Peter Weeps on Meeting Dr. Tesla

NEW YORK — (AP) — King Peter of Yugoslavia and Dr. Nikola Tesla, 86-year-old world-renowned inventor, wept with emotion yesterday when they met in the aged inventor's suite at the Hotel New Yorker.

Both recalled something from Yugoslavia's past, but it was Dr. Tesla who first expressed a hope for the future of the Nazi-conquered country.

“Although I am an old man, I believe I will live to see the day when you will be restored to your own kingdom and the Germans and Italians will be driven out,” he told the 19-year-old monarch.

The king presented the Yugoslavian-born inventor with an autographed photograph of himself which Dr. Tesla said he would “treasure” as long as he lived.

“The honor is for me to see so great a man who has so greatly contributed to the national honor of Yugoslavia and to the fame of our people,” replied King Peter.

At City Hall where he was welcomed by Mayor La Guardia, King Peter likened New York City to “a man who has arisen and is ready to fight.”

“Many other cities in the world seem like men lying on the ground,” King Peter said.

“New York is the strength, the force, the spirit and poetry of this great country, and all that I can say is that I am sure it will be worthy of the confidence and love which all the world has for it.”

Visiting Columbia University where he inspected an atom-smashing cyclotron, King Peter said that he would like to work on American production lines and study with students of the nation’s universities.

He told Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, university president, that in his visits at the White House and the nation’s war plants he felt he had “touched America’s strength and America’s mind.”