F. Trubee Davison

Frederick Trubee Davison (February 7, 1896 to November 14, 1974) was born in New York City, graduated from the Groton School in 1914, and was a member of Skull and Bones in the class of 1918 at Yale University and a graduate of Columbia Law School (1922). He organized the First Yale Unit of naval aviators, was a member of the New York State Assembly from 1922 to 1926 and Assistant Secretary of War for Air from 1926 to 1933, chaired the National Crime Commission, and was president of the American Museum of Natural History from 1933 to 1951. He was promoted to brigadier general in the Army Air Forces on June 3, 1945, and from July 1951 to April 1952 served the Central Intelligence Agency as Assistant Director for Personnel.¹²³⁴ He was the son of Henry P. Davison, a senior partner of J. P. Morgan & Company and a chairman of the American Red Cross War Council.⁵

Family and the Morgan partnership

The family collection at the Pritzker Military Museum & Library records that Henry Pomeroy Davison was born in Troy, Pennsylvania in 1867 and began as a bookkeeper in a bank managed by a family member.⁵ He met his future wife, Mary Kate Trubee, at a bank in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and they married on April 13, 1893.⁵ Three years later the couple moved to New York City, where Davison held a position at the Astor Place Bank, later became president of the Liberty National Bank and took part in founding the Bankers Trust Company.⁵ The finding aid states that he became a senior partner of J. P. Morgan & Company in 1909.⁵

Kate Trubee Davison organized the Nassau County chapter of the American Red Cross in 1917 and chaired it for twenty-seven years, according to the same finding aid.⁶ The finding aid lists the children as Alice, born in 1899 and married to Artemus L. Gates in 1922; Henry P. Davison Jr., born April 3, 1898; Frances, born in 1903 and married to Ward Cheney in 1926; and Frederick Trubee, born February 7, 1896.⁷

The finding aid traces the career of Henry Davison Jr. in some detail. He served in the American Ambulance Corps in France during the First World War and spent a year at Cambridge University. In 1929 he became a partner at J. P. Morgan & Company, in 1940 a vice president and director when the firm became an incorporated bank and trust company, in 1953 senior vice president, and in 1955 president. After the firm merged with Guaranty Trust Company he was elected vice chairman of Morgan Guaranty Trust, and he died on July 2, 1961.⁸

The finding aid says that Henry Davison attended a secret meeting at Jekyll Island, Georgia, in 1910, and states: "Many believe this meeting led to the creation of the Federal Reserve."⁹

Antony C. Sutton's 1983 chart of families places the Davison family under J. P. Morgan, beside the Rockefeller family and the Payne family under Standard Oil, the Harriman family under railroads and the Weyerhaeuser family under lumber.¹⁰ In his text Sutton wrote that "some of his partners were" members of the society, and that the senior Davison's "son H.P. Davison, Jr. was initiated in 1920."¹¹

On May 10, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson appointed a War Council for the American National Red Cross. In his 1919 history of the organization, Henry Davison wrote that "I was asked to take the chairmanship."¹² He wrote that the council "went out of existence on February 28th, 1919."¹³ The first War Fund drive, held in the week of June 18 to June 25, 1917, reported subscriptions of approximately $114,000,000 according to the same appendix.¹³ Davison wrote that the council met at Red Cross headquarters during the day, and that in the evenings "we continued them at my house in Washington."¹⁴

The family estate was at Peacock Point, Locust Valley, New York, on Long Island; a Yale News article reproduces a photograph captioned "Henry P. Davison in helmet, and Albert Ditman in glasses by F-boat at Peacock Point, Long Island, ca. 1916."¹⁵ The Navy history describes the Davison home at Locust Valley and the family memorabilia kept there.¹⁶

Yale and Skull and Bones

Davison entered Yale in the class of 1918, and the crew he joined in June 1916 became the core of the aviation group he went on to lead.¹ Sutton's index of members by class year lists "Davison, Fredrick Trubee" under the class of 1918 and "Davison, Harry Pomeroy" under the class of 1920.¹⁷ The younger brother appears as "H.P. Davison, Jr." in Sutton's text.¹¹

