--- aliases: - Jock Whitney - John Hay Whitney category: Business & Finance created: 2026-10-26 location: New York City relations: - fn: 2 role: son start: 1904 type: relative_of with: '[[Payne Whitney]]' - fn: 4 role: son start: 1904 type: relative_of with: '[[Helen Hay Whitney]]' - fn: 8 role: brother type: relative_of with: '[[Joan Whitney Payson]]' - end: 1940 fn: 2 start: 1927 type: spouse_of with: '[[Mary Elizabeth Altemus]]' - end: 1982 fn: 2 start: 1942 type: spouse_of with: '[[Betsey Cushing Roosevelt]]' - fn: 6 role: elected as a member of the Yale class of 1926 after declining Skull and Bones start: 1925 type: member_of with: '[[Scroll and Key]]' - end: 1973 fn: 2 role: fellow 1955 to 1970, senior fellow 1970 to 1973 start: 1955 type: director_of with: '[[Yale Corporation]]' - fn: 9 role: trustee from 1930, president 1941, chairman 1946 to 1956; president of the Film Library, 1935 start: 1930 type: director_of with: '[[Museum of Modern Art]]' - fn: 2 start: 1935 type: director_of with: '[[Selznick International Pictures]]' - fn: 2 type: funded with: '[[Pioneer Pictures]]' - end: 1942 fn: 14 role: director of the motion picture division start: 1942 type: head_of with: '[[CIAA]]' - end: 1945 fn: 15 role: captain, later colonel; staff officer, Mediterranean Allied Air Forces start: 1942 type: employed_by with: '[[United States Army Air Forces]]' - fn: 21 role: senior partner start: 1946 type: founded with: '[[J. H. Whitney and Company]]' - end: 1950 fn: 34 role: Jackson was managing director of J. H. Whitney and Company until appointed Deputy Director of Central Intelligence start: 1946 type: partner_of with: '[[William Harding Jackson]]' - fn: 38 role: chairman start: 1956 type: head_of with: '[[United Republican Finance Committee of New York]]' - end: 1961-01-14 fn: 40 reverse: true role: ambassador to the United Kingdom start: 1957-02-11 type: appointed with: '[[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]' - end: 1966 fn: 41 role: owner and publisher start: 1958 type: owned with: '[[New York Herald Tribune]]' - fn: 41 role: chairman of the board, 1966 type: head_of with: '[[Whitney Communications]]' - fn: 42 start: 1958-12-29 type: founded with: '[[John Hay Whitney Trust for Charitable Purposes]]' - end: 1965 fn: 42 reverse: true role: gave $225,000 in 1964 and $100,000 in 1965 to the trust start: 1964 type: funded with: '[[Granary Fund]]' - end: 1973 fn: 43 role: owner of record, according to officials quoted in 1975 start: 1966 type: owned with: '[[Forum World Features]]' summary: Financier, film producer, publisher and ambassador, founder of J. H. Whitney and Company; his charitable trust took Granary Fund money and appears in a 1968 CIA memorandum as a QKOPERA funding conduit. tags: - Person - Whitney - Payne - Yale - Hollywood - MuseumOfModernArt - Ciaa - CiaFoundations - Qkopera - HeraldTribune - ForumWorldFeatures - VentureCapital - Ambassador - Philanthropy updated: 2026-10-26 --- John Hay Whitney (August 17, 1904 to February 8, 1982), called Jock, was an American financier, film producer and newspaper publisher, the son of [Payne Whitney](/people/payne-whitney/) and Helen Hay and a member of the [Whitney family](/people/whitney-family/). He founded the investment firm J. H. Whitney and Company in 1946, owned and published the New York Herald Tribune from 1958 until its New York edition closed in 1966, and was United States ambassador to the [United Kingdom](/places/united-kingdom/) from 1957 to 1961.[^1][^2] ### Yale and Oxford The Yale obituary record for Payne Whitney, who died in 1927, lists the children of his marriage as Joan, the wife of Charles S. Payson of the class of 1921, and "John Hay, '26, now a student at Oxford University."[^4] The [New York Times](/organizations/new-york-times/) obituary of May 26, 1927 places him in another country: "John Hay Whitney, generally known as Jack, is now in Spain playing polo. He is a student at Cambridge University, England."[^5] The Yale record names [University of Oxford](/organizations/university-of-oxford/) and the newspaper names University of Cambridge. The 1982 obituary in the International Herald Tribune gives New College, Oxford, and the State Department's magazine summarizes his schooling as Groton School, [Yale University](/organizations/yale-university/) and Oxford.[^2][^3] The New York Times of May 15, 1925 reported the senior society elections at Yale. Four members of the class of 1926 refused elections to [Skull and Bones](/organizations/skull-and-bones/), "the oldest society": E. P. Cottle of Buffalo, J. H. Whitney of New York, Arthur Milliken and G. G. Mason Jr. Cottle and Whitney accepted elections to Scroll and Key. The paper added that Whitney had been stroke of the second varsity crew and had been ill that spring.[^6] [Antony C. Sutton](/people/antony-c-sutton/) wrote that eight Whitneys had been members of Skull and Bones, and his list of them runs from Emerson Cogswell Whitney (1851) through Edward Payson Whitney (1854), James Lyman Whitney (1856), William Collins Whitney (1863), Edward Baldwin Whitney (1878), Joseph Ernest Whitney (1882), Payne Whitney (1894) and Harry Payne Whitney (1898).[^7] ### Inheritance Payne Whitney died at Manhasset, New York on May 25, 1927. The obituary said that he had been active in aiding Mrs. Whitney in managing the Greentree Stables, and that the couple's liking for sport had apparently descended to their son.[^5] According to the International Herald Tribune obituary, John Hay Whitney took charge of the family's affairs in 1927.[^2] The will, as reported by the New York Times on November 23, 1928, left Helen Hay Whitney a life interest in ninety-six parts of the residue, worth $54,202,694, which was to pass to the children on her death. John Hay Whitney received a life interest in forty-eight parts of the residue, valued at $27,191,347, until he reached the age of forty. His sister, Joan Whitney Payson, received the same interest.