The great gold heist: claiming a "national emergency," an American president once seized much of the wealth of America's citizens. Could it happen again?

It was the biggest bank heist of the century, perhaps of all time. For sheer audacity, it rivals the fantastic scheme of the fictional arch-villain Dr. Goldfinger to raid Fort Knox in one of the most famous James Bond spy-thriller episodes. But this was no celluloid or pulp fiction, and there was no Agent 007 to foil the plot at the last minute. The mastermind who pulled off the real-life caper was no comic-book rogue; he was the president of the United States.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected our 32nd president on November 8, 1932 and assumed office on March 4, 1933, delivering his famous inaugural address, in which he assured the nation that "the only ...