Monte Carlo

"work. In his mind’s eye he could see Monte Carlo awakening from the unnatural slumber and reverting to the glory of the past. One of his exciting visions was of a new outer harbor big enough to accom¬ modate the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth and attracting a big international cruising clientele. There was not a port in the Mediter¬ ranean capable of taking big passenger liners without subjecting them to the noise, smoke, and dirt of a commercial harbor, as in Genoa, Naples, Marseilles, or Barcelona. In Villefranche and Cannes the swell was so strong that it was impossible to embark or disembark pas¬ sengers during more than six hours at a time. Onassis visualized oceangoing liners coming in like yachts and staying while their pas¬ sengers flew on quick excursions to Paris, London, Rome, anywhere in Europe. It would put Monte Carlo among the great international harbors of the world and, he reckoned, attract two thousand visitors to Monaco every day. A man whose visions quickly solidify into hard figures, he worked out that even at twenty-five dollars a head a day, even without gambling, this represented a secure income of fifty thou¬ sand dollars a day. The project might require an investment of at least thirty million dollars but this was not an amount to deter Onassis."

"been full. He was in one of his jocular moods: “I am in business only in a little way,” he told a reporter who mentioned his hundred ships, “that’s no more than eight percent of the world’s merchant fleet,” he added, “just a tiny bit.” Monte Carlo, he said, was just a hobby."