[^8] ### Museum of Modern Art and the Film Library The Museum of Modern Art created its Film Library in 1935. The Museum's bulletin for November 1935 credits "the lively interest of Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Mr. John Hay Whitney and Mr. Edward M. M. Warburg" with bringing about the project, and it lists the officers: "President, John Hay Whitney; Vice-President and General Manager, John E. Abbott; Treasurer, Edward M. M. Warburg." Iris Barry was appointed curator.[^9] The plan had been submitted to the [Rockefeller Foundation](/organizations/rockefeller-foundation/) in April 1935, and the foundation's trustees approved a conditional grant in May. Private subscriptions, according to the bulletin, came from three anonymous donors. The Film Library was announced publicly on June 25, 1935, and its first acquisitions, including The Great Train Robbery (1903), were announced on July 10.[^9] The bulletin for December 1935 prints the Museum's list of trustees. Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., is named first vice-president of the board. John Hay Whitney appears among the trustees, and Mrs. Charles S. Payson is in the same list.[^10] The 1982 obituary dates his service on the Museum's board from 1930, as president in 1941 and as chairman from 1946 to 1956, and says he became a trustee of the National Gallery of Art in 1961.[^2] ### Pioneer Pictures, Selznick International and Gone with the Wind The International Herald Tribune obituary says that Whitney backed Pioneer Pictures, the producer of "La Cucaracha," and that he joined Selznick International Pictures in 1935. It gives the profit of Gone with the Wind to the investors as $1.1 million.[^2] Earlier reports, summarized by the trade press in October 1942, had David O. Selznick selling his interest in the film to Whitney. Attorneys for Whitney denied that Selznick was selling that interest. They attributed the reports to negotiations for the liquidation of Selznick International Pictures, which had begun some months earlier when Selznick formed his own company, David O. Selznick Productions.[^11] ### Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs In January 1942 the trade weekly Motion Picture Herald reported that [Nelson Rockefeller](/people/nelson-rockefeller/) and Whitney had selected Walt Disney as the first Hollywood producer of films meant to carry a message of goodwill to [South America](/places/south-america/), with South American cartoons to be produced at cost.[^12] A July 1942 issue described the film activities "launched by John Hay Whitney" within Rockefeller's agency, and named Francis Alstock, "formerly Mr. Whitney's aide," as director of the film program.[^13] The issue of October 3, 1942 reported that Alstock "succeeded John Hay Whitney as director of the motion picture division" of Rockefeller's office, which the paper called the Office of Inter-American Affairs. That office was the [CIAA](/organizations/ciaa/).[^14] ### Army Air Forces, capture and escape Whitney joined the Eighth Air Force as a captain in October 1942, according to Newsweek, and from September 1943 served in the Mediterranean on the staff of Lieutenant General [Ira C. Eaker](/people/ira-eaker/). The Record of the New York Hospital dates his commission to 1942 and his discharge as a colonel to December 1945, with service in the Eighth Air Force and later the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces in Italy.[^15][^21] On August 21, 1944, four days after his fortieth birthday, Colonel Whitney and four companions were in a jeep in southern France when a hidden German tank opened fire. They dived into a ditch, crawled to a farmhouse and surrendered when the tank shelled it. The Germans put the party on a train that, in Newsweek's phrase, "crept but 100 miles in eleven days," and Whitney and another officer "jumped from the moving train."[^15] The trade weekly Film Daily of August 30, 1944 carried the report of his capture, noting that the War Department had not yet confirmed it.[^16] The Rome headquarters of the Mediterranean Air Forces announced that he had been "captured by the German army in southern France on August 21." The Blood-Horse reported that the train was dive-bombed, shelled by French artillery and attacked by the French underground, and that he escaped while it was moving.[^17] The same weekly's issue of September 30 noted that he had "escaped from German captors on a troop train under fire" in the week that his mother, Helen Hay Whitney, died on September 24, 1944.[^18] The International Herald Tribune obituary describes a midnight escape from a moving troop train under air attack.[^2] A society column in the [Washington Post](/organizations/washington-post/) of October 8, 1944 referred instead to his "escape from a German prison camp."[^19] By October 1944 he was on temporary duty at the Pentagon, according to the Motion Picture Herald.[^20] The Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star, the Order of the British Empire and the Legion of Honor (as chevalier) are among his decorations listed by the State Department's magazine.[^3] The State Department announced on October 15, 1945 that Whitney and Ralph McGill had been appointed special advisers and consultants; Whitney was to work with Assistant Secretary William Benton and Ferdinand Kuhn and to advise on relations with the motion-picture industry.[^22] ### J. H. Whitney and Company The Record of the New York Hospital for June 1946 calls J. H. Whitney and Company a "recently formed investment firm" and records that Whitney, a director of Freeport Sulphur Company and chairman of the board of the Museum of Modern Art, had been elected vice-president of the Hospital Society, with William Harding Jackson as its president.