When Ivar left, Marcosson immediately began drafting his article on Ivar for the Saturday Evening Post. The article was scheduled to appear in a few weeks. It would describe their six lunch meetings, Ivar’s last social engagements in America, and his final attempt to set forth his case. The bulk of the words would be Ivar’s, not Marcosson’s. Ivar would hold forth on foreign policy, the lessons of the depression, and a range of macroeconomic issues. At the end of the article, Marcosson would quote Ivar saying, “I feel hopeful regarding the immediate future.”35
Shortly after his last interview with Isaac Marcosson, Ivar withdrew 60,000 dollars of cash from his American bank accounts and left New York on the Ile de France.36 Alexis Aminoff rode with him to the dock in a taxi. They stopped at a news stand where Ivar bought ten copies of the Saturday Evening Post for a nickel each. Perhaps Ivar was in a confused state, and thought Marcosson’s article already would be in print. But it was much too early. Aminoff paid the $2.20 cab fare and said goodbye.37
For Ivar, the trip across the Atlantic was simultaneously liberating and imprisoning. He shared Greta Garbo’s views of ocean travel: “The sea is wonderful. Nowhere does one feel so free! At the same time one is caught - there is no escape. Then, in port, one is free to go, and the sense of freedom is gone.”38 Ivar certainly was caught. His escape hatches had closed. As the Ile de France left port, and he watched Manhattan recede, Ivar must have understood that he was trapped. When he arrived in Europe, there would not be very many places to go.
The boat was full of bankers, including Durant, and the mood on board generally was bleak. The stock market had been falling for more than two years. Thirteen million Americans were unemployed. Concerns about global terrorism were high, and there recently had been several attempts to assassinate important leaders of international finance. Finally, Jack Morgan’s paranoia was justified. Two friends of Tom Lamont, Morgan’s partner, had been shot dead in recent months, allegedly by Japanese nationalists who were responding to speculation against the yen.
The bankers on board were suspicious of Ivar, and kept close tabs on him. One Belgian banker closely followed and reported on Ivar’s moods. Morgan’s legal advisor also was a passenger on the Ile de France, accompanied by four Morgan “detectives.”39
These men watched Ivar vacillate during the trip. One moment he was brooding in his cabin, mumbling nonsense to Donald Durant. An hour later he was dancing with Sonja Henie, a 13-old Norwegian girl who had just won the gold medal in women’s skating at the Lake Placid Olympics. Ivar spent several hours each day on the deck shooting skeet, staring blankly as the shattered clays disappeared into the waves below.40 But he also spent hours discussing financial matters with prominent business people and economists, including Bernard Baruch and the British academic Sir Arthur Salter.41 At one point, he cabled Karin Bökman that his thoughts of suicide had arisen only temporarily and were now gone. Yet hours later, he sent his brother-in-law instructions to go to his apartment to retrieve some shares Ivar claimed belonged to his father and should be returned to him right away.
Although A.D. Berning had wanted to sail to Europe, his partners at Ernst & Ernst said he was needed in New York, so he tracked Ivar from there. The Ernsts were concerned about how the problems at Ivar’s companies might affect their firm. While Ivar was aboard Ile de France, Berning sent invoice #14400 from Ernst & Ernst to Swedish Match in Stockholm. Berning included an item in the amount of $12,750 for services in “making detailed survey of accounting organization and procedure of su bsidiaryco mpaniesof SVENSKA CELLULOSA A.B.,” one of Ivar’s subsidiaries. Berning also requested reimbursement of $5,992.92 of cash expenses. It was the largest invoice Berning had ever sent Ivar. Berning must have wondered whether Ivar would be able to pay any of the money he owed Ernst & Ernst.
Ivar reached Paris at 11 a.m. on the morning of March 11, 1932, and took a taxi to his apartment at 5 Avenue Victor Emmanuel III.42 He walked up the three flights of stairs, and greeted Jeannette Barrault, his housekeeper of four years. She thought Ivar looked worn and tired.
