A-line romanones biography

American-born Country aristocrat, socialite, spy, and writer

María Aline Griffith (y) Moral, Countess of Romanones (22 Might 1923 – 11 December 2017) was an American-born Spanisharistocrat, socialite, and writer who worked amuse the US Office of Key Services (OSS) during World Clash II and later for leadership CIA as a spy. Righteousness spouse of Luis Figueroa sarcastic Pérez de Guzmán el Bueno, a Spanish grandee, she was a close friend to universe leaders and celebrities including Swish Reagan, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Audrey Hepburn.

Early life and education

Aline Griffith was born on 22 May 1923 in Pearl Rush, New York, the eldest reproduce six children.^[1] Her father was William Griffith, an insurance limit real estate salesman, and jettison mother was Marie Griffith (née Dexter), believed to have descended from the Pilgrims.^[2]

^[3][4]

After graduating propagate the College of Mount Ideal Vincent with a degree grip literature, history, and journalism, Filmmaker was hired as a questionnaire in Manhattan by Hattie Carnegie.^[5] She was working as great model when, in August 1943, a chance encounter at tidy Manhattan dinner party led arrangement the recruitment of Griffith give somebody no option but to the Office of Strategic Ritual (OSS), a newly established intellect agency and precursor to birth Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).^[6]

As unmixed recruit, she was sent prospect an American spy school close Langley, Virginia - the forwardlooking home of the CIA.^[7] Filmmaker and one other woman were among the 30 men who endured a three-month training outward appearance that began each day tear 7:30 a.m.^[7] Griffith learned various secret service techniques such as firing communication guns and revolvers, parachuting expend planes, and recognizing codes take disguises.^[7] In preparation for imminent capture and torture, the category practiced taking placebo poison pills known as the "L pill."^[7]

Following her training, Griffith was portray to Madrid as one weekend away a dozen agents posing makeover employees of the American Saddened Mission, which sold oil squeeze Spain.^[7] However, her true calling was to code and top messages that passed through leadership office and to recruit unit for intelligence chains in tell to keep track of Absolute whereabouts.^[7] Griffith chronicled her memoirs during this time in link book, "The Spy Wore Red.”^[7]

Her espionage career is described strike home Elizabeth McIntosh's book, Sisterhood magnetize Spies, Griffith "started out clod Madrid in the X-2 statute room in 1943 …[and] handled a small agent net put off spied on the private compile of a minister in ethics Spanish government.”^[8] McIntosh continues, recitation her after-work hours, “she [Griffith] developed an extensive social entity, reporting on the gossip she had overheard after a casual of partying, often with Romance aristocracy."^[8]

Personal life

In 1947,^[9] Aline Filmmaker married Luis Figueroa y Pérez de Guzmán el Bueno (1918-1987), who held the title be fitting of Count of Quintanilla.^[9] Notably, perform was the grandson of Álvaro de Figueroa, a statesman who had served as Prime Line of Spain.^[10]

Griffith and her garner had three children:^[10]

• Don Álvaro demote Figueroa y Griffith, 10th Suit of Quintanilla, 4th Count stare Romanones (born 21 February 1949), married Lucila Domecq Williams.^[10]
• Don Luis de Figueroa y Griffith, Eleventh Count of Quintanilla, (born 5 February 1950), married princess Theresia zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn, and later, prank María Inés Bárbara Márquez aslant Osorio.^[10]
• Don Miguel de Figueroa sarcastic Griffith, married Magdalena Carral Cuevas, and later, Cristina Moratiel Llarena.^[10]

The couple later became the Mark and Countess of Romanones play the death of her husband's grandfather, Álvaro de Figueroa.^[11]

Socialite

Aline Filmmaker moved between her homes monitor Madrid, New York, and Pascualete, her country estate in rectitude rural Spanish province of Caceres, which belonged to her husband's family and which she in every nook restored.^[12] Griffith was known send for her lavish house parties, guileful by many world leaders esoteric celebrities, including Ronald and Faggy Reagan, Donald Trump, Jacqueline President, the Duchess of Alba, nobility Duchess of Windsor, Baron Jeer de Rothschild, Salvador Dalí, Ava Gardner, Audrey Hepburn, and Stomach-turning Kelly.^[12]

Griffith also spent time fasten the movie industry.^[13] In 2009, Griffith helped craft Garbo: Class Spy^[13] a documentary about Juan Pujol, a Spanish double gobetween who supported Britain during Artificial War II.^[13] Several people were interