Aristotle Onassis

Greek shipping magnate and businessman

• Born: January 20, 1906
• Birthplace: Smyrna (now Izmir), Turkey
• Died: March 15, 1975
• Place of death: Neuilly-Sur-Seine, France

Onassis was one of the world’s richest people, but his wealth brought him little solace as he aged. His only son was killed, and his marriage to Jacqueline Kennedy, the widow of President John F. Kennedy, soon foundered and ceased to be the loving relationship he desired.

Sources of wealth: Shipping; real estate; trade

Bequeathal of wealth: Spouse; children; relatives; charity

Early Life

Aristotle Socrates Onassis (ar-ih-STOT-uhl SOK-ra-teez oh-NA-sihs) was born into a Greek family residing in Turkey. His father, Socrates Onassis, an affluent banker and merchant, married an eighteen-year-old Greek beauty, Penelope Dologlou. She gave birth to a daughter, Artemis, in 1904 and to Aristotle in 1906. Penelope died following surgery in 1912, whereupon her husband’s mother, Gethsemane, came to Smyrna to care for Penelope’s children. Socrates remarried eighteen months later, and Aristotle considered his stepmother an interloper.

Aristotle was bright but had a rebellious streak that frequently caused him to be suspended from school. Socrates worried about his son’s education and finally prevailed upon an influential friend to gain his son’s admission to the Evangheliki School, regarded as the best secondary school in Smyrna, if not in the entire Greek-speaking world. By the time Onassis was fifteen, he was relatively competent in Greek, Turkish, English, and Spanish. He later learned French and German.

First Ventures

Although Smyrna was Turkish, in 1922 it had a Greek population of 165,000, compared to a Turkish population of 80,000. On August 26, 1922, Turkish forces commanded by Atatürk attacked the Greek army two hundred miles east of Smyrna, defeating it in a single day. Greek soldiers killed many Turks they encountered as they retreated. When Turkish forces came upon slain compatriots, they mobilized the survivors to fight the retreating Greeks. As the Turkish soldiers advanced into Smyrna, the Greeks who lived there were treated brutally. Socrates, his house confiscated by the Turks, fled to Greece with his family, abandoning his considerable fortune.

Realizing the limitations that resettling in Greece imposed upon him, Aristotle decided to immigrate to Argentina and start a new life. Socrates at first resisted but later supported his sixteen-year-old son’s decision to relocate in Argentina. Aristotle landed in Buenos Aires on September 21, 1923, and, after holding stopgap jobs as a hod carrier and a dishwasher, he found work with the British United River Plate Telephone Company. He became a night operator, leaving his days free to help revive his family’s tobacco business.

After being turned away by most of the Argentinean cigarette makers to whom he tried to sell tobacco, Onassis set his sights on contacting Juan Gaona, owner of the most successful cigarette company in Argentina. He brazenly dogged Gaona’s footsteps for days until Gaona finally agreed to talk with him. As a result of this conversation, Gaona immediately placed an order for $10,000 worth of Socrates Onassis’s Turkish tobacco. Aristotle and Gaona continued to trade for some time, with Aristotle taking his 5 percent commission following each transaction. By the end of two years, he had earned more than $100,000 in commissions. He saved this money so he would have a nest egg to finance other enterprises.

After a disagreement with Gaona, Onassis launched his own cigarette manufacturing company, and by the time he was twenty-one his net worth exceeded $1 million. In 1925, Onassis received both Greek and Argentinean citizenship. Three years later, the Greek government commissioned him to execute a trade agreement with Argentina for the import of tobacco. Grateful for his success in negotiating this agreement, Greece named Onassis consul general. By now Onassis’s enterprises had broadened from manufacturing cigarettes to trading in commodities.

Mature Wealth

In 1932, the world was suffering from the effects of the Great Depression. This was an ideal time for people with sufficient capital to make purchases at bargain prices. Onassis, who was not yet thirty, took full advantage of the economic downturn to purchase six freight ships from Canada, a plucky move because freight rates had dropped precipitously during the Depression. Realizing this, Onassis put only two of the ships he had purchased into immediate service and reserved the others for use when shipping rates improved. As his shipping business prospered, largely because he was operating under the Panamanian flag to minimize the taxes levied upon his fleet, Onassis offered the world’s lowest shipping rates without stinting on the quality of the service his operation offered. He succeeded because he was a risk taker. The risks he took, however, were carefully calculated and proved to be profitable.

