Auguries — Fort Potemkin

By Kevin Michael Grace

In the film version of Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger, the eponymous supervillain has a problem. Even assuming that he can somehow overrun the “impregnable” Fort Knox and secure its gold, how is he going to get it out? As James Bond reminds him, the bullion is so heavy it would take a week to actually move the stuff. Turns out Goldfinger is content to leave it in Kentucky, as he intends to explode a neutron bomb within the vault, irradiating the treasure and making it immobile for half a century. This would render the US gold worthless and vastly increase the value of Goldfinger’s own hoard.

Needless to say, Agent 007 disables the bomb, saves the world and gets the girl. But let’s suppose Goldfinger’s nefarious scheme had succeeded. What difference would it have made? Sure, the gold would be radioactive, but it would still indisputably exist. It wouldn’t be merely putative, like the gold held at Fort Knox today.....

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