[^21] A Newton, Massachusetts newspaper of February 1947 stated that the firm "was established early in 1946."[^23] The International Herald Tribune obituary gives the year as 1946, and State magazine says that in 1946 Whitney founded the firm and the John Hay Whitney Foundation; the obituary dates the foundation to 1949.[^2][^3] The trade press recorded the firm's first investments. In June 1946 a "substantial private investment by J. H. Whitney & Company" in Spencer Chemical Company was reported in a farm-trade journal.[^24] The Commercial and Financial Chronicle of September 1, 1947 reported that an interest in the convertible preferred stock of Vacuum Foods Corporation had been acquired by the firm, "founded by John Hay Whitney to make equity investments in various ventures," that the National Research Corporation of Boston, in which the firm also had an interest, held practically all the common stock, and that Alexander Standish, a partner of the firm, and others had been elected directors.[^25] Variety reported in September 1948 that Bing Crosby had been elected a director of Vacuum Foods, whose product was Minute Maid frozen orange juice, and that the contract arrangements involved Philco and J. H. Whitney and Company.[^26] Nation's Business of November 1949 described a "$10,000,000 concern established by Jock Whitney, who took in six young associates," which in two years had invested about $4,000,000 in ten concerns, "ranging from highly successful Vacuum Foods."[^27] The biographer E. J. Kahn named Benno Schmidt and Jackson among the firm's partners and called Jackson "Whitney's close associate and personal lawyer."[^28] Frances Stonor Saunders quotes the firm's description of itself as "a partnership dedicated to the propagation of the free-enterprise system."[^29] In the security-holder statement that the magazine United Nations World filed on October 1, 1947, the holders include "Nelson A. Rockefeller," "J. H. Whitney, 630 Fifth Ave.," "[Max Ascoli](/people/max-ascoli/)" and Editorial Publications, Inc.; the owner was United Nations World, Inc., and Beatrice Dolivet.[^30] ### William H. Jackson and the Central Intelligence Agency On May 29, 1947, Jackson wrote on the firm's letterhead at 630 Fifth Avenue to Rear Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, then [Director of Central Intelligence](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/): "You need only call upon me and I shall do anything within my power to be of assistance." He offered to come to [Washington](/places/washington-dc/) "whenever you request it regardless of other appointments."[^31] A letter of July 30, 1948 to Jackson at the firm came from Robert Blum.[^32] On September 8, 1950 Jackson, writing to Hillenkoetter, proposed to arrive on Tuesday, September 26, to work alongside him before the arrival of General Walter Bedell Smith; Hillenkoetter's reply of September 11 was addressed to Jackson in care of J. H. Whitney and Company and said that Smith had informed him that Jackson had consented to serve as his deputy.[^33] The employee bulletin of the New York Hospital described Jackson in October 1950 as having been managing director of J. H. Whitney and Company until his call to Washington as the new Deputy Director of the CIA, and recorded that Whitney had succeeded him as president of the Hospital Society in June 1949.[^34] A letter of April 25, 1951, on the firm's letterhead, introduced a man who wanted to meet Jackson and had "some idea he wants to discuss." Jackson's reply of April 30 to a member of the firm said he would be glad to see the man if he called.[^35] The Eisenhower Library's historical note on the President's Committee on International Information Activities calls Jackson "a managing partner in the investment firm J.H. Whitney and Company, and a former Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency" when it names him chairman of that committee.[^36] The CIA's official history of the Walter Bedell Smith years says that when Smith and Jackson could not recruit "men of great prestige with practical experience" for the Board of National Estimates, they created a group of outside advisers who met in Princeton, known as "the Princeton Consultants." The first three members were Vannevar Bush, [George Kennan](/people/george-kennan/) and Hamilton Fish Armstrong. The other original members, the history says, were "Alexander Standish, a partner in J. H. Whitney & Company, Barklie Henry, a director of various corporations, and Burton Fahs, director of humanities for the Rockefeller Foundation."[^37] The Eisenhower Library note lists Barklie McKee Henry among the members of the Jackson Committee.[^36] ### Republican finance and the 1952 and 1956 campaigns The International Herald Tribune obituary calls Whitney an early supporter of [Dwight D. Eisenhower](/people/dwight-d-eisenhower/) in 1952 and a frequent bridge partner of the President, and says he took the London post at Eisenhower's personal insistence. It lists his service on the President's Commission on Foreign Economic Policy and, in 1954 and 1955, as vice chairman of the Secretary of State's Public Committee on Personnel.