The Yale Alumni Magazine reported in May 2006 that Marc Wortman, researching Davison's war years in the F. Trubee Davison Papers at Sterling Memorial Library, had found a letter dated June 7, 1918, from Winter Mead, class of 1919, to Davison. The magazine quoted the letter's account of a skull "exhumed from its tomb at Fort Sill by your club," with the magazine's bracketed expansions of its abbreviations.¹⁸ The magazine reported that the yearbook entries for Charles C. Haffner Jr., Mead and Davison confirmed that all three were members of the society, and that Haffner's entry placed him at the artillery school at Fort Sill between August 1917 and July 1918.¹⁸ The magazine also stated that Mead was not at Fort Sill.¹⁸ The letter is one of the documents cited in the rumor that members took Geronimo's skull from Fort Sill.

Davison's sons are also recorded as members. The Covert Action Information Bulletin, in its 1990 article on the society, stated that two of Davison's sons, Endicott Peabody Davison and Daniel Pomeroy Davison, were also Bonesmen.¹⁹ The Yale Alumni Magazine identified Endicott Peabody Davison, class of 1945, as a son of Trubee Davison, and reported that he took part in a meeting with the San Carlos Apache chairman Ned Anderson at which the Bonesmen produced a display case with a skull "like the one in the photo."²⁰ Sutton's post-war list of Morgan partners includes Henry P. Davison, Jr. (The Order '20) and Daniel P. Davison (The Order '49).²¹

Sutton's chart lists Henry L. Stimson among the old-line families, and the Yale obituary record for 1950 to 1951 lists Stimson, class of 1888, with Skull and Bones among his activities.¹⁰²²

The First Yale Unit

The Navy's account of naval aviation in the First World War calls Davison "the young man most responsible for the formation of the unit."¹⁶ The Yale crew was in training on June 13, 1916, when President Woodrow Wilson ordered additional troops to the Mexican border. Davison recalled that "It could never be said that the race with Harvard was forgotten," adding that "it did lose magnitude as the prospect of war with Mexico loomed larger."¹⁶ Several crew members had agreed beforehand that they would enter aviation if war came.¹⁶

The original group included Allan Ames, Henry P. Davison Jr., John Farwell, Artemus L. Gates, Erl Gould, Robert A. Lovett, Albert Sturtevant, John Vorys and C. D. Wiman. The Navy history adds Wellesley Laud-Brown and Albert Ditman as the two non-Yale men.¹⁶ Among the men consulted about how the group could learn to fly was John Hays Hammond Jr., then governor of the Aero Club of America, who referred the youths to Henry Woodhouse. Woodhouse and Robert Peary had proposed a line of air stations along the East Coast, and the Yale men were to be trained as pilots of the first Aerial Coastal Patrol Unit.¹⁶

Rodman Wanamaker, who ran a flying school at Port Washington, New York, supplied one Curtiss flying boat and the instructor David McCulloch.²³ The Navy history describes the summer at Locust Valley and the unit's maneuvers off Sandy Hook with a fleet of battleships, destroyers and coastal patrol boats.²³ That fall the unit received two seaplanes from friends and neighbors, one of them from Davison's father, then a partner in the J. P. Morgan firm.²³

The Navy history lists further members who joined as 1917 arrived, among them Charles Beach, Graham Brush, Reginald Coombe, David Ingalls, Robert Ireland, Francis Lynch, Kenneth MacLeish, Archibald McIlwaine, Curtis Read, Russell Read, William A. Rockefeller, Kenneth Smith, W. P. Thompson, C. M. Stewart and Samuel Walker.²³ Davison conceded that the coastal defense idea was remote from the trouble with Mexico, and said that "But the plan was essentially sound and during the World War I period was adopted by the Navy Department."¹⁶

