US Treasury: The Bigelow Memo
The existence of the following document was revealed in the 1990s, and with other materials sparked a frenzied search for remains of the Ustase treasury believed to have been smuggled out of the country. Most researchers today believe that the Ustase treasury was picked apart and gradually reduced in the unsystematic method that Emerson Bigelow describes before Pavelic secured it in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

 

21 October 1946

 

Mr. Harold Glasser,
Director of Monetary Research,
Room 5000 U.S. Treasury Building,
Washington D.C.

 

Dear Harold:

The following report has recently been received from a reliable source in Italy. It is sent to you in the belief that it may be of interest.

The Ustascha organization (a Croatian fascist organization, headed by Ante Pavelic) removed funds from Jugoslavia estimated to total 350 million Swiss francs. The funds were largely in the form of gold coins.

Of the funds brought from the former Independent Croat State where Jews and Serbs were plundered to support the Ustascha organization in exile, an estimated 150 million Swiss Francs were impounded by British authorities at the Austro-Swiss frontier; the balance of approximately 200 million Swiss Francs was originally held in the Vatican for safe-keeping. According to rumor, a considerable portion of this latter amount has been sent to Spain and Argentina through the Vatican's "pipeline", but it is quite possible this is merely a smokescreen to cover the fact that the treasure remains in its original repository.

 

Sincerely yours,

Emerson Bigelow.

 

:: filing information ::
Title: US Treasury: The Bigelow Memo
Source: NARA
Date: October 21, 1946 Added: May 17, 2004