MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, The Great Napoleon Rescue

 

I have a mission, should you decide to accept it. Succeed and you will be rich beyond your wildest dreams. Fail and you will spend the rest of your life in the deepest darkest prison on earth. Assuming you live.  The object of this mission is a 48 year old white male, being held prisoner on a remote volcanic island (above).  It has no port and only one small beach. 

The nearest land is Ascension island, 800 miles to the northwest. The nearest port is 1,200 miles to the east on the African coast. Your mission must be accomplished without using aircraft or balloons, motorboats, radio, high explosives or electricity. You see, it is 1817, before all of those tools were invented.

Your mission is to rescue Napoleon Bonaparte from his prison on the island of St. Helena.

It is hard to imagine today the terror Napoleon Bonaparte inspired in the British ruling class. He had not a drop of royal blood in his veins, and no privileged education. Yet, in 1796,  as a lowly general the "Corsican Ogre" humiliated and defeated an entire Austrian Army in northern Italy. 

Then in 1798, like a new Pharaoh, he conquered Egypt. 

He was elected Emperor of France in 1804, and six months later crowned King of Italy. For almost two years his Grand Army threatened an invasion of England. 

Then suddenly "Le petit Corporal"  spun about and almost without firing a shot, captured Vienna and an Austrian army of 30,000 men. 

A month later his Grande Armee' of 65,000 men was cornered in Czechoslovakia by a combined Russian and Austrian army of 85,000 men. In a matter of hours he forced them to surrender. After surrendering, Czar Alexander was forced to admit, “We are babies in the hands of a giant.”

The famous quatrains of Nostradamus were quoted as predicting Napoleon's rise: “An Emperor will be born near Italy”. Everywhere he went Kings were overthrown, kingdom's collapsed, and fortunes evaporated. Napoleon closed Europe to all English trade, and cost English bankers vast treasure, not even counting the wealth they had to spend on ships and men of their own. To the English Napoleon was the “bogeyman of Europe.” 

In 1814, after fifteen years and five million dead, Napoleon was finally cornered and forced to abdicate.

He was  exiled to the tiny island of Elba, 12 miles off the coast of Italy.  

A year later he escaped, and in the famous "One Hundred Days" reconquered France, recruited a new army of 72,000 men, invaded Belgium and defeated a Prussian army of 84,000 men. 

Finally, at the “very close” battle of Waterloo, on Sunday, 18 June, 1815, Napoleon was stopped only by the sacrifice of another 45,000 lives. This time the British were determined to lock “Boney” away where he could never escape.

The prison they picked in 1816 was St Helena (above), a wind swept tropical volcanic island rising 2,000 feet out of the south Atlantic, a third of the way between Africa and South America. 

Its arid coastal cliffs were cleaved by a half dozen V shaped canyons where rivers fell from the humid forested interior. Lord Liverpool, the British Prime Minister,  assured his cabinet, “At such a distance and in such a place, all intrigue would be impossible.” But they were still taking no chances.

Napoleon and his small retinue were watched round the clock by 2,800 soldiers and 500 cannon headquartered in a fort overlooking his single story mansion called Longwood near the Island's center (above). A British officer was required to set eyes upon Napoleon twice a day. 

He was not allowed out side after sunset, nor if there was an unidentified sail on the horizon. He was never allowed near the shore, even the high cliffs. . Eleven British warships patrolled the seas around the island.  

Residents of the island's only village, Jamestown (above), were allowed out after 9 pm only with a signed pass.  At sunset every boat on the tiny island was secured under guard and every bridge and gate was locked. 

But, of course, from the moment of his imprisonment there were those who wanted to set “The Thief of Europe” free again. As the small fleet carrying Napoleon sailed for St. Helena, they were forced to evade "The True Blooded Yankee", a privateer sailing under revolutionaries out of Buenos Aires. It was likely the ship had been financed by Napoleon's brother Joseph, one time King of Spain, who had escaped to America with 20 million francs.  A group of retired French officers, who had emigrated to Texas were also raising funds and plotting further escape attempts. 

And there were others, more surprising, such as the legendary British Admiral Thomas Cochrane (above), AKA “the Sea Wolf”.   Two years after this brilliant officer commanded the naval squadron that burned Washington D.C.  in 1814,  Cochrane was convicted of stock fraud, and forced to resign from the British Navy. 

