mind that because I knew what I was getting into and knew I was playing on a level playing field for all. The refs were not fixing the games against us.

The gold market has been rigged in a clandestine manner for some time now. If this was the athletic arena, the cry "foul" would be greater than that of the "Chicago Black Sox" scandal of baseball lore.

Yes, we are mad as hell and we are not going to take it any more. The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee has been written up by financial press all over the world. But, there has hardly been any mention of our existence in the U.S press. When it comes to financial issues that take on the powerful financial and political crowd, the United States appears to be not that much different than the Chinese in suppressing controversial insights. Last June, I had lunch in New York with all the wire services and one of your reporters and followed that up that meeting by sending all of them voluminous information. Not one will even acknowledge GATA's existence or the story we have to tell. Alan Greenspan responds to us, but not the U.S. press. What gives?

I look forward to meeting you in New York at the Union Club, if you can make the CMRE Dinner Meeting.

All the best,

BILL MURPHY
CHAIRMAN, GOLD ANTI-TRUST ACTION COMMITTEE