Wizard

by Marc Seifer

  In February, Tesla received a letter from ardent admirer John (Jack) O’Neill, who was now working as a news correspondent for a Long Island daily and about to transfer jobs to the Herald Tribune. The young man reminded him of their 1907 encounter in the subway and enclosed the following poem, “To Nikola Tesla,” as an “infinitesimal tribute to [the inventor’s] greatness”:

  Most glorious man of all ages

  Thou wert born to forecast greater days

  Where the wonders thy magic presages

  Shall alter our archaic ways.

  Your coils with their juice oscillating

  Sent electrical surges through the earth

  Sent great energies reverberating

  From the center to the outermost girth.

  Is thy mind a power omnipresent

  That fathoms the depths of all space

  That speaks to an adolescent

  The future triumphs of the race?20

  Tesla sent the youngster a letter in return “thanking him heartily,” although “your opinion of me is immensely exaggerated.” Enigmatically, he also suggested that O’Neill write a poem for J. Pierpont Morgan, “one man today on whom the world is depending more than any other.” Should O’Neill do this, “it might be instrumental in putting [him] in possession of a check.”21 Considering that Pierpont was dead, this was a rather peculiar recommendation.

  The Edison Medal

  Were we to seize and to eliminate from our industrial world the results of Mr. Tesla’s work, the wheels of industry would cease to turn, our towns would be dark, our mills would be dead and idle. Ye[s], so far reaching is this work, that it has become the warp and woof of industry.

  B. A. Behrend, 191722

  To those with eyes for the truth, Tesla’s state of crisis cut deep. One engineer in particular, Bernard A. Behrend, the Swiss émigré who had refused to testify against him during the malevolent AC-patent litigation days, felt the urgency to act. Clearly, it was Behrend’s goal to help restore the reputation of his spiritual benefactor. Having devoted a large measure of his life to refining Tesla’s invention of the induction motor, Behrend informed his mentor that he, Tesla, had been nominated to receive the Edison Medal. In fact, it had been Behrend who had proposed the idea to the committee. Winners from the past had included Alexander Graham Bell, Elihu Thomson, and George Westinghouse.

  That Tesla would be nominated by an organization dwelling under the banner of the Edison name was shocking enough to the brooding Serb. Edison himself must have allowed the presentation to be made. It does not appear that Edison, having just turned seventy, was plagued by the reciprocal feeling of animosity that Tesla exhibited. It is more likely that the thought of giving Tesla the medal brought a broad smirk to the Menlo Park Wizard’s visage.

  Tesla’s first reaction was abhorrence, and he flatly rejected the offer, but Behrend persisted. Here was an opportunity to recognize a worthy recipient alone for his singular contributions. “Who do you want remembered as the author of your power system?” Behrend inquired. “Ferraris, Shallenberger, Stillwell, or Steinmetz?” Tesla reluctantly capitulated.

  The presentation of the Edison Medal was made on May 18, 1917, just two months before Tesla found out by telephone that vandals had broken into his Wardenclyffe laboratory and wrecked equipment valued at $68,000 and that “the Tower [was] to be destroyed by dynamite.”23 Many familiar faces dotted the crowd.The Johnsons and Miss Merrington attended, as did Charles Scott and Edward Dean Adams, the man most responsible for recommending Tesla for the Niagara Falls enterprise.

  The opening speech was delivered by A. E. Kennelly, former Edison crony, who was now teaching at Harvard. Long a Tesla adversary, having been active in executing animals with AC current during the heated Battle of the Currents in the early 1890s, Kennelly spoke for fifteen minutes. During this time, the good professor managed to not mention Tesla’s name even once.

