The FBI and the Missing Tesla Papers Page 478

veracity of the report (which was untrue), and no retraction was ever printed. For instance, in the case of the Literary Digest, the caption under the picture of the Tesla tower suggested that spies were using it to send messages to the German enemy during the Great War (see Figure 30). This paragraph may have served to injure Tesla's reputation; through "guilt by association," substantiation of the foreign-born inventor's involvement could be augmented:

The Literary Digest for September 8, 1917

TESLA'S TOWER, DESTROYED ON SUSPICION OF SERVING THE PURPOSES OF GERMAN SPIES.

Figure 30. The top part of a full page in the Literary Digest (9/8/1917, p. 25) inaccurately describing the destruction of Tesla's tower by the U. S. government because of its supposed use by German spies. See text from this page below.

THE LAST OF TESLA'S TOWER
The mysterious steel tower built by Nikola Tesla...about twenty years ago, in connection with some of his experiments, was demolished by order of the Government recently. The tower was described not long ago in these columns at the time when rumor pointed to the resumption of experimental work there. This rumor proved unfounded, and since the entrance of the United States into