[^2] On September 10, 1956 Whitney testified before the Subcommittee on Privileges and Elections of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration as chairman of the United Republican Finance Committee of New York, accompanied by Walter N. Thayer. The committee covered eight counties of the metropolitan area. Its bank balance on September 1, 1956 was $90,544.26, and it had raised $683,559.50 against a goal of between $1.5 million and $1.75 million. It had given $104,688.80 to the Republican National Senatorial Committee, $21,355.46 to the Republican National Congressional Committee, $75,000 to the New York Republican State Committee and $20,044.26 to the Republican National Finance Committee. Whitney said that J. H. Whitney and Company, of which he was senior partner, owned television stations outside New York State, and the subcommittee's record lists a contribution of $1,500 on July 12, 1956 from A. S. Onassis, whom Whitney believed not to be a United States citizen.[^38] ### The London embassy Eisenhower's nomination of Whitney to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Great Britain, "vice Winthrop W. Aldrich, resigned," was received by the Senate on January 29, 1957, and the Senate Foreign Relations calendar for the hearings records "Feb. 11, confirmed."[^39][^40] The State Department gives his appointment as February 11, 1957, the presentation of his credentials as February 28, 1957, and his departure from the post as January 14, 1961.[^1] ### New York Herald Tribune According to the International Herald Tribune obituary, Whitney Communications lent the paper $1.2 million in 1957, Whitney bought control in 1958 and spent about $40 million before the paper closed on August 15, 1966.[^2] The trade weekly Editor & Publisher printed a historical note on the paper in August 1966. It records that the Herald and the Tribune were merged in 1924 under Mr. and Mrs. Ogden M. Reid, and that the paper, "then in failing financial health, was taken over by John Hay Whitney in 1958."[^41] The same issue prints the statement that Whitney, as chairman of the board of Whitney Communications, read to reporters on August 15, 1966. In it he wrote: "For the years of my ownership, despite the hopes, the talents and the enormous effort that were put into it, the paper was never quite able to stand on its own."[^41] The statement attributed the closing to strikes. It said that the three newspapers in the merger "were never able to recover fully from the 114-day strike that ended in 1963," and that the strike of 1966 was more serious still. It said that the World Journal Tribune had decided not to resume publication of the New York Herald Tribune, and that "the Herald Tribune in New York will not appear again."[^41] Whitney wrote: "I shall continue as publisher of the Herald Tribune in Paris."[^41] The Paris edition was renamed the International Herald Tribune in May 1967, with the Washington Post and then the New York Times as partners.[^2] The [San Francisco Chronicle](/organizations/san-francisco-chronicle/) reported in February 1967 that Whitney was the former owner, publisher and editor in chief of the New York Herald Tribune, that he was a one-third partner in its successor, the World Journal Tribune, and that he was a member of that paper's three-man executive board.[^42] ### Forum World Features Bernard D. Nossiter reported in the Washington Post of July 3, 1975 on the news service Forum World Features, based in [London](/places/london/). "When it began selling articles in 1966, the service's owner of record, according to the officials, was John Hay Whitney," the article states, and "Early in 1973, Whitney was replaced by Richard Mellon Scaife." The officials were quoted as saying that the service was financed by the CIA. A spokesman for Whitney said he had "no comment on the subject." The article also quotes an apparent internal CIA memorandum of about 1968, published by the magazine Time Out, which described the service as "located in London and incorporated in Delaware" and as begun as a commercial entity in January 1966 from the residue of Forum Service, an activity of the [Congress for Cultural Freedom](/organizations/congress-for-cultural-freedom/) from which the CIA withdrew its support in 1966. Brian Crozier, the service's president, denied a CIA link.[^43] Crozier replied in the Guardian of December 1, 1976 and printed correspondence. He wrote that in the spring of 1965 John Hunt told him that Whitney had agreed to take over the services. A letter from Hunt of June 10, 1965 gave a starting date of July 1, 1965 and said that Whitney "tentatively plans to put about $100,000 a year into Forum Features," with Crozier as president. A letter of January 24, 1973 from Samuel C. Park to Crozier recorded Scaife's election as director of Kern House Enterprises Ltd to succeed Whitney. On September 23, 1969 Whitney wrote to Crozier declining an investment in the Current Affairs Research Services Centre. Crozier wrote that Whitney gave his library to the Institute for the Study of Conflict. The Guardian's accompanying glossary describes Park as "Financial aide to Whitney, and a trustee of his Charitable Trust."[^44] Saunders wrote that Forum World Features "was a classic CIA undercover operation, with John Hay Whitney once again acting as a front, registering the company under his name as a Delaware corporation with offices in London."[^45] ### The Granary Fund and the John Hay Whitney Trust The San Francisco Chronicle of February 25, 1967 carried the headline "CIA Link to Charity Funds," over the kicker "Whitney Trust," and began: "A charitable trust established by John Hay Whitney received $325,000 in 1964 and 1965 from the Granary Fund of Boston, used by the Central Intelligence Agency to channel money from front organizations to various organizations here and abroad."[^42] The report described a schedule of contributions that the Granary Fund filed with the Massachusetts attorney general. The schedule showed that the fund received $300,000 in 1964 from the John G. Thornton Trust, $150,000 from the James Carlisle Trust, and $500 in miscellaneous contributions. Officials who asked not to be named called the Thornton and Carlisle trusts "CIA fronts."