  “Many people,” Professor Kennelly began, “suppose that the Edison Medal is presented by Mister Edison, but that is a mistake. In fact, Tom Edison has been so busy during his life receiving medals that he has not time to dispense any.” The speaker droned on, making Tesla more nervous with each obsequious sentence. “Every time a worthy recipient is honored with this Medal, Thomas Edison is also honored. In fact,” the Edison man continued, “We may look forward to a time, say a thousand years hence, when like this evening the one thousand and seventh recipient will receive the Edison Medal, and once again Edison’s achievements will be honored.”24

  As legend has it, Tesla disappeared from the room. Panic-stricken, Behrend ran out of the building to look for him, while Charles Terry, a prominent executive from the Westinghouse Corporation, reviewed Tesla’s great accomplishments. According to the story, Behrend found the lonely inventor across the street by the library, feeding his precious pigeons.25

  During Behrend’s introduction, he stated, perhaps to counter Kennelly’s opening speech, “The name of Tesla runs no more risk of oblivion than does that of Faraday or Edison. What can a man desire more than this. It occurs to me to paraphrase Pope describing Newton, ‘Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night. God said, “Let Tesla be,” and all was light.’”

  “Ladies and gentleman,” Tesla began, “I wish to thank you heartily for your kind appreciation. I am not deceiving myself in the fact of which you must be aware that the speakers have greatly magnified my modest achievements. Inspired with the hope and conviction that this is just a beginning, a forerunner of still greater accomplishments, I am determined to continue developing my plans and undertake new endeavors.

  “I am deeply religious at heart, and give myself to the constant enjoyment of believing that the greatest mysteries of our being are still to be fathomed. Evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, death itself may not be the termination of the wonderful metamorphosis we witness. In this way I manage to maintain an undisturbed peace of mind, to make myself proof against adversity, and to achieve contentment and happiness to a point of extracting some satisfaction even from the darker side of life, the trials and tribulations of existence.”

  The electrical savant would go on to review much of his life—an anecdote from his childhood about a gander who almost pulled his umbilical cord out, his early meetings with Edison and work with Westinghouse, lectures in Europe, success at Niagara, and future plans in wireless.

  “I have fame and untold wealth, more than this,” the inventor concluded, “and yet—how many articles have been written in which I was declared to be an impractical unsuccessful man, and how many poor, struggling writers have called me a visionary. Such is the folly and shortsightedness of the world!”26

  Tesla was aghast that Boldt had not protected Wardenclyffe adequately, for it was valued at a minimum of at least $150,000. Even though he had signed it over to the hotel, he had done so, according to his understanding, to honor his debt “until [his] plans matured.” As the property, when completed, would yield $20,000 or $30,000 a day, Tesla was simply flabbergasted that Boldt would move to destroy the place. Boldt or “the Hotel Management” saw Wardenclyffe now as theirs, free and clear, even though Tesla offered as proof “a chattel mortgage” on the machinery that the inventor had placed at his own expense. The hotel’s insurance was only $5,000, whereas Tesla’s coverage for the machinery was valued at $68,000. Why would Tesla independently seek to protect the property if he didn’t still have an interest in it? Tesla saw the contract as “a security pledge,” but the paper he signed did not specify any such contingency. According to the Hotel’s lawyer, Frank Hutchins of Baldwin & Hutchins, “it was bill of sale with the deed duly recorded two years ago. We fail to see what interest you have,” Hutchins callously concluded.27

  Storming into their offices on Pine Street, Tesla demanded to find out firsthand what was to happen.

  “You will have to ask Smiley Steel Company. They are the ones in charge of salvage operations.”

  J. B. Smiley informed Tesla that indeed the tower was to b
e taken down, its parts sold to cover outstanding debts. “A great wrong has been done,” the inventor wrote in reply, “but I am confident that justice will prevail.”28

  “Pay no attention to Tesla whatsoever, but proceed immediately with wrecking as contracted,” Smiley told his wrecking crew after conferring with Hutchins.29

  Waldorf-Astoria Hotel Company

  July 12, 1917

  Gentlemen:

  I have received reports which have completely dumbfounded me all the more so as I am now doing important work for the Government with a view of putting the plant to a special use of great moment…

  I trust that you will appreciate the seriousness of the situation and will see that the property is taken good care of and that all apparatus is carefully preserved.

  Very truly yours,

  N. Tesla30

  The wizard decided that the only way to save Wardenclyffe was to extol its virtues as a potential defensive weapon for the protection of the country. Capitalizing on the excellent Nobel Prize publicity, the inventor once again strained the reader’s credulity with another startling vision.

