The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich

Any prosecutor or any politician who had granted Rich safe conduct would have faced the toughest of criticism. It is probably naive for a fugitive to hope for such mercy. However, I remember the words of Avner Azulay: “No humane person would have denied such a request. Marc didn’t kill anybody. He is not a terrorist.”
    I spoke about the case with the Swiss minister of justice who was involved in Rich’s case in the mid-1980s. I wanted to know how she would have reacted to just such a request. Elisabeth Kopp-Iklé answered without a moment’s hesitation, “As minister of justice I would have granted safe conduct in a similar case. Otherwise I would not have been able to face myself in the mirror anymore.” I replied by saying that a decision of that nature would have put her under immense political pressure. She looked at me for quite some time, considering, then said, “There are situations in which humanitarian issues must take precedence over political issues. If this is no longer possible, then you have to ask yourself why you are even involved in politics.” Her answer echoed in my head long after our discussion had ended. I was happy that I was not a politician.
Daughter’s Grave Moved to Israel
     
    “Doesn’t help me,” Rich says with a bitter tone when I tell him how the former minister of justice reacted. Rich had also missed the death and burial of his father in New York in September 1986. David Rich was alwayshis son’s greatest role model both as a father and a businessman. Marc, an only child, wanted nothing more than to prove to his father that he was successful in business. He wanted his father’s recognition. Yet Rich was unable to attend his father’s funeral and say the Kaddish, the traditional prayer of mourning that only a son can recite. “It is an extremely important prayer,” a religious friend of the Rich family explained. “It is the last service that the son can perform for the dead father. For Marc it was a tragedy that he was not able to be there.” Rich had no other option than to recite the Kaddish over the telephone.
    As I quickly discovered, Rich does not like talking about the deaths of his father and daughter. There was, however, one question that I had to ask. Can one ever be happy again after losing a child? “The pain still lingers after all these years. I’m happy again, but less than I used to be when she was around,” Rich says. Not many people are aware that the Rich family had their daughter’s grave moved after Rich was pardoned by President Clinton. Gabrielle’s grave is now located in Israel near Tel Aviv, where Rich, an Israeli citizen, can visit as often as he likes—and with no one to disturb him. “I regularly visit,” he says. The possibility of traveling to the United States to see his family was one of the most important points in the petition for his pardon. The petition states that the pardon “will allow Mr. Rich and Mr. Green to be with their families.” 2 Even so, Rich has not set foot in the United States since the pardon (see chapter 18 ).
Blind Date with Denise Eisenberg
     
    Marc and Denise Rich first met on a blind date, which is not uncommon in Jewish circles. It was December 1965, and Rich had flown back to New York from Madrid to celebrate Hanukkah with his parents. Paula Rich was beginning to worry about the fact that her son had not yet married, so she organized a meeting with Denise’s father. Rich was thirty-one years old and running Philipp Brothers’ Madrid office. DeniseJoy Eisenberg, a dark-haired, almond-eyed beauty with a cheerful temperament, was a good ten years younger. She was studying French at Boston University.
    Denise came from a solid Jewish family that had found prosperity in America. Her father, Emil Eisenberg, was an entrepreneur who owned one of the country’s largest shoe manufacturers, the Desco Shoe Corporation. Eisenberg had founded the company in 1942 shortly after the family had immigrated to the United States. The Riches and Eisenbergs had strikingly similar family histories, for the Eisenbergs were also German-speaking Jews from the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia. Emil Eisenberg was born in Tarnow, an important trading town that is now a part of Poland, in 1912. The town was only one hundred miles from Przemyl, the birthplace of Marc Rich’s father. Just like David Reich, Emil Eisenberg was able to escape the Holocaust and make his way to the United States.
    Eisenberg moved to