Vincent Astor
Vincent Astor (1891-1959)[1]
Astor was at the centre of an informal intelligence network known as "the Room" or "the Club", which worked with British intelligence and President Roosevelt in the spring of 1940.[2]
During World War Two, Astor served as intelligence co-ordinator for New York, with special responsibility for severing financial connections with the Axis powers.[3]
Astor was one of a number of people enlisted by William Stephenson to push for William Donovan's appointment as Roosevelt's intelligence co-ordinator.[4] Roosevelt briefly considered appointing Astor himself to the job.[5]
On 9 May 1941, Astor sent Roosevelt a clipping from the New York Herald Tribune calling for the US to appoint an intelligence co-ordinator. The article by George Fielding Elliott was probably a British intelligence plant.[6]
At a New York fundraiser in the autumn of 1951 for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), Vadim Makaroff denounced the IRC as a "Marxist front-outfit", leading Astor to announce he would withhold his contribution, driving the organisation to the brink of financial collapse. Makaroff had access to Astor through Serge Obolensky, a prominent Russian monarchist and supporter of Makaroff's Tolstoy Foundation who had been married to Astor's sister.[7]
IRC board member Adolf Berle subsequently wrote to Astor pointing out that William Donovan was on the board of directors and that the organisation had the support of General Walter Bedell Smith (who had recently been appointed CIA director. Astor remained unconvinced despite subsequent meetings with Berle and David Martin.[8]
External Resources
- NameBase ASTOR VINCENT
- Jeffery M. Dorwart, The Roosevelt-Astor Espionage Ring, New York History, Quarterly Journal of New York State Hstorical Association, Volume LXII, Number 3, July 1981, Cooperstown, New York 1981, Pages 307-322. Archive at Cryptome.
Notes
- ↑ Thomas E. Mahl, Desperate Deception, Brassey's 1999, p.190.
- ↑ Thomas E. Mahl, Desperate Deception, Brassey's 1999, p.171.
- ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.106.
- ↑ Thomas E. Mahl, Desperate Deception, Brassey's 1999, p.19.
- ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.106.
- ↑ Thomas E. Mahl, Desperate Deception, Brassey's 1999, p.20.
- ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.105.
- ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.107.
