Michael Whitney Straight

Michael Whitney Straight, (September 1, 1916 ? January 4, 2004) was an American magazine publisher, novelist, patron of the arts, and a member of the prominent Whitney family.

Related Topics:
September 1 - 1916 - January 4 - 2004 - American - Magazine publisher - Novelist - Arts - Whitney family

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Born in New York, Michael Straight was the son of Willard Dickerman Straight and Dorothy Payne Whitney. Straight was educated at Lincoln School in New York City and after his mother's remarriage, in England at his family's Dartington Hall followed by studies at the London School of Economics.

Related Topics:
New York - Willard Dickerman Straight - Dorothy Payne Whitney - England - Dartington Hall - London School of Economics

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While a student at Cambridge University in the mid-1930s. he became a communist party member and a part of an intellectual secret society known as the Cambridge Apostles. Straight worked for the Soviet Union, as part of a spy ring whose members included Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Kim Philby, and KGB recruiter Anthony Blunt. A document from Soviet archives of a report Blunt made in 1943 to the KGB states, " As you already know the actual recruits whom I took were Michael Straight"{{NamedRef|p.130|1}}.

Related Topics:
Cambridge University - Communist - Cambridge Apostles - Soviet Union - Spy ring - Donald Maclean - Guy Burgess - Kim Philby - Anthony Blunt - 1943

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After returning to the United States in 1937 Straight worked for as a speechwriter for President Franklin Roosevelt, and was on the payroll of the Department of the Interior. Beginning in 1938 Straight carried on a covert relationship with KGB Illegal Rezident Iskhak Akhmerov. In 1940 Straight went to work in the Eastern Division of the U.S. State Department.

Related Topics:
1937 - Franklin Roosevelt - Department of the Interior - 1938 - Iskhak Akhmerov - 1940 - U.S. State Department

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He served stateside in the United States Army Air Force beginning in 1942 as a B-17 pilot, and at war's end took over as publisher of his family-owned The New Republic magazine where he hired former U.S. Vice President and future Presidential candidate Henry A. Wallace as the magazine's editor. Straight left the magazine in 1956 and began writing novels. However, in 1963, in response to an offer of government employment in Washington, DC, he faced a background check and decided to voluntarily inform family friend and Presidential special assistant, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. about his communist connections at Cambridge. This led directly to MI5 unmasking the "Cambridge Five" spy network.

Related Topics:
United States Army Air Force - 1942 - B-17 - The New Republic - U.S. Vice President - Henry A. Wallace - Novel - Washington, DC - Presidential - Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. - MI5 - Cambridge Five

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Straight later served as the deputy chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts from 1969 to 1977. In 1988 he published "Nancy Hanks: An Intimate Portrait" that told the story of the second chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts with whom he had worked.

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In 1983, Michael Straight detailed his communist activities in a memoir titled After Long Silence. (ISBN: 039301729X)

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In 1939 he married Belinda Crompton of Wilton New Hampshire.

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Michael Whitney Straight died of pancreatic cancer in 2004 at home in Chicago, Illinois.

Related Topics:
Pancreatic cancer - Chicago, Illinois

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