by Roland Perry
Dorothy told him that if he forced Rose to resign, a corporate trustee would have to be appointed. She might have to close down The New Republic. Whitney thought that was a good thing.4
The family met again the next day in London. Whitney had made it clear he was not bluffing about a lawsuit. Straight conceded that it was acceptable for Whitney to say he did not want his share of the trust supporting The New Republic, but he didn’t find it acceptable that Whitney sell his share of the trust to the rest of the trust beneficiaries for cash. Straight claimed that they didn’t have the cash and that there was no way of measuring what the share was worth.
There would, it seemed, be an impasse unless the magazine and some other losing assets were sold off. The money from such divestments after costs would be plowed back into the trust’s principal amount to in part make up for the losses incurred on the magazines.5
A day later Dorothy turned up at a meeting with her solicitor, Ian Wilson, as did Whitney with his advocate, Tom Overy. Straight had Rose beside him. (Beatrice had flown back to New York the day before.) Dorothy gave a speech at the beginning, stating why she had created The New Republic and the Whitney Foundation and why she had made outright settlements on her children. She claimed that she had set up Trust 11 for her grandchildren; the income from the trust was for her children to spend. But she had seen to it that none could get his or her hands on the principal.
This put the onus on Whitney, who wanted to bust the trust and take a share of the principal. He deferred to his lawyer, who said much the same thing as Whitney had at the two previous meetings: the trust had been run in the interest of Beatrice (bearing in mind the Dolivet fiasco) and Straight (the New Republic financial farce); the interests of Whitney and his family had been ignored and hurt. Nothing would be left for Whitney’s children under the administration of Straight and Rose. That was the pressing issue, Overy informed the others.
Ian Wilson tried to deflect the argument, but Overy brought it back to his client’s main point of grievance: because Whitney’s heirs could only obtain 20 percent of the income, all “deficient operations” (such as The New Republic and United Nations World) were “intolerable.”
Rose had been “delinquent,” Overy noted. Whitney had been kept in the dark; information had been withheld from him. Dorothy protested at the attack on Rose. Overy continued, ever so politely. He said his client, “he felt certain,” was entitled to sue for breach of trust because of losses incurred by the two magazines. He hinted that Whitney would use his power as a “life beneficiary” to block the reorganization of the trust and the appointment of Rose and Straight as new trustees. Whitney would go to court, object to the trust accounts, and force a sale of The New Republic.6
Wilson, Rose, and Straight retorted that he could not block anything. Straight began a little speech of his own urging Whitney to state that in fairness he had no interest in The New Republic. Whitney listened and again turned his case over to his lawyer, who repeated the complaints about Rose and Straight as trustees. “How can I agree to a trust management that sanctioned $250,000 in expenditure on United Nations World ?” Whitney asked plaintively.
Straight once more conceded that Whitney should be allowed to segregate his interests in the principal money in the trust, but he added that Rose and the reorganization, that is, Straight’s own appointment as a trustee, should go ahead. After that, the meeting broke up, the main problems unresolved.
Whitney, however, had made up his mind. He was not going to stand for the loss-making operations any more. Further legal threats were made, this time on paper. Whitney was determined to sue if he could not get out of the trust with his share. He would see The New Republic sold, along with Antiques and the Old Westbury property, which was another “deficit operation.”7
In return, Rose and Straight could run the whole show. Whitney didn’t care; he would be out.
Finally, Dorothy and Straight were forced to agree. William Elmhirst, now in his mid-70s, remembers supporting Straight against Whitney. “We were all left and liberal-minded, and Mike was the family standard-bearer,” Elmhirst remembers. “We thought he was doing all those wonderful things in America. Whitney on the other hand mixed with an entirely different set in London. All conservatives. I could not understand his motives for splitting the family and the trust. None of us could. He was painted as the villain of the piece.”
However, in April 1951 Whitney, it seems, held all the aces. Elmhirst believes that “Whitney used his threat [over Straight’s KGB links] of exposure to force my mother to agree to his breaking out from Trust 11. But as far as I know she never confronted Mike and asked for the truth. This would suggest that Whitney threatened to expose Mike without declaring in what way. He may have been constrained out of brotherly feeling.”8
Whitney’s win meant he then had to face a costly legal maneuver to extricate himself and his share from the family trust.
A month later, in May 1951, Burgess and Maclean defected from England to Russia after Venona messages from Maclean’s control to Moscow had been deciphered. His code name, HOMER, had been uncovered. The information Maclean was sending, coupled with evidence from Walter Krivitsky a decade earlier, allowed British intelligence to narrow down the suspects to him and another foreign office operative. Modin arranged their departure. Blunt and Rothschild had learned from Dick White and Guy Liddell at MI5 that Maclean was under surveillance, so Blunt alerted him. Burgess, initially his chaperone for the trip, went all the way to Moscow with him.
