Just curious: the book and movie (as well as other movies like "Good Shepherd") implied that Yale was a fertile recruiting ground for CIA agents in post-WWII America. Can anyone tell me whether or not there is some sort of historical basis to this? Granted I'm sure they were trying to recruit from all over the US, but I got the impression that the CIA got a *lot* of recruits from Yale.
Thanks!
Good question. The answer is simply that Yale produces the most intelligent people in our nation, and who better to run our intelligence services than intelligent people. The Bay of Pigs was another marvelous job done by Harvard men, if you're wondering. Hope that helped.
shareThanks! Although, I have to admit you sound a little...biased? ;-) Perchance, did you attend Yale?
shareThere are two threads to the answer of why was Yale College such a fertile recruiting ground for the O.S.S. and its follow-on creation, The Central Intelligence Agency. The first thread is James Jesus Angleton, a Yale graduate.
The second thread is the secretive senior society at Yale known as Skull & Bones. The correct name is The Order Of Skull & Bones, and it is the second chapter of a German secret society known as, The Brotherhood of Death. Precisely when the Brotherhood was founded is obscured by history.
Two men of Yale travelled to Europe in the time frame of 1830 to 1831. One of them was William Russell. These two men were from 'the elite' of New England's long-established families, some dating back to the time of Puritan migration to Massachusetts Bay Colony, which includes the Forbes.
John Forbes Kerry of Massachusetts descends directly from that line via his mother, who was a Forbes. His father, Richard Kerry '37, met Rosemary Forbes in France, not long after he graduated from Yale College. He was not a member of Skull & Bones but he was familiar with many of the most august members of that society, despite the fact that his father's family were Kohns, a Jewish clan which lived in the Czech portion of Austria-Hungary and were part of the Jewish rabbinate and had connections in Hungary as well.
Before they left Austria-Hungary, the Kohns converted from Judiasm and became Christians ( Roman Catholic ), and adopted the name of Kerry for the family.
In no way were they connected to Ireland, which is where one version of the Kerry name originated. Although the name was sometimes spelled Kerrey, there is no known connection between John F. Kerry and the former Senator who hailed from Nebraska, Bob Kerrey. Many who carry the Kerry name have no relation to the former presidential candidate ( 2004 ), and current Senator.
Kerry of the Class of 1937 was well-acquainted with William and McGeorge Bundy, who were both members of Skull & Bones when they were seniors at Yale.
During World War II, the Office of Strategic Services or O.S.S. recruited all kinds of highly intelligent men and women, and this formed the core of what would later become Wild Bill Donovan's dream organization, the C.I.A.
Both Skull & Bones and another senior society known as Wolf's Head proved to be fertile grounds for 'spook' recruitment: in that era, familiarity with a foreign language was critical to intelligence success. Nearly all Yale graduates of that era ( 1930 to 1942 ), had a solid background in a foreign language, with French and German being the most preferred.
Naturally this proved to be crucial in the years of World War II. Angleton was a product of Yale and had a natural affinity for recruiting and hiring other men of Yale. This is dramatized effectively in the film "The Good Shepherd."
Hope this proves helpful.
Very useful and informative summary, thanks for sharing! (Presuming all of that is true.) I wonder what happened to Yale over the years though. While it's still tops for law and medicine, in areas that seem to be explored here -- international relations, public policy, economics, business, or even some of the more hard core subjects such as physics or mathematics, Yale is now not no.1.
shareYour comment in part supports the intellectual nepotism I mentioned above. What you've written about Order of S&B is essentially accurate by everything I've read but I suspect only insiders know the truth, which is as it should (it is after all a private and secret club). What's remarkable is how much influence the Order has had and that ties back into Yale and the influence it has had. I don't find any of this amusing by the way. What is remarkable, in fact it's virtually impossible to explain: Why and how men who are purportedly so intelligent make such poor choices. Perhaps they lack simple morality or ethics believing that brotherhood is more important. It doesn't take Einstein to look at the US and see that whatever it was that the CIA supposedly fought for had very little to do with democracy and freedom, at least not how I define it. Frankly, I doubt anyone reading this would be able to answer this because 99% of the American population isn't good enough to know. What I have seen of the CIA scares me and rather than be thankful for what they do, I've often asked myself is what they do worth it? This was especially the case after my three long summers in the former Soviet Union. It was rather shocking to discover that while our leadership was vilifying Soviets that never happens. I can't tell you how shocking this was for me, a child of the Cold War. I felt like I woke up from a 40+ year long dream to find that much of what I was told about our adversary was a lie. And who perpetrated those lies.... My wife thinks me intellectually snob and perhaps that's true. I respect education and intelligence. What I have no respect for is fascism and mock intellectualism wrapping itself in the banner of democracy and the good old USA. Part of why the US is so fouled up today has much to do that the reality US Cold War leadership created was built on a tissue of lies and those lies were in part created by men like James Angleton. I am reminded of the comment made by a US military officer during the Vietnam era who said, to the effect, that to save the Vietnamese we may have to kill them. What a perfectly apt comment. Anyone here care for that kind of salvation? Let me clue you in to something: Many of our so called leaders, too many of whom came out of the Ivy League, were more than willing to play that sort of game with our lives.
shareHappens in a lot of places. British intelligence recruited heavily from Cambridge.
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It's not "sci-fi", it's SF!
If you want some type of an answer I recommend Charlie Wilson's War. One of the real life characters in that story a CIA agent named Gus complains constantly to Wilson about the snobbery and Anglo-Saxon Protestant bigotry of what was in the 1970s a largely White CIA where a great many Case Officers were recruited out of Yale. Regretfully for our friend who brags about the intelligence of Yale graduates, their association with CIA had little to do with brains and everything to do with class, associations, and other non-academic factors. Of course, we may presume that withing this rather narrow circle of people they picked the juiciest fruit on the tree.
shareI think more than anything, these people were of the right breed. They attended Yale and probably came from all the right families so they became ideal for recruiting to the CIA.
shareLet me say this, with some knowledge as someone with Anouilh experience and background, at arms length. Both Donovan's OSS and the CI A are heavily "Ivy League-centric" and that is a fact.
shareYes it's a fact but to think that most or even a small amount of current Yale grads, are thinking about CIA as a first choice as a career path is silly.
This isn't the OSS during WW2, very different times.
Kisskiss, Bangbang
That's my understanding. One should reaf Norman Mailers Harlots ghost.
"Your set up is getting tired, roll ze film"