Davison had seen war-ravaged Paris on trips to Europe with his father, and in 1915 he joined the American Ambulance Field Service, transporting soldiers to hospitals outside Paris.²⁴ The Yale News account states that on March 24, 1917, at the Naval Submarine Base New London in New London, Connecticut, the pilots formally enlisted as the Navy's first air reserve squadron, and that Davison was given the rank of lieutenant, junior grade.²⁴ Seven others were given the rank of ensign and the rest were made petty officers.²⁴ In March 1917 the unit moved to West Palm Beach, Florida, under a Navy lieutenant, E. O. McDonnell, and its members were enrolled in the Navy.²⁵ At Palm Beach the pilots flew solo, practiced shooting at kites with machine guns mounted in airplanes, dropped dummy bombs on targets and learned to land in tight spaces.²⁶

The Yale News account adds that the unit was also the subject of the society's tapping. On April 19, 1917, Tap Day in New Haven, two representatives from Yale arrived in Florida to tap students at noon. Davison was the first tapped for Skull and Bones, and eleven other members of the First Yale Unit were tapped with him.²⁷

The Yale News photograph captions record that Kenneth MacLeish was shot down over Belgium and was never found.²⁸ The Navy history states that Sturtevant was the first naval aviator brought down in combat and that David Ingalls became the Navy's first ace.²⁹

The crash of July 28, 1917

Paine records that the flying tests for naval aviators were to begin on July 28, 1917, before a board of Commander Read, Lieutenant Commander Johnson and Lieutenant McDonnell.³⁰ Davison was injured in a seaplane accident at Huntington, New York on that date, on his final examination flight.³¹ The Navy history states: "It was ironic that Davison was one of the few of the Yale unit who never earned his wings. He was injured in a crash on his final examination flight."³¹

Ralph D. Paine's 1925 history of the unit, The First Yale Unit, describes the flight. Davison climbed steadily, came down in a spiral toward a yacht near which he meant to alight, and appeared to stretch his glide too far on a turn. The machine side-slipped and pitched into the harbor, and Lieutenant McDonnell plunged in to free Davison's legs from the wires.³⁰

Paine quotes Davison's own report to the Commandant of the Third Naval District, which reads: "I was injured in a seaplane accident on July 28th, 1917, while on duty with the detachment of the Naval Reserve Flying Corps at Huntington, Long Island, and was removed to St. Luke's Hospital, New York."³² A Navy memorandum quoted by Paine states that a Board of Medical Survey recommended two months' sick leave, extended by periods of two months because the injury "would keep him unfit for duty for a considerable length of time."³³ Paine describes him as "a man with a broken back," the fracture of a vertebra having injured the tissues of the spinal cord, and records six weeks in the hospital before he could be moved to his own home.³⁴ The Air Force biography states that he was "badly injured, suffering a broken back, in the crash of a seaplane he was piloting on a training flight over Huntington Bay, New York," and that he was awarded the Navy Cross in 1919. The citation credits him with "exceptionally meritorious service in a duty of great responsibility in the organization of the first Yale Aviation Unit which formed the nucleus of the first Naval Reserve Flying Corps, from which the U.S. Naval Aviation Force, Foreign Service, afterwards grew."³³⁵

Paine wrote that during the period of training "their able leader, Lieutenant Trubee Davison, crashed and broke his back," and that in spite of the handicap "he continued to direct and inspire his comrades."³⁶ Paine also recalled Davison limping into his office in London after the Armistice, still badly crippled, to locate the grave of a member of the unit killed in France.³⁷

Davison never received his wings. In 1966, at the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the naval air reserve, Vice Admiral Paul Ramsey, then Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Air), presented him with a set of Navy wings and designated him an honorary Naval Aviator. The Navy history lists the wings among his memorabilia at Locust Valley, along with five college diplomas, his Army and Navy commissioning papers, a citation for the Navy Cross and his Yale letter for crew.³⁸

New York State Assembly

The Nassau County 2nd District seat in the New York State Assembly is listed for "F. Trubee Davison" from 1922 to 1926, after Theodore Roosevelt held it for 1920 and 1921.³⁹ The family finding aid gives the same span.²

In August 1925 Time reported that the organizers of the National Crime Commission had chosen Davison as chairman, a man of twenty-nine who was then a member of the New York Assembly.⁴⁰

