ONASSIS: MAN WITH THE GOLDEN TOUCH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000600090006-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 17, 1999
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: September 13, 1959
• Content Type: NSPR

STATINTL
NEW YORK Po';
Approved For @06A69A
,LP-YRGHT.
CPYRGHT
By SED'FRIEDLANDER
brings me 5 per cent for my money. I would
Pice hotel Instead." buw
Another time he said:
,,I'm against gambling. I always have been. I would
like to make the Casino Into a church. We could call
It the Madeleine de Monaco."
Although he has made fantastic deals involving
many millions of dollars at a clip, Onassis has always
maintained that he is not a gambler.
He used to regard his whaling fleet as his one big
gamble. Sending out the 19-ship fleet on a 150-day
expedition would excitp him.
--i nave t,uou men In that fleet an i cos s me more
than $35,000 a day to operate it," he once explained
"You ga mble against the clements-storms, fog, tee:
0811MR, *840 gm"We INOM reft "i find Vill"le
d'And suppose everything goes right aw~; you get a
good cargo of.oll. Then comes the biggest gamble of
.ill. Prices of whale oil you can never predl&"
Onassis went into the whaling business In 1950. He
had beginner's luck that first season and it is said
that he cleared nearly $8,500,OGO.
But it was not all smooth sailing. He got into sev-
eral international rumpuses. Onassis defied the legal-
ity of a claim by the governments of Ecuador, Peru
and Chile that their territorial waters extended 200
miles from their coasts. The Peruvian navy seized
his whaling ships, flying the Panamanian flag, on the
high seas. Oriassis eventually had to pay Peru PL fine
of $3,000,000. However, he was insured and Lloyd's
picked up the tab.
He had another rhubarb with Norway over whaling
rights and eventually sold his fleet to the Japanese.
His big-money. manipulations have often led to dis-
putes with individuals, corporations and countries. One
such run-in was with the U. S., which in 1953 charged
him with conspiracy to defraud.
The U. S. claimed thatafter World War II Onassls
bought war-surplus ships at knockdown prices by using
American-owned companies as dummy fronts. At that
time U. S. laws prohibited the sale of surplus ships
to non-Americans.
Onassis eventually paid a fine of $7,000,000 and the
criminal charge was dropped.
He acts like a self-made man who walks on sol!d
ground wherever he goes.
Aristotle Socrates Onassis was born in Smyrna,
Turkey, the son of a prosperous Greek tobacco mer-
chant.
About his classic forenames he has explained:
7t was a local custom. The Greeks of the home-
land mostly give to their children Christian church
names. But in the colonies, on the Anatolian coast of
Turkey, they used classic Greek names to affirm their
Hellenic tradition." His father's name was Socrates and
his mother's Penelope.
Tn 1922 the Turks sacked Smyrna and killed thou-
sands of Greeks, Including three uncles of Aristotle
Onassis. The remaining members of the family es-
caped to Athens in straitened circumstances.
A family council decided that Aristotle was the
most likely to rebuild the family's fortunes and they
scraped together enough money to buy him passage
to Argentina.
The $60 Pyramid
ratio Iger might have written in his cups. the black knight on a chessboqu,
During the past week Onass-Is has been linked ro- And likea chessknight he often, moves in a shifting In 1923, at the age of 16, he arnived In Buenos Aires
mantically In the public prints with the sirl ng tiger- Pattern-two steps forward, one step sideways. with $60 in his pocket. He worked as a telephone
lady, Marie Callas. In 1954 Onassis intrigued the world and became a operator at night and during the day worked for a
farmiliar namer",to newspaper _re~der8 everywhere be- cousin, an irnporter of oriental tobacco.
This Is an outgrowth of his fondness for living it Aristotle had the Midas touch from the beginning.
up arriong the big,names of~ International sociely. cause of a cor4paratively pefiny-ante deal. Fie, bought In two years he had amassed $100,000. At the age of
Onassis revels in luxurious living, entertains on a grand 'ihe. bank at Monte Carlo. 24 he was appointed Greek donsul-general in Buenos
scale ind basks happily in the glow of the public spot- In fact, he bought most of the principality of Monaco, Aires. At 25 he had his first million dollars.
light.- He once explained it this way: I "After you 'make your first million It is just a
But the big romance in his life-the one that has "I tried to rent one of the- buildings, the old winter matter of expansion," he has said. "But a slight mis-
shaped Its course-is his grand passion, for a buck, or sporting club, to use as an office building. They wouldn't take might break your neck."
rather for bucks, In large numbers. rent It to me, although It had been closed for 20 years. He waited for his chance to go into the shipping
Onassis has pursued his light-o'-love to an unques- So I did something else." business. That chance came during the Depression,
The "something else" was to buy-quietly and under w1en he was able to buy six Canadian frelghteis at
tioned conquest. Starting almost from scratch, he has four assumed names-controlling,interest in the Societe the.bargain-basement price of $20,000 each.
become oneof the richest men in the world. His fortune des BaIns de Mer. This company owned the Monte In 1936 he bought a tanker and went into the oil
has been estimated as high as $300,000,000, aind there Carlo Casino, the -Hotel de Paris, three other hotels,
may be stacks of the stuff he hasn't even counted as yet. the only theater in Monte CArlo, the golf course at tanker field. Oil shipping brought him millions.
