The last tycoons: the secret history of Lazard Frères & Co (11 page)

Two weeks later, Altschul wrote Henry Styles Bridges, then a first-term Republican senator from New Hampshire and former governor of the state. He wanted the senator's help in cutting the "Gordian knot" keeping Pierre out of the country. He explained he had not spoken to Pierre since the war began and that the ongoing lack of communication had started to affect the ability of Lazard in New York to function. "It is not only a matter of his interest, but a matter of mine, and our firm's interest, that he should be allowed to come here," he said. He explained he had known Pierre ever since he was "a child in the house of his father who was a partner of my father's." Altschul also addressed the apparently unstated--but real--concern of U.S. government officials that Pierre may have, at some point, socialized in Paris with the French who were now running the collaborationist Vichy regime. "Pierre always moved around in the best Parisian society and in this society were to be found, of course, the leading Fascists, and today, no doubt, the leading adherents of the Petain government," he wrote.

Altschul suggested that Pierre did not in any way share their political views. "I would vouch before anybody in the highest terms for his character and his completely loyal behavior during any visit to us," he continued. He offered to appear before any "person" in Washington in hopes of resolving the "great miscarriage of justice" that occurred by denying Pierre's visa application. He further explained that the Nazis had closed Lazard Freres et Cie in Paris and that "this firm is one in which his whole life, and the life of his father before him, centered, and it has had an honorable career from its start in the United States 100 years ago. If there were any general reasons, and there are many, to justify one's belief that Pierre's cause must be our cause, this personal reason should offer convincing proof."

That same day Altschul also wrote Adolph A. Berle Jr., a longtime assistant secretary of state. Once again, he raved about Pierre's accomplishments and those of his father. He added to the previous litany that Pierre had also been awarded the Croix de Guerre with palm for his acts of bravery during the war. With Berle, he addressed the rumor that the State Department "may not like his friends" in high French society, where "so many Fascists, appeasers and Petainists are to be found." But the crux of the matter was that the war had interrupted the ability of the Lazard partners to meet in person to discuss the changing needs of the firms. "He desires to come for a short visit for this purpose and I, and my partners, have very persuasive reasons for wishing to see him here," he concluded. "It is difficult for me to know where to turn in a matter of this sort and I could not help wondering whether it would not be possible for you to get to the roots of this matter without too much difficulty and to advise me whether there is a step which I can take to remove whatever obstacle stands in his way."

Finally, the Gordian knot appeared to be cut. Four days later, an assistant to Berle wrote back to Altschul that according to State Department records, the American consul in Marseille reported by telegraph on September 10, 1941--more than a month earlier--that a visa had been issued to "Pierre Weil" ("I believe this is same individual to whom your letter refers," according to the State Department missive). But it was a different man. Altschul wrote again that same day to the visa division of the State Department, renewing his by-now-familiar plea on behalf of Pierre, who was said to be in Lyon, not Marseille. Finally, on November 1, the chief of the visa division wrote Altschul that "after careful consideration" the State Department had given "advisory approval to the appropriate American Officer in Lyon" to issue Pierre a "nonimmigrant visa." Altschul quickly wrote a short letter of deep appreciation to Washington for the visa approval for "my good friend, Pierre David-Weill." But a visa, alas, as coveted as it was, was only the first step in the arduous process of Pierre actually arriving in New York. And there still was no word from him.

Finally, Pierre emerged from the shadows. By April 6, 1942, he had somehow made it from Lyon to Lisbon. At 11:30 at night, he sent Altschul a cable, typos and all, at his Lazard office: "Awaiting news from you. Look foreward seeing your very soon. Love to all. Pierre David Weil." But weeks went by, and Pierre was still having trouble getting a seat on the Pan Am Clipper from Lisbon to New York. Pan Am executives in Lisbon had told him that "priorities" could be granted for "urgent business trips." Pierre asked Altschul to "keep after your friends" in Washington to get him a seat as "passenger list established each time in Washington." But the priority lists kept growing, and Pierre kept getting bumped. Altschul cabled him in Lisbon, at the elegant Hotel Aviz, to suggest that he deal directly with the agent at the airport to get a higher priority. "Distressed at all these delays," he wrote.