Assistant Secretary of War for Air

The Air Force biography records that Davison "on July 16, 1926, was appointed Assistant Secretary of War, having previously spent five years in the New York Legislature," and lists "Assistant Secretary of War (Air) from 1926 to 1933."³ The Congressional Directory corrected to January 13, 1933 lists F. Trubee Davison as Assistant Secretary of War in the War Department, and the edition corrected to June 3, 1933 lists the office of Assistant Secretary of War as "[Vacant.]" beside a separate entry for The Assistant Secretary of War, Harry H. Woodring.⁴¹ A 1951 Associated Press item and the 1974 New York Times obituary both gave the span as 1926 to 1932. The Springfield Sun of July 1951 placed him in the "Coolidge and Hoover Administrations," and the Navy history gives the service as "late in the '20's and early '30's," for six years.^42434445

In August 1932 Time reported that David Ingalls had resigned as Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Aeronautics and taken the Republican nomination for Governor of Ohio, while Davison, "remaining in the Cabinet," had declared himself a candidate for the Republican nomination for Governor of New York, in a telegram to James L. Downey, the Nassau County committeeman who had offered to withdraw as candidate for Attorney General to give Davison the head of the ticket.⁴⁶

A telegram of March 26, 1927, from the Secretary of State to the chargé in Haiti, printed in the Foreign Relations of the United States for 1927, opens with the words "For Secretary of War Davis." It relays a message to Admiral Williams that "Henderson with 1,500 marines will be sent, arriving Shanghai in about 30 days," and states that a regiment of infantry from Manila could reach Shanghai in seven days if the situation demanded. The message is signed "Davison," and the volume's editorial note identifies the signatory as "F. Trubee Davison, Assistant Secretary of War."⁴⁷

Other Yale Unit members held the parallel posts. David Ingalls was Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air from 1929 to 1932. Robert A. Lovett served as Assistant Secretary of War for Air in the Second World War and was Secretary of Defense from 1951 to 1953. Artemus L. Gates was Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air from September 1941 to July 1945.⁴⁴ John Vorys, another member of the unit, served four terms as a Congressman from Ohio.⁴⁴ Lovett's post was held in the War Department under Henry L. Stimson, who served as Secretary of War from July 10, 1940, to September 21, 1945.⁴⁸

Yale News reproduces a photograph taken December 12, 1928, of "Assistant Secretary of War for Aviation F. Trubee Davison, Charles Lindbergh, Harry Guggenheim, and Edward T. Warner, assistant secretary of the Navy for aviation" in Washington.⁴⁹ The Air Force biography adds that Davison was commissioned a colonel in the Specialist Reserve Corps of the Army on September 12, 1927, and that he was chairman of the National Crime Commission from 1925 to 1936; Time reported in August 1925 that the organizers of the commission had chosen him as chairman, at the age of twenty-nine.³⁴⁰

Second World War

In June 1941 Davison was assigned to Headquarters, Air Force Combat Command, Bolling Field, as Acting Deputy Chief of Staff and aide-de-camp to Lieutenant General Delos C. Emmons. In January 1943 he went to Headquarters, Army Air Forces, as A-1 of the Air Staff, later Special Projects Officer, and in March 1943 became Chief of the Special Projects Division, responsible for having ready "an adequate plan for demobilization of the Army." He represented the Army Air Forces on the Interdepartmental Group on Material Demobilization Planning and on the subcommittee on the disposal of transport aircraft under the "Baruch plan," and dealt with the Office of the Under Secretary of War on contract termination and the disposal of surpluses.³ The American Museum of Natural History recorded that on June 5, 1941 its president "was granted indefinite leave of absence in order to take up his duties as Colonel in the Air Corps, U. S. Army," and that an Administrative Committee of trustees (A. Perry Osborn, Malcolm P. Aldrich, Cleveland E. Dodge, E. Roland Harriman and H. B. Clark) was created to consult with the First Vice-President.⁵⁰ He was promoted to brigadier general on June 3, 1945 and received the Army Distinguished Service Medal in October 1945.³ The Springfield Sun editorial of July 1951 describes the same service as Assistant Chief of the Air Staff in charge of personnel under Henry H. Arnold.⁵¹

