HOW DO YOU BECOME UPPER CLASS?—CONDESCENSION. Mark Seal has a book coming out about the con man who passed himself off as Clark Rockefeller. The title is: THE MAN IN THE ROCKEFELLER SUIT. An excerpt from it was published in the Wall Street Journal’s WSJ magazine for June 2011. The man’s real name is Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, and he was born in Germany. What he did is amazing. After coming to the United States, he passed himself off successively as Christopher Mountbatten Chichester, a nephew of Lord Mountbatten, living in San Marino, California; as Christopher C. Crowe,, living in Greenwich, Connecticut and working at a prominent securities firm; and as Clark Rockefeller, married to a partner at McKinsey (he was married for 12 years without his wife suspecting that he was not who he seemed to be). How did he do it? Obviously, his life story illustrates just how anonymous American society can be. Another factor is that, as I posted here, he was very nice, as confidence men often are.
Another possible reason why he was able to pass himself off as a member of the highest reaches of the the American upper class is given in Mark Seal’s article. It comes from the period when he was passing himself off in Greenwich as Christopher Crowe. Seal says: “…the newcomer had sucked them in by acting as if he were better than they were.” He quotes a lady who was there: “‘He’s talking to you as if he’s smarter, wealthier, more connected, more everything than you–no matter who you are.'”