Cord Meyer
Cord Meyer, Jr. (November 10, 1920 – March 13, 2001) was an American CIA official.
Early life
Cord Meyer, Jr. attended Yale University, where he was a member of the Scroll and Key society.[1] He graduated in 1942, and enlisted with the U.S. Marines and fought in the South Pacific; he took part in the Battle of Guam as platoon leader, losing his left eye in a grenade attack. He shared his war experiences writing for The Atlantic Monthly.[2]
In 1945, he married Mary Pinchot, daughter of Amos Pinchot.
After the war, Meyer was a strong advocate of World government. He was an aide of Harold Stassen to the 1945 San Francisco UN Conference and in 1947, was elected president of the United World Federalists, the organization he helped to found.
In 1959, Meyer's 9-year-old son Michael was hit by a car; he divorced his wife shortly thereafter. In 1964, she was shot dead by an unknown assailant alongside the C&O Canal.[3]
Life in the CIA
Around 1949, he started working for the Central Intelligence Agency, and joined the organization in 1951 at the invitation of Allen Dulles. He would eventually rise to become Assistant Deputy Director of Plans under Thomas Karamessines, before being siphoned off to London in 1973 as station chief.[2][3]
In 1953, he came under attack by the FBI, who accused him of being a security risk for having once stood at the same podium of a "notorious leftist," and refused to give him the necessary security clearance; an internal CIA inquiry summarily dismissed the claims.[4]
Meyer befriended James Jesus Angleton in the CIA. In 1964, Mary Meyer was shot death, her sister and brother-in-law, Benjamin C. Bradlee, the later Washington Post executive, caught Angleton breaking into Pinchot's residence. Angleton apparently was looking for Mary Meyer's diary, which contained details of a love affair with John F. Kennedy, the U.S. President.[4][5]
Life after leaving the CIA
Meyer left the CIA in 1977, and became a syndicated columnist. He also wrote several books, including an autobiography. He was long incorrectly considered by some to be Deep Throat.
In a deathbed statement [1] released in 2007, Watergate figure
Howard Hunt states that Meyer organised the assassination of
He died of lymphoma on March 13, 2001.
Famous last words
Author C. David Heymann, in The Georgetown Ladies' Social Club (2003), tells of Meyer's response when asked, near the end of his life, to comment on his wife's still unsolved murder case:
- Meyer held court at the beginning of February 2001 - six weeks before his death - in the barren dining room of a Washington nursing home. Propped up in a chair, his glass eye bulging, he struggled to hold his head aloft. Although he was no longer able to read, the nurses supplied him with a daily copy of The Washington Post, which he carried with him wherever he went. "My father died of a heart attack the same year Mary was killed," he whispered. "It was a bad time." And what could he say about Mary Meyer? Who had committed such a heinous crime? "The same sons of bitches," he hissed, "that killed John F. Kennedy."[6]
Books
- Peace or Anarchy, Little, Brown (1948).
- The Search of Security, World Government House (January 1, 1947).
- , University Press of America; Reprint edition (September 2, 1982). ISBN 0-8191-2559-8
References
- ^ "Behind the Scenes Of a CIA Life", The Washington Post, 1978-02-28.
- ^ a b "Cord Meyer Jr. Dies at 80", The New York Times, 2001-03-16.
- ^ a b "Key CIA Figure Cord Meyer Dies", The Washington Post, 2001-03-15.
- ^ a b "Obituary: Cord Meyer", The Guardian, 2001-03-17.
- ^ Benjamin C. Bradlee. "The Bradlee files", Newsweek, 1995-09-25.
- ^ C. David Heynmann, "The Georgetown Ladies' Social Club", 2003
External links
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