American Museum of Natural History

The museum's roster of trustees lists "Davison, Frederick Trubee" from 1923, and "Davison, Henry P." from 1916 to 1922.⁵² The museum's annual report for 1922 records that his father, elected to the board on February 7, 1916, served as Treasurer and Chairman of the Finance Committee until his death on May 6, 1922, and that at his suggestion the board appointed an Advisory Committee on Investments of financial experts.⁵³

The annual report for 1933 states: "Upon the retirement of President Henry Fairfield Osborn from the Presidency of the Museum, on January 9, 1933, in order that he might devote himself to his scientific researches, Professor Osborn was elected Honorary President for life. His resignation, after twenty-five years as President of the Board of Trustees, was accepted with great regret. Mr. Frederick Trubee Davison was elected to the Presidency."⁵⁴ The 1932 report, in Osborn's final acknowledgments, welcomed "his warm personal friend, F. Trubee Davison, fifth President of the American Museum," and named the "Jesup-Morgan-Osborn principles" that the new administration was expected to continue.⁵⁵ The 1933 volume opens with Davison's first report as president, written "entering upon its duties as a layman," which thanks "my distinguished predecessor, Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn, who for twenty-five years exerted outstanding qualities of leadership." It states that the museum had 1,102,096 visitors in 1933; that the late Harry Payne Whitney's offer of $750,000 for the South Oceanic Bird Wing, conditioned on matching city funds, left the city a quarter of a million dollars short of its pledge, and that the trustees offered to buy $250,000 of city bonds to cover it; and that Charles Hayden and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation had made possible the Hayden Planetarium, the federal government agreeing to purchase bonds for its building.⁵⁴ The report also records the donation by Colonel and Mrs. Lindbergh of the airplane they used on their Arctic and Pacific flights.⁵⁴

The museum held the Third International Congress of Eugenics in its halls from August 21 to 23, 1932, during Osborn's presidency, and partially opened its Hall of the Natural History of Man on that occasion; the same report lists Davison among the trustees re-elected to the Class of 1937.⁵⁵ The 1933 report records the annual meeting of January 8, 1934, at which the officers re-elected were President F. Trubee Davison, First Vice-President J. P. Morgan Jr., Second Vice-President Cleveland E. Dodge, Treasurer James H. Perkins and Secretary Clarence L. Hay. It also records that John D. Rockefeller III was elected in 1933 to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Frederick F. Brewster, and that Frederick M. Warburg was elected to the vacancy left by his father, Felix Warburg.⁵⁴

The 1933 report lists the "Davison African Expedition Fund" among the museum's special funds, with a balance of $50,561.04 under the name F. Trubee Davison, and states that "President F. Trubee Davison returned from Africa the middle of October with five elephants to complete the group in the new African Hall," "Financed by President Davison."⁵⁴ The 1974 Times obituary adds that he and his wife, with Martin Johnson and Osa Johnson, made the 1933 field trip to Africa.⁴⁵ The annual report for 1952 describes the "Davison-Willis Expedition to Madagascar, organized by F. Trubee Davison," which brought back ethnographic objects, photographs and color-film records of native crafts and ceremonies to the Department of Anthropology.⁵⁶

The annual report for 1950 opens with the statement of his successor, Alexander M. White: "In June, 1951, a change of command took place at the Museum, Trubee Davison turning over the helm to me after eighteen years of leadership. They had not been easy years for any institution, covering as they did the depression period of the thirties and World War II." The report thanks Davison and the late A. Perry Osborn "for successfully piloting the ship through this stormy period." The officers for 1951 to 1952 list "President Emeritus, F. Trubee Davison," with White as president, Malcolm P. Aldrich as First Vice-President and E. Roland Harriman as Treasurer.⁵⁷ The Navy history states that Davison retired in 1951 "after 18 years as president of the Museum of Natural History in New York," and the Springfield Sun editorial describes him as "president of the American Museum of Natural History for almost 18 years, and had planned to retire in October."³⁸⁵⁸ The Times obituary states that he remained an honorary trustee until his death and was "instrumental in the drive to obtain funds that helped the museum overcome many financial crises and eventually to build the Hayden Planetarium."⁴⁵

