Archibald Roosevelt
Archibald Roosevelt Jr (1918-1990) was a US soldier and intelligence officer.
Roosevelt graduated from Harvard 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.[1]
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. From 1951 to 1953 he was posted as Consul to Istanbul, where he was the CIA station chief. From 1953 to 1958 he was officially assigned to the State Department, while in fact working for the CIA in Washington. In 1958, he was special assistant to United States ambassador to Spain, while chief of the CIA station in Madrid.
London Station
From 1962 to 1966, he was attaché, special assistant, at the American embassy in London, where he was CIA station chief.[1]
During his tenure, he was friendly with Labour's George Brown.[2] 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.[3]
During this period, CIA counter-intelligence chief James Angleton's handling of defector Anatoly Golitsin sparked a widespread molehunt in Western intelligence agencies. Roosevelt said of this: "It did affect us all in poisoning the atmosphere."[4]
After an abortive visit to London by Golitsin in July 1963, 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. Hollis replied with a cable stating there was no evidence for Golitsin's allegations.Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag
After retiring from government service in 1974, he became vice president, director of international relations, at the Chase Manhattan Bank.[1]
External resources
- NameBase ROOSEVELT ARCHIBALD B
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Michael Spangler, Archibald Roosevelt:A Register of His Papers in the Library of Congress, Library of Congress, 2008, p.4.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Robin Ramsay and Stephen Dorril, Smear! Wilson and the Secret State, Fourth Estate Limited, 1991, p.16.