[^42] The same reports showed that the Granary Fund gave the John Hay Whitney Trust for Charitable Purposes $225,000 in 1964 and $100,000 in 1965. Walter N. Thayer, head of the Whitney communications corporation, stated on Whitney's behalf: "The trust which I established Dec. 29, 1958, for charitable purposes has operated since that date. In accordance with the terms of the trust, several pledges and contributions, all of which have been properly reported, have been made to a number of tax-exempt organizations in which I have been interested."[^42] The [Los Angeles Times](/organizations/los-angeles-times/) reported on February 26, 1967 that the [Internal Revenue Service](/organizations/internal-revenue-service/) had not produced records for the Granary Fund, the Warden Trust and others, and that the American Newspaper Guild "received $200,000 in 1960-63 from the granary funds." The report said that the CIA had passed about $4 million over fifteen years to the National Student Association. Wright Patman, chairman of the House Committee on Small Business, had named the Edsel, Beacon, Michigan, Price, Kentfield and Andrew Hamilton funds, the Borden Trust and the Gotham Foundation as contributors to the J. M. Kaplan Fund, which he said served as a conduit for CIA money.[^46] A Washington Post report of February 21, 1967 by Andrew J. Glass listed ten foundations without tax reports on file (the Appalachian Fund, Broad-High, Chesapeake, the Foundation for Youth and Student Affairs, Gotham, the Granary Fund of Boston, the Andrew Hamilton Fund, Jones-O'Donnell, the Michigan Fund and the San Jacinto Fund) that "have been named by Government officials, by the head of the CIA-financed National Student Association or in the press as connected to the Government's secret intelligence arm. None of them have chosen to deny these allegations."[^47] Time of March 3, 1967 listed the recipients of "CIA-suspect largesse" as "an encyclopedic grab bag of organizations ranging from the now defunct Institute of International Labor Research Inc. ... to the Billy Graham Spanish-American crusade, from the North American Secretariat of Pax Romana and the John Hay Whitney Trust for Charitable Purposes to the International Food and Drink Workers Federation and the Friends of India Committee."[^48] In their book of 1967, David Wise and Thomas B. Ross wrote: "John Hay Whitney, former ambassador to Great Britain and owner of the New York Herald Tribune, was founder of the Whitney Trust, a philanthropic organization financed in part by the Granary Fund, the CIA conduit."[^49] The anthropologist David H. Price lists the trust in his table of foundations named in 1967 as CIA conduits, citing the press reports of that year.[^50] The CIA's own paper on the subject is a memorandum of November 1968 from Charles Katek, Chief of the Central Cover Staff, to the Deputy Director for Plans, on the scope and possible damage of new allegations by Ramparts magazine. It records that early in April 1968 the Office of the General Counsel gave the Central Cover Staff a copy of an April 5, 1968 letter to the Internal Revenue Service from Ramparts, with a list of 145 tax-exempt organizations that the magazine said were suspected of having been funded by or of having cooperated with the CIA. The memorandum's annex of terminated covert funding conduits and project organizations that the press had named lists the Granary Fund of Boston as a Central Cover Staff proprietary (designator LPSIPHON/7), and lists the Whitney Trust for Charitable Purposes, John Hay, as a "Funding conduit under Project QKOPERA (LPCORSET/68)." It gives two entries for the trust, under the Ramparts list numbers 141 and 142, with the instrument dated December 29, 1959 in one and December 29, 1958 in the other. QKOPERA is the project designation the same memorandum gives for the Congress for Cultural Freedom, and the Farfield Foundation appears in the annex as a "Funding conduit for CCF." Another entry, on the Institute of International Education, records that the Institute received legitimate grants from six foundations that the CIA used as cooperating covert funding mechanisms, among them the McGregor Fund, the John Hay Whitney Charitable Trust (items 141 and 142), the Aaron Norman Fund, the Cleveland Dodge Foundation, the William Benton Foundation and the Brown Foundation of Houston.[^51] The CIA answered a Freedom of Information Act request of January 11, 1980 for information on "the John Hay Whitney Trust for Charitable Purposes and the Granary Fund" with a letter of May 28, 1985. The Agency located two responsive documents, dated December 10, 1968 and January 23, 1969, and withheld both in their entirety under exemptions (b)(1) and (b)(3) of the Act.[^52] The [Church Committee](/events/church-committee/) stated in its final report that "Until 1967 the Agency also maintained covert ties to American foundations in order to pass funds secretly to private groups whose work the CIA supported." It added that most of the funds for the youth and student programs and for labor in fiscal year 1967 "were transmitted through legitimate or 'devised' foundations, that is, fictitious entities established by the CIA," and that, excluding grants from Ford, Rockefeller and Carnegie, "of the 700 grants over $10,000 given by 164 other foundations during the period 1963-1966, at least 108 involved partial or complete CIA funding."[^53] Saunders lists "the Whitney Trust" among the conduits of the period and writes that "as a trustee, Cornelius allowed the Whitney Trust to be used as a CIA conduit," in a passage on Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney.[^54] ### The Katzenbach Committee The Katzenbach Committee received the CIA paper of February 23, 1967 on "Coordination and Policy Approval of Covert Operations."