Editor’s Note
This excerpt offers a poignant glimpse into the deeply personal motivation behind a decade-long writing project. The author reveals a dual admiration for a father both as a towering public figure and as a parent, driven by a desire to preserve unique family memories for future generations.
My father and I were very close. I admired him, both as the “king of diamonds” and also as my father. There are things that I knew, that only I knew, and I decided to write the book for my family. It took a long time, about 10 years.
He had a vision. They didn’t cut big diamonds back in the 1920s. They cut stones as melee, but not big diamonds. There weren’t many around. What he was doing was different and revelatory.
He knew he was going somewhere, and he got there. As I write in the book, as a child, he was so poor, he wanted his glass of milk filled to the tippy tippy top, because that was his only luxury.
But he always had an inherent ability. When he was a little boy, he spotted an emerald [in a pawnshop window] that was selling for 25 cents. He bought it, and it was worth $800. The store didn’t realize it was a Colombian emerald. He had an inherent knack for seeing quality and color.
He was a simple guy. He didn’t really publicize himself. He let the diamonds and the jewels speak for themselves.
He used the press. He made stories, which got headlines. He had a sense of the dramatic: He cleaved a big diamond in public, and mailed [the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian], rather than have it carried by guards. That all made news, and people didn’t do those kind of things in those days.
[Cartier] created that story to interest [socialite] Evalyn Walsh McLean, because she was kind of a quirky lady, so her husband bought it for her. She just loved to do weird things. She would put the Hope Diamond on her favorite Labrador and let the dog wander around the cocktail parties with millions of dollars around his neck.
Most people didn’t know [he was a major wholesaler], and my father didn’t want people to know that. He would buy run-of-mine rough from De Beers. He kept the gemstones and sold the run-of-mines stuff to J.C. Penney and stores like that. So he supplied a good part of the American market with his output.
They cut him off. He was getting diamonds [as a sightholder] every six weeks, and they thought he was getting too big. They weren’t very nice. It was all about power. He found other sources in Africa, but it was a hardship.
Everyone thought: I was the wealthy son, born with a silver spoon in my mouth, let’s watch him fail.
I had a rule that I would never send people to a place I would never go myself. I knew Savimbi—he was a very intelligent and charismatic guy and warrior. He was heavily guarded in the bush in Angola. It was exciting. I wouldn’t do that today, as a father.
Ross Perot was a client of ours. I remember one of my salespeople told him that a pair of emeralds is the greatest pair of emeralds ever in the history of the world. So Ross called me: [in Texas twang] “I was told these are the finest emeralds on Earth. Are they?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Well, give me a letter.” And I said, “I can’t.” He said, “Why?’