Mary Bancroft

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Mary Bancroft (29 October 1903, Boston - 10 January 1997, New York City[1]) was an American novelist and spy who was a member of the Bancroft family which at one time owned Dow Jones & Company. Living in Switzerland from 1934, Bancroft was recruited by the Office of Strategic Services in 1942, and both worked and had a romantic relationship with Allen Dulles. Her most important work was with Hans Bernd Gisevius, a German military intelligence officer who supplied her with details of the 20 July plot to assassinate Hitler. After the war, Bancroft settled in New York and became a novelist.[1]

Life

Born in Boston[2] and brought up there by her stepgrandfather Clarence W. Barron, Bancroft studied at Smith College in Massachusetts, but dropped out after a year.[3] After divorcing her first husband Sherwin Badger she went on a boat trip to Europe in summer 1933 together with her friend Ruth Paine,[4] where she met a Swiss accountant, Jean Rufenacht, who became her second husband.[2] She moved to Zurich, Switzerland in 1934, where she learned excellent French and German,[3] and became a close friend and student of Carl Jung, who cured her of chronic attacks of sneezing.[5]

Following the US entry into World War II, Bancroft was recruited by the Office of Strategic Services, although she was not initially aware of the fact, being asked by a US Embassy contact to write analyses of German policy based on German public sources for Swiss and American newspapers.[2][6] She was then introduced to Allen Dulles in Zurich in December 1942 and went on to have a romantic relationship with him, based on Dulles' proposition that "We can let the work cover the romance, and the romance cover the work."[3] Dulles assigned Bancroft to work with Hans Bernd Gisevius, a German military intelligence officer who supplied her with details of the planned 20 July plot to assassinate Hitler; Bancroft soon developed a romantic relationship with Gisevius too.[3][1] After the war, with her relationship with Dulles cooling, Bancroft became close friends with Dulles' wife Clover, who told her she was aware of their relationship and approved.[3] She remained close friends with Clover until the latter's death in 1974.[7]

After the war Bancroft settled in New York and became close friends with Henry Luce. She became "a leading champion of Jung's psychology in the United States",[3] lecturing on the subject and publishing articles in academic journals.[3][1] She also published several novels in the 1950s, and an autobiography in 1983.

Books

  • Upside Down in the Magnolia Tree, Little, Brown, 1952
  • The Inseparables, Little, Brown, 1958
  • Autobiography of a Spy, William Morrow, NY, 1983

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Robert McG. Thomas, Jr., New York Times, 19 January 1997, Mary Bancroft Dead at 93; U.S. Spy in World War II
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Simone Payment (2003), American Women Spies of World War II, Rosen Publishing Group, pp78-83
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 Godfrey Hodgson, The Independent, 17 February 1997, Obituary: Mary Bancroft
  4. ↑ Mary Bancroft (1983), Autobiography Of A Spy, pp54-55, p59
  5. ↑ James Srodes (2000), Allen Dulles: Master of Spies, Regnery Publishing, p273
  6. ↑ Elizabeth P. McIntosh (1998), Sisterhood of Spies: The Women of the OSS, Naval Institute Press, p178
  7. ↑ James Srodes (2000), Allen Dulles: Master of Spies, Regnery Publishing, p340
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