If Maclean alone had defected, the ramifications for the rest of the Cambridge ring would have been minimal. But Burgess’s departure pushed the crisis for the KGB into a new dimension. Instead of one lead to links, MI5 had two, and Burgess’s connections were greater. It didn’t take long to learn that Burgess and Blunt had been lovers. Burgess had spent his recent months in Washington living with Philby and his wife. Rothschild and his wife Tess had been close to Burgess and Blunt, and so it went. Many in the ring fell under suspicion and were questioned. Philby was interrogated, MI5 had discreet chats with Blunt, and Rothschild was interrogated eleven times. Cairncross was followed, and Modin narrowly avoided being caught with him in a public toilet near Ealing Common underground in London.
The disappearances of Burgess and Maclean shocked Straight. His mentor may have finally revealed his true allegiances. What if Blunt were arrested? Would he name names? Once the dust settled, Straight felt secure. Only a full confession could endanger him, and while Blunt’s lover Burgess was alive, this would be unlikely. He was expected, perhaps, to return to London. Blunt’s devotion to Burgess and affection for Philby would see him carry on the deception, it seemed, indefinitely.
Now two members of the Cambridge ring had shown they were willing to declare their allegiance to another country, something to which Straight had said he was vulnerable because of his claimed lack of roots. Philby, perhaps the most dedicated to the cause of all, would sooner or later be under pressure to follow.
19
A TAXING TIME
Rose and Straight did not waste any time in obeying Whitney’s dictums following his threats. They put Old Westbury up for sale in May as soon as they returned from the United Kingdom. Straight went on a search for a buyer for The New Republic. He wished to secure a sale to a “wealthy liberal” and had plans to carry on in some way with the magazine. Without the magazine, he was just another wealthy dilettante with creative aspirations as a writer or painter. With it, even if he were sneered at by right-wing politicians, there was still an air of respectability and importance about the owner or editor of a magazine such as The New Republic. It also gave him entrée anywhere he wished. Now he had to get rid of it. He flew around the country seeing prospective buyers, including Averell Harriman in New York, without luck.1
Then in mid-1951, Gil Harrison and Straight went as delegates of the AVC to Rome for a conference of the World Veterans Association. Harrison’s fiancée, the wealthy heiress Nancy Blaine, accompanied the
m. Harrison had no real background in journalism apart from editing a student newspaper, the Daily Bruin, at the University of California. Yet he was keen to take over The New Republic.
It depended on his marrying Blaine, a dedicated liberal. She was the granddaughter of the rich Anita McCormick Blaine, a communist who set up the New World Foundation and financed Henry Wallace’s campaign for the presidency in 1948. It was a near-perfect pedigree for Straight’s purposes.
Whitney kept the pressure on Rose and Straight through 1951 as they attempted to appease him by their efforts to sell the properties. In December, Rose rang Straight to tell him that the magazine “was in worse shape than we had supposed.” He wanted it closed down and thought at best they could keep it going until the spring of 1952. Without being able to draw on the funds of Trust 11, Straight had to take drastic action at the magazine.2 He fired staff, including the long-serving Helen Fuller. The magazine appeared poverty-stricken now compared to its halcyon, high-spending days in 1947.
Meanwhile Straight continued to be active, using The New Republic and the AVC as vehicles for his views. He was having minor political influence. In early 1952, he (again) called for Truman to withdraw from the campaign for the presidency. Straight preferred Adlai Stevenson, the governor of Illinois, whom he regarded as a man of rare distinction. He greeted Straight like a long-lost relation. His grandfather was vice-president under Grover Cleveland and was close to Straight’s grandfather. Straight demonstrated he was learning the value of attacking Joseph McCarthy as opposed to his attempts to appear as if he were against communism. It was proving popular and safe, from his point of view.
Straight called McCarthy “a beast of the political underworld.” The line was picked up by the newspapers. Straight seemed to enjoy the thrust and parry with the extreme right in the United States, especially with Rose sending threatening letters if encounters became too rough or close to sensitive areas. A far-right-wing journal called The Cross and the Flag quoted a small section of an article by Straight in The New Republic that praised Dwight Eisenhower. The journal’s piece was headed “Even Red Mike Likes Ike.” Rose wrote a letter saying the use of the term “Red” had been held to be libelous per se in a New York court. Straight’s positioning in the AVC and The New Republic were then used to show he had a record opposing the Communist Party. The journal published a retraction as demanded by Rose, but its editor noted he was delighted to oblige. It was well established, the journal remarked, that the most dangerous reds were the anticommunist reds. Straight claimed that this upset Rose but that he found it hilarious.3
Whitney was kept at bay by the sale of Westbury in April 1952, then Harrison married Nancy. Later in the year, Straight had secured a commitment from him that he would buy the magazine as soon as Anita Mc-Cormick Blaine died and Nancy came into her inheritance from the estate. In July, Rose visited London and Dartington to inform Whitney, Dorothy, and their lawyers of their progress in selling assets.
