Name
Bancroft, Mary (Interviewee)
Jessup, Frederick Peterson, 1920-2005 (Interviewer)
Title
Reminiscences of Mary Bancroft, 1979-1980
Abstract
Bancroft, Mary (1903-1997). Childhood: Cambridge, MA; education: Smith College; C.W. Barron, mentor and friend; marriages to Sherwin Badger, Jean Rufenacht; Les Geneveys-sur-Coffrane, Switzerland, 1935-1937: local lore, Swiss sensibility; influence of memoirs by Madame de Charriere and Madame de Staël; journalist and free-lance writer, Zurich, 1938-1953; World War II, anticipation and onset of; Ca rl Jung: consulted for sneezing attacks, friendship and correspondence with; U.S. Office of Strategic Services, Intelligence Analyst, 1941-1945; Allen Dulles, espionage work and romance with; July 20, 1944 conspiracy to kill Adolf Hitler: spy work with Dr. Hans Bernd Gisevius; Nuremberg, experience at witness house for defendants; encounters with famous personages: Heinrich Hoffman, Bill Donovan, Indira Gandhi, Wilhelm Furtwängler, James and Nora Joyce, Eleanor Roosevelt, Adlai Stevenson, John F. and Robert Kennedy, Ed Koch, daughter Mary Jane's wedding to Horace Taft; society clubs of New York City; work as Democrat: campaign for state assembly, 1960; appearance in Woody Allen film "Interiors"; review of Norman Mailer's book "The Executioner's Song"; meditations on celebrity
Collection Name
Individual interviews oral history collection
Subjects
Spies; Espionage, American--20th century.--Europe, Western; Fame; World War, 1939-1945; United States Politics and government 20th century; Switzerland National characteristics; Bancroft, Mary; Rufenacht, J. G. (Jean Godefroy); Jung, C. G. (Carl Gustav), 1875-1961; Dulles, Allen, 1893-1969; Hitler, Adolf, 1889-1945 Assassination attempts; Gisevius, Hans Bernd, 1904-1974
Format
oral histories
Genre
Interviews
Date
1979-1980
Physical Description
385 pages
Note (Biographical)
Spies, United States
Note
Interviewed by: Peter Jessup on June 29, 1979, July 16, 1979, an unrecorded date for the third session, September 27, 1979, November 19, 1979, November 20, 1979, January 10, 1980, April 22, 1980, and December 4, 1980 in New York, New York
Note (Provenance)
Mary Bancroft, Gift
Language
English
Library Location
Columbia Center for Oral History, Columbia University
Browse Location’s Digital Content
Catalog Record
13911145
Also In
Oral History Archives at Columbia
Time-Based Media
Time-Based Media
Persistent URL
https://dx.doi.org/10.7916/d8-5q00-tp62
Related URLs
Available digital content for this interview.