Cord Meyer

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Cord Meyer, Jr. (November 10, 1920 – March 13, 2001) was an American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official.

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[edit] 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 Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.[3]

[edit] 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. Initially, he worked at the Office of Policy Coordination under former OSS man, Frank Wisner.[4] From 1954 until 1962, he was head of the agency's international organizations division.[5] He headed the Covert Action Staff of the Directorate of Plans from 1962.[4] From 1967 to 1973 he was Assistant Deputy Director of Plans under Thomas Karamessines.[2][3] He retired in 1977 after a posting as station chief in London.

In 1953, he came under attack by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (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.[6]

Meyer befriended James Jesus Angleton in the CIA. In 1964, Mary Meyer was shot dead, 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.[6][7]

[edit] 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 John F. Kennedy at the behest of President Lyndon B. Johnson. The audio recordings also allege that, prior to the assassination, JFK had taken Meyer's wife as one of his mistresses.

He died of lymphoma on March 13, 2001.

[edit] 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."[8]

[edit] Books

  • Peace or Anarchy, Little, Brown (1948).
  • The Search of Security, World Government House (January 1, 1947).
  • Facing Reality: From World Federalism to the CIA, University Press of America; Reprint edition (September 2, 1982). ISBN 0-8191-2559-8

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Behind the Scenes Of a CIA Life", The Washington Post, 1978-02-28. 
  2. ^ a b "Cord Meyer Jr. Dies at 80", The New York Times, 2001-03-16. 
  3. ^ a b "Key CIA Figure Cord Meyer Dies", The Washington Post, 2001-03-15. 
  4. ^ a b Cord Meyer (1980). Facing Reality: From World Federalism to the Central Intelligence Agency. Harper & Row, p. 65. ISBN 0060130326. 
  5. ^ Raymond L. Garthoff (2001). A Journey Through the Cold War: A Memoir of Containment and Coexistence. Brookings Institution Press, p. 16. ISBN 0815701020. 
  6. ^ a b "Obituary: Cord Meyer", The Guardian, 2001-03-17. 
  7. ^ Benjamin C. Bradlee. "The Bradlee files", Newsweek, 1995-09-25. 
  8. ^ C. David Heynmann, "The Georgetown Ladies' Social Club", 2003

[edit] External links