A package sent by registered mail arrived at the office of the William C. Whitney Foundation in October 1952. It contained a disconcerting twenty-four page questionnaire from the Select Committee of the House of Representatives created to “investigate tax-exempt foundations.” This was a euphemism for challenging the right of organizations to avoid tax while funding communist fronts. Straight found most questions “tiresome rather than threatening.” But a few worried him and Rose. Question 9 wanted to know if they had investigated the organizations they were funding to see if they were “subversive” or if they had been “cited” (that is, named by the HUAC or the Senate’s Subcommittee on Internal Security as subversive or potentially so). Question 14 asked if the Whitney Foundation had made any “grants, gift, loan, contribution or expenditure” to anyone or a group that had been cited.
Rose and Straight, secretary and president of the Whitney Foundation respectively, were summoned to appear before the Select Committee on December 5, 1952. Straight characterized it as controlled by southerners with chips on their shoulders concerning wealthy foundations whose board members lived in the North and East. Nevertheless some of committeemen were genuinely concerned with uncovering and preventing subversion.
At 9:30 a.m. they were ushered into the office of Harold M. Keele, counsel to the committee. Keele motioned for them to sit in chairs opposite his desk while he perused their responses to the questionnaire. Then he looked at them like a schoolmaster about to chastise a couple of schoolboys. Keele told them that his purpose was to bring about corrective action rather than to punish those who were guilty of past errors. If they would cooperate, there would no public humiliation at the hands of certain committee members. Rose and Straight thanked him. Keele turned to page nine. The answer from them to a certain question, he said, saddened him. Who was the board member who had joined so many fronts that had been cited?4
Straight told him it was the well-known columnist Max Lerner, who had willingly submitted a list of his past political affiliations. Straight described how Lerner had been reviled by the Communist Party and its allies. Keele cut him short. The Whitney Foundation, he said, had supported the Highlander Folk School, the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, and a number of other organizations to which the Select Committee took strong objection. Keele had the impression from Straight’s written responses that Lerner had advocated making the grants to these cited groups. If Straight and Rose conceded that much, and if corrective measures were taken (that is, if Lerner were fired from the Whitney Foundation), then no public examination of their grants would be called for.
That gave the witnesses pause. Whatever the impression they had given in the responses, Straight was forced to admit that Lerner had not been responsible for the money grants by the foundation to the cited organizations that were either communist fronts or controlled by communists. For that reason, he should not be fired. Straight was quick to add that they could not concede that the cited groups were improper. Whitney grants were made to organizations certified as educational or philanthropic (and therefore tax-exempt) by the treasury board.
Keele shook his head. There was nothing more to be said.
At 10:35 a.m. the Select Committee was called to order in a hearing room, with the Honorable Aime J. Forand presiding. Next to him were Keele and two other representatives, Messrs. Simpson and O’Toole.
Straight was pleased that the chairman of the committee, Eugene Cox of Georgia, was not present. He had promised the press he would give the witness a good working-over. That was before Thanksgiving, Straight noted callously, when Cox had eaten too much turkey. He had died of a stroke.5
There were several journalists and photographers present as Straight and Rose took their seats at a table facing the committee. A teletypist sat beside the witnesses, tapping out shorthand.
Keele asked Straight the amount of his foundation’s assets: it was about $1.5 million. He was then asked his average annual income over the past five years. Straight thought it was $60,000, but Rose corrected him and said it was $75,000. Keele wanted to know about the directors at the foundation. Straight explained that his mother put her philanthropy work on a more institutional basis in 1927 when she set up an advisory committee concerning gifts. It consisted of Ruth Morgan, “well known in various international peace organizations”; the writer Herbert Croly; and Dr. Eduard Lindeman of the New York School of Social Work. The committee became a foundation in 1936 when Dorothy set up all the family trusts. The five directors were Rose; Thomas J. Regan, a New York banker; Max Lerner; Straight; and his sister Beatrice.
The foundation had $60,000 a year—from investments of the capital—to give away, mainly to tax-exempt organizations. The average grant was about $1,500. Straight pointed out that they liked to give money to “labor organizations, particularly in the field of labor education.” This included propaganda material about Russia. Typical was the Labor Education Service. Others were the National Planning Association and the AVC, which had received “substantial” contributions.
&
nbsp; The questions and answers wallowed in inconsequential areas for some time before Keele brought up the fact that the foundation had given twenty grants to six groups that had been cited. He mentioned a few of them—the Southern Conference, the League of Mutual Aid, and Frontier Films. He then asked about grants to cited groups that Straight and Rose had left off the list. Straight replied: “I think you are referring, sir, to the American Council of the Institute of Pacific Relations, and that is a fact. That was an inadvertence on our part due to, I think, a careless reading of your questionnaire.”6
Keele: And that was as late as 1948, wasn’t it? Straight: Yes, sir . . .
The reporters present began to sit up and scribble. Rose and Straight were beginning to look uncomfortable. A photographer positioned himself near their table.
Keele: Why was it that as late as 1948 you were still making grants to the American Council?
Straight gave a long answer extolling the virtues of the IPR and saying it was “very much more than the American Council.” He then concluded that whether or not the foundation would give it further grants was “an open matter.”
Keele: You also failed to list in your answers—did you not?—a grant to the IPR in 1943?
Straight: That is correct. That 1943 grant, I think, was related to the Mount Tremulant Conference [of the IPR], which I described.