Cleaning Out the Nation's Attic: GAO Helps the Comptroller of the Currency

This article, which appeared in the GAO Review, Vol. 20, Issue 3, Summer 1985, describes the role which GAO played in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's (OCC) disposition of the contents of thousands of safe deposit boxes that had been left in the custody of the U.S. Government from national banks that failed before 1934. GAO acted as an observer in this operation and suggested the transfer of articles of historic value to the inventory of the Smithsonian Institution. In addition, GAO and OCC worked together to draft legislation to authorize the disposal of unclaimed property. On the recommendation of GAO and a congressional mandate, OCC returned the property to the owners or heirs that could be located and determined that the remaining unclaimed property should be awarded to the state in which the bank was located.