Onassis was a citizen of the world. He did not consider himself irretrievably bound by rules and regulations that might thwart his enterprises. He had a personal dynamism that worked to his advantage in business dealings. He was generous in dispensing favors to the people with whom he did business. He declared quite sardonically that he would not trust anyone who would not take a bribe.

With uncertainty engulfing Europe as war seemed inevitable, Onassis made a crucial decision. He would develop a fleet of tankers for the transportation of oil, a commodity that would be in demand if a war erupted. In 1938, he had his first tanker ship built, and this acquisition was followed by his taking possession of two more tankers during World War II. Onassis benefited financially from the war, as shipping fees escalated significantly. When the war ended, he realized that a world hungry for oil would be dependent upon tankers to transport most of this oil to the places where it was vitally needed.

Onassis expanded his holdings substantially in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. In the mid-1950’s, he bought seventeen new tanker ships in a single year. He had become incredibly wealthy, and his fleet was larger than the navies of many nations. In 1953, he paid $1 million to buy a controlling interest in the Société des Bains de Mer, the organization that owned the Monte Carlo casino, as well as hotels, theaters, and other real estate in Monaco.

In 1957, he bought and operated Olympic Airways, the national airline of Greece. When Onassis took over this carrier, it had only prop-driven aircraft. Onassis knew the airline needed to switch to jet aircraft if it was to become a recognized international carrier, but this move would require at least five Boeing 727 jet planes and two Boeing 707’s at a cost of slightly more than $53 million. Olympic Airways had experienced great difficulty in borrowing money, and obtaining the loans necessary to purchase these jets was a great challenge for Onassis, exactly the sort of venture he welcomed. He used his Panamanian connections to achieve his ends, and Olympic was able to rent the seven planes it needed for $60,000 a month each, a figure that made the airline competitive with other international carriers. Onassis eventually turned this airline over to the Greek government. He had relished the struggles of making it viable, but when the excitement was gone he was ready to pursue other interests and challenges.

Legacy

Most Americans remember Onassis as the Greek millionaire who married Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of the assassinated president of the United States. However, he will be remembered longer for establishing the Alexander S. Onassis Foundation in memory of his only son, who was killed in an airplane accident in January, 1973, leaving Onassis totally devastated.

When Onassis died in 1975, his estate had an overall value exceeding $500 million. His will, handwritten by Onassis on a private jet airplane when he and Jacqueline were returning from Acapulco, left Jacqueline a bequest of $150,000 a year during the lifetimes of her and her two children. The couple’s already troubled relationship had deteriorated further during their time in Acapulco, so Onassis stipulated that if Jacqueline contested his will, she would be responsible for all of the legal fees resulting from this contest and would receive the minimal spousal bequest dictated by Greek inheritance laws, in this case 12.5 percent. After establishing annuities for his sisters, other relatives, and friends, Onassis left his daughter Christina the assets of the first of two companies he created, a bequest amounting to about 45 percent of his total assets. A comparable amount was left to finance the Alexander S. Onassis Foundation.

Bibliography

Evans, Peter. Nemesis: The True Story. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. Offers insights into the disposition and personality of Aristotle Onassis that help explain his remarkable success as a businessman and entrepreneur.

Fraser, Nicholas, et al. Aristotle Onassis. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1977. Although this biography is somewhat dated, it is a solid piece of research. Extremely useful to those interested in Onassis’s life.

Gage, Nicholas. Greek Fire: The Story of Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis. New York: Alfred Knopf, 2000. A full account of the tempestuous romance between the operatic diva, Maria Callas, and Onassis, who was her lover for a number of years. Reveals a great deal about Onassis’s attitude toward women.

Lilly, Doris. Those Fabulous Greeks: Onassis, Niarchos, and Livanos. New York: Cowles, 1970. Even though this book is dated, it provides interesting contrasts between the three major characters it explores.

Sparks, Fred. The $20,000,000 Honeymoon: Jackie and Ari’s First Year. New York: B. Geis, 1972. Interesting for its portrayal of how Onassis reacted to and partly justified the monumental extravagances of Jacqueline.