New questions for Fed chairman and treasury secretary

2:23p ET Wednesday, May 9, 2001

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

News from GATA Chairman Bill Murphy, safely arrived at the
front, South Africa, for the GATA African Gold Summit tomorrow
in Durban....

1) Murphy was interviewed at length today on the most popular
national radio program in South Africa, the Tim Modise show
on the South African Broadcasting Co. network. This was heard
all over the country and set off an explosion of interest.

2) Various news services, including Dow Jones and Bridge News,
distributed reports today about the conference.

3) The majority political party in South Africa, the African
National Congress, said it will send a delegation to the
conference and will videotape it.

4) Confirmations of attendance at the conference were
received from AngloGold,the world's largest gold-mining
company, and the government of the Ivory Coast, which
said it was sending a delegation with an English-to-French
translator, French being the Ivory Coast's official
language.

5) The welcoming dinner for the conference was
oversubscribed and we've had to turn people away.

In case you missed GATA's earlier dispatches this week,
GATA was mentioned prominently (if as the target of
criticism, without being given the chance of rebuttal) in
a story Monday in the Financial Times and a story today
in the London Evening Standard. The real news here is that
our enemies can't ignore us any longer. We've ascended to
the put-down stage.

Also, today I was informed by U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman
that he has written to Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan
and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and has asked them to
answer eight questions I have submitted arising from the
disclosure, in the recently declassified minutes of the
January 31, 1995, meeting of the Federal Reserve Board's
Federal Open Market Committee, of the U.S. Exchange
Stabilization Fund's quot;gold swaps.quot; Any answers we receive
may be very interesting, and we'll be sure to share them with
you.

GATA believes that we are within striking distance of liberating
the gold price from its suppression of recent years, and bringing
justice to gold miners, producers, and investors. Tomorrow we
will strive to show Africa exactly how it is not really poor at
all, that it is actually rich in real wealth, gold and other
natural resources, rich in the human resources necessary to
exploit them, and that all the continent needs to do is to stand
up for itself and claim its rightful inheritance and place in the
world. The new, democratic South Africa must lead the way.

Everyone can help us by joining our clamor for justice for gold.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer