In the James Bond movie Goldfinger (1964), the title villain’s nefarious scheme is to use a bomb make the gold at Fort Knox radioactive, thereby creating economic havoc and raising the value of Goldfinger’s own gold stock sky high.
Doesn’t this scheme rely on the United States still being on the gold standard? Just how important is or was the gold at Fort Knox to the U.S. economy?
There has always been a controversy about whether the US stockpile of gold was still at Ft. Knox or stored somewhere else. But that’s not you point.
If all the reserve stock of Gold belonging to the US was taken out of the picture in 1964, then the world’s supply would have been grately reduced. While the US wasn’t technically on the gold standard since 1933-4, countries still settled debts in gold at that point. That’s my memory.
So, any remaining uncontaminated supply of gold would have been worth more. Probably not megatimes more, but more.
No. He isn’t planning to turn his gold in at the Federal Reserve, he’s planning on selling it privately, since once the reduction in the gold supply becomes generally known, the price of gold should go up everywhere. This assumes that the amount of gold at Fort Knox is really a significant portion of the total world supply, or that it was at the time; I have no idea if either is actually true. Even if it isn’t, there would likely be a brief spike in gold prices due to panic and speculation. Since Goldfinger knew of this in advance, he’s in a perfect position to sell.
Unless there’s some kind of national emergency that actually requires debts to be paid in gold coin or bullion – a highly unlikely scenario – the only function of the gold at Fort Knox is just to sit around in the vaults being auraceous. If it happens to be so radioactive that nobody can go near it – what difference does that make? Just so long as everybody knows it’s still there?
Besides – CAN gold be made radioactive with a nuclear blast? I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t work on lead – that’s why lead is used for shielding against radiation – and lead and gold are pretty close on the periodic table.
This study says that gold can become contaminated by the radioative daughter products of radon; while this article gives some actual examples of this happening. The BBC addresses The Science of James Bond and gives the most direct answer: “The bomb wouldn’t have made the gold itself radioactive but would have contaminated it with radioactive material, making it extremely unsafe to go anywhere near Fort Knox.”
Wish I were a scientist to understand “how much contaminated” and “for how long.” And then put on my macroeconomist’s hat and answer, “And how would it effect the economy.”
If you liked Goldfinger, here’s a thread on it. 
Interestingly, the movie actually improves on the book. In the novel, Goldfinger’s plan is to use a small A-bomb to blast open the vault, and then steal the gold, which is ridiculously implausible on its face.
Of course, if all he wanted was to nuke the gold, he wouldn’t need such an elaborate plan. Just find a way to get the bomb close to the building, possibly dropping it from a small airplane (in the novel and the book, the bad guys manage to fly small aircraft over Fort Knox, which is also pretty unlikely) or a remote-control truck of some kind. The vault itself is protected, but if he can make the area around it “hot” enough, he’ll get the economic chaos/spike in gold prices that he wanted.
In 1997, I drove through Fort Knox. The only reason I even found the gold repository is because I remembered the map in the novel “Goldfinger” (the building is off Bullion Boulevard). Certainly no effort is made to draw tourist attention to the place, and I couldn’t even find a postcard relating to the gold in a nearby motel (I ended up sending on with a picture of a tank on it). The building itself is interesting looking, but a security fgence keeps everyone at least 500 yards away, plus there’s no visitor’s centre or anything else offering information or souveniers.
All things considered, it was actually rather anticlimactic. I got back on the highway, which was about two minutes from the repository, and headed North to Huntsville, which was way cooler.
Of course, I’m not entirely sure contaminating the gold would matter. You could always seal it in plastic and use it anyway. Poeple might not want it, but after all, gold is still used for those purposes, anyway, and the gold isn’t shipped around. Rather, banks like the Bank of New York (I think!) simply move it from one vault to another in response to debts paid.
There are radioactive isotopes of gold and of lead. You don’t use lead as shielding against radioactivity because it doesn’t get radioactive – you use it because it’s dense.
I agree with CalMeacham – lead shielding could get radioactive if it absorbed enough energy. In fact, I believe that shielding and other metal componants which have become radioactive via proximity to nuclear reactor cores account for some percentage of low level nuclear “waste”.
I shared BrainGlutton’s criticism for some time – if most trade in gold is simply transfer of title to gold held by a third party (kind of like the stone money of Yap), or, like the gold at the NY Federal Reserve Bank (see Die Hard With A Vengence) shifts around with minimal human contact, why should anyone hypothetically buying or selling Fort Knox gold care if it’s radioactive?
The answer, I think, is that markets are 99% psychological anyway. Arguably, Goldfinger could have reaped profits from just about any terrorist act (recall the rumors of stock shorting and options trading prior to the 9/11 attacks). “Attacking” the gold supply, however, would have the advantage of focusing the panic.
Even though most gold that is traded is never put to any physical use, the current price of gold theoretically factors in elements like total supply and industrial consumption. Suddenly rendering some portion of the global supply industrially worthless would affect the price, and panic would amplify the effect. (by the way, I can’t find precise figures, but the gold at Fort Knox would apparently have accounted for a significant portion of global supply in the early '60s). The explanation given in the film is greatly simplified – He loves gold. He owns a lot. If Fort Knox is contaminated, his gold will be worth more. In fact, Goldfinger would presumably have been buying up unusually large stocks of gold for some time in anticipation of “Grand Slam”, would have sold those stocks off when the price peaked, and would then repurchase some quantity once the price settled back down.
I do have to hand it to the screenwriter(s), having altered the plot to a contamination of the gold supply, for having Bond mock the idea of an outright theft that had figured in Fleming’s original book.