by Marc Seifer
This theme of all-powerful efficient weaponry reappeared during the 1930s as the seeds of World War II were sown. At this time, Tesla began to reveal more and more about his own diabolical ray as he criticized the Grindell-Mathews scheme.
“It is impossible to develop such a ray,” [Dr. Tesla says]. “I worked on that idea for many years before my ignorance was dispelled and I became convinced that it could not be realized. This new beam of mine consists of minute bullets moving at a terrific speed, and any amount of power desired can be transmitted by them. The whole plant is just a gun, but one which is incomparably superior to the present.” The inventor further claimed that the new weapon, which was to be used for defense only, comprised “four new inventions”: (1) an apparatus for producing the rays; (2) a process for producing immense electrical power; (3) a method for amplifying the power; and (4) a tremendous electrical repelling force.35
Working in two undisclosed locations, including a secret laboratory under the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, near Second Avenue,36 Tesla perfected his particle-beam weapon, as he conspired with unabashed anarchist and architect Titus deBobula, to design the all-purpose power plant that could generate high voltages or capture cosmic rays and convert them into his defensive electronic shield.37 Believing that entire countries could be protected by such plants, the inventor clandestinely approached the war departments of each of the Allies with his scheme.
45
LIVING ON CREDIT (1925-40)
If you mean the man who really invented, in other words, originated and discovered—not merely improved what had already been invented by others, then without a shade of doubt, Nikola Tesla is the world’s greatest inventor, not only at present, but in all history.
HUGO GERNSBACK1
Tesla was leading a double life in his later years, one as the elegant anthor of the electrical power system and father of the wireless and another, more labyrinthe existence as the quintessential mad scientist whose ultimate creations would rule not only the earth but other worlds as well.
In 1935, with the help of newsreel photographers, Tesla designed and produced an electrified extravaganza which he offered to Paramount Pictures. “Paramount said the film came out unusually good, both in respect to pictorial and sound effects,” he told George Scherff, “but they feel that the subject was too technical.”2 Nevertheless, Teslaic themes continued to make their way into the mass consciousness. The most important movie person to implement the inventor’s wizardry was revolutionary movie producer Carl Laemmle and his special-effects expert Kenneth Strickfadden. Together, they unleashed one of Tesla’s unforgettable coils in the Boris Karloff classic Frankenstein. (Strickfadden also resurrected the same paraphernalia forty years later when Mel Brooks recreated the set for the spoof Young Frankenstein.)3 Tesla was partial to Laemmle, whom he referred to as a genius, because Laemmle, too, successfully fought the powerful Edison clique a generation earlier when Edison held a monopoly on key movie making patents and would not allow competitors to use them. Routing his product through Europe, Laemmle was able to withstand more than 200 legal actions against him to create Universal Pictures and thereby defeat Edison.4
Hugo Gernsback, of course, also continued to espouse Teslaic motifs in Science Wonder Stories5 with such fresh galactic escapades as “The Mightiest Machine,” “Interplanetary Bridges,” and “A City on Neptune.”
Other apostles, such as John Hays Hammond Jr. and Edwin Armstrong, were riding out the Great Depression living like kings. Hammond’s castle, throughout the 1930s, became a haven for Hollywood stars, corporate giants, and virtuosos; the retreat also doubled as a top-secret military think tank.
As Tesla continued to work at his hideaway by the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, Edwin Armstrong continued to engage in a never-ending court battle with Lee De Forest over the invention of the heterodyne. Holding eighty thousand shares of RCA stock, Armstrong was powerful enough to ride out the litigation as he continued to design a variety of new patents. Starting up his own radio station, Armstrong unveiled his newest invention, FM radio, a novel system which reduced such problems as static caused by ground interference so often encountered with AM. Little did Armstrong know that the litigation caused by this latest creation would make the De Forest trial seem like a kindergarten spat.6
Getting on in years, Tesla decided to hire a few Western Union boys to feed the pigeons for him. Dressed in their official caps and snappy uniforms, the lads could be seen like clockwork at 9:00 A.M. and 4:00 P.M. at three different locations around the city: in front of the New York Public Library, in Bryant Park, at the library’s rear, and at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.7 The inventor had constructed special wooden cages complete with a birdbath for taking care of wounded as well as healthy feathered friends, and he befriended other dove fanciers to whom he could deliver the birds.
