The news report on counterfeit US dollar bills made interesting reading (TMID, 18 January) yet I am not convinced that the largest US note ever printed was a special edition $100,000 in 1934 and that bills for US $500 were last printed in 1945.

In a recent book I read on World War II secret service conduct and high level meetings between Churchill and Roosevelt, more than one mention was made of sale of gold and other assets to pay for purchases from the United States before this country joined the war effort against Hitler’s Nazis.

Dealings which involved large currency transactions, involving the US Treasury and a British organisation with offices in Rockfeller’s high rise in New York, were held during those dark days.

Incidentally a small island mentioned in passing these days in the news on the Haiti earthquake, the French island of Martinique in the Carribean, at one time held a great deal of gold ingots which belonged to the French and which were used as surety by the allies in the war effort.

G. Bonett,

Marsalforn