The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich

of these subjects, and he only refused to answer my questions when he thought he might have a legal reason for doing so. He spoke openly about his dealings in the world’s troubled regions and admitted to having made deals with Iran, South Africa, Angola, and Cuba. He spoke for the first time about the legal case against him—insisting that he never evaded paying taxes and had never broken any laws.
    I interviewed dozens of oil and commodities traders from the United States, Africa, Europe, and Asia who had worked with Rich in one capacity or another during the last forty years. They told me about the milestones in Rich’s life, his most important business partners, and his decisive business deals. They introduced me to the intricacies of the commodities trade. I had to accept the fact that most of them wished to remain anonymous. Commodities traders, I learned, take more pains to avoid publicity than even Swiss bankers. In this business—which often brings together clients who officially will have nothing to do with one another—discretion is one of the most important prerequisites for success. I read countless—sometimes confidential—documents concerning Rich’s case and his companies.
    In order to find out more about the private Marc Rich, I spoke with his daughters Danielle and Ilona as well as with his close friends, includingthe legendary hedge fund pioneer Michael Steinhardt. My conversation with Denise Rich, a very impressive woman, was of particular significance. She spoke frankly about her life with her former husband, their bitter divorce, and her role in obtaining Rich’s pardon. Ursula Santo Domingo—Rich’s first secretary, a Spanish marquesa—told me of Rich’s early days as a trader. A former officer of the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, provided insight into Rich’s very special relationship to Israel and the crucial services he provided to the Jewish state. Finally, the attorneys Jack Quinn—Bill Clinton’s former White House counsel—Robert F. Fink, and André A. Wicki tried to convince me of how flawed the case against their client actually was.
    Naturally I spoke with Rich’s opponents, such as his “nemesis,” Morris “Sandy” Weinberg Jr., who as a young assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York led the investigation into Rich’s dealings and wrote the indictment against him. 7 I spoke with former U.S. Marshal Ken Hill, who for fourteen years secretly sought to detain—or even kidnap—Rich. I spoke to members of the judiciary and diplomats in the United States and Switzerland who told me off the record what they could not tell me publicly. I spoke to competitors and former employees who had fallen out with Rich.
    The result of all the conversations and research is an epic story of power, morality, amorality, and ingeniousness in which many things are not as they appear. It is a story in which private lives collide with global politics. It is the saga of Marc Rich.

 

     

The
BIGGEST DEVIL
     

    I
t is one of the coldest mornings of the year in St. Moritz, and I’m walking to my car. The snow crunches under my feet, and my breath hangs before me in a cloud of mist. It is eight degrees below zero Fahrenheit in the world’s oldest and most glamorous ski resort, and I can almost hear the air crackling. I have to scrape away a thick layer of ice from my car windows before I get in. I curse quietly under my breath to hide my nervousness, and I hope the car will start despite the bitter cold. “Please,” I beg, as I turn the key. The man I have arranged to go skiing with in the Swiss Alps hates nothing more than people being late. This much I already know. Speaking of his ex-wife, when I once asked him about his divorce, he said, “She is always late. Always.” 1 There was no irony in his voice.
    Arriving late is not an option. Not here and not now. In half an hour I am going to meet Marc Rich, the twentieth century’s most powerful, most important, and most notorious oil trader. No one before and none since has ever been as successful as Rich, and none has stirred up such strong emotions around the world. Friends and colleagues admire him for his unique genius that virtually revolutionized international trade. Enemies despise him and consider him an unscrupulous profiteer who wouldsell his own grandmother—if the deal was good enough. It seems as if Marc Rich, now seventy-four years old, can only be seen in terms of black or white. The