In 1925, Tesla’s office was moved from 8 West Fortieth Street, near the New York Public Library, to fashionable quarters at 350 Madison Avenue. His secretaries, Dorothy Skerrett and Muriel Arbus, during the later years, shared duties with Slavic professor Paul (Rado) Radosavljevich, from New York University, who edited Tesla’s articles and screened incoming visitors.8 By 1928, however, the upkeep on the office had become too burdensome, and Tesla closed it for good. All of his holdings, consisting of thirty trunks, including his priceless correspondence, theoretical papers, and prototype inventions, were carted to the basement of the Hotel Pennsylvania, and that is where they remained until November 21, 1934, when he transferred them to the Manhattan Storage Warehouse, located at Fifty-second Street and Seventh Avenue.9
A contented member of the cognoscenti who had lived a life full of triumph was merely the persona, for underneath the appearance Tesla was often bitter, seeking an essentially solitary existence, displacing his anger in editorials that lashed out at Edison and Marconi and on unfortunate hotel managers who had to contend with the thought of throwing the grand master out on his coattails for not paying his rent. In 1930, Tesla was escorted out of the Hotel Pennsylvania after residents complained about the interminable droppings from his “flying rats,” and because he was “$2000 behind in his rent.”10 As B. A. Behrend quietly reimbursed the hotel to the best of his abilities, the inventor hired a crew to cart his beloved avian companions to George Scherff’s home north of the city. Escaping their confinement, the pigeons returned to Manhattan just in time to move in with Tesla at his new abode, the Hotel Governor Clinton.11
Working on a variety of new fronts, Tesla entered a furtive realm which would put him in touch with a series of nefarious agents and heads of many governments. Naturally, he required funds, for he began to lag behind yet again in his rent.
When he stopped by Hugo Gernsback’s office for another twenty dollars,12 the science-fiction editor showed Tesla an article on Westinghouse’s new radio machinery. Realizing that this company was essentially pirating his wireless patents, Tesla strode into their offices and demanded royalty payments. He met with Victor Beam, assistant to the vice president.
“It would be painful to me to resort to legal proceedings against a great corporation whose business is largely founded on my inventions,” the inventor stated matter-of-factly, “and I trust that you will recognize the advantage of an amicable understanding.”
“Which statement do you claim to be an infringement?” Beam replied, feigning naïevté.
“Statement!” Tesla shot back. “Surely you must admit that my claim is too palpably evident to be denied.”
Beam inquired as to a price for purchasing Tesla’s wireless patent no. 1,119,732, but it was really a stall tactic, as no genuine offer was made. In exasperation, Tesla went home to draft a technical letter spelling out each and every infringement of his fundamental work and concluded: “We [Charles Scott and Tesla] have offered this revolutionary invention repeatedly virtually on your own terms and you did not want it. You have preferred to take it by force. You have robbed me of the credit that is due and injured me seriously in business. Instead of sh
owing a willingness to adjust the matter in an equitable way, you say you want to fight. You may think you can secure an advantage by such matters, but we doubt it, and certainly they will not meet with public approval when all the facts are published.”13
One of the problems Tesla had to deal with was the continuing legacy of resentment toward him by some members of the corporation. Unfortunately, one of the key antagonists was Andrew W. Robertson, a Westinghouse official who would soon become chairman of the company. Just a few years later, while Tesla was still alive, Robertson came to write a small treatise on the AC polyphase system for the 1939 World’s Fair. In it, he neatly sidestepped any clear mention of Tesla’s role in the development of the system, suggesting, rather, that William Stanley was the inventor. Robertson even had the audacity to write the following:
In George Westinghouse’s time, an inventor was recognized as owner of his ideas and was given a patent to protect him in that ownership. Now we are told that patents are evil monopolies, used to prevent people from getting the full benefits of an individual’s work. If we are thinking clearly, we must draw the conclusion that these signs all point to a common hostility against the…great inventor…If this hostility continues, it cannot but result in an environment certain to interfere with the growth and development of individual research and inventiveness.14
Here is a classic case of the Freudian defense mechanism known as projection, whereby one’s real feelings are attributed to others: Robertson suggests that common people resent the great inventor when in fact it is really he who harbors this resentment. Tesla had first offered his wireless patents to the company in the early 1920s; a long time elapsed before the issue was resolved.
