Michael Whitney Straight
| Michael Whitney Straight | |
|---|---|
| Born |
September 1, 1916 New York City, New York |
| Died | January 4, 2004 (aged 87) Chicago, Illinois |
| Nationality | American |
| Education |
Lincoln School (New York) Dartington Hall School (England) |
| Alma mater |
London School of Economics University of Cambridge |
| Spouse(s) |
Belinda Crompton (m. 1939; div. 1969) Nina Auchincloss Steers (m. 1974; div. 1998) Katharine Gould (m. 1998–2004; his death) |
| Children | David Straight, Michael Straight Jr., Susan Straight, Diana Straight Krosnick, and Dorothy Straight |
| Parent(s) |
Willard D. Straight Dorothy Payne Whitney |
| Relatives |
Whitney W. Straight (brother) Beatrice Straight (sister) Ruth Elmhirst (half-sister) William Elmhirst (half-brother) Leonard K. Elmhirst (step-father) |
Michael Whitney Straight (September 1, 1916 – January 4, 2004) was an American magazine publisher, novelist, patron of the arts, a member of the prominent Whitney family, and a confessed spy for the KGB.
Straight was born in New York City, the son of Willard Dickerman Straight (1880–1918), an investment banker who died in Michael's infancy, and Dorothy Payne Whitney (1887–1968), a philanthropist. Straight was educated at Lincoln School in New York City and, after his mother's remarriage to Leonard Knight Elmhirst (1893–1974), in England at his family's Dartington Hall, followed by studies at the London School of Economics.
Straight's maternal grandparents were Flora Payne and William Collins Whitney (1841–1904), the United States Secretary of the Navy during the first Cleveland administration. Flora was the daughter of Senator Henry B. Payne of Ohio and sister of Colonel Oliver Hazard Payne.
While a student at the University of Cambridge in the mid-1930s, Straight became a Communist Party member and a part of an intellectual secret society known as the Cambridge Apostles. Straight worked for the Soviet Union as part of a spy ring whose members included Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Kim Philby and KGB recruiter Anthony Blunt, who had briefly been Straight's lover. A document from Soviet archives of a report that Blunt made in 1943 to the KGB states, "As you already know the actual recruits whom I took were Michael Straight".
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