Archibald Roosevelt
Archibald Roosevelt Jr (1918-1990) was a US soldier and intelligence officer.
Roosevelt read English at Harvard under Maurice Bowra.[1] He graduated in 1939 and went to work for the New York Herald Tribune. He joined the US Army in 1942, serving in North Africa and the Middle East.[2]
Roosvelt joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947. From 1947 to 1949, he was an attaché at the American embassy in Beirut. From 1949 to 1951 he was Chief of the Near East Section of Voice of America.[2] He presided over an expansion of broadcasting in Armenian, Georgian, Azerbaijani, Tatar and Uzbek.[3]
From 1951 to 1953 he was posted as Consul to Istanbul, where he was the CIA station chief.[2] According to Tim Weiner, he stated that every Muslim leader who would not support the United States was regarded "as a target legally authorized for CIA covert action."[4] He later wrote in his memoirs that the Israelis were deficient in their intelligence on the Arabs because they viewed them as "alien, threatening, hateful and inferior".[5]
From 1953 to 1958 he was officially assigned to the State Department, while in fact working for the CIA in Washington.[2] According to Stephen Dorril, he was Deputy head of the Near East Division under his cousin Kermit Roosevelt at around the time of the 1953 Iranian coup.[6] In the summer of 1956, he was responsible for supervising the CIA-backed coup attempt in Syria.[7]
In 1958, he was special assistant to United States ambassador to Spain, while chief of the CIA station in Madrid.[2]
London Station
From 1962 to 1966, he was attaché, special assistant, at the American embassy in London, where he was CIA station chief.[2]
During his tenure, he was friendly with Labour's George Brown.[8] In 1962, when Chester Cooper and Sherman Kent flew to Britain to brief the government during the Cuban missile crisis, Roosevelt invited Brown and Hugh Gaitskell to his home to view the pictures.[9]
During this period, CIA counter-intelligence chief James Angleton's handling of defector Anatoly Golitsyn sparked a widespread molehunt in Western intelligence agencies. Roosevelt only learned that Golitisyn was in London in July 1963 when it leaked into the British press.[10]
On his return to London, the defector told CIA director John McCone that Gaitskell had been murdered and his successor as Labour leader, Harold Wilson, was a Soviet agent. McCone subsequently sent a cable to MI5 head Roger Hollis. the cable went via Roosevelt, and was taken round to MI5 by his deputy, Cleveland Cram. According to David Wise, Hollis replied with a cable stating there was no evidence for Golitsyn's allegations.[11] According to Tom Mangold, Hollis had a meeting with Roosevelt, who sent a cable to Washington denying Golitsyn's five main allegations.[10]
Roosevelt said of the Golitsyn episode: "It did affect us all in poisoning the atmosphere."[12]
Later career
From 1966 to 1974, he worked for the CIA in Washington, again under State Department cover.[2]
Roosevelt occasionally lunched in Washington with Angleton, who he regarded as a social alcoholic.[13]
After retiring from government service in 1974, he became vice president, director of international relations, at the Chase Manhattan Bank.[2]
Connections
- Kermit Roosevelt - cousin.
External resources
- NameBase ROOSEVELT ARCHIBALD B
Notes
- ↑ Frances Stonor Saunders, Who Paid the Piper: The CIA and the Cultural Cold War, Granta, 2000, p.237.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 Michael Spangler, Archibald Roosevelt:A Register of His Papers in the Library of Congress, Library of Congress, 2008, p.4.
- ↑ Richard J. Aldrich, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence, John Murray Publishers, London, 2001, p.321.
- ↑ Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, Penguin, 2008, p.147.
- ↑ Andrew and Leslie Cockburn, Dangerous Liaison, The Bodley Head, 1992, p.170.
- ↑ Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Fourth Estate Limited, 2000, p.584.
- ↑ Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Fourth Estate Limited, 2000, p.628.
- ↑ Robin Ramsay and Stephen Dorril, Smear! Wilson and the Secret State, Fourth Estate Limited, 1991, p.16.
- ↑ David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.63.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Tom Mangold, Cold Warrior - James Jesus Angleton: The CIA's Master Spy Hunter, Simon and Schuster, 1991, p.86.
- ↑ David Wise, Molehunt: How the Search for a Phantom Traitor Shattered the CIA, Avon Books, 1992, pp.124-125.
- ↑ Robin Ramsay and Stephen Dorril, Smear! Wilson and the Secret State, Fourth Estate Limited, 1991, p.16.
- ↑ Tom Mangold, Cold Warrior - James Jesus Angleton: The CIA's Master Spy Hunter, Simon and Schuster, 1991, p.134.
