No received a surprise crash course in money management, courtesy of the State Department, which dispatched a personal investment specialist from Foggy Bottom to Okinawa. The man, whose name No never caught, lectured No for several hours over three days. Through a translator, he told No that the reward was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that he should not waste. The financial adviser did not mention Eisenhower or his concerns, but insisted that No be cautious in his investment decisions. Stocks, bonds and interest rates were, at the time, a complete mystery to No; he had no idea what the State Department man was talking about.

The headquarters of the Far East Command in Tokyo told the world on November 28, 1953, that No had been paid for Operation Moolah. Apress release said he deposited his reward check in the American Express Bank on Okinawa. The military released a photograph of No standing at the bank’s counter in his blue suit, signing a deposit slip as an attractive young woman, identified as bank clerk Flora Swinford, looked on approvingly.

“Lieutenant No has requested that the U.S. Air Force assist him in establishing a trust fund with the reward money for his education in the United States and for the care of his mother who is still in Korea,” the release said.

No had made no such request. He did not know what a trust fund was. The Air Force had distributed the photograph and the press release in an attempt to stop reporters in Tokyo and Seoul—who still had no