Nikola Tesla Articles
The FBI and the Missing Tesla Papers Page 454
July 10th, 1986
SECTION NINE
The Missing Papers
On January 7th, 1943 during the height of World War II, Nikola Tesla passed away; he was 86. Within a year, his friend, newspaper columnist John O'Neill, published his classic biography entitled Prodigal Genius: The Life Story of Nikola Tesla, and thereby presented the first major work on Tesla, from which all others must draw upon and be compared. Regarding Tesla's death, O'Neill (1944) stated:
Operatives from the Federal Bureau of Investigation came and opened the safe in his room and took the papers it contained to examine them for a reported secret invention of possible use in war. (p. 277)
Naturally, rumors persisted regarding this statement, as it appears that there was a deliberate attempt by the government to suppress the work of Tesla.
Based upon extensive files released to me through the Freedom of Information Act, and similiar data supplied by Cheney (1981), I have been able to piece together the story of why the FBI was interested in Tesla, and the probable fate of his secret papers. It is a complex event which, one way or the other, served to place Tesla's name into the ranks of "persona non grata," so that his already dwindling fame became even more deeply buried.
