The recent thread on Die Hard made me ponder this query. I’ve passed the Ft. Knox repository several times off Highway 31 and wonder why no one is allowed near the building. Is the gold (assume for the sake of argument that there is indeed gold stored there) inside under a tarp ala Kelly’s Heroes? Most references to Ft. Knox depict the gold as being stored underground. So what’s wrong with being near the building? Even if someone could get the code and submerge undetected, could they really carry more than one or two bricks and be agile enough to get away from a military compound?
Hopefully some ex-servicemen who trained at Ft. Knox will see this and be able to provide some clarification. No complaints, you boys do a great job, just wondering what all the hooha is about in this day and age.
You don’t go near the gold because you don’t go near the gold. It’s as simple as that. It’s a standard security practice in private industry as well as government facilities to keep people away, so that someone doesn’t get close, create a diversion and let the real thieves get in.
Some years ago I was driving through eastern Kansas, realized I had missed my turnoff and pulled into a driveway to turn around. The driveway happened to be the entrance to what I later surmised was an underground missile silo. Now remember, the silo is underground and their usually set back from the road by something like a mile.
Before I had even put the car into reverse to back out and turnaround, there was an armed guard stepping out of the booth to ask my business.
This one seems obvious to me. It houses the US Gold Depostiory. There’s a small vault containing thousands of bars of gold. Despite the fact that gold is heavy, it makes a tempting target. A small amount of gold goes a long way. One doesn’t need to steal ALL of it. A small determined band of criminals could make a sizeable haul.
Fort Knox maintains security in two ways - the physical presence - barbed wire, soldiers, surveillance, etc… Lack of information, the second. Why should the government disclose the exact quantity of gold, or the layout of the facility? That would only make breaching the security that much easier. Many of the most successful bank robberies have relied on extensive knowledge of a bank’s floorplan, available publicly in the form of construction blueprints. The last time the public was allowed in to view the gold was in September 1974, as far as I can tell. A select group of politicians and reports were allowed into the vault to verify that gold is actually housed there.
How much gold? That’s a political question. Regular audits are conducted. The gold bars are pulled out of the vault, counted, and put back in. In the sixties and seventies, local high school football players were recruited to do the heavy lifting. Incidentally, the last independent audit occured during the Eisnehower presidency.
The perimeter defense precaution is probably to guard against heavy attacks like rocket launchers or some nut in a tank. All it takes for one isolated near-miss to get people thinking thusly: “if a couple of guys with a bazooka can get through the outer wall, maybe 20 of us could get all the way in!!” They want to make it so that nobody even gets close to trying. I agree that they probably wouldn’t get away with anything, but just the possibility of some wacko malitia group punching a hole in the outer wall & storming the castle is enough to justify the fort’s highly defensive posture.
As for a single person gaining entrance covertly, technological threats & proprietary classified information getting out of the compound is probably more of a concern than a gold bar walking out. A computer password doesn’t weigh much at all.
There is no gold in Fort Knox. Fort Knox is now used to house America’s Top Secret Alien experiments and research. They have three alien bodies left over from the Roswell crash and who knows how many spacecrafts. The bodies were transferred there from MacDill AFB in the 70s. Come to think of it, it was 1975. A year after the last public exhibition of gold was done. The gold was moved elsewhere and then later given to China by the Clinton Administration. Since our dollar is no longer backed by gold or silver, they figured the value of the gold was meager compared to political partnership they gained with China.
You notice that Area 51 does not have nearly half the security of Fort Knox. Their biggest defense is location. They have no huge reinforced concrete, barbwired walls… just simple hangers. A51 is just a decoy.
Enemies of the U.S., though I’m sure would be happy to steal the gold, would also be very happy to simply blow it up into little pieces, or bury it underneath tons of rubble. If the U.S. lost even a fraction of their gold supply, it would have significant economic ramifications.
There’s not all that much gold at Ft Knox. Most of it’s under the New York Federal Reserve bank, according to my high school economics teacher that works for the Fed during summers. She says she’s even seen it.
Blowing it up or burying it under rubble wouldn’t accomplish anything, gold mining processes could recover it very efficiently.
How would the loss, say of a billion dollars in gold, have any significant impact on our economy? Gold stopped being relevant to the economy quite a few years ago.
"…Most of it’s under the New York Federal Reserve bank, according to my high school economics teacher that works for the Fed during summers. She says she’s even seen it.
So have I. So can you! They give free tours (but IIRC, you have to call and reserve a spot first.)
At the tour I also scored a free handful of shredded dollar bills, a “new-design” $20 window decal (do they really have to promote money?) and a pile of very, very dull take-home literature, including some comic books with titles like “How Your Money Works.”
But seeing the massive piles of gold ingots up close was way cool.
I think that another factor is that once Fort Knox became known as “the most secure facility”, there was pressure to make it even more secure; after all, if someone can get into Fort Knox, it would be very embarrising.
The overall security concern, it seems to me, isn’t one of theft, but of untouchability. Try this on. Auric Goldfinger, bless his rotund soul, had it on the money. ( Or, Ian Fleming did, to nod one’s head correctly). Gold is of a set value ONLY if it can be sold in Troy Oz, Ingots, whatever.
If that supply of gold is irradiated, and cannot be handled for a thousand years, then it no longer is really representative of ANYTHING in terms of day to day markets, right? Economists, shoot me down here, but-- if I make something valuable to someone, then render it UN TOUCHABLE for 1,000 years ( or, a hunnerd )- it ceases to be of value.
I’d think the security is to stop someone from getting a nuclear device close enough on the ground to detonate and possibly irradiate the gold supply.
Well, you could rent it for like $ 3.95 at Blockbuster. But, Goldfinger Spoiler Plot Summary is a basic plot outline. You’ve been warned- it gives away a lot here.
Originally posted by Da Ace
Because, otherwise, Auric Goldfinger could just waltz right in and take it all.
And he would, too, the stinker.
Bwaa ha ha haaa! You fool!
SPOILER (for the six people on Earth who’ve never seen Goldfinger)
Goldfinger didn’t want to steal the gold, remmeber? He wanted to blow it up so his own gold would be worth more.
Rick J.
“Didn’t we have four of those fish yesterday?” - Me
Yes, but in Ian Fleming’s original novel, of course, Goldfinger really was going to steal the gold – load it on a Soviet submarine and sail away with it.
When they made the movie they realized what a ridiculous notion this was, so they came up with the “set off an atomic bomb in the vault” notion. One of the few times th movie has improved on the book. And in a James Bond movie no less!
It always has bothered me that Goldfinger didn’t swipe a few souvenirs from the vault, though. You KNOW he would have.
“Some years ago I was driving through eastern Kansas, realized I had missed my turnoff and pulled into a driveway to turn around. The driveway happened to be the entrance to what I later surmised was an underground missile silo. Now remember, the silo is underground and their usually set back from the road by something like a mile. Before I had even put the car into reverse to back out and turnaround, there was an armed guard stepping out of the booth to ask my business.”
Once when I was in Washington DC on business and had a day off to sightsee, I took the Metro to the Pentagon in hopes of taking the tour. When I got to the top of the escalator, I realized the tour office was closed for the weekend. Even though I immediately turned around to go back down the escalator, two guards came running to ask me what I was doing.
Even though I immediately turned around to go back down the escalator, two guards came running to ask me what I was doing.