Finally, after almost two months in Lisbon, Pierre arrived in New York on May 17 under a temporary visitor's visa. Almost immediately, Altschul set about trying to secure permanent,
immigration
visas not only for Pierre but also for his wife, the former Berthe Haardt, then forty-three; their two children, Michel, then ten, and Eliane, then seven; and for Berthe's mother, Madame Gaston Haardt, then seventy-one. Pierre was in New York, staying at the Ritz Tower hotel on Park Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street; the rest of his family was still in France.

To help get the highly coveted immigration visas, Altschul enlisted the services not only of Arthur Ballantine, one of the founders of the law firm Dewey Ballantine, but also of his brother-in-law, Herbert Lehman, then in his ninth year as governor of New York. He asked Lehman to write a letter to Breckinridge Long, the State Department's head of the immigrant visa section, on Pierre's behalf. The letter to Long, whom many criticized afterward for thwarting the immigration of Jews into the United States, "should merely try to interest him in having the case dug out of the ordinary channels and expedited," Altschul wrote to Lehman after having already sung Pierre's praises to his brother-in-law.

But even Lehman's involvement didn't help. On August 22, 1942, the chief of the State Department's visa division wrote both Pierre and Altschul, informing them that a "preliminary examination" of the requested visa "has not resulted in a favorable recommendation." But the matter had been sent for further review to the Interdepartmental Visa Review Committee, and Pierre was invited to appear before this committee, if he desired, on September 18. Pierre's personal appearance in Washington, accompanied by Altschul and Ballantine, did the trick. The official word from the State Department came to Altschul on October 10 from the chief of the visa division. The immigration visas had been approved for the entire family, with the appropriate American officials being so notified in Nice and Montreal. Altschul had pulled off the near impossible. Pierre was free to stay in the United States, and his wife and children were free to immigrate.

Four days later, though, it had all gone off the rails for Pierre's wife and children. Berthe David-Weill had cabled her husband that the French authorities had blocked the family's departure from Nice. Berthe had consciously missed the deadline to leave France because she wanted to see if she could help her son--Michel's half brother--who although not Jewish had been captured by the Nazis for his role in the French Resistance. Altschul shot off a letter to the State Department to see if the unfortunate decision preventing the rest of the family from leaving France could be reversed. But it was of no use. Pierre's wife and children were out of viable options, despite their considerable wealth and having actually obtained the coveted visas. They spent the remainder of the war in hiding. A few months after being denied the chance to leave France, Berthe and her two stepchildren left Cannes "in a huff," Michel explained, after Michel's grandmother, who was Belgian, "was on the list to be arrested as a foreign Jew." He left Cannes by train, alone with his governess, and sat silently while listening to the other passengers engage in anti-Semitic conversation. "I was not completely foolish," he said. Using falsified papers given to them by sympathizers in Nice and under the assumed named Wattel--chosen because the name started with a
W,
like Weill--the family then moved to stay with a friend, the countess of Villy, in Aveyron, a small town in the Massif Central. The Weills stayed with the countess for a few months until she found them the castlelike Chateau de Beduer to rent. While plenty nice, the chateau had no running water. They stayed there for two years, from Easter 1943 until Easter 1945. Michel's official papers explained that he was now "Michel Wattel," born in Amiens (not Paris) and in a year different from his actual birth.

