Goldfinger

In the novel, Auric Goldfinger is a 42 year-old expatriate who emigrated at age 20 in 1937 from Riga, Latvia. He is 5 feet tall, has blue eyes, red hair, and has a passion for his tan.Now a UK commonwealth citizen naturalised to Nassau, he has become the richest man in England, though his wealth is not in English banks and he hasn't paid taxes on it. Rather, it is spread as bullion in many countries. Goldfinger is the treasurer of SMERSH, Bond's nemesis.Goldfinger is obsessed with gold, going so far as to have yellow-bound erotic photographs, and have his women painted head to toe in gold so that he can make love to gold. (He leaves an area near the spine unpainted, but painting this area also is what kills Jill Masterton, as in the film). He is also a jeweller, a metallurgist, and a smuggler.When Goldfinger first meets Bond in Miami, he claims that he is agoraphobic; a ploy to allow him to cheat a previous acquaintance of Bond's at a game of two-handed Canasta. Bond figures out how Goldfinger is managing this, and blackmails him by forcing him to admit his deception. Goldfinger is also an avid golfer, but is known at his club for being a smooth cheater there, also. When Bond contrives to play a match with Goldfinger, he again cheats the cheater by switching Goldfinger's Slazenger One with a Slazenger Seven he had found while playing.Goldfinger is the owner of "Enterprises Auric A.G." in Switzerland, maker of metal furniture, which is purchased by many airlines including Air India. Twice a year, Goldfinger drives his vintage Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost car from England to Enterprises Auric. Bond learns that Goldfinger makes dead drops of gold bars for SMERSH along the way, and that his car's bodywork is 18 carat (75%), solid white gold under the ploy that the added weight is armour plating. Once at Enterprises Auric, his car is stripped down, melted and made into seating for an airline company that Enterprises Auric is heavily invested in. The plane(s) are then flown to India where the seats are melted down again into gold bars and sold for a much higher premium rate; 100 to 200% profit.[edit] Operation Grand Slam Operation Grand Slam is Goldfinger's codename for his scheme that involves "knocking off" the U.S. bullion depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Through the use of a nerve agent (GB, also known as sarin), Goldfinger plans to poison the water supply at Fort Knox, thus rendering everyone on the base (60,000) dead. From there, Goldfinger would use an atomic warhead designed for a Corporal Intermediate Range Guided Missile that he had purchased for one million USD in Germany, to blow open Fort Knox's impregnable vault. With the help of American gangsters, Goldfinger would then remove roughly 15 billion dollars in gold bullion by truck and train, and escape to the Soviet Union on a cargo boat.After publication of the novel the details of Operation Grand Slam were criticised, noting it would have taken hours if not days to remove 15 billion dollars from Fort Knox without a reprisal from the U.S. Army. Also the issue of getting every soldier on the base to drink the poisoned water without an alarm were raised. A final problem that was the "clean" atomic bomb, tactical or not, in all likelihood would not have only annihilated the door vault, but would also have taken all the gold behind with it (careful placement would be needed). Consequently, the film uses a different plan where the bomb is dirty, and the destruction and contamination of the gold is the objective so that Goldfinger's wealth in gold would increase tenfold. At one point the film even goes so far as to point out a couple of these flaws in the novel's original plan during a confrontation between Goldfinger and Bond.James Bond foils Goldfinger's plan by getting word to Felix Leiter of the impending operation, by means of a message taped inside an airliner toilet. With the help of The Pentagon Leiter is able to stop Goldfinger, and foil the operation. But Goldfinger escapes.Later, Goldfinger and his henchman learn from SMERSH who Bond is, and determine to take him with them in defecting to the Soviet Union. They pose as doctors to incapacitate crew and passengers (including Bond) with drugged inocculations. Then they hijack the BOAC Stratocruiser, carrying Goldfinger's total savings of gold. In the novel, Goldfinger's henchman Oddjob meets his end by being sucked through an airliner window after Bond pierces it with a knife. The hijacked plane is headed for Soviet Union airspace. Goldfinger is then strangled by James Bond in a fight for Goldfinger's pistol. The airplane is then forced to ditch in the ocean and Bond and Pussy Galore are the only survivors.(this is the novel biography, not the movies)