[^55] A CIA memorandum of June 9, 1967 concerns the administrative plans for "Projects Affected by the Katzenbach Report."[^56] ### Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board On March 26, 1969, [Henry A. Kissinger](/people/henry-a-kissinger/) wrote to Peter Flanigan about Whitney's interest in the [Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board](/organizations/presidents-foreign-intelligence-advisory-board/). The memorandum reads: "You should know that this has twice been raised with the President and rejected both times."[^57] ### Later years and death Whitney was a director of Dun and Bradstreet from 1971 to 1975. He served as a fellow of the Yale Corporation from 1955 to 1970 and as senior fellow from 1970 to 1973. He married Mary Elizabeth Altemus in 1927 (divorced in 1940) and, in 1942, Betsey Cushing Roosevelt.[^2] He died on Monday, February 8, 1982, at North Shore Hospital in Manhasset, New York, of heart failure according to the International Herald Tribune, which put his age at 77 and named a funeral at Christ Episcopal Church, Manhasset, on the Friday. The State Department's magazine, in March 1982, gave the cause as "a heart ailment."[^2][^3] [^1]: U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, "John Hay Whitney (1904-1982)," Principal Officers and Chiefs of Mission, United Kingdom (appointed February 11, 1957; credentials February 28, 1957; left post January 14, 1961). https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/whitney-john-hay. [^2]: "John Hay Whitney Is Dead; Publisher, Financier Was 77" and obituary, *International Herald Tribune*, February 9, 1982, p. 1 and p. 5 (born Ellsworth, Maine, August 17, 1904; died Monday at North Shore Hospital, Manhasset, of heart failure; funeral at Christ Episcopal Church, Manhasset; New College, Oxford; family affairs from 1927; Pioneer Pictures; Selznick International 1935; J. H. Whitney and Company 1946; Eisenhower 1952; Herald Tribune loan of $1.2 million in 1957 and control in 1958; Dun and Bradstreet 1971 to 1975; Museum of Modern Art; Yale Corporation; marriages). https://archive.org/details/InternationalHeraldTribune1982FranceEnglish. [^3]: *State* magazine, March 1982, obituary of John Hay Whitney (died of a heart ailment at North Shore Hospital, Manhasset, on February 8; "Educated at Groton, Yale and Oxford"; Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Order of the British Empire, chevalier of the Legion of Honor; founded J. H. Whitney and Company and the John Hay Whitney Foundation in 1946). https://archive.org/details/sim_state-magazine_1982-03_243. [^4]: Yale University, *Obituary Record of the Graduates of the Undergraduate Schools, Deceased During the Year Ending July 1, 1927*, entry for Payne Whitney, B.A. 1898, p. 172 (children: "Joan, the wife of Charles S. Payson, '21, and John Hay, '26, now a student at Oxford University"). https://archive.org/details/obituaryrecordof00yale_4. [^5]: "Payne Whitney Dies Suddenly at Home," *The New York Times*, May 26, 1927, p. 1, continued p. 25 (death at Manhasset; "John Hay Whitney, generally known as Jack, is now in Spain playing polo. He is a student at Cambridge University, England"; Mrs. Whitney and the Greentree Stables). https://archive.org/details/sim_new-york-times_the-new-york-times_1927-05-26_76_25324. [^6]: Report on Yale senior society elections, *The New York Times*, May 15, 1925 (four members of the class of 1926 refused elections to Skull and Bones; Cottle and Whitney accepted elections to Scroll and Key). https://archive.org/details/sim_new-york-times_the-new-york-times_1925-05-15_74_24583. [^7]: Antony C. Sutton, *America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull & Bones* (1983), Whitney family section ("Eight Whitneys have been members of The Order") and the index of members by class year. https://archive.org/details/americas_secret_establishment-skull_and_bones. [^8]: "$178,893,655 Estate, Record for America," *The New York Times*, November 23, 1928, section "Bequests to His Family" (Helen Hay Whitney: life interest in ninety-six parts of the residue, $54,202,694; John Hay Whitney: life interest in forty-eight parts, $27,191,347, until age forty; Joan Whitney Payson: the same interest). https://archive.org/details/sim_new-york-times_1928-11-23_78_25871. [^9]: "The Film Library," *The Bulletin of The Museum of Modern Art*, vol. 3, no. 2 (November 1935) (lively interest of Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., John Hay Whitney and Edward M. M. Warburg; officers; Rockefeller Foundation conditional grant; announcement June 25, 1935; first acquisitions July 10). https://archive.org/details/sim_museum-of-modern-art-bulletin_1935-11_3_2. [^10]: *The Bulletin of The Museum of Modern Art*, vol. 3, no. 3 (December 1935), list of Trustees (Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., first vice-president; John Hay Whitney; Mrs. Charles S. Payson). https://archive.org/details/sim_museum-of-modern-art-bulletin_1935-12_3_3. [^11]: "Selznick Decides," *Motion Picture Herald*, October 10, 1942 (earlier reports had Selznick selling his interest in "Gone With the Wind" to Mr. Whitney; attorneys for Whitney denied it; liquidation of Selznick International; David O. Selznick Productions). https://archive.org/details/motionpictureher1481unse. [^12]: "Rockefeller and Whitney Hire Disney to Make Goodwill Films," *Motion Picture Herald*, January 10, 1942 (selection of Walt Disney by Nelson Rockefeller and John Hay Whitney; South American cartoons to be produced at cost). https://archive.org/details/motionpictureher146unse. [^13]: *Motion Picture Herald*, July 4, 1942, report on the Office of Inter-American Affairs film appropriation ("the film activities launched by John