In the Footsteps of Genius Page 23

it was the last time that the OAP or any other federal agency of the United States acknowledged that it possessed Tesla’s documents on the “death rays.”

Shaulis answered Hollyday on September 11, 1945: “The material which you sought was sent to Colonel Robert Houle of the ATSC. These documents have been placed at the disposal of the Army Air Forces for certain experiments; please return them.” They were never returned.

Destroyed documentation

It is unusual, however, that four months after the photographs of the documents were sent to Wright Field, Ralph Doty, head of Military Intelligence in Washington, informed James Markham of the OAP that they had never reached their destination and, because of their “exceptional importance to this service, we request that they be sent and that we be informed if any other service is interested in these materials.”

The OAP later had considerable difficulty in explaining its role in connection with this documentation. Between 1948 and 1978 it answered many questions in various ways:

“While this service participated in the examination of certain documents of the late Dr. Tesla, we inform you that nothing of that material has been lost here and that it is not at present within our jurisdiction…”

“This bureau never had the opportunity to see anything belonging to Nikola Tesla…”

“While we had access to Tesla’s documents…”

“Photographic copies of certain documents were made while we were responsible for them…” etc., etc.

The laboratory at Wright Field was later taken over by the Aeronautical Systems Division. When Tesla’s works were requested from them, they stated that, “in view of the fact that none of Tesla’s works was found in the inherited documentation, we assume that they were destroyed at the time of the closing of the laboratory.”

All Tesla’s original records and the remaining models of inventions — the transmitter, the boat-robot, the induction motor, the turbine, the exhibits displayed at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, such as the “Columbus Egg” and others — were transferred from America to Yugoslavia in 1952. The urn with his ashes was delivered later. The artifacts are now exhibited in the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, a dignified old building at 51 Proleterskih brigada Street. Almost all the documentation has been translated into Serbo-Croatian. All this material has always been available to researchers from all over the world. In recent months the preparations have been completed for the beginning of the work on the publication of the greater part of this documentation. In six large volumes, four decades after Tesla’s death, the opportunity for a comprehensive and analytical approach to his achievements is finally provided.

Prepared by:
Aleksandar MILINKOVIĆ

LITERATURE:

1. Nikola Tesla: “My Inventions.” Školska knjiga, Zagreb, 1977, pp. 9–10
2. Ibid., pp. 12–13
3. Ibid., p. 12
4. Ibid., p. 13
5. Ibid., p. 13
6. Ibid., p. 14
7. Ibid., p. 14
8. Electrical Review, August 11, 1897, p. 10
9. Electrical Engineer, London, August 20, 1897, p. 225
10. Electrical Review, August 11, 1897
11. Electrical Review, March 29, 1899, p. 197
12. O’Neill, Genius, pp. 161–62
13. Mining Scientific Press, January 15, 1898, p. 60
14. Century Magazine, “Tesla’s Oscillator and Other Inventions,” April 1895, p. 922
15. Microfilmed letter, Mark Twain to Tesla, November 17, 1898, Library of Congress, Washington
16. “Science and Sensationalism,” Public Opinion, December 1, 1898, p. 684
17. N. G. Worth, “An Inquiry About Tesla’s Electrically Controlled Vessel,” Electrical Review, New York, November 30, 1898, p. 343
18. Tesla, Inventions, pp. 84–85
19. Letter, Tesla to B. F. Meissner, September 29, 1915, Library of Congress, Washington
20. New York Times, February 1, 1944, editorial
21. Letter, Tesla to Leonard Curtis, 1899
22. Group of patent applications in this field, nos.: 454,622; 462,418; 464,667; 512,340; 514,167; 514,168; 567,818; 568,176; 568,178; 568,179; 568,180; 577,670; 583,953; 593,138; 609,245; 609,246; 609,247; 609,248; 609,249; 609,245; 609,251; 611,719; 613,735; and those relating to wireless message transmission: 645,576 and 649,621
23. Tesla, “Inventions,” pp. 64–67
24. Ibid.
25. Tesla, “Diary from Colorado Springs,” pp. 127–33, 165; edition of the Nikola Tesla Museum with “Nolit,” Belgrade, 1978
26. James Wait, “Propagation of ELF Electromagnetic Waves and Project Sanguine (Seafarer),” IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, vol. OE-2, no. 2 (April 1977)
27. Tesla, “Diary from Colorado Springs,” p. 29
28. Microfilmed letter, Westinghouse Electric Company to Tesla, November 28, 1921, Library of Congress, Washington
29. Tesla’s letter to Westinghouse, ibid.
30. “100th Anniversary of Nikola Tesla — Ivan Meštrović,” Zagreb, April 11, 1956, pp. 1–2
31. At Meštrović’s request a bronze copy was made. It is in the Technical Museum in Vienna. The bust was unveiled on June 25, 1952, by Tesla’s nephew Sava Kosanović
32. “Memories of Tesla,” Kenneth Swezey, Belgrade, 1957, pp. 38–39, 45–48
33. K. M. Swezey, “Nikola Tesla,” Psychology, October 1927, p. 60
34. Much later, after Tesla’s death, Swezey endeavored to verify this in the archives
35. Nikola Tesla, “Story of Youth Told by Age,” Smithsonian Institution
36. O’Neill, Genius, pp. 309–10
37. Jule Eisenbud, “Two Approaches to Spontaneous Case Material,” Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, July 1963
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid.
41. Notes of Edward Tamm, addressed to D. M. Ladd, January 11, 1943
42. Margaret Cheney, Tesla: Man Out of Time, Prentice-Hall Inc., 1981