Word: zaharoff
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...Zaharoff. One member of the Royal Commission is a practicing journalist-novelist, Sir Philip Gibbs. He itched to ask questions about Journalism's famed "Mystery Man of Europe," Sir Basil Zaharoff...
Known variously and vaguely as "The Richest Man in the World," "The Armaments King," "The Mystery Man of Europe," Sir Basil Zaharoff, Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire and of the Order of the Bath, Doctor of Laws, Oxford, Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, etc., is one of the most prominent members of the world's unburied dead. Still alive at 86, he retired eight years ago, now lives in senile seclusion on his French estate at Balincourt. To pacifists the single-handed murderer of millions, to Reds a mummified museum-piece of capitalism...
German Author Robert Neumann, Zaharoff's latest biographer, admits that his book is far from being definitive. "To track down the facts," says he despairingly, "required the diligence not so much of a writer as of a detective." Zaharoff has not simply eluded publicity; he has barricaded his devious trail with piles of red herrings. Though Author-Detective Neumann found many & many a document missing or unobtainable, most witnesses untrustworthy or disingenuous, he has succeeded in piecing together the sinister tale of a completely irresponsible, destructive career, in showing that where there was so much international smoke there must...
...Even Zaharoff's origins-his birthplace, name, nationality-are doubtful, says Biographer Neumann. Probably he was born in Mughla, a little town in Anatolia, of Greek parents, christened Zacharias Basileos Zacharoff. He spent part of his youth in Constantinople, where he seems to have been at one time a fireman, at one time a pimp. Whether he also went to Russia for a time and married there (his alleged son, Hyman Barnett Zaharoff. is still trying to prove his paternity), Neumann leaves an open question. Less questionable is the tale of Zaharoff's absconding with 25 boxes...
...agent of a British armament firm, Nordenfeldt's, gave him a job selling guns in the Balkans, at ?5 a week. Zaharoff was 28. Nordenfeldt made not only machine-guns but submarines, then a drug on the naval market. When Zaharoff sold a submarine to his native Greece, then sold two to Turkey, he laid the foundations of his fortune and his technique. Nordenfeldt combined with its rival, Maxim Gun Co.; later the combination merged with Vickers. With every step Zaharoff got more commissions, more stock, more power. Soon he was selling armaments all over the world-Russia, Europe...