New Treasury notes a solid investment

Deep in a vault of an undisclosed London bank, jam-packed crates sat filled with U.S. Treasury securities. The net worth of those securities was so high that if anyone tried to cash them in, it would virtually bring the U.S. government to the brink of bankruptcy.

In the '30s, a Chinese nationalist by the name of Chiang Kai-Shek sent 125,000 tons of gold to America for safekeeping. Rumor has it that the sum of gold was so large that the U.S. had to build Fort Knox just to hold it. Chiang Kai-Shek and his people were worried about an invading Japanese army and/or the rise of Mao Zedong's communist rebels. Either onslaught could put the gold at risk. The exchange was a clandestine affair. The U.S. would get the gold, and Chiang Kai-Shek would get IOUs (U.S. Treasury securities) backed by the faith and full credit of the United States.

Unfortunately for Chiang Kai-Shek, the securities never made it to China. The plane carrying them crashed en-route somewhere in the Philippines. The securities vanished. Decades later, they resurfaced when a local Filipino tribesman found them and eventually sold them, strangely enough, to a Yugoslavian spy.

So is this truth or fiction?