As Tesla continued to make headlines for his invention of a diabolical ray, he also was becoming more and more adept at slipping past the manager of the Governor Clinton. If he had to wait for Westinghouse to come through, so would the hotel.
Tesla was now working with the notorious architect and arms merchant Titus deBobula, whose offices were located at 10 East Forty-third Street; deBobula was hired to design the tower, power plant, and housing for the inventor’s “impenetrable shield between nations.”
“We can project destructive energy in thread-like beams as far as a telescope can discern an object,” said the seventy-eight-year-old inventor. “Dr. Tesla’s death ray can annihilate an army 200 miles away. It can penetrate all but the thickest armor plate, and a country’s whole frontier can be protected [with plants] producing these beams every 200 miles.” Dr. Tesla concluded: “The plane is thus absolutely eliminated as a weapon; it is confined to commerce.”15
Born in 1878 in Hungary, with ties to Tesla probably through the Puskas brothers, deBobula had emigrated to the United States during the Gay Nineties. At that time, Tesla “took the youth under his protection” and aided him in obtaining passage for a boat trip back to his homeland.16 Short and stocky in stature, with a brush mustache and ruddy complexion, deBobula returned to the States a few years later to study architecture. Having borrowed the money from Tesla ostensibly because he needed medical help in Budapest, deBobula had actually returned home to help his father out in his moving business and because he wanted to complete other studies at the local “polytechnic.” Never reimbursing the inventor for his aid and having lied about his real intentions, deBobula apologized and appealed for funds once more, in 1901. Writing from Marietta, Ohio, where he was attempting to design a church and school for a parish, he requested “$70 or $80.” Perhaps in lieu of repayment, the new architect offered to draw up plans for the laboratory at Wardenclyffe, but this assignment had already been undertaken by Stanford White.17
At about 1908, deBobula moved to Pittsburgh, where he met and married Eurana Mock, niece of Bethlehem Steel czar Charles Schwab. Shortly thereafter, he designed and built Schwab’s new mansion; he also secured loans from the steel magnate to finance a series of real estate ventures.
By 1910, deBobula was back in New York, earning his way by designing churches and constructing large apartment buildings in Manhattan and the Bronx. Playing fast and loose with Schwab’s capital, deBobula returned to Ohio, where he crossed the border into West Virginia and Kentucky to purchase eleven thousand acres.18 Now well connected, the Hungarian offered to set up a syndicate of wealthy English steel men to help refinance Wardenclyffe, promising to raise a million pounds “without going to very much trouble, providing, of course, that we could demonstrate things to them satisfactorily.” But Tesla declined the offer and “resolved to fight my own battles.”19
Known as a “racketeer,” having never paid taxes on the land deal, deBobula also reneged on a series of other loans. Naturally, Schwab became angry, particularly because he had lent deBobula additional monies to keep him out of debtor’s prison. Paradoxically, deBobula became interested in workers’ rights at this time and in the growing anarchist movement.
Seen as a gold digger and bully by Schwab, the wealthy financier was reported to have said that “Bob is dishonest, and I would give a million dollars if he would jump out this window right now.” This event unleashed a powder keg of animosity between the two, deBobula suing Schwab for $100,000 for defamation of character, Schwab severing connections between his niece and deBobula and the family.20
Attracted to violent activities, deBobula continued to associate with a variety of radical and paramilitary groups; he also caught the eye of the Secret Service. In 1923, during a bizarre interlude, deBobula returned to his home in Budapest and aligned himself with a pro-Hitler group. There he authored a paper which attacked Jewish physics and espoused the developing new world order. Charged with conspiring to overthrow the Hungarian government, he escaped back to America.
