But the rest of the Wikipedia article on Tesla reveals that "Tesla's estate" (packed into 80 trunks) were finally remanded to Tesla's heirs in 1957. Since Tesla was reduced to living in hotels, his "estate" would have consisted of his clothes, books, and papers. If the "missing papers" are really in Serbia, with Tesla's heirs, the "search" may have been in all the wrong places.

Professor Trump was asked by the FBI to assess Tesla's papers to determine if they would pose a threat if in the hands of a hostile power. Not an unreasonable precaution since Tesla was foreign-born. He concluded they would not be a threat. There is no suggestion that he kept the papers. Therefore, it is reasonable to accept that they were included in "Tesla's estate" and sent to Serbia. No one else had a right to possess them.

We never needed Tesla to "accurately project lethal beams of energy through the atmosphere." Those are called laser weapons and their development has been an open subject since the invention of the laser in 1960 (by Gordon Gould or Theodore Maiman, a matter of controversy), under the sponsorship of the U.S. Air Force. The largest example constructed and flown was YAL-1A. Nobody is taking this to the grave. (Tesla didn't believe in atomic theory, so it would be unlikely that he could have understood how a laser works.)