What's That Smell?

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Some of the institutions that wrote letters, from Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn., to Sha'are Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem, had no idea what they would be used for. Avner Azoulay, a former Mossad operative who runs the Rich Foundation in Tel Aviv, had asked them to write appreciations for a book about the foundation. "I didn't ask the writers' permission to include their letters in the petition to the President. Why should I? I use these letters in many other cases to show the work we are doing," Azoulay told TIME. Other Rich supporters had financial links to his family. Michael Steinhardt, a New York City hedge-fund manager and a former chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, was among those who wrote a letter in support of his friend. His note didn't mention that, from the early 1980s through the mid-'90s, Steinhardt managed at least $3 million for Marc Rich, Denise Rich and her father.

That's chump change to Rich, who, since arriving in the U.S. during World War II, has amassed a fortune estimated at well over $1 billion. An average student and self-described "business machine," Rich dropped out of New York University to learn the commodities business from fellow European Jewish immigrants at Philipp Bros. He was a quick study, thriving in the high-stakes, split-second world of commodities trading, in which your demanding customer might be a Third World dictator and information is the hottest commodity of all.

Before long, this soft-spoken boy wonder had helped create a new, hugely profitable oil-trading business for the firm, and he wanted a bigger share of it. In 1974, when Rich and his trusted colleague, Pinky Green, didn't get the $1 million bonuses they had been promised, they decided to strike out on their own. As his business took off in the late '70s and early '80s, Rich became even bolder. He worked secretly with the Malaysian government to drive up the price of tin and allegedly violated international embargoes by selling Soviet oil to South Africa. He even briefly went Hollywood, partnering with Marvin Davis to buy 20th Century Fox.

After his flight, while the U.S. contemplated kidnapping Rich or putting a bounty on his head, he continued his lucrative exploits, allegedly helping Russian oligarchs plunder their country's resources. "He considers himself a citizen of the world, inconvenienced by the laws of nations," says Howard Safir, the former New York City police commissioner who, as head of operations for the U.S. Marshals Service in the '80s, tried unsuccessfully to lure Rich to a country that would deport him.