BOOK REVIEW: OPERATION MIDAS

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V17 2014 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 17, Number 53, December 28, 2014, Article 6

I did read Operation Midas and sent a review to Amazon. I have reviewed numerous books there and they were all accepted. They turned this one down. I don't blame them. The book is a total rip-off.

This explains why I’d never heard of Operation Midas! Thanks. Here's Herb's review. -Editor

I cannot call this a book because in reality it is more like a pamphlet. One would think that it is a well-documented report on a Nazi plot to counterfeit gold. In reality, we find none of that. The author meets some female one day, gets to drinking with her and somehow end up with a gold coin she wore. Later he gets more. He throws in some real Historical names like "Operation Bernhard" and "SS Major Bernhard Kruger" to make the story seem real, but he never gives any specifics about this alleged Nazi plot to counterfeit gold coins. On several occasion he mentions "alchemy" which should have been warning enough.

I kept expecting the booklet to get real and waited to hear about where the coins were minted, who distributed them, what the law has to say; but it was more like a discussion of Area 51. It goes nowhere. This is probably the first time I really felt ripped off by a Kindle book. It is a complete mess with no redeeming factors. The best thing about this entire book is the cover which shows a pistol and some gold coins. Curiously, about 40 years ago I wrote an article about propaganda postcards of WWII and used a similar cover depicting my own military .45. Once you get past the cover there is nothing of interest.

Thanks for the review. Sorry this turned out to be a dud. These are two other books on Amazon with a title of "Operation Midas", but I don't know if there's an connection. One is a 1973 hardback by Anne O'Grady Another is an undated hardback by Alfred Draper.. -Editor

The problem is that I really wanted the story to be true. I have a dozen books on Operation Bernhard and have even mentioned it just a bit in one of my articles on German propaganda currency of WWII. Hell, after WWII I had a correspondence with Bernhard. This would have been so interesting; a brand new plot that went alongside the paper money counterfeits.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
NEW BOOK: OPERATION MIDAS (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v17n52a07.html)