Bitter, he sold his skills to Chile, where he founded their navy and helped win their independence from Spain.  And word was that the now aging Cochrane (above) was willing to assemble a fleet to free Napoleon so he could lead the revolutionaries in South America to establish a new empire.

But the man all the would-be rescuers sought out was a common smuggler named Tom Johnson (above). He'd been born to Irish parents living in southern England, and had become a successful smuggler by the age of 12. The revenue agents caught him twice, but after his second escape he somehow managed to reach France. 

Using his knowledge of the English coast Tom Johnson quickly again became such a successful smuggler that while Napoleon was planning his invasion of England, he met with Tom and offered him a command in the French navy.  Tom said no, so Napoleon threw the smuggler into prison. 

After nine months Tom escaped yet again, and was later caught by a British warship almost within sight of America. But this time the Admiralty was desperate enough to grant Tom a pardon and put him on the payroll. And one of the first jobs they gave him was to review a new invention being offered to save England from Napoleon's invasion fleet - a submarine.

In 1800 American Robert Fulton (above) built a working prototype for the French revolutionaries. The four man crew of the Nautilus were supplied with air up to 25 feet under the surface via a snorkel. Underwater she was faster than a row boat on the surface, and while on the surface the Nautilus was powered by a sail which ingeniously popped up from a deck hanger. But Napoleon took one look at the leaky thing and decided Fulton was a fraud. He ordered the prototype destroyed. That was when the British offered Fulton the modern equivalent of $10 million if he could build one for England.

Maybe the Admiralty never thought it would work, and they hired Fulton just to keep him occupied. But the inventor still brought to the task his experience and plans for an even bigger submarine. The Nautilus II (above) would be 35 feet long, with a crew of six, two snorkels, a bigger sail and could remain at sea for up to 20 days. At Dover, the master smuggler Tom Johnson went over the plans with Fulton, and they discussed them in detail. 

But after the British Navy destroyed the French and Spanish fleets at the battle of Trafalgar (above), they had no need of Fulton's submarine. Discouraged, Fulton took the offer to build a commercial surface steam boat in New York. But the smuggler Tom Johnson was still interested in the idea. That, plus Johnson's reputation for audacity,  convinced some body that the old smuggler should be offered the equivalent of $3 million to rescue Napoleon.

The plan conceived by Johnson involved two submarines. The larger one, ala the Nautilus II, would approach St. Helena at night from the leeward side (above), and then submerge at dawn. 

The next evening, the first submarine would resurface and launch the smaller sub (above), which would land Johnson and another man at the foot of the cliffs on the north side of the island . 

Johnson would ascend the cliff, where he would install a bosun's chair. Then he would make his way to Longwood, where he would slip past the British guards. The next evening, Johnson and Napoleon would sneak out for the cliff. Napoleon would be lowered in the chair, and be spirited away before dawn.

In 1818 the Times of London reported on rumors of a plot to rescue Napoleon, and ex-Admiral Cochrane's wife assured several people that such a plan existed.  It might all have been a fantasy, except we know from British Admiralty records that early in 1820 a commission of senior officers reviewed expense accounts for a submarine, built by Johnson. 

And leading that commission was General Sir George Cockburn (above), the soldier who had burned down the White House in 1814, while under orders from his brother Admiral Thomas Cochrane. The records show Johnson was asking for 100,000 pounds, and the sailors gave him just 4,735 pounds. But clearly there was at least one submarine in existence in 1820, and Johnson had control of it.

It seems unlikely that Johnson’s submarine could have accomplished the rescue mission.   More than likely, Johnson's plot was a scam to obtain money from Napoleon's supporters, or the British. But if Johnson had not intended upon trying, why, late one night in November of 1820, did Tom Johnson try to steal his own submarine?  

He got as far as London Bridge (above), when the navy caught up with him. And according to a Thames boatman who witnessed the scene, “Captain Johnson...(was) threatening to shoot them. But they paid no attention to his threats, seized her (the submarine) and taking her to Blackwall, burned her.” Thus ended the impossible mission.

And  remember Ascension Island,  800 miles to the northwest of St. Helena?  Well, in 1815 British marines were sent ashore to occupy it, in the unlikely event that some one might wish to use it as a base to rescue Napoleon. And as they splashed ashore they reported some one had left a written a message in the beach sand; “Le mai l'Empereur Napoleon vit pour toujours”  It translated as, “May the Emperor Napoleon live forever!”

