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7” [Ea a one of them kere who wouldn't keg a. if you said any-» thing bad aboet him!” cs - Sobered by ‘this intelligence. Miter moved toward Suttorr Place, ‘stamping ground of the rich in New York, a clif-like. three-block long area overlooking the East River at 57th Street. Here you can pick up a small house for sourself and the kiddies if you happen to have about two hundred grand on vou. It is there, in a four-story. brick building, manned by a single housekeeper who knows how to kecp her mouth shut. that Onassis lives in monastic soli- tude—without even a cat or a canars—during jus sporadic says in Manhattan. he house, oddly enough, is owned by Aris wife Athina (ie cails her Tins) @ slender, dark-eved Grecian-type beauty who, at 25, is the mother of his two children and who manages ta get Ari udked about almost as mich as his commercial hi jinks. Rewarding Tina, Art’s critics are nasty enough to suggest duit. while he may have loved her dearly from the moment of their firse meeting, the fact that her father happeirs to be Sunres Livanos. himself dhe ruler of a Greck shipping dyno which i one of tbe largest in the world. could have contributed to his first having been at- tracted to her. But this isa curve ballin Ari's direction, for ie wasn't he who pursued Vina: it was old Stavros. who introduced Onassis to bis daughter back in 14460. when Tima was only 17. Vhe story is that the elder Greek made the introduction with a purpose. because he wanted sons-in-Lew who could hhald their own with the olehiman when it came to sharp trading. That he got one in Ari goes without saving. as it does abo in the case of his second son-in-law. Stavros Niatchos. who is Ari's oub rival when it comes te rultires the commercial seas. Pn dact. when it comes te the tinker business. it’s questionable im maa minds as to which is the iwecr operator, Otiioesis or bis brother-ain-las, with whom cibdn the cutthroat competion, Tn the Niurchos camp. of course, they compliin that nassis ismore than pst competition for his kinfoik: in fect. they say that Niarchos suflers in the public mind from the fact that few Americans Know one Greek dren another, and that every time something bad is written about Onassis, Joc Blow homediateh thinks Niarehos qlid it Ane ie truth, Ure csidence tends ta dispute this heel. Freon though Niatchos has settled das troubles with Vncle Sam. he still seems to vet the blame der every new touch qataip ds Ari, A glance at the Onassis career, however, wad seu have te conclude that this lad ts imi chiss by hinnset. Perhaps the one charieceersouc that distinguishes hit from the average mortal is his abilits to kind on his feet. This has been apparent ever since be first began to have to fend for dinsel. at the age of 15, in Sinvrna, on the Anatolia coast of Turkes. He clatis pits facber. a Greek tobpoce merchant. was one of the the ites Ttportant budiiosmen amos the 30. million Grecks inhabiting the colans. In P22. however. Kemal Atcaturk. leader of the Toarkish nationalists. decided 3L, million were a few too maps Greeks to be on “Vurkish soil, and his legions went to work ou them. They reportedh slaughtered hundreds of thousands and sent the rest packing. Aristorle, his father, his mother, and his three smal] sis- ters eventually reached Greece—after the two male mem- bers. according to Ari’s story, had spent a couple ef anxious months in a Purkish prison waiting to be hanged. Once back on the ancient sail of the hameland, the Onassis clan found itsell in desperate struts. Jn addition to their own famils’s womeniolk, Ariand his father were saddled with ——— "The Man Who Bought the Bank at Monte Carlo" ~ TRUE, THE MAN'S MAGAZINE, Dece 1954, pg» 20 —————— I clatives whose breadwinners ‘had been knocked of Turks. There was virtually no money, and jobs were, sible to find. That, as Ari tells it, is when his career really began. With $100, he was sent off to the Argentine, in a boat jammed te the masts with starving Greeks. to make his fortune. It’s along about here, though, that the story begins to get a touch cloudy, As our hero spins it, there he was. 16 veurs old, with but $60 of the original century sull in his posses- sion, thousands of miles from home, and in a strange country whose language was anything but Greck to hin. Again. as Ari tells it. there he was, two vears later, still in the same. strange. foreign country, and he now has a net profit for his two years of hard work amounting to exactly $100,000! Not bad going for a teen-ager. The next question anyone asks, naturally, is how come? Well, depending on who's telling the story to whom, Ari started on a shoestring. became a bootblack and a das da- borer, a night switchboard operator and eventually drilted inte tobacca importing. a wade he'd learned from hes father. Thus he was off and running. aud it makes far a nice, romantic, Algeresque varn to tell vour week-cnd guests while loling on your yacht off Capri. The only hitch is that a lot of writers get the idea that. maybe with a fitte eflor1, they could do the same thing. and they press for more detaths. some sixteen other f. When dis occurs, Onassis explains that story isn’t truc. He didn’t realy stare on a shoestring. Sure. he dele Grecee with a steamship tickee and a hundred bucks. all that could be scraped together after the debacle in Smyrna. and he had stxn of the hundred left when he got te Argen- tin, Aud... well. it wasn’t really aM he had: you see. even though the family was starving in Greece. his father still hacl a few bank accounts lying around in other countries which Ari could draw on. and never mind why the cldcr Onassis didn't pick up his brood and head for one of those countries. rather than send a 16-year-old boy off alone to a strange Jind, B™ no matter. There were abo Papa Onassis’ many friends from his business connections. who were scat- tered here and there and particularls in Argentina. These. too, now get credit for lending « helping hand wheo the going got rough for Aristotle. Whether or net one of these was Mandl and another Dodere. Ari doesn't say. At Do- dero’s New York office, 1b was explained that this indeed was possible, since the late industrialist “helped thousands of veung men” get a start. and one of them conceivably could have been voung Ari. Nagone recalled for sure Hf one of thei was. however. The same reph came from friends of Mandl. the muni- Hons man, whe numbers among his other claims to prami- nence the fact that he was the first husband of Hedy La- marr. Se there you are, faced with che fact that Onassis either did or did not start on a shoestring, but that he unquestionably took aff like a rocket from whatever the precise beginning was. Regardless. so successful was he in running his litde tobacco importing business, and picking: up a stray peso here and there. that he finally gave up his switchboard job —alter a year or so of getting only three hours sheep a night—and devoted alf his time to his own operations. Even- tually. he added cigarette manulacturtng to imparting, began dabbling in wool, grains. hides and similar qagrket able items and. by 1928, had begun to coi money hand over fist. He also hact begun to sleep a normal cight heurs aonight. He was se successful [Continued an page 83]