Aristotle Socrates Onassis (, ;"Onassis". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. , ; 20 January 1906 – 15 March 1975) was a Greek and Argentine business magnate and shipping tycoon. He amassed the world's largest privately-owned shipping fleet and was one of the world's richest and most famous men. He was married to Athina Mary Livanos, had a long-standing affair with opera singer Maria Callas, and in his final years was married to American former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.
Onassis was born in Smyrna in the Ottoman Empire to Greek parents and fled the city with his family to Greece in 1922 in the wake of the burning of Smyrna. He moved to Argentina in 1923 and established himself as a tobacco trader and later a shipping owner during the Second World War. Moving to Monaco, Onassis fought Prince Rainier III for economic control of the country through his ownership of SBM and its Monte Carlo Casino. In the mid-1950s, he sought to secure an oil shipping arrangement with Saudi Arabia and engaged in whaling expeditions. In the 1960s, Onassis attempted to establish a large investment contract—Project Omega—with the Greek military junta and sold Olympic Airways, which he had founded in 1957. He was greatly affected by the death of his son, Alexander, in 1973 and died two years later.
Early life
Ottoman Empire Aristotle Socrates Onassis was born in 1906 in Karataş, a suburb of the Ottoman port city of Smyrna (now İzmir, Turkey) in Anatolia to Greek parents, Socrates Onassis and Penelope Dologlou. One of his grandfathers, Hristos Konialidis, was a Cappadocian Greek who originated from Talas, Kayseri and migrated to Akhisar for trade in the 19th century. Aristotle had one sister, Artemis, and two half-sisters, Kalliroi and Merope, by his father's second marriage following Penelope's death (1912).
Socrates Onassis became a successful shipping entrepreneur and sent his children to prestigious schools. When Aristotle graduated from the local Evangelical Greek School at the age of 16, he spoke four languages: Greek (his native language), Turkish, Spanish, and English.Gerald A. Carroll. Project Seek: Onassis, Kennedy, and the Gemstone thesis. Bridger House, 1994, , p. 50
Smyrna was invaded by Greece (1919–1922) in the aftermath of the Allied victory in World War I, but then Smyrna was recaptured by Turkey during the Greco-Turkish War (1919–22). The Onassis family's substantial property holdings were lost, causing them to become refugees fleeing to Greece after the Great Fire of Smyrna in 1922.Hussein, Waris (1988) Onassis, the richest man in the world, TV movie. During this period, Onassis lost three uncles, an aunt and her husband, Chrysostomos Konialidis and their daughter, who were burned to death in a church in Akhisar where 500 Christians were seeking shelter from the Great Fire of Smyrna. The Asia Minor catastrophe in 1922 was devastating for the Onassis family. His father was imprisoned and his business was transferred to Turkish ownership. The rest of the family fled to Greece where they had to stay in an outdoor refugee camp.
Argentina In 1923, Onassis returned to Istanbul with $250 in his pocket. In August of that year, he arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, by Nansen passport, and got his first job as a telephone operator with the British United River Plate Telephone Company,Hoenig, Gary (16 March 1975) "Headliners, Aristotle Onassis is Dead". New York Times while following studies in commerce and port-duty administration at Aduanas Argentinas. He later became an entrepreneur, creating an Argentine import-export company, going into business for himself, and making a fortune importing English-Turkish tobacco to Argentina. He reportedly told Maria Callas that he made his fortune in Buenos Aires by forming a shipping company used for trafficking heroin. He obtained Argentine citizenship in 1929. Eventually he established his first shipping trading company in Buenos Aires, Astilleros Onassis. After gaining his first fortune in Argentina, he expanded his shipping business worldwide and relocated to New York City, United States, where he built up his shipping business empire while keeping offices in Buenos Aires and Athens.The Diva and the Tycoon", by Sally Bedell Smith, New York Times, 5 November 2000 His legacy in Buenos Aires was the creation of a shipping empire and a Hellenic Culture Fund providing youth scholarships and an academic international exchange program between Argentina, Greece, Monaco and the United States; the programs are funded and administered by the Onassis Foundation and were eventually under the managing direction of his daughter Christina Onassis.
Business
Shipping Onassis built up a fleet of freighters and tankers that eventually exceeded seventy vessels. Most of the fleet operated under flags of convenience where laws and regulations are looser than those of the owners' country. More austere regulations in countries such as the United States, which afforded higher wages and safety standards, allowed access to domestic routes with higher freight rates but at far greater running expense. As was then common practice in international shipping, Onassis's fleet had mostly Panamanian and Liberian flags and sailed tax-free while operating at low cost. This and his astute business sense helped Onassis earn handsome profits in the highly competitive shipping market. Onassis made large profits when the Big Oil companies like Mobil, Socony, and Texaco signed long-term contracts known as time charters at fixed prices before the stock market fell.