He did not. Napoleon Bonaparte died on St. Helena in May of 1821, possibly of stomach cancer, or possibly from arsenic poisoning: by whom is any one's guess. Tom Johnson was sent to debtors prison, and while there seems to have contributed to a fanciful retelling of his plan to rescue Napoleon. Perhaps, just to shut him up, upon his release ,Johnson was granted a pension of 20 pounds a month, and retired to Southern England.  In 1832 Admiral Thomas Cochrane was restored to his full rank in the British Navy, and was later even promoted to Real Admiral. He died in 1860.

Considering the entire tale from beginning to end, I have to say, had it not involved Napoleon, I would have called it impossible. But with Napoleon, nothing was ever impossible.

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THE GREAT SILVER HUNT

 

I think billionaire Nelson Bunker Hunt (above) would prefer to be remembered as a man who did not smoke, drink or gamble, even though he owned, bred and raced a thousand thoroughbred horses. He was the son of a flagrant womanizer, who had openly produced two completely separate families, and a third in secret  - fifteen children in total by three wives,  In response to his father's sins,  Nelson was a major financial supporter of Fundamentalist Christian political groups. 

Nelson was friends with and a financial supporter of white  supremacists Senators Jesse Helms, of North Carolina and Strom Thurmond, of South Carolina. He was also a major financial supporter of the right wing conspirational John Birch Society.   And he was famous for searching his couch cushions looking to recover lost change, his own and visitors.

Said a family member; “Sometimes he’s brilliant. The rest of the time you wonder whether he’s really there with you or not.” Said a business partner; “He doesn’t just want some of it. He wants it all.” 

Said his father, legendary oil man and bigamist Haroldson Lafayette Hunt Jr. (above); “I could find more oil with a road map, than Nelson could with a platoon of fancy geologists”. Said Nelson himself; “Worrying is for people with strong intellect or weak character.”

But maybe the key to his personality was that Nelson Baker Hunt was born a second son. Nelson’s eldest brother - his father’s “run away favorite” -  Hassie Hunt (above, left), was an oil wildcatter and “a millionaire in his own right by the age of 21.”  And then this older, smarter brother developed schizophrenia and his desperate father decided to treat him with a lobotomy. Since that "Hail Mary Pass" of treatment, Hassie spent the rest of his life under 24 hour nursing care.  

Thus Nelson (above) became the replacement son.  But he was never his father’s favorite. And that may explain why one dark night in 1974 Nelson and a staff descended upon New York City in three charted 707 jets,. When the jets took off again, they flew 40 million ounces of silver to Nelson's leased vaults in Switzerland.

Now, silver is a commodity, like wheat or oil or steel. You can buy a commodity, and you can even sign a contract pledging to buy it at a set price some time in the future. These futures are a bet as to what the price of that commodity will be. The vast majority of futures traders never intend upon taking delivery of the actual commodity. They merely bet on the market, providing producers and buyers a hedge against price fluctuations of the actual commodity. People who buy gold on TV  ought to remember that.  

In most cases,  these bets stabilize the market, which is good for everybody. And to encourage trading in futures, they are bought at only a percentage of the set price, called a “margin”.  But Nelson was willing to suffer the expense of transportation, storage and insurance, by actually taking delivery on his silver, because he believed in a doomsday fundamentalist theology,  that the world’s financial markets were going to collapse. Paper money would become worthless. And if all that happened, a commodity like silver would still have intrinsic value.

In 1974 the world wide production of new silver was 245 million ounces, while annual consumption was 450 million ounces. The imbalance (67%) was made up through recovery of “scrap silver”, everything from recycling industrial applications to melting down family heirlooms. 

But that imbalance also meant the control of a tiny percentage of the world’s silver could swing the price. This meant that every ounce of silver that Nelson bought and now stored in his Swiss vaults was another ounce removed from the market. And that drove the price of the remaining silver up. As the price went up, the silver in Nelson’s vaults increased in value. 

Nelson Bunker Hunt (above) cashed in on that increase by using it as collateral for loans, which he used to buy more silver and silver futures. Which took even more silver off the market. Which made Hunt's silver even more valuable. He was gambling that the price would always go up, and he seemed to have enough control of the game, called leverage, to insure that it did.

The price rose from $6.22 per ounce in November of 1971 to $11.00 per ounce by the end of 1979. Nelson now controlled 1/3 of all the silver in the world not sitting in various government vaults. 