To this sort of speculation he often shrugs. Montagel and considerable other choice real estatae. During World War 11 most of his ships lay im-
'147ho knows what it means to be rich today?" he It was small potatoes for Onassis-only $1,000,000- pounded in Swedish ports while the remainder sailed
says. "It Is like saying oVan oilman that-he has mil. but it made him a public figure. This he readily admits. for the Allies at high freight rates.
Hong underground." "If It bad not been for that deal," he has said, "I At the end of the war he shrewdly analyzed the
prospects of tanker business and plunged into expan.-
... . . . . .......... . Id have continued to be just another Greek ship
Won *ion. The gamble paid off with tremendous profits.
Man of Many Flags owner. In 1946 he married Athina (Tina) Livanos, pretty
He has had a considerable amount of fun in Monte.
ghter of Greek shipping magnate Stavros Livanos.
..... ......... - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . au
Carlo, although it is said that he originally wanted ducated at Rosemary Hall in Connecticut and Miss
a'
Onassis owns things-like 30 corporations in various offices there because Monaco did not levy income ewitt's Classes, Tina is a naturalized American citizen.
parts of the world, like more than 100 sea-giant tankers taxes. The playground has been the bAcXground tqr e
d
t~ -he Onassis children, Christina and Alexander, Are also
and freighters, like a $2,500,000 yacht, like Monte Carlo. many of his lavish and spectacular parties. n
merican citizens.
He owns even more ... But he has occasionally expressed some annoyance Tina's sister, Genie, is the wife of Stavros Niarchos,
Not long ago he appeared belore a House committee that he has not reaped sufficient return on his Invest- Igo a ship owner. Onassis and Niarchos have tried to
In Washington. One of the things the committee wanted ment, although business is better thfre now than when ou,
outdo each other in bestowing upon their wives such
to know was whether a certain American company was he first took control. !it
ittle goodies as mansions, yachts and expensive works
In the Onassis name. At that time it was suggested that attractions other f art.
Onassis said he could not recall, He said it was than the Casino would have- to be provided i
The 1,800-ton Onassis yacht, Christina, with its lapis
possible the company wag in his name. Or it could be Carlo were to survive. Somebody suggested a race- lazuli fireplace and its marble swimming pool-the
in the name of one of his many companies. Or possibly track but pointed out that there was not flat ground bottom rises to become a dance floor~has been the
In the name of someone else, And then he added available for the purpose. background of many of Onassis' lavish and spectacular
pointedly: Onassis said that difficulty could be easily solved: parties.
"It it is In the name of someone else, then I own "Why not drain the port and turn It Into a race- Buf "fabulous"? Onassis disowns the adjective.
th'at Someone else." -) - track? We could always build a new port across the "I'm not fabulous-in money, mind or in IL physical
Onassis is a small, dapper, Swarthy man of 53 with bay." way," he says.
dark eyes and gray-streaked hair. He often wears He has often talked of tearing down;, the famed He hints that maybe his glamor is merely a product
heaVy-rimmed, thick-lensed Spectacles. gambling joint.
He is a citizen of both Greece and A of newsprint.
Id a, nt a r
I ~ ~j&#
VeCt o a e people who sometftes get an old
se Atb"M o MARMON it and rub it until It shines." hA an-
~M2 . NEW YORK POST, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1959 the Casino, I would tear it down tomorrow. Tt nnl~, 1"M__
(;old
Once upon a time there lived a man called Arls-
totIe Socrates Onassis.
An improbable. beginning to an improbable
story of a man witfi an improbable -name.
It is a fantastic rags-to-riches story that Ho-
.Onassis. M.an
J oday?"
~
W. the flags of Panama, Honduras, Costa
ofWW'In Buenos Aires, New York, London, Hamburg,
Kiel and Monte Carlo.- lie speaks English, Spanish,
French, Italian, Turkish and Greek-and at times most
colorf ally.
A Frenchman once described, him, with his dark
skin, curved nose and blinkered eyes, as looking like