Hay Whitney"; "Francis Alstock, formerly Mr. Whitney's aide, is now director of the film program"). https://archive.org/details/motionpictureher148unse. [^14]: *Motion Picture Herald*, October 3, 1942, notes on staff changes in the motion picture staff of Nelson Rockefeller's Office of Inter-American Affairs ("Francis Alstock, who succeeded John Hay Whitney as director of the motion picture division"). https://archive.org/details/motionpictureher1481unse. [^15]: "Jock's Escape," *Newsweek*, September 25, 1944 (Eighth Air Force captain, October 1942; Mediterranean staff of Lt. Gen. Ira C. Eaker from September 1943; capture on August 21, 1944; train "crept but 100 miles in eleven days"; jumped from the moving train). https://archive.org/details/sim_newsweek-us_1944-09-25_24_13. [^16]: "Col. John Hay Whitney Reported Captured By Nazis While Serving With AAF In France," *Film Daily*, vol. 86, no. 42, August 30, 1944. https://archive.org/details/filmdaily86wids. [^17]: "Jock Whitney's Narrow Escape," *The Blood-Horse*, September 23, 1944 (announcement from the Rome headquarters of the Mediterranean Air Forces; train bombed, shelled and attacked by the French underground). https://archive.org/details/sim_blood-horse_1944-09-23_42_13. [^18]: *The Blood-Horse*, September 30, 1944 (escape "from German captors on a troop train under fire"; death of Helen Hay Whitney, September 24, 1944). https://archive.org/details/sim_blood-horse_1944-09-30_42_14. [^19]: *The Washington Post*, October 8, 1944, society column ("escape from a German prison camp"). https://archive.org/details/per_washington-post_1944-10-08_24951. [^20]: *Motion Picture Herald*, October 7, 1944 (temporary duty at the Pentagon). https://archive.org/details/motionpictureher1561unse. [^21]: "Board Elects New President and Vice-President," *Record of The New York Hospital*, June 1946 (Jackson president; Whitney vice-president, succeeding G. Beekman Hoppin; "recently formed investment firm of J. H. Whitney & Co."; Whitney commissioned a captain in 1942, colonel by discharge in December 1945; director of Freeport Sulphur; chairman of the Museum of Modern Art board). https://archive.org/details/record1946newy. [^22]: U.S. Department of State, *Department of State Bulletin*, vol. 13, no. 330 (October 21, 1945) (announcement of October 15 appointing Ralph McGill and Col. John Hay Whitney special advisers and consultants). https://archive.org/details/dsb1945. [^23]: *The Newton Graphic*, February 1947, announcement of an appointment to J. H. Whitney and Company ("was established early in 1946"). https://archive.org/details/NewtonGraphicFeb_1947. [^24]: *Croplife*, June 15, 1946, report of a "substantial private investment by J. H. Whitney & Company" in Spencer Chemical Company. https://archive.org/details/sim_croplife_1946-06-15_104_12. [^25]: *The Commercial and Financial Chronicle*, September 1, 1947, vol. 166, entry for Vacuum Foods Corp. ("founded by John Hay Whitney to make equity investments in various ventures"). https://archive.org/details/sim_commercial-and-financial-chronicle_1947-09-01_166_18. [^26]: *Variety*, September 15, 1948 (Bing Crosby elected a director of Vacuum Foods; Minute Maid; Philco and J. H. Whitney and Company). https://archive.org/details/sim_variety_1948-09-15_172_2. [^27]: *Nation's Business*, November 1949 (J. H. Whitney and Company, "a $10,000,000 concern established by Jock Whitney, who took in six young associates"; about $4,000,000 in ten concerns). https://archive.org/details/Nations-Business-1949-11. [^28]: E. J. Kahn Jr., *Jock: The Life and Times of John Hay Whitney* (Doubleday, 1981) (Benno Schmidt and William H. Jackson of J. H. Whitney and Company; "Whitney's close associate and personal lawyer Bill Jackson"). https://archive.org/details/jocklifetimes00kahn. [^29]: Frances Stonor Saunders, *Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War* (Granta, 1999), account of Whitney and the firm ("a partnership dedicated to the propagation of the free-enterprise system"). [^30]: *United Nations World*, December 1947 (Vol. 1, No. 10), statement of ownership, management and circulation for October 1, 1947. https://archive.org/details/united-nations-world_1947-12_1_10. [^31]: William H. Jackson to Rear Admiral R. H. Hillenkoetter, letter of May 29, 1947, on J. H. Whitney & Co. letterhead, 630 Fifth Avenue (CIA reading room copy, CIA-RDP80B01676R004000040034-9). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01676r004000040034-9. [^32]: Robert Blum to William H. Jackson, letter of July 30, 1948, at J. H. Whitney and Co. (CIA reading room copy, CIA-RDP86B00269R000500050033-5). https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP86B00269R000500050033-5. [^33]: Jackson to Hillenkoetter, September 8, 1950, and Hillenkoetter to Jackson, September 11, 1950 (CIA reading room copy, CIA-RDP80R01731R000500470011-8). https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP80R01731R000500470011-8. [^34]: *The Pulse*, October 15, 1950, notice of the appointment of William H. Jackson as Deputy Director (employee bulletin of The New York Hospital). https://archive.org/details/pulse1519newy_6. [^35]: J. H. Whitney & Co. letter of April 25, 1951 to William H. Jackson, and Jackson's reply of April 30, 1951 to a member of the firm (CIA reading room copy, CIA-RDP80R01731R003000220018-0). