Nikola Tesla
In September of 2016, the FBI finally released the substantial file it has on Nikola Tesla, the Serbian-born inventor and businessman. Tesla had died in a New York City apartment in January 1943 at the ripe old age of 85. Almost straight away, the Agency’s agents rushed to his property. They reportedly carried away two truck loads of documents, including notebooks and other material. All of this was added to the information the FBI already had on the inventor of the AC electricity supply system.
Above all, when the file was finally made public, some 73 years after Tesla’s death, it showed just how eager the FBI was to get their hands on his research. Just as importantly, the Agency’s agents went to great lengths to keep his pioneering work out of other people’s hands. In particular, one letter, addressed to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover himself, mentions Tesla’s “death ray” invention. The note warns Hoover that the proposed weapon could be of “vital importance” to the U.S War Department, though it could also be useful to “other nations now controlled by dictators”.
The Director was also advised that the FBI should keep a close eye on Tesla when he lived in New York. More specifically, the documents show that agents were concerned about the inventor’s nephew, who they feared could steal his research and try and sell it to America’s enemies. But perhaps what’s most interesting about the FBI file on Tesla is what it doesn’t contain. In the decades after his death, conspiracy theories emerged alleging that the US government was keeping his “death ray” technology a closely-guarded secret. In the end, however, there was no real Death Ray, as the file makes clear. Interestingly, the MIT scientist who looked over Tesla’s research papers and concluded they would be of no use in the creation of a superweapon was a certain John Trump, the uncle of the future President.