FBI Tesla file: full transcription
Full transcription of key passages from the FBI’s declassified Nikola Tesla file: the wartime rationale for the seizure of his papers, and John G. Trump’s formal evaluation, as described in FBI correspondence, concluding the papers contained no sound, workable principles for a functional weapon.
// Why This Isn’t An Outlier
This document isn’t an isolated case. It’s the same institutional habit the record shows repeating for eighty years.
Build the capability quietly. Use it at a scale the public never approved. Account for it only once a court forces the paperwork into daylight. The Classified Record traces that exact pattern from a 1946 screening memo to the 3.4 million warrantless searches the FBI ran in a single year, using the government’s own documents, not speculation.
Get the book on Amazon →Trump’s formal evaluation report has not been released in any FOIA publication. The following is transcribed from FBI memos describing his findings, not from the report itself. Source: FBI Vault, Nikola Tesla Part 01 and Part 02.
FOIA note: The full text of John G. Trump’s formal written assessment of Tesla’s papers has not appeared in the September 2016 or March 2018 FBI FOIA releases. What follows describes his conclusions as characterized in subsequent FBI memos. The report document itself remains unreleased.
Dr. John G. Trump, Technical Aide, National Defense Research Committee of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has reviewed the technical data in Tesla’s papers and has advised that, in his opinion, Tesla’s papers contain nothing of significant value to this country or which would constitute a hazard in unfriendly hands.
With reference to the particle beam weapon described in Tesla’s papers, Dr. Trump advised that the plans do not contain sufficient technical data to enable the construction of a working device, and that any configuration of such a device which could be built on the basis of information in these papers would be of very limited power, and of no military significance.
Regarding the safe at the Hotel Governor Clinton which was believed to contain Tesla’s most important technical papers, Dr. Trump examined the contents of the safe and found that it contained a multi-decade-old piece of electrical testing apparatus which, upon examination, was found not to be of any value to this Bureau or to the defense effort.
Source: FBI memos describing Trump’s findings. FBI Vault, Nikola Tesla Part 01 and Part 02. Released September 2016 and March 2018. Trump’s original report remains unreleased.
Four days after Tesla’s death. Confirms the seizure of Tesla’s property by the Office of Alien Property Custodian and acknowledges the legal question surrounding the seizure of a U.S. citizen’s papers. Source: FBI Vault, Nikola Tesla Part 01.
The Office of Alien Property Control has seized all of Tesla’s property, sealed all articles and brought them to the Manhattan Storage warehouse in New York City. In connection with this matter, it should be noted that inasmuch as Tesla was a naturalized citizen of the United States, the Office of Alien Property might not have jurisdiction over his property. However, the Office of Alien Property felt that it could keep this material from any other agency for at least two days, thus allowing sufficient time for the War Department to review the material.
It is believed that Tesla’s papers, documents and experimental apparatus are now in the custody of the Office of Alien Property. Dr. John G. Trump, of the National Defense Research Committee, has been requested to review the technical data in Tesla’s papers.
The Bureau of Investigation of the Office of Alien Property advised [REDACTED] that they had information indicating that Tesla had perfected a device of tremendous destructive power. Furthermore, it was stated that the technical details of this device are allegedly contained in a safe in the Hotel Governor Clinton, which was in Tesla’s name.
Source: FBI Vault, Nikola Tesla Part 01, pages 1 to 249. Released September 2016.
One day after Tesla’s death. Documents the Bureau’s initial response and the wartime concern about the teleforce weapon. Source: FBI Vault, Nikola Tesla Part 01.
The following information was received from a source believed to be reliable in connection with the death of Nikola Tesla, who died at the Hotel New Yorker, New York City, on January [8], 1943.
Tesla, according to this source, had performed many experiments in connection with the wireless transmission of electrical power, commonly called the “death ray,” and had claimed to have perfected such a device. The source further stated that Tesla, on one occasion, had informed [REDACTED] that his experiments had been completed and perfected. Tesla was said to have told [REDACTED] that the device was of a nature which would make it possible for a country possessing such a device to destroy large bodies of the enemy’s troops and material from a great distance.
[...] It is also recommended that a representative of this Bureau maintain constant observation of the activities of [REDACTED] who is said to have been attempting to gain possession of these papers and plans, and who, if successful, could be expected to make such information available to the enemy.
Source: FBI Vault, Nikola Tesla Part 01, pages 1 to 249. Released September 2016.
These documents establish that the FBI and the Office of Alien Property moved within hours of Tesla’s death to seize his papers on wartime weapons-proliferation grounds, that the seizure proceeded despite an internally acknowledged jurisdictional problem, and that the government’s own reviewing physicist found no workable weapon in the material within three days.
They do not establish the contents of Trump’s formal written report, which has never been released as a standalone document, nor the reason certain passages in the 2016 and 2018 releases remain redacted more than seventy years after the fact.
Collection: FBI Records: The Vault, Nikola Tesla, Parts 1 and 2
Released: September 2016 and March 2018 via FOIA
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