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80r01731r003000220018-0. [^36]: Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, *U.S. President's Committee on International Information Activities (Jackson Committee): Records, 1950-53*, finding aid, historical note (Jackson as chairman, "a managing partner in the investment firm J.H. Whitney and Company, and a former Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency"; members including Barklie McKee Henry; report presented June 30, 1953). https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/research/finding-aids/pdf/us-presidents-committee-on-international-information-activities.pdf. [^37]: Central Intelligence Agency, "General Walter Bedell Smith as Director of Central Intelligence, October 1950 to February 1953," vol. III (CREST document 00669377), passage on the Board of National Estimates and the Princeton Consultants. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00669377. [^38]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Rules and Administration, Subcommittee on Privileges and Elections, hearings of September 10 and 11, 1956, testimony of John Hay Whitney, from p. 38. https://archive.org/details/sim_united-states-congress-hearings-prints-and-reports_september-10-and-11-1956. [^39]: *Congressional Record*, Senate, January 29, 1957 (nomination of John Hay Whitney "to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Great Britain, vice Winthrop W. Aldrich, resigned"). [^40]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, hearings print for 1957, calendar of nominations ("Feb. 11, confirmed"). https://archive.org/details/sim_united-states-congress-hearings-prints-and-reports_1957_11. [^41]: "Herald Tribune" historical note and text of John Hay Whitney's statement of August 15, 1966 ("chairman of the board of Whitney Communications Inc."; "the Herald Tribune in New York will not appear again"), *Editor & Publisher*, vol. 99, no. 34 (August 20, 1966), pp. 11 to 12. https://archive.org/details/sim_editor-publisher_1966-08-20_99_34. [^42]: "CIA Link to Charity Funds," *San Francisco Chronicle*, February 25, 1967 (Granary Fund schedule with the Thornton and Carlisle trusts; the John Hay Whitney Trust for Charitable Purposes receiving $225,000 in 1964 and $100,000 in 1965; statement of Walter N. Thayer; Whitney as former owner of the Herald Tribune and one-third partner in the World Journal Tribune; CIA reading room copy, CIA-RDP75-00149R000800060024-5). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp75-00149r000800060024-5. [^43]: Bernard D. Nossiter, "CIA News Service," *The Washington Post*, July 3, 1975, p. A26. https://archive.org/details/nsia-CIAForumWorldFeatures. [^44]: Brian Crozier, reply to the *Guardian*, December 1, 1976, with printed correspondence of John Hunt (June 10, 1965), Samuel C. Park (January 24, 1973) and John Hay Whitney (September 23, 1969), and glossary. https://archive.org/details/crozier-replies-to-gaurdian-by-peter-chippendale-martin-walker-the-gaurdian-december-1-1976-pp.-1-9. [^45]: Frances Stonor Saunders, *Who Paid the Piper?* (1999), pp. 311 to 312, on Forum World Features. [^46]: Don Irwin and Vincent J. Burke, "21 Foundations, Union Got Money From CIA," *Los Angeles Times*, February 26, 1967 (Granary Fund to the American Newspaper Guild; National Student Association; Patman's list; CIA reading room copy, CIA-RDP75-00149R000600210002-4). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp75-00149r000600210002-4. [^47]: Andrew J. Glass, "Foundations Fail to File Tax Report," *The Washington Post*, February 21, 1967 (CIA reading room copy, CIA-RDP73-00475R000101290002-3). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp73-00475r000101290002-3. [^48]: "Pandora's Cashbox," *Time*, March 3, 1967 (CIA reading room copy, CIA-RDP70B00338R000200230042-5). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp70b00338r000200230042-5. [^49]: David Wise and Thomas B. Ross, *The Espionage Establishment* (Random House, 1967), p. 144. [^50]: David H. Price, *Cold War Anthropology* (Duke University Press, 2016), Table 7.3, p. 172, citing Kenworthy 1967 and *Time* 1967. [^51]: Charles Katek, Chief, Central Cover Staff, memorandum for the Deputy Director for Plans, "Indications of the Scope and Possible Damage of New Allegations by Ramparts Magazine," November 1968, with annexes (JFK Assassination Records, 2025 release, 104-10059-10026). https://archive.org/details/JFK-Assassination-Records-2025-Batch01-02. [^52]: Central Intelligence Agency, Information and Privacy Coordinator, letter of May 28, 1985 responding to the Freedom of Information Act request of January 11, 1980 (CIA reading room copy, CIA-RDP87B00858R000500640014-6). https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP87B00858R000500640014-6. [^53]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Final Report*, Book I, S. Rept. 94-755 (1976), pp. 182 to 183. https://archive.org/details/finalreportofsel01unit. [^54]: Frances Stonor Saunders, *Who Paid the Piper?* (1999), pp. 134 to 135 (conduits) and p. 285 (Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney). [^55]: Central Intelligence Agency, memorandum for the record, March 1, 1967, covering "23 February 1967 Paper for the Katzenbach Committee Entitled 'Coordination and Policy Approval of Covert Operations'" (CIA reading room, CIA-RDP82R00025R000800020009-7). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp82r00025r000800020009-7. [^56]: Central Intelligence Agency, memorandum of June 9, 1967, "Projects Affected by the Katzenbach Report" (CIA reading room, CIA-RDP84-00780R001900020012-9). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp84-00780r001900020012-9. [^57]: Henry A. Kissinger to Peter Flanigan, memorandum of March 26, 1969, "Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, John Hay Whitney" (CIA reading room copy, LOC-HAK-1-2-69-2). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-loc-hak-1-2-69-2. --- *The Info Web has an MCP server for agents at https://theinfoweb.org/mcp (streamable HTTP, no auth): search by meaning, exact text, source or date, and follow typed, footnoted connections. Setup and the same tools over GET: https://theinfoweb.org/llms.txt*