Central Intelligence Agency

The Associated Press reported in July 1951 that "Brig. Gen. Trubee Davison, former Assistant Secretary of War for Air, will join the Central Intelligence Agency on July 16."⁵⁹ The item states that a CIA spokesman confirmed he would become "a principal assistant" to "Lt. Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, head of the agency," and that "He will not replace any other assistant." The spokesman added that Davison "probably would do personnel work."⁶⁰ The 1974 Times obituary states that in July 1951 he became director of personnel of the Agency and assistant to Smith, and that "He left his post the following April, when it was announced that he had completed his mission of organizing the C.I.A.'s personnel."⁴⁵

The Springfield Sun editorial, headed "General Smith Names A Deputy," reports that Davison had "been appointed director of personnel and assistant to Lieut. General Walter Bedell Smith, chief of the Central Intelligence Agency."⁶¹ It says he had been "serving as a leader of civil defense in Nassau County, New York," and that in June 1941 he "became an Air Force colonel, retiring as a one-star general after serving as Assistant Chief of the Air Staff in charge of personnel" under Arnold, whom it calls "the late General of the Air Force."⁵¹ The editorial describes him as "a flier, a lawyer, an administrator, a politician, a combat veteran of two wars."⁵¹ The same editorial says that the CIA "has been rather unfortunate in its chiefs."⁵¹

In the Agency's own papers he appears as Assistant Director for Personnel. A memorandum of September 10, 1951 from Allen Dulles, then Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, is addressed to "Trubee Davison, Esq. (Asst. Director, Personnel)" and asks whether he or a member of his staff could arrange to see an individual named in attached correspondence.⁶² A CIA official routing slip carries a memorandum dated September 11, 1951, from Davison to the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, whose text includes the line "I will see this fellow myself," followed by the initials "F.T.D."⁶³

Davison chaired the Agency's Career Service Committee. The minutes of its second meeting, on October 1, 1951, list "F. Trubee Davison - AD/Personnel, Chairman" with Matthew Baird, Director of Training. They record that the committee separated a "Trainee Program" from a "Career Service Program," that "the establishment of a Career Corps, as such, had been disapproved by the DCI," that of the first class of nineteen trainees sixteen had recently graduated and fourteen had been placed, and that a working group would take up a proposed two-year service requirement for selection.⁶⁴ On October 3, 1951 the committee's executive secretary asked the Director of Personnel and the General Counsel to nominate representatives to five working groups (trainees, employee rating, rotation, career benefits and extension training), citing a memorandum "from General Davison entitled 'Career Service Committee'" of September 28, 1951.⁶⁵ The minutes of the committee's fourteenth meeting, in January 1952, list Davison as AD/Personnel with Matthew Baird and Sherman Kent, Assistant Director for National Estimates, and record the committee's review of a Personnel Evaluation Report and of "Selection Criteria for Participation in CIA Career Service Program."⁶⁶

The Covert Action Information Bulletin reported, citing the New York Times of July 5, 1951, that Davison was the agency's director of personnel in 1951.⁶⁷ State Department papers of May 1951 in the same CIA files, concerning the working group on plans for the new Psychological Strategy Board, name W. P. Davison, executive secretary of the Psychological Operations Coordinating Board; he is a different person.⁶⁸

Family after 1951 and death

The Yale News photograph of a 1966 reunion of the First Yale Unit identifies his wife as Dorothy Peabody Davison.⁶⁹ The Times obituary states that he died on the night of Thursday, November 14, 1974 at his home on Peacock Point, Locust Valley, aged 78; that he was survived by his widow and three sons, Endicott, Daniel and Gates; and that the funeral service was held at St. John's of Lattingtown Episcopal Church, Locust Valley. It states that he was "lamed for life by a plane crash during his service in World War I" and had taught himself to walk without crutches and ultimately without a cane.⁴⁵ The Library of Congress name authority and the museum's archives catalog both give his dates as 1896 to 1974.⁷⁰ The family finding aid at the Pritzker Military Museum & Library gives his death as 1976.⁷¹