Even in hiding, the family kept their maids and butler. Michel rarely went to school during the war years. "It was wonderful," he said years later. "We had a great time. It was like being on holidays and I read a lot," including the literature of Flaubert, Stendhal, and Gide. But clearly this is the perspective of a child eager to keep the horror at a distance. In reality, there was constant danger. His father was away in New York. And his stepmother worried ceaselessly that the family's Jewish roots would be discovered and their fate sealed, as happened to other family members. Michel would never forget the implications of the whispered conversations on the train leaving Cannes. In an attempt to avoid detection as Jews, Michel and his sister were baptized in the middle of the night and raised from then on as French Catholics. Michel recalled: "My father told me, 'Look, you're French. It's more practical to be Catholic. France is a Catholic country. I will get you baptized.'" (Pierre David-Weill himself converted to Catholicism in 1965.) Michel said this nighttime conversion was of no great import to him as none of his family members were particularly religious. "It was perfectly ordinary," he said. "Frankly, I had no idea I was Jewish, either. I learned I was Jewish because of the war." (To this day, Michel provides financial support worldwide to both Catholic and Jewish charities.) Hubert Heilbronn, a Lazard partner who became acquainted with Michel during this time, believed that it was in hiding, during the war, that Michel developed his legendary "indifference" to other people. Michel's half brother Jean Gaillard--Berthe's son by a first marriage--was less fortunate. As a result of his membership in the France Libre resistance movement, Gaillard was captured by the Nazis and sent first to Dora and then to Ravensbruck, where he died. Berthe never recovered from the loss of her son.

WHILE ALTSCHUL WAS devoting himself to helping Pierre and his family, Andre was slowly but surely stirring up trouble for Altschul in Lazard's offices at 120 Broadway. At first, though, Andre and his family were struggling to adjust to the New World. Upon arriving in New York, the Meyers stayed at the Stanhope Hotel on Fifth Avenue. Then they moved on to the Delmonico on Park Avenue, and then on to a few others before settling, finally, at the ultraluxurious Carlyle Hotel on Madison Avenue, where they took up residence in a two-bedroom suite on the thirty-third floor. All this meandering around the Upper East Side was evidence of just how out of sorts Andre felt beyond the world he had created for himself in Paris. He had been misdiagnosed as having cancer. He had trouble speaking English. He had no clients. Worse, nobody knew who he was or what he had accomplished at Lazard in Paris. He was no longer important to anyone. "It was all a great shock for him--Nazism, the war, France's defeat," his son Philippe explained. "On the personal side, he had been a great, great success, and suddenly everything collapsed, and he had to start all over again. And he didn't know if he had the strength or courage to do it."

Finally, sometime around May 1, 1941, Andre recovered from this malaise and headed back into the fray. He hired a new assistant, Simone Rosen, a Belgian woman who had brought her mother to the interview with Andre at the Hampshire House hotel on Central Park South. Once hired, mother and daughter Rosen set up Andre's office at 120 Broadway--not in the Lazard offices on the second floor, but rather thirty floors above. Rosen would remain Andre's assistant for the rest of his life. Indeed the press of business surrounding Andre was such that over time he hired a second assistant, Annik Percival, the daughter of his Swiss accountant.

Typically, Andre--in his efforts to regain his previous form--set his sights on the grandest prize of all: wooing as a client the much-admired David Sarnoff, the chairman of RCA. For starters, Andre donated the unheard-of sum of $100,000 to the United Jewish Appeal, one of Sarnoff's favorite charities. Sarnoff, somewhat baffled by such largesse from a man he had neither heard of nor met, sought out Andre, as Andre hoped he would, much the same way that Felix Frankfurter had sought out Frank Altschul. The two hit it off famously; RCA remained a Lazard client for decades. "Getting the RCA account then was the equivalent of getting the Microsoft account today," explained Patrick Gerschel, Andre's grandson.

Finally, two days after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Andre began to stir up the New York partners on the second floor. Although he was not then one of the five partners of the New York firm, he still had the ability to get his way, thanks to his power under section 4.1 of the rewritten partnership agreement. He sent a most provocative memorandum, on his 120 Broadway letterhead, to the New York Lazard partners that could only be interpreted as a startling preview of an inevitable showdown. It was classic Andre: at once firm and authoritative but with a touch of deference and flattery.