The FBI and the Missing Tesla Papers Page 467

Soviets finally on our side. But I knew that book critics would seize eargerly upon the $25,000/Amtorg business and it would be misconstrued in the context of today's "Evil Empire" hysteria. This will happen too no doubt if your thesis is published since book reviewers are often lamentably superficial. (12/6/1984)

Cheney agreed with me that Trump appears to be shortsighted in his somewhat skimpy report regarding such potentially important research,

but again I think the political context should be considered [with regards to Trump]: it was wartime, he was swamped with his duties on the Federal research commission, Tesla's papers consisted of tons of material; and perhaps most decisive of all was the fact that for several years Tesla's once scintillating reputation had been in decline. (Cheney, 12/6/1984)

Thus, Cheney apologized for Trump and appears to do the same for Tesla. She noted that Tesla had repeatedly offered this device unsuccessfully to the United States and further that he had a right to earn a living and sell his inventions to any reputable buyer. As she points out, the Soviet Union was not considered an enemy of the United States in the 1930's. Whether or not they still have the original papers (if they ever received actual explicit plans) can not be determined. The Amtorg Trading Company seems to be still operating, possibly so the FBI can maintain some kind of monitoring on Russian activities in America, Cheney also said.

However, if Tesla really did receive $25,000 from Amtorg in 1935 why wouldn't he have paid off his $400 debt to the Hotel Governor Clinton and retrieve his secret device held there as collateral? An amount as large as $25,000 at the height of the depression was probably worth at least ten times that figure today, yet there is no indication that Tesla obtained great wealth during that period. Therefore, it is possible that Tesla never sold the weapon to the Soviet Union, but that instead, the Trump report either erred or was tempered with. If intentional deception was involved, the creation of a false lead would be achieved (i.e., the Soviet connection), and Tesla's reputation would be tainted. The inventor was known to be notoriously extravagant (Terbo, 1984), and it is possible that he could have sold the weapon as stated and then spent this great amount of money in ways that would be difficult to detect today, 50 years after the fact.