Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt III (October 23, 1915 – August 3, 1991) was an American intelligence officer, business executive and World War II veteran, who was a grandson of President

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), also known as Teddy or T.R., was the 26th president of the United States, serving from 1901 to 1909. Roosevelt previously was involved in New York (state), New York politics, incl ...

. He worked for the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

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 ( ; September 13, 1887 – July 12, 1944), 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 ...

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 uni ...

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, an ...

, 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 actio ...

. He attended

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

and graduated from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

, where he was a member of

St. Anthony Hall St. Anthony Hall or the Fraternity of Delta Psi is an American fraternity and literary society. Its first chapter was founded at Columbia University on , the feast day of Saint Anthony the Great. The fraternity is a non–religious, nonsectar ...

, and graduated in 1938. As an Oyster Bay Roosevelt, and through his ancestor and namesake Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt (1794–1871), he was a descendant of the

Schuyler family The Schuyler family (Help:IPA/English, /ˈskaɪlər/; Dutch pronunciation: Help:IPA/Dutch, xœylər was a prominent Dutch family in New York and New Jersey in the 18th and 19th centuries, whose descendants played a critical role in the forma ...

Career

From 1938 to 1941, Roosevelt was a

mining engineer Mining engineering is the extraction of minerals from the ground. It is associated with many other disciplines, such as mineral processing, exploration, excavation, geology, metallurgy, geotechnical engineering and surveying. A mining engineer m ...

for the American Smelting and Mining Company in Mexico.

World War II

He served in the Navy during World War II. 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, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

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 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 The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is an organization within the United States Department of the Navy responsible for the science and technology programs of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Established by Congress in 1946, its mission is to plan ...

and president of Linderman Engineering Co., he joined the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

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, lawyer, and author. He is the author of 11 books, including two ''New York Times'' bestsellers. Early life and career Thomas was born in Huntington, New York, ...

wrote that Roosevelt was the person who originally suggested the CIA project that attempted to poison

Fidel Castro Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban politician and revolutionary who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and President of Cuba, president ...

. Roosevelt, as a head of the CIA technical division, supervised

Sidney Gottlieb Sidney Gottlieb (August 3, 1918March 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 educat ...

, 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, commonly known as LSD (from German ; often referred to as acid or lucy), is a semisynthetic, hallucinogenic compound derived from ergot, known for its powerful psychological effects and serotonergic activity. I ...

(part of

MKULTRA MKUltra was an illegal human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to develop procedures and identify drugs that could be used during interrogations to weaken individuals and force confes ...

). 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 Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

, the history of early

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecul ...

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.Yuji Yamashita (2014), ''Meiji no saimitsu kogei'' ...

carvings, and

scuba-diving Scuba diving is a mode of underwater diving whereby divers use breathing equipment that is completely independent of a surface breathing gas supply, and therefore has a limited but variable endurance. The word ''scuba'' is an acronym for ...

. 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 woodcuts, lithography, lithographs, and mezzotints, many of which were Mathematics and art, inspired by mathematics. Despite wide popular int ...

prints to the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...

. Roosevelt was a member of the

Metropolitan Club Metropolitan Club may refer to: *Metropolitan Club (New York City), a private social club in Manhattan, New York, United States * Metropolitan Club (San Francisco), a women's club in San Francisco, California, United States * Metropolitan Club (Was ...

and the

Army and Navy Club The Army and Navy Club, commonly known as The Rag, is a private members' club in London that was founded in 1837 for officers of the British Army, the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines.

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