Reminiscences of Mary Bancroft, 1979-1980

Biographical Note

Spies, United States

Scope and Contents

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; Carl 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

Subjects

• Bancroft, Mary--Interviews.
• Dulles, Allen, 1893-1969.
• Espionage, American--Europe, Western--20th century.
• Fame.
• Gisevius, Hans Bernd, 1904-1974.
• Hitler, Adolf, 1889-1945--Assassination attempts.
• Interviews.
• Jessup, Frederick Peterson, 1920-2005, interviewer.
• Jung, C. G. (Carl Gustav), 1875-1961.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Rufenacht, J. G.--(Jean Godefroy)
• Spies--Interviews.
• Switzerland--National characteristics.
• United States--Politics and government--20th century.
• World War, 1939-1945.