Huntington Denton "Ting" Sheldon (February 14, 1903 – May 19, 1987) served as the Director of the Office of Current Intelligence of the US
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, ...
from 1951 to 1961, serving under Presidents
Truman,
Eisenhower, and
Kennedy
Kennedy may refer to:
People
* John F. Kennedy (1917–1963), 35th president of the United States
* John Kennedy (Louisiana politician), (born 1951), US Senator from Louisiana
* Kennedy (surname), a family name (including a list of persons with t ...
. Sheldon was the second Director of the OCI, and developed it into a major Office. Sheldon briefed all three Presidents; the President's Intelligence Check List, which became the
President's Daily Brief, was developed by
Richard Lehman under his direction.
Personal life
His first wife was Magda Merck, youngest daughter of George Merck, the founder of
Merck & Co. They were married on April 12, 1928, and had three children, Huntington, Audrey, and Peter. The marriage ended in divorce in November 1936. He was later the husband of science-fiction writer Alice B. Sheldon (''alias''
James Tiptree Jr.
Alice Bradley Sheldon (born Alice Hastings Bradley; August 24, 1915 – May 19, 1987) was an American science fiction and fantasy author better known as James Tiptree, Jr., a pen name she used from 1967 to her death. It was not publicly known un ...
), 12 years his junior. In 1987, she shot and killed Sheldon and then herself in what was either a murder-suicide or, based on her personal writings, a
suicide pact
A suicide pact is an agreed plan between two or more individuals to die by suicide. The plan may be to die together, or separately and closely timed.
General considerations
Suicide pacts are an important concept in the study of suicide, and h ...
.
Education
As an undergraduate, he earned a bachelor's degree from
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
and was a member of
Scroll and Key
The Scroll and Key Society is a secret society, founded in 1842 at Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut. It is one of the oldest Yale secret societies and reputedly the wealthiest. The society is one of the reputed "Big Three" societies ...
.
References
Further reading
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1903 births
1987 deaths
People of the Central Intelligence Agency
People educated at Eton College
1987 suicides
Suicides by firearm in Virginia
Murder–suicides in Virginia
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