Volume 5, Number 12 · January 20, 1966
Two for the Money
By D.A.N. Jones
Portrait in Oil
by Nubar Gulbenkian
Simon & Schuster, 383 pp., $6.50
Peddler of Death: The Life and Times of Sir Basil Zaharoff
by Donald McCormick
Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 288 pp., $5.95
Here are portraits of two plutocrats, two playboys of the western world, Basil Zaharoff (1850?-1936) and Nubar Gulbenkian (1896—). A first glance at their photographs, the shrewd grin between the topper and the beard, and you think of Uncle Sam. But turn a page and see them at Buckingham Palace, solemnly displaying their orders and cocked hats, and you realize that they're truly English gentlemen, almost archetypal—Sir Basil, the wicked squire, and lovable Mr. Nubar, eccentric huntsman and munificent heir. The late Sir Basil Zaharoff (alias Z. B. Gortzacoff, Z. Z. Williamson, etc.) is fretfully condemned by his biographer: this armament salesman's record of skilled work on international defense programs is dramatized into a 'portrait in evil' of a Peddler of Death. But the memoirs of Nubar Gulbenkian, who is still alive, have been warmly received in Britain; most millionaires are mean and gloomy, runs the cant, but jolly Nubar does enjoy himself. The pair are presented as vulture and macaw.
Review, 2118 words
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