Krister Littorin was waiting inside. Littorin had just arrived in Paris that morning. Several of Ivar’s assistants would join them soon, including Karin Bökman, Ivar’s bookkeeper Sigurd Hennig, and his Swedish accountant Anton Wendler. Littorin put his arm around Ivar’s shoulder, and exclaimed, “By Jove, it’s nice to see you again after all this time, Ivar.”43 Ivar nodded softly, and they sat in the kitchen to have lunch.
Littorin warned Ivar that the Swedish government was investigating his personal and business finances. While Ivar had been in New York, Swedish officials had procured search warrants and collected many of Ivar’s important documents. Auditors already were scouring the books of Kreuger & Toll and Swedish Match. Most importantly, Littorin told Ivar, the authorities were asking questions about “those Italian bonds.”
When Littorin mentioned the Italian bonds, Ivar merely stared into the distance. He hardly moved when Bökman, Hennig, and Wendler arrived to brief him on the investigation. They had been responding to various warrants and requests, particularly to questions about the Italian treasury bills Littorin and Hennig had found in the Match Palace safe just a few days earlier.
Ivar was obviously exhausted, so they treated him gently. Hennig was the first to mention the Italian treasury bills. He said they didn’t understand the details about the treasury bills, and asked Ivar for some specifics: “Has interest on these bills ever been paid? To which accounts was it credited?”44
Ivar seemed far away. He remained silent for several minutes, and then mumbled that the Italian bills were locked in a safe in Stockholm. Finally, he answered, as if he was repeating rehearsed lines from a play: “Yes, I collected the payments and credited the dividend account myself. Everything is in order.” Then he got up to leave the room.
When Ivar returned, a few minutes later, Hennig asked, “Why is it that these bills were never stamped?”
Ivar again rose and left the room without saying a word. Hennig whispered to his colleagues, “There is a lot here that I cannot understand.” Ivar paced the hall a few times. He didn’t want to be the next one to speak.
Hennig continued to press Ivar for answers. “But where did the 400 million kronor come from which you paid Italy for these bills?” Again, Ivar was silent. Hennig couldn’t take the suspense any more. He recalled Ivar’s childhood schemes - stealing exam answers, forging signatures - and feared the worst.
Hennig stood and finally asked the question everyone had been avoiding. “I say, Ivar, are these Italian bills genuine?”
Ivar’s face took on a tortured expression during a painfully long pause. He then stared at his former classmate and answered, “Yes, they are genuine.”
It was now shortly before 4 p.m., and they all left the apartment together. Littorin and Ivar had an appointment with Oscar Rydbeck at the Hôtel Meurice, the spot he had recommended to Katharine von Rosenberg, the woman he had dined with on Majestic several years earlier. The concierge greeted Ivar on his way out, and immediately saw that something was wrong. Ivar usually pressed a 10 franc note into her hand, and, if her children were there, patted them on their heads. Today, Ivar walked right past, staring blankly, saying nothing. Instead of hailing a taxi, as he usually did, Ivar walked toward the Seine.45 Krister Littorin quietly followed.
Oscar Rydbeck got straight to business. He wanted to discuss Ivar’s mounting debts, and he made it clear that the Swedish Credit Bank couldn’t lend him any more money.46 When Rydbeck asked if Ivar could raise money to repay his Swedish bankers by pledging the Italian treasury bills as collateral, Ivar responded that he already had promised not to pledge them.
Rydbeck suggested, “Can’t we do a deal with the Italian government? Couldn’t we resell them the bills at a discount?”
Ivar replied, “Yes, maybe, but it will take time. I will go to Italy to see about it, but first I want to return home to Stockholm for a while.”
Rydbeck emphasized that Ivar needed to d
o a new monopoly deal soon. Rydbeck’s bank, and his career, depended on it. He invited the men to stay for dinner, but Ivar said he was tired and wanted to go to bed early. He had some important letters to write and needed to phone New York.
As they walked outside, Littorin also suggested they have dinner, but Ivar refused. He told Littorin, “Come by early tomorrow morning so we can talk before the meeting.” Ivar’s bankers were scheduled to meet at the Hôtel du Rhin at 11 a.m. The two men said goodbye at about six o’clock.
