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v. ing each ship in the years since Ari bought Ren has amounted to a million more than Onassis originally paid~approximately $2 whiliion apiece—he stands te make a neat profit of exacily that, one million, on each ship! In short, the government can have them and be damned. Ari, in cut-throat com- petition with his brother-in-law, has more ships abuilding anyway. The result. of course, has been a merry sound of riveting in the shipyards until the tanker market went to hell this year, as more and bigger tankers—ordered by Onassis. Niarchos, and one or two others—come rap- idly into being. A year ago, the Tina Onassif, named for Ari's wife and, at 45,000 tons. als, most twice the size of the largest tanker exer built up to that time, came sliding clown the ways in Germanys. In February 1954, Niarchos topped, that with the World Glory, which could carry 800,000 more gallons of oif than the Tina Cassis. Then, last spring. Ari answered this thrust with the King fbn Saud 7, a 47,000- tonne: which. at launching time, was the largest tanker ever built And so the competition goes on. even in the face of a declining tanker market which this year has Uirawn a trace of panic into the voices of nearly all tankermen with the exception of Onassis and Niarchos. Ari, for all his plea of being lonely and unhappy, wii) poes merrily on. betting on the future. “meanwhile commuting around the world, occasionally turning up with bis handsome ‘wife at a swank Riviera dinner party Unrewn In the plasboy sei, or taking people out for rides on his combination whaling-ship-and- privalexacht scomplete with its own owe. motored, executive-ty pe plane lashed ta the aftercdeck), This vessel. when it isn't off harpoamng whales. usually can be found tied up at Cap d'Antibes. “Those who lhave been lucky cnough to have cruised on her to Tangier or some other romantic Spot, as a RuEse of Ari, have cone back insisting that vou just haven't seen Juxurs until you've tried qhat. Whaler or no. the ship is alleged to be the last word in plushy elegance, being fabul- ously fitted with the very finest of woods and the most expensive furniture made. It also boasts a Hollywood-type swimming pool which can be covered for evening dances. The plane, meanwhile, serves a variety of utilitarian purposes. not the least of which is skimming along the water ahead of Ari, who cavorts behind her on his favor- itc recreational tools. a pair of water skis. As his friends say, when Ari is in trouble, he likes nothing better than to get out of the hot water and into the cold, either on his water skis or in a fast game of water polo, at which he is said to be the equal of men vears his junior. Being a moderate drinker and onls an average cigarette smoker, Onassis is not a gent anyonc would be wise to come to grips with. either at water polo. water skiing, hand-wrestling. or plain old punch-trading. You have to hand it to the gus—he keeps in shape. mentalls, physically and financially. Financially? Well, now. vou'd guess that a gut whe ts reported to have all those bucks wouldn't be worried about next month's rent, wouldn't your And set. as hap- pens to se imany millionaires. che stor is that Onassis is reall, worrted and hard up for ready cash. Oh, sure. he’s got plenty of assets, ut the wise bows sav uhat what Ari needs right now is something on avhich he can make a big killing. quick-ltke; and those same wise bovs hint they think mavbe he has hit on just the thing—another whaling expedition. Bur. Art himself said that was a gamble, didi t he? Sure. but maybe he's found a way fo take some of the gambling out of the whating dedge. Like this: Yeats age. in the Moby Dick era. vou went out whaling. caught as many as sou could, and came home to Mamma. But that was before the age of modern science which took a lot of the guesswork out of whaling. The big fishermen then began getting whales every time they went looking for thent. bring- ing home more and more until the big mam: mais began to get scarce. The humphack ea “ errr nig whale was the first to disappear; the bluc whale was next, and now the finback. the biggest item in today’s catch, is starting to run thin. Naturally a situation like that called for action, international action, since whales are caught out in deep water. According! a series of international conferences were called, with most of the nations—knowing it was in their own best interests—taking patt and signing the agreements as they were made. The most recent of these con- ferences. held in Washington in 1946. set rules for the size of the catch a whating parts could make, the minimum length of whale to he taken, how much of the product could be utilized, ete. All of these rules were designed to Limit the whaler’s haul. That's wherg Ari Onassis is alleged te have come into the whaling picture. Accord: ing to people who should know Ari scouted around and discovered that Panama. In golls—although a late-signing subscriber to the Washington whaling regulatios—tended ta wink an eve at enforcing them; and, since Onussis’ ships My the flag of that country, he caught the wink and proceeded io take all whe whales he damn well pleased out of the ocean. Now. though, the whaling interests are really worried. They hear that Ari's latest whaling junket. presenth in the Antarctic. could be the whaling expedition to end ail whaling expeditions. and indeed all whales. For. savs the rumor, both the fbn Saud and the Tina Onassis were due to accompany the expedition and help to refucl the flect at sea. This report prompts veteran whalemen to ask just why anyone would need fwe S34WKEtoD tankers to refuel a fleet of ninc- teen whaling ships: Ihe answer, the boys sav, is simple: the Jin Saud and the Tina Onassis ostensibly are going along to help in the refucting. dau actually they are going to be used to store whale oil, 90,000 tons of it in addition to that carried normally by the rest of the fleet. Which, if true. will be the biggest catch in whaling history, and Ari's profit will kecp hini out of the red for years. What is worse for the world. though, is the fact that Onassis’ present expedition could be the last ever staged by ansone, anywhere, since it may pull in every whale in the whole danmed ocean. Then the whale will take its place in muscums alongside of the dinosaur. “T could have sworn,” a New York Greck shipping man told this writer. “that Onassis was finished last winter when he kept build- ing more and more big tankers. at a time when the rest of us were convineed the tanker market had reached the saturation pois. But 1 said then that Ari probably knew more than the rest of us did—and maybe whaling is what he knew, Sul he’s taking an awfully Jong chance.” Avistollc Socrates Onassis? He never (ok a chance in his hitec—Maxwell Hamilton "The Man Who Bought the Bank at Monte Carlo" TRUE, THE MAN'S MAGAZINE, Dece 1954, Pg. 86 ee