  Tesla’s New Device

  Like Bolts of Thor

  He Seeks to Patent Wireless

  Engine for Destroying Navies

  by Pulling a Lever

  To Shatter Armies Also

  Nikola Tesla, the inventor, winner of the 1915 Nobel Physics Prize, has filed patent applications on the essential parts of a machine the possibilities of which test a layman’s imagination and promise a parallel to Thor’s shooting thunderbolts from the sky to punish those who had angered the gods. Dr. Tesla insists there is nothing sensational about it…

  “It is perfectly practicable to transmit electrical energy without wires and produce destructive effects at a distance. I have already constructed a wireless transmitter which makes this possible.”

  “Ten miles or a thousand miles, it will be all the same to the machine,” the inventor says. Straight to the point, on land or on sea, it will be able to go with precision, delivering a blow that will paralyze or kill, as it is desired. A man in a tower on Long Island could shield New York against ships or army by working a lever, if the inventor’s anticipations become realizations.31

  Tesla would not draw up an official paper on the particle-beam weapon, or “death ray,” for another twenty years yet it is clear that he had conceived the machine by this time, probably creating prototypes as far back as 1896, when he was bombarding targets with Roentgen rays.

  In “a serious plight,” with nowhere else to turn, the inventor contacted Morgan once again to ask for assistance. This was his last chance to protect his wireless patents and save the tower. “Words cannot express how much I have deplored the cruel necessity which compelled me to appeal to you again,” the inventor explained, but it was to no avail.32 He still owed Jack $25,000 plus interest; the financier ignored the entreaty and quietly placed Tesla’s account in a bad-debt file.

  In February 1917, the United States broke off all relations with Germany and seized the wireless plant at Sayville. “Thirty German employees of the German-owned station were suddenly forced to leave, and enlisted men of the American Navy have filled their places.”33 Guards were placed around the plant as the high command decided what to do with the remaining broadcasting stations lying along the coast. Articles began springing up like early crocus to announce the potential “existence of [yet another] concealed wireless station [able] to supply information to German submarines regarding the movements of ships.”34

  19 More Taken as German Spies

  Dr. Karl George Frank, Former

  Head of Sayville Wireless

  Among Those Detained35

  On April 6, 1917, President Wilson issued a proclamation “seiz[ing] all radio stations. Enforcement of the order was delegated to Secretary Daniels…It is understood that all plants for which no place can be found in the navy’s wireless system, including amateur apparatus, for which close search will be made, are to be put out of commission immediately.”36 Clearly, an overt decision had to be made about the fate of Wardenclyffe.

  Tesla’s expertise was well known to Secretary Daniels and Assistant Secretary Franklin Roosevelt, as they were actively using the inventor’s scientific legacy as ammunition against Marconi in the patent suit. Coupled with the inventor’s astonishing proclamation that his tower could provide an electronic aegis against potential invasions, Wardenclyffe must have been placed in a special category. However, there were two glaring strikes against it. The first was that Tesla had already turned over the property to Mr. Boldt to cover his debt at the Waldorf; and the second was the transmitter’s record of accomplishment: nonexistent. What better indication of the folly of Tesla’s dream could there be then the tower’s own perpetual state of repose. To many, Wardenclyffe was merely a torpid monument to the bombastic prognostications of a not very original mind gone astray. From the point of view of the navy, Tesla may have been the original inventor of the radio, but he was clearly not the one who made the apparatus work.

  A HISTORY OF NAVY INVOLVEMENT

  In 1899 the U.S. Navy, via Rear Admiral Francis J. Higginson, requested Tesla to place “a system of wireless telegraphy upon Light-Vessel No. 66 [on] Nantucket Shoals, Mass, which lies 60 miles south of Nantucket Island.”37 Tesla was on his way to Colorado and was unable to comply. Moreover, the navy did not want to pay for the equipment, but rather wanted Tesla to lay out the funds himself. Considering the great wealth of the country, Tesla feigned astonishment at the penurious position of John D. Long, secretary of the navy, via Commander Perry, who brazenly forwarded the financial disclaimer on U.S. Treasury Department stationery.

