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The The Man Who Bought the Bank at Monte Carlo Ce {Continued from page 20] that the Greek government appointed him their man in negotiations then going on for a new trade treaty between Greece and Ar- gentina. This naturally was duck soup for Ari and resulted in his being appointed Greek Consul General at Buenos Aires as a yard for his services to the homeland. He yas then 25. The homeland? Well, that brings up TA S818 citizenship, and unraveling that one perhaps explains why he today selects as his home port that country or countries which give him the best return on the dollar. It seems the boy was born in Greece, went to Turkey as a child, and still was a Greck when Auaturk took after everyone with his army. But. when the refugees from Smyrna got back to Athens. it was to discover that they'd lost their Greek citizenship, So there as the Onassis family without a country it wid call its own. Ari fixed that, too; wher got to Arger na, he applied for Argentinian papers, and got them, Then, no sooner was he an up- and-coming South American than word came from Greece that Athens had restored citi- zenship to the refugees from Smyrna. leav- ing Ari with simultaneous patriotic ties io of course. is running he never was one to two countrics, Which. true to Onassis form: do things by halves. His wife Tina has also bounced around the international checkerboard with almost, but suite, the verse displayed hh hen my quite, the spouse. Born a British subject. of Greek parents the petite and neatly stacked Tina is now an American citizen. $0 are Ari's two children by her, Alexander. 6. and Christina. 3, whom he sees about as seldom as would any man who is always hustling off some- where to sew up another million. Mrs. Bow soc who naturaliv fas a bit more time or socializing than her globe-trotting hus- ‘band. gets around in the classier circles of gCannes, Paris. New York and London a lot more than he does, Her polished, Mayfair British accent (contrasted with Ari's pro- nounced and heavy international one} heard regularly in the proper drawing rooms ef the top-drawer set of those cities. Today. the house on Sutton Place is atrs. Onassis’ name while her spouse like to call Paris “home.” even if he is in th process of moving his gear down to Monae where they shoot tax collectors on sight. Undoubtedly the real springboard for Ouastis came with his appointment as Con- sul General at Buenos Aires. In such a job. he was able to mingle freely with the very best ple. and also to pick up loads of tidbits of information which would be val- uable to a young man on his way up. No mater that the Depression vear of 1931 had come upon us. With the bread lines begin- Ring to form, and the bottom falling out of business generally, the situation was a nat- ural for any feliow with a fountzinhead of inside information and a litgle ur. opressed dough. Ari came equipped with bath. From his inside sources, he learned that the Canadian National Steamship Lines had some 30 oceangoing freighters which ‘had cost them roughly §2_million each to build — ce ee ey 1920. They were, he story had it, willing sell thetn for $20,800 a copy. which was -=- sonsiderable of a mark-down. Onassis bought + ae of them, put two of them into immediate service, and stored the other four away until the pesky Depression should run its course, Then al) six of them began te seam across” the seas and to bring home the bacon to Aristotle. “You could get a 10,000-10n ship for the price of a Rolls Royce,” Ari says today of the lush days of 1931, a period when most people in the world didn’t have enough for Streetcar money. much jess the price of a Rolls. Bur much of his success has stemmed from just that setup—he bought when every- one else was in the mood to sell, and they do say that’s a way to get rich, if your luck holds out. Ari's did, and it was his start in the ship- ping game. When the Depression let up, and with the other four of his bargain boats now ——_———m plyine the gas, Onassis. in 3 gmanrier of struck ojl. becoming convinced veal dry cargoes all hullow as a means of making money as a shipper. Thus he was among the first of the Greeks to favor tanker operation. in preference to the dry cargoes which had been traditional with his coun- trymen since the davs of Helen of Troy. By the time World War II erupted. he was mov- ing right along. and it was inevitable that some of his ships should have been caught in neutral ports and bottled up till after V-J Day. Ordinarily such a fate would have dis turbed the average shipper: after all. it’s no fun having some of your best ships grounded righi at the outset of a lush market. There are these whe snidely say. however, that Ari wasn't terribly concerned. Shucks, he sull bad quite a fleet of rusiv hulks he could turn over to the Allies for the North Audantic run—at the then papeeabbiaag., agi ri 1 1 "The Man Fho Bought the Bonk at Monte C TRUE, THE MAN'S MAGAZINE, Dece 1954, Po