Books: Fearsome Greek

ZAHAROFF—Robert Neumann—Knopf ($2-75).

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, to fellow-tycoons a poor old rich boy, Zaharoff remains a juicy prey for some future historian. Much has been said and written about him during his long life, but most of the facts remain conjectural.

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 have been some Greek fire. No coldly lucid exposition but an avowed attempt to get the goods on Zaharoff, the book soon has the reader goggle-eyed, leaves him swimmy-headed and reeling in a tangled jungle of economic-diplomatic chicanery.

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 of gum and 169 sacks of gallnuts from the Constantinople shop where he was employed, hot-footing it to England. (Neumann thinks that some time, somewhere Zaharoff also killed a policeman.) Having found his way to Athens, he worked again in a shop, in a bar, as a "guide." then met the man who gave him the push he needed.

The 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, South America.