12
DEATH IN THE AIR
Later that evening, a man in a black overcoat appeared at Gastine-Rennette, a firearms shop at 39 Avenue Victor Emmanuel III, a few steps south of the Champs- Elysées.1 He pushed open the door, stepped in from the Paris fog, and said he wanted to buy a gun.2
Antoine Bervillier, the 70-year-old clerk, didn’t recognize the man, at least not at first. Bervillier was accustomed to selling guns at night to shady characters, most of whom didn’t want to be recognized. The man in the overcoat seemed to be just another customer, nothing out of the ordinary. Besides, the wizened Bervillier had learned long ago not to ask too many questions.
The man asked to see pistols, but when Bervillier brought some out, he shook his head, insisting that he needed something bigger. “Plus gros, plus gros,” he repeated as Bervillier showed him pistol after pistol.3
Finally, Bervillier brought out the most powerful semi-automatic he had, a new 9 mm service pistol the French military had just commissioned from John Browning. He called it GP, for Grande Puissance. Ultimately, ninety-three nations would adopt a version of this weapon for military sidearm issue.4 But back in March 1932, the Browning was more of an experiment, an extravagant weapon not many people had seen, or could afford.
Bervillier clicked the safety catch and released the firing mechanism. He showed the man how a new cartridge would automatically settle into the chamber, in case a second shot was needed. Given the Browning’s muscle, that wasn’t likely.
The man weighed the gun in his hands, and admired its heft. It was expensive, modern, and powerful. For his purposes, it was perfect.
French law required an official record of the purchase. As the man instructed, the clerk wrote down his information. The man spelled the name, instead of saying it: “I-V-A-R K-R-E-U-G-E-R.”
“Was it possible?” Bervillier must have thought. “The incredible Ivar Kreuger?” Just fifty-two years old, Ivar was among the most distinguished and influential men in the world. Stocks and bonds of his companies were the most widely held securities in America, and the world.5 He was known globally as one of the handful of savvy businessmen who had survived, and maybe even profited from, the 1929 crash. He was the leading lender to Europe who had helped France’s economy recover.
Ivar was a celebrity, too. Photos of Ivar had been published in virtually every major magazine and newspaper. Vanity Fair was begging him to sit for a shoot with Edward Steichen, the renowned photographer. A full-length feature movie, The Match King, based on Ivar’s life, would be released in a few months. A short film of him motorboating with Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks was already being shown in theaters - the 1930s version of a movie preview - along with news clips about the tensions in Germany and the declining global economy. The Match King would depict Ivar’s life as the American dream. But even before the movie was out, many people already knew much of the story.
If Bervillier read the local papers, he would have known that Ivar had just arrived from New York on the Ile de France. But he could not have possibly imagined how much trouble Ivar was in. If Bervillier had known any of the details, he might not have sold a gun to this man. He might not have obliged when the man asked for four boxes of cartridges, twenty-five per box. But the old clerk, and the world, were still in the dark. Bervillier took the cash, and watched the man hide the purchases within the folds of his overcoat, walk out the door, and turn south, away from the Champs-Elysées. He was headed toward Ivar Kreuger’s apartment, at 5 Avenue Victor Emmanuel III, a block away.
According to the concierge at Ivar’s building, he received two visitors during the late evening: a man who did not stay long, and a young woman who did. One version of the facts put John C. Brown, a Morgan employee, at Ivar’s apartment late that night. It is unclear what Brown would have done, except to tell Ivar his fate was sealed. According to another, perhaps consistent, version, a Finnish girl who occasionally accompanied Ivar on his European trips visited him at an even later hour and spent the night. She was about the age Ivar’s first love had been when she died, more than thirty years earlier.
The next morning, Krister Littorin arrived around 9:30 a.m., and found Ivar dressed, but looking even more tired than he had the previous afternoon. According to Littorin, Ivar mentioned the Finnish girl, who had just left. Ivar and Littorin had switched roles since engineering school. Back then, Ivar had been awkward with women. His lines about the latest performance at the Stockholm Opera House or Royal Swedish Ballet caused them to yawn or run away. Today, he said the same things and they jumped into his bed. No woman ever poked fun at Ivar’s obsession with flowers, or even mentioned his stunted left index finger. Now, Littorin was the cautious sidekick, and Ivar was the ladies’ man.
