John G. Trump
Review of Tesla papers
Following the death of Nikola Tesla in January 1943, the U.S. Office of Alien Property Custodian requested Trump’s support to examine the notes, papers, and artifacts left by the inventor.[34] Tesla had offered the U.S. Army a license to unspecified secret weapons, and officials believed his belongings might contain designs for a promised high-voltage „death ray.” Tesla had bequeathed the items to his nephew, a Yugoslavian government official.[34] OAPC was reluctant to send them to a Nazi-occupied country without prior review.[34][35]
Then a government employee, Trump was called upon for his expertise in direct-current electrical equipment, which overlapped Tesla’s work. After a three-day investigation in Manhattan, Trump reported in a classified memo to OAPC that the materials had neither military value to the United States nor would „constitute a hazard in unfriendly hands.”[34] In the memo, Trump expressed admiration for Tesla’s well-known inventions, but assessed that his late-career ideas were „somewhat promotional” and „did not include new sound workable principles or methods.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Trump
