Alfred C. Ulmer Jr. (1916-2000) was an American intelligence officer. He was born in

Jacksonville Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the List of United States cities by area, largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the co ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

in August 1916. He was of Swiss extraction on his father's side, his father having been born in Zurich. Ulmer graduated from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

in 1939 and joined the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

prior to the start of World War II, ultimately becoming a major head of intelligence operations during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. He married Doris Gibson Bridges and had three sons (Alfred III, James and Nicolas) and a daughter (Marguerite). He received the

Intelligence Medal of Merit The Intelligence Medal of Merit is awarded by the Central Intelligence Agency for performance of especially meritorious service or for achievement conspicuously above normal duties. Notable recipients *Gust Avrakotos * I. Nathan Briggs * George ...

when he retired from his position in 1962. Ulmer then went on to business and in the 1980s joined the Swiss banking firm Lombard Odier et Cie. in Geneva, later setting up Lombard Odier's operations in Bermuda. He died on June 22, 2000 in

Virginia Beach Virginia Beach is an independent city located on the southeastern coast of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The population was 459,470 at the 2020 census. Although mostly suburban in character, it is the most populous city ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

Career in intelligence

Ulmer began his career in intelligence as a major head of intelligence operations for the Navy during

. He then joined the

Office of Strategic Services The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branc ...

(OSS) in 1945 and oversaw operatives gathering information in

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

and

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. When the OSS was disbanded in 1945, Ulmer became head of the

Strategic Services Unit The Strategic Services Unit was an intelligence agency of the United States government that existed in the immediate post–World War II period. It was created from the Secret Intelligence and Counter-Espionage branches of the wartime Office of ...

(SSU) in

. There, Ulmer expanded his base of operations to include the whole

Balkan The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...

s area including such controversial places as

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

and

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

. Although the SSU lacked the personnel to effectively carry out covert operations, Ulmer pushed for more money and was finally rewarded by a $150,000 annual budget. His glory at the SSU was short lived though as the SSU was soon liquidated into the CIA by the new Central European Section chief,

Richard Helms Richard McGarrah Helms (March 30, 1913 – October 23, 2002) was an American government official and diplomat who served as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from 1966 to 1973. Helms began intelligence work with the Office of Strategic Ser ...

. Ulmer was promoted to chief of the

Far East The ''Far East'' was a European term to refer to the geographical regions that includes East and Southeast Asia as well as the Russian Far East to a lesser extent. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons. The ter ...

division of the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

Directorate of Plans The Directorate of Operations (DO), less formally called the Clandestine Service,Central Intelligence AgencyCareers & Internships Retrieved: July 9, 2015. is a component of the US Central Intelligence Agency. It was known as the ''Directorate o ...

in 1955. At his new position Ulmer coordinated the overthrow of the president of Indonesia (

Sukarno Sukarno). (; born Koesno Sosrodihardjo, ; 6 June 1901 – 21 June 1970) was an Indonesian statesman, orator, revolutionary, and nationalist who was the first president of Indonesia, serving from 1945 to 1967. Sukarno was the leader of ...

) in 1957. The main reason behind the rebellion was to rid

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

of its growing

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...

. Ulmer was criticized for the failure of the rebellion and its intended sequel. He worked in Athens from 1952 to 1955 and in Paris from 1958 to 1962. Ulmer later went into business in London. Ulmer and his wife, Doris, are mentioned in the 1994 memoirs of

Barbara Bush Barbara Pierce Bush (June 8, 1925 – April 17, 2018) was First Lady of the United States from 1989 to 1993, as the wife of President George H. W. Bush, and the founder of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. She previously was ...

, the wife of former president

George Herbert Walker Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; p ...

, who had served in Naval Intelligence and was in 1963 still covertly serving in the CIA even while running for office. She quotes from an otherwise unattested letter of November 22, 1963, addressed to "Dearest family," which begins

Wednesday I took Doris Ulmer out for lunch. They were here from England and they had been so nice to George in Greece. ... I am writing this at the Beauty Parlor and the radio says that the President has been shot. ... Poppy .H.W. Bush's nicknamepicked me up at the beauty parlor—we went right to the airport, flew to Ft. Worth and dropped Mr. Zeppo off (we were on his plane) and flew back to Dallas.

"Mr. Zeppo" was Joe Zeppa, protégé of the Rockefeller family and owner of the hotel in which Bush made his campaign speech that day. When his son Keating was

told that the plane bypassed Dallas's downtown Love Field, dropped Zeppa off at Fort Worth's municipal airport, and then backtracked to Dallas, esaid that was not something that his father ordinarily would have done.This and other documentary evidence is adduced by
Baker A baker is a tradesperson who bakes and sometimes sells breads and other products made of flour by using an oven or other concentrated heat source. The place where a baker works is called a bakery. History Ancient history Since grains ha ...
(''op. cit.'') in an attempt to account for why G.H.W. Bush, perhaps alone among all Americans alive at the time, always said he could not remember where he was on the day of the
Kennedy assassination John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 un ...
. "In 1994, three decades after Poppy began not remembering where he was on November 22, 1963, it was suddenly Barbara who remembered." (''Op. cit.'' p. 52.)

Awards

Bibliography

* * * *

Notes

References

**https://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/01/world/alfred-c-ulmer-jr-83-officer-in-us-intelligence-agencies.html **https://web.archive.org/web/20070624113719/http://webscript.princeton.edu/~paw/memorials/memdisplay.php?id=6779 **https://books.google.com/books?id=VAbkogswOmEC&pg=PA59 {{DEFAULTSORT:Ulmer, Al 1916 births Princeton University alumni People of the Central Intelligence Agency 2000 deaths Recipients of the Intelligence Medal of Merit United States Navy personnel of World War II Military personnel from Florida People from Jacksonville, Florida