The high profitability of the Onassis fleet has been attributed in large part to his disregard for standards that normally govern international shipping.Mostert, Noel (1974). Supership. Alfred A Knopf Inc. For example, after his Liberian-registered tanker SS Arrow ran aground and spilled oil into Chedabucto Bay, Nova Scotia in 1970, still the most significant oil spill off Canada's East Coast (about 25% of the amount spilled by the Exxon Valdez in Alaska in 1989), there was a Commission of Inquiry. Led by Patrick McTaggart-Cowan, executive director of the Science Council of Canada, the Commission found that the Arrow had been operating with almost none of its navigation equipment serviceable:Mostert, Noel. Ibid. Chapter 3, pp 59–60. "radar had ceased to function an hour before the ship struck; the echo sounder had not been in working condition for two months; and the gyrocompass... had a permanent error of three degrees west. The officer on watch at the time of the accident, the ship's third officer, "had no license" and none of the crew had any navigational skill except the master, "and there are even doubts about his ability."
Monaco Onassis arrived in the Mediterranean principality of Monaco in 1953 and began to purchase the shares of Monaco's Société des bains de mer de Monaco (SBM) via the use of front companies in the tax haven of Panama, and took control of the organisation in the summer of that year. Onassis moved his headquarters into the Old Sporting Club on Monaco's Avenue d'Ostende shortly after taking control of the SBM. The SBM was a significant owner of property in Monaco: its assets included the Monte Carlo Casino, the Monaco Yacht Club, the Hôtel de Paris and a third of the country's acreage. Onassis's takeover of the SBM was initially welcomed by Monaco's ruler, Prince Rainier III, as the country required investment, but Onassis and Rainier's relationship had deteriorated by 1962 in the wake of the boycott of Monaco by the French President, Charles de Gaulle.
Onassis and Rainier had differing visions for Monaco. Onassis wished the country to remain a resort for an exclusive clientele, but Rainier wished to build hotels and attract a greater number of tourists."Obituary: Prince Rainier III of Monaco.", The Times, London, 7 April 2005, p. 58. Monaco had become less attractive as a tax haven in the wake of France's actions, and Rainier urged Onassis to invest in the construction of hotels.Nuzum, Thomas (5 December 1965). "Monte Carlo Has a Good Feud, but Glamor Is Gone", The Chicago Tribune, Section 1B, p. 1 Onassis was reluctant to invest in hotels without a guarantee from Rainier that no other competing hotel development would be permitted, but promised to build two hotels and an apartment block. Unwilling to give Onassis his guarantee, Rainier used his veto to cancel the entire hotel project, and publicly attacked SBM for their 'bad faith' on television, implicitly criticising Onassis. Rainier and Onassis remained at odds over the direction of the company for several years and in June 1966 Rainier approved a plan to create 600,000 new shares in SBM to be permanently held by the state,"Mr. Onassis In Monaco Law Battle.", The Times, London, 22 August 1966, p. 6. which reduced Onassis's stake from 52% to under a third. In the Supreme Court of Monaco the share creation was challenged by Onassis who claimed that it was unconstitutional, but the court found against him in March 1967. Following the ruling Onassis sold his holdings in SBM to the state of Monaco and left the country. According to Frank Brady in Onassis: An Extravagant Life, Onassis's words about the issue were: "We were gypped."
Saudi Arabia During the oil boom of the 1950s Onassis was in final discussions with the King of Saudi Arabia for securing a tanker transport deal. Since the Arabian-American Oil Co. (currently, Saudi Arabian Oil Company, but still known as Aramco) had a monopoly on Saudi oil by a concession agreement, the US government was alarmed by the tanker deal. By 1954, a specific U.S. policy for Saudi Arabia, in addition to strengthening the US "special position," was to take "all appropriate measures to bring about the cancellation" of an agreement between the Saudi government and Onassis to transport Saudi oil on his tankers and "in any case, to make the agreement ineffective". [Doc. 128] The arrangement would have ended monopoly control of Saudi Arabia's oil by American oil companies, but was forestalled by the US government.
For this reason he became a target of the US government and in 1954, the FBI investigated Onassis for fraud against the U.S. government. He was charged with violating the citizenship provision of the shipping laws which require that all ships displaying the U.S. flag be owned by U.S. citizens. Onassis entered a guilty plea and paid $7 million.
It is alleged that Robert Maheu, a former FBI agent, worked for then US Vice President Richard Nixon on an operation aimed at ruining Onassis. Maheu helped the U.S. government sabotage a deal that had given Onassis a monopoly to transport Saudi oil. As part of his mission, Maheu was reportedly even allowed, if necessary, to kill Onassis. After a meeting with Maheu about Onassis, Nixon reportedly whispered, “And just remember, if it turns out we have to kill the bastard don’t do it on American soil.”Nixon’s Bay of Pigs Secrets//Excerpted from Nixon’s Darkest Secrets: The Inside Story of America’s Most Troubled PresidentNixons Darkest Secrets by Don Fulsom
Whaling Between 1950 and 1956, Onassis had success whaling off the west coast of South America. His first expedition made a net profit of US$4.5 million. International agreements limited the number, size and dates between which whales could be taken. The Onassis factory ship and its attendant catcher ships paid little attention to these restrictions. The Norwegian Whaling Gazette made accusations based on sailors' testimonials, such as one given by Bruno Schalaghecke, who worked on the factory ship Olympic Challenger: "Pieces of fresh meat from the 124 whales we killed yesterday still remains on the deck. Among them all, just one could be considered adult. All animals that pass within the range of the harpoon are killed in cold blood."