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 1955 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]
External Resources
- NameBase ASTOR VINCENT
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.