Littorin later testified that the two men talked about the future. Ivar spoke in Swedish, rather than English, as he typically did with Littorin. Ivar assured Littorin that he had rested enough, and was prepared for the important meeting. Ivar didn’t say whether he had made any decisions about the future.
Littorin asked about a forecast Ivar had given to Lee Higginson, whose partners wanted to know if Ivar’s companies had as much cash now as he had predicted they would. Ivar responded softly that, “It was probably not a good idea to give them this forecast.” Littorin tried to assure Ivar. He said, “Whatever you have done, whatever you may have said and whatever you may have written, you must realize that you are surrounded by friends who wish you well and who want to help you put things right.”6
After forty-five minutes, Karin Bökman arrived. Ivar said he needed her to take some dictation. Littorin reminded Ivar that many of his good friends and colleagues, including some of the most powerful bankers in the world, would be waiting at the Hotel du Rhin. Ivar replied, “Krister, I may be about ten minutes late. I have some other people to see first.” Littorin said Ivar shouldn’t keep them waiting too long, and Ivar promised to do his best.7
At 10:45 a.m., Miss Bökman left for the Hotel du Rhin with a thick envelope Ivar had just pressed into her hand. According to Bökman, Ivar’s final words to her had been that she should pack her bags and go directly to Stockholm, where he would try to meet her. She thought about the suicide note Ivar had sent from New York just a week earlier. None of this made any sense.
A few minutes after she embraced her boss for the last time, just as the meeting at the Hotel du Rhin was about to begin, a telegram boy was seen making a delivery to 5 Avenue Victor Emmanuel III. This boy was the last person to report seeing Ivar Kreuger alive.
In a suite at the Hotel du Rhin, a dozen anxious men were pacing the floor. Krister Littorin assured everyone that Ivar would be there soon, but Oscar Rydbeck and Donald Durant were concerned. The men whispered when they spoke, as if they were concerned someone outside the door might hear the truth about Ivar. Some of them referred to Ivar as “Oak,” a code name. It was the first time they could remember him being late.
Littorin tried to calm the men by mentioning that, after the meeting at the Hotel du Rhin, he and Ivar were planning to visit the new offices Ivar was building for his French businesses, a slightly smaller version of the Match Palace. The original façade of his building was a “Monument National,” and could not be altered, but inside Ivar was constructing a massive modern complex, stretching down the Rue du Faubourg St Honoré. Cases of colored wood from Sweden had been sent for the panels and walls, but had not yet been unpacked. Ivar was to have a flat on the top floor, with the roof divided between a winter and a s
ummer garden.8 Surely, Ivar would not be planning such an extravagant construction project if he were in serious financial distress?
Karin Bökman arrived at the hotel and waited in the vestibule. She had no news for the men, but confirmed that Ivar should be on the way. As she sat, she must have wondered what Ivar would do. Should she worry? Should she leave now for Stockholm? She felt the envelope from Ivar in her bag, still unaware that it contained stacks of crisp Swedish bills.
Back on Wall Street, the lights were just going on at the New York Stock Exchange, and traders were preparing for the Saturday morning trading session. American Certificates of Kreuger & Toll were worth about $5 each, well below their initial value of $28, but a decent price given the market’s doldrums, the wave of recent skepticism about Ivar, and the increased short selling of his securities. No one on the Exchange floor was supposed to know about the meeting taking place in Paris. Yet during the previous two days, selling of Kreuger & Toll securities inexplicably had increased. The spike in trading was suspicious. Apparently, someone was making a very large bet that the prices of the company’s securities soon would plummet.
After another half an hour, Krister Littorin phoned Ivar’s apartment. There was no answer. The men speculated that Ivar must be stuck in traffic - Aristide Briand, the French prime minister, had died a few days earlier, and the funeral procession was moving near Ivar’s apartment, clogging the streets. Littorin continued to phone, off and on, for another hour. The men grew more nervous. Littorin said Ivar’s housekeeper, Jeannette, was probably out shopping and should be back soon.
Finally, at about one o’clock, Jeannette answered the phone, sounding winded from the stairs. She said Ivar was still in bed. She had been planning to straighten his bedroom when she returned from shopping, but when she opened the door, she saw him lying in bed. Littorin asked her to call the hotel when Ivar was awake.
The Match King Page 26