  Upon Tesla’s return to New York in 1900, he wrote again of his interest in placing the equipment aboard their ships. Rear Admiral Higginson, chairman of the Light House Board, wrote back that his committee would meet in October to discuss with Congress “the estimates of cost.”38 Higginson, who had visited Tesla in his lab in the late 1890s, wanted to help, but he had been placed in the embarrassing position of withdrawing his offer of financial remuneration because of various levels of bureaucratic inanity. Tesla spent the time to go down to Washington to confer face-to-face with the high command—Hobson also negotiated on his friends behalf—but Telsa was essentially ignored and returned to New York empty handed and disgusted with the way he was treated.

  From the point of view of the navy, wireless telegraphy was an entirely new field, and they were unsure what to do. Furthermore, they may have been turned off by Tesla’s haughty manner, particularly when it came to being “compared” to Marconi, which had always enraged Tesla. (Keep in mind, however, that the navy took over ten years to recompense Hammond for his work on radio-guided missiles, and even then they almost didn’t come through. Tesla was by no means the only one to get the runaround from the military, and Hammond had the best connections possible through his influential father.)

  In 1902 the Office of Naval Intelligence called Comdr. F. M. Barber, who had been in retirement in France, back to the States and put him in charge of the acquisition of wireless apparatus for testing. Although still taking a frugal position, the navy came up with approximately $12,000 for the purchase of wireless sets from different European companies. Orders were placed with Slaby-Arco and Braun-Siemans-Halske of Germany and Popoff, Ducretet and Rochefort of France. Bids were also requested from De Forest, Fessenden, and Tesla in America and Lodge-Muirhead in England. Marconi was excluded because he arrogantly coveted an all-or-nothing deal.39

  Fessenden was angry with the navy for obtaining equipment outside the United States and so did not submit a bid. Tesla was probably too upset with his treatment from the past and too involved with Wardenclyffe, which was under active construction at that time, to get involved, and so the navy purchased additional sets from De Forest and Lodge-Muirhead.

  In 1903 a mock battle with the North Atlantic fleet was held five hundred miles off the coast of Cape Cod. With the “White S
quadron” commanded by Rear Adm. J. H. Sands and the “Blue Squadron” by Rear Admiral Higginson, Tesla’s ally, the use of wireless played a key role in determining the victor. Commander Higginson, who won the maneuver, commented, “To me, the great lesson of the search we ended today is the absolute need of wireless in the ships of the Navy. Do you know we are three years behind the times in the adoption of wireless?”40

  Based on comparison testing, it was determined that the Slaby-Arco system outperformed all others, and the navy ordered twenty more sets. Simultaneously, they purchased an eleven-year lease on the Marconi patents.41

  With the onset of World War I, the use of wireless became a necessity for organizing troop movements, surveillance, and intercontinental communication. While the country was still neutral, the navy was able to continue their use of the German equipment—until sentiments began to shift irreversibly to the British side. Via the British navy, Marconi had his transmitters positioned in Canada, Bermuda, Jamaica, Columbia, the Falkland Islands, North and South Africa, Ceylon, Australia, Singapore, and Hong Kong. His was a mighty operation. In the United States, the American Marconi division, under the directorship of the politically powerful John Griggs, former governor of New Jersey and attorney general under President McKinley, had transmitters located in New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois.42 One key problem, however, was that the Marconi equipment was still using the outmoded spark-gap method.

  In April 1917, the U.S. Navy completed the seizure of all wireless stations, including those of their allies, the British. At the same time, Marconi was in the process of purchasing the Alexanderson alternator, which was, in essence, a refinement of the Tesla oscillator. Simultaneously, the Armstrong feedback circuit was becoming an obvious necessity for any wireless instrumentation. However, the Armstrong invention created a judicial nightmare, not only because it used as its core the De Forest audion but also because De Forest’s invention was overturned in the courts in favor of an electronic tube developed by Fessenden. Never mind that Tesla, as far back as 1902, had beaten Fessenden in the courts for this development. With the Fessenden patent now under the control of Marconi, the courts would come to rule that no one could use the Armstrong feedback circuit without the permission of the other players.