Throughout this entire period, deBobula would regularly correspond with Tesla to discuss various ideas he had, such as how to perfect a projector bomb, which he had a patent pending on, and he also discussed his latest encounter with a cabal of international warlords. The following letter suggests the possibility that Tesla’s attacking Einstein may have been prompted by anti-Semitic sentiments as much as by philosophical differences:
MUNITIONS INC.
295 Madison Ave.
New York, NY
My dear Mr. Tesla,
I hugely enjoyed your comments on relativity, which we, way back in 1921, attacked in my Budapest paper, as a theory of the fundamentals of which, if logically developed, would inevitably lead to an anthropomorphic Jehovah with all the evil trimmings in philosophy and social order.
Yours sincerely,
Titus deBobula21
In full support of Tesla’s desire to resurrect a new Wardenclyffe, deBobula carefully drafted for Tesla blueprints of a 120-foot-tall teleforce powerhouse and transmission tower; at the same time, he set up a factory for his munitions company in New Jersey with Capt. Hans Tauscher. The tower, set up somewhat like a high-tech Van deGraaff generator, with Van deGraaffs primitive cardboard belt replaced by a vacuum stream of ionized air, had at its bulbous apex a turret-rotating particle-beam cannon, able to move about to attack planes and airships with information provided by an earth-current radar system the wizard had also designed during his days at Wardenclyffe.
Tauscher, a German American, was closely linked with the Fatherland through his daughter, who still lived there. Through this and other channels, Tesla could be introduced to potential weapons buyers. Simultaneously, he could also be supplied with small amounts of dynamite, which he used to test telegeodynamic equipment that he was trying to sell to such companies as Texaco Oil Company for geophysical exploration.22
Titus deBobula was now making his living selling rifle grenades, fragmentation and gas bombs, and other armaments to both domestic police departments and foreign governments in Europe and South America. Unfortunately for the Hungarian, unwished-for newspaper publicity concerning a lawsuit with Tauscher drew the attention of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Having hid his relationship with the munitions factory, deBobula not only attracted the
tax collectors but also the seemingly omniscient J. Edgar Hoover, who monitored his activities for the next ten years. He was accused of being a German agent and illegal alien involved in subversive activities, and Hoover “recommended that [deBobula] be considered for custodial detention in the event of a national emergency.”
Although they maintained their relationship during this stormy period, Tesla’s antennae were raised, especially when deBobula requested loans from him “in amounts you would not miss” just at the time he declared bankruptcy: DeBobula was $750,000 in debt. Hoping to make Tesla a partner in the company, deBobula raised Tesla’s ire when he used his name as a reference when working an arms deal with the minister of Paraguay. Tesla called deBobula and stated emphatically that he was not to use the inventor’s name.23
Unable to maintain his Manhattan apartment, deBobula moved to the Bronx, where he was eventually arrested. A search of his apartment revealed an arsenal of hand grenades, dynamite, and tear-gas bombs. The architect claimed that they were simply part of the inventory from his company, and he was interrogated and released. Presumably an anti-Semite who apparently had ties to Henry Ford, deBobula disavowed any relationship to either the Communist party or the German-American Bund. Although he was monitored throughout the World War II years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was unable to prove that he had violated any federal statute, and deBobula was allowed to move to Washington, D.C., where he set up another munitions arsenal right in the heart of the city! In 1949 he wrote directly to J. Edgar Hoover to “get them off his back,” and apparently Hoover complied, as articles and references to him faded away at that time.24
As the Great Depression wore on, Tesla’s expenses continued to mount. He was now $400 in debt to the hotel, which, during those dreary days, was a considerable sum. Cornered by the management, the sly conceptualist fell back on a strategem that had worked so well when he was at the Waldorf-Astoria: he would live on credit. He thereupon offered as collateral “a working model” of his death ray, which he told the establishment was worth $10,000. They asked for a receipt in writing, and he agreed. The treacherous device and his note were carefully placed in locker no. 103 in the hotel’s back-room vault.25