But Nelson’s manipulations had not gone unnoticed. Tiffany, which made money selling silver art (above) to consumers. They took out a full page ad in the New York Times naming Nelson, and stating, “We think it is unconscionable for anyone to hoard several billion, yes billions, of dollars worth of silver and thus drive the price up so high that others must pay artificially high prices for articles made of silver.” 

By the end of December 1979 the price of silver had risen to over $50 an ounce. Five years after that first late night silver flight, Nelson (above, right) and his younger brother (above, left) had earned between two and four billion dollars in paper profit from the (by then) 100 million ounces of silver they had in their Swiss vaults, And they had  future contracts to buy much more at even higher prices.

But while Nelson had been buying silver futures “long”, betting that the price would go up, he was also squeezing the manufacturers - like Tiffany's - who needed silver today. They would have to pass their price increases to the millions of customers who used their products, all in the name of higher profits for Nelson Baker Hunt, his family and friends.  Unchecked, Nelson's speculations held the potential to bring the evangelical doomsday visions to reality.  

On 7 January, 1980, the five year old United States Commodity Trading Commission, which had oversight of all futures markets in America, issued “Silver Rule 7” which increased the margin required for silver futures. Just four days later the price of silver had fallen back to $25 an ounce.

As the value of Nelson’s collateral began to plummet, the brokerage houses and banks which had made him loans to buy silver futures, now issued a $100 million "margin call" on those loans. In effect, Nelson would either have to cough up that $100 million,  or fulfill the contracts, and take delivery on and pay for $1.7 billion in additional silver.

Early on the morning of Thursday 26 March, 1980, before the commodity markets opened, Nelson’s younger brother and partner, Herbert Hunt (above),  placed a telephone call to the chairman of the Futures Commodity Trading Commission and asked him not to open the silver market. The reason given for that extraordinary request was that the Hunt brothers would not be meeting their margin calls that morning – “would not”, Hunt had said, not “could not.” 

As John Bloom noted in an article he wrote for the magazine “Texas Monthly” “Here was one of the leading spokesman for unbridled free enterprise in America, asking a federal regulator to close a market. If the federal government would not do that, then he simply wouldn’t pay up.”

That day, the silver markets did open. And immediately collapsed. The price of silver futures fell to $10.20 an ounce. The day passed into history as “Silver Thursday”.

As the Federal government attempted a postmortem, they discovered that Nelson Hunt had assets of $1.5 billion, and now owed $2.43 billion. In addition he owned 6.5% of one of the brokerage houses which had loaned him money on the Silver Futures, a fact never revealed to the Security Exchanges Commission, which was supposed to regulate those houses. That was illegal. 

The feds also discovered that Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker (above) had met with Nelson several times in an attempt to find funding to save him from bankruptcy. 

As Time Magazine noted, Volcker’s “continual monitoring of the situation was interpreted by bankers to mean that the Federal Reserve…favored some kind of bailout to keep the Hunts from going under…(which) showed that when big speculators lose millions, “telephone calls come to Paul Volcker for a quick fix.”  Those banks put together a one billion dollar line of credit to save, not the Hunt brothers, but the brokerage house he had defaulted. Yes, it has all happened before. Several times.

The aftermath to Bunker Hunt’s silver manipulation is also informative. The banks went after the Hunt’s fortune, seeking return of another billion dollars lost in their game. Like all good defendants, Nelson countersued, accusing the banks of lending him money which they knew he couldn’t possibly pay back.  It was an absurd argument, but it allowed Hunt’s fifteen lawyers to negotiate a reduction of the repayment. 

In 1998 a federal jury found Herbert Hunt (above, left), Lamar  Hunt (above, center) and Nelson Baker Hunt (above, right) guilty of fraud and conspiracy to monopolize the world's silver market. Nelson was banned for life from ever trading in futures again. And finally Nelson Bunker Hunt was personally forced into Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Nelson was certainly not reduced to poverty. The extended family remains wealthy and politically well connected.  A reporter for the Dallas Morning News found in March of 2009 the 83 year old living “in relative modesty in a North Dallas house with his wife of 57 years”. Nelson insisted he had no regrets.

In better times, Nelson Baker Hunt said, “People who know how much they're worth, aren't usually worth that much.” Stephen Susman, one of Nelson’s lawyers, said, “These people are gamblers. If you’re a gambler, you take your shot.” Except, of course, when these rich folks win their gambles, it's their money. When they lose, it's ours.  

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