Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt III (October 23, 1915 – August 3, 1991) was an American intelligence officer, business executive and

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 opposing ...

veteran, who was a grandson of President

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...

. He worked for the

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

from the close of World War II until his retirement in 1973.

Early life

He was the third child of

Theodore Roosevelt Jr. Theodore Roosevelt III ( ), often known as Theodore Jr.Morris, Edmund (1979). ''The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt''. index.While it was President Theodore Roosevelt who was legally named Theodore Roosevelt Jr., the President's fame made it simple ...

and Eleanor Butler Alexander and therefore the grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt. His siblings were

Grace Grace may refer to: Places United States * Grace, Idaho, a city * Grace (CTA station), Chicago Transit Authority's Howard Line, Illinois * Little Goose Creek (Kentucky), location of Grace post office * Grace, Carroll County, Missouri, an uninco ...

Theodore Roosevelt IV Theodore Roosevelt V ( ) (born November 27, 1942), also called Theodore IV, is an American investment banker and managing director at Barclays Investment Bank. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Economic Club of New York, ...

, and

Quentin Roosevelt II Quentin Roosevelt II (November 4, 1919 – December 21, 1948) was the fourth child and youngest son of Theodore "Ted" Roosevelt III and Eleanor Butler Alexander. He was the namesake of his uncle Quentin Roosevelt I, who was killed in acti ...

. He attended

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

and graduated from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

, where he was a member of St. Anthony Hall, and graduated in 1938. As an Oyster Bay Roosevelt, and through his ancestor and namesake

Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt Cornelius Van Schaack "C.V.S." Roosevelt (January 30, 1794 – July 17, 1871) was an American businessman from New York City. He was a member of the prominent Roosevelt family and the paternal grandfather of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. Ea ...

(1794–1871), he was a descendant of the Schuyler family.

Career

From 1938 to 1941, Roosevelt was a

mining engineer Mining in the engineering discipline is the extraction of minerals from underneath, open pit, above or on the ground. Mining engineering is associated with many other disciplines, such as mineral processing, exploration, excavation, geology, and ...

for the American Smelting and Mining Company in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

World War II

He served in the Navy during

. He was commissioned as an ensign in the Naval Reserve on May 28, 1942, and promoted to lieutenant (junior grade) on July 1, 1943. He remained in the Naval Reserve after the war and was promoted to lieutenant commander in 1951.

Post-War career

From 1946 to 1949, he moved to

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

where he was the manager of the mining division of William Hunt & Co. In 1949, after the Communist takeover in China, he relocated to

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

where he served as president of the company in 1950. During the same period, he also served as president of International Industries Inc. in Hong Kong. In 1952, after a brief stint as vice president of Security Banknote Co. in Philadelphia, a research administrator for the Office of Naval Research and president of Linderman Engineering Co., he joined the

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

in Washington. While in the CIA, he was the chief of the Technical Services Division/TSD from 1959 to 1962. He served as the chairman of the Technical Surveillance Countermeasures Committee, which involved securing American facilities against electronic eavesdropping.

Evan Thomas Evan Welling Thomas III (born April 25, 1951) is an American journalist, historian, and author. He is the author of nine books, including two ''New York Times'' bestsellers. Early life and career Thomas was born in Huntington, New York, and r ...

wrote that Roosevelt was the person who originally suggested the CIA project that attempted to poison Fidel Castro. Roosevelt, as a head of the CIA technical division, supervised

Sidney Gottlieb Sidney Gottlieb (August 3, 1918 – March 7, 1999) was an American chemist and spymaster who headed the Central Intelligence Agency's 1950s and 1960s assassination attempts and mind-control program, known as Project MKUltra. Early years and ...

, who brought a biological poison to Congo during the autumn of 1960. To friends and family, he said that his work for the CIA mainly involved creating devices to detect

listening device A covert listening device, more commonly known as a bug or a wire, is usually a combination of a miniature radio transmitter with a microphone. The use of bugs, called bugging, or wiretapping is a common technique in surveillance, espionage and ...

s. He also mentioned that he took part as a subject in the CIA experiments on

LSD Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...

(part of

MKULTRA Project MKUltra (or MK-Ultra) was an illegal human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), intended to develop procedures and identify drugs that could be used in interrogations to weak ...

). Roosevelt retired from the CIA in 1973 and had served in retirement as a defense consultant and on the board of Aerospace Corp.

Personal life

Roosevelt had many lifelong hobbies and interests and published about them: the archaeology of

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = National seal , national_motto = "Firm and Happy f ...

, the history of early sugar processing machines in the Caribbean, Japanese

Netsuke A is a miniature sculpture, originating in 17th century Japan. Initially a simply-carved button fastener on the cords of an box, later developed into ornately sculpted objects of craftsmanship. History Traditionally, Japanese clothing – ...

carvings, and

scuba-diving Scuba diving is a mode of underwater diving whereby divers use breathing equipment that is completely independent of a surface air supply. The name "scuba", an acronym for " Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus", was coined by Chri ...

. He gave a collection of more than 50

M. C. Escher Maurits Cornelis Escher (; 17 June 1898 – 27 March 1972) was a Dutch graphic artist who made mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints. Despite wide popular interest, Escher was for most of his life neglected in t ...

prints to the National Gallery of Art. Roosevelt was a member of the

Metropolitan Club The Metropolitan Club of New York is a private social club on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded as a gentlemen's club in 1891 for men only, but it was one of the first major clubs in New York to admit women, t ...

and the

Army and Navy Club The Army and Navy Club in London is a private members club founded in 1837, also known informally as The Rag.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roosevelt, Cornelius V.S. 1915 births 1991 deaths Cornelius American people of Dutch descent American people of Scottish descent United States Navy personnel of World War II Bulloch family Schuyler family Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni People of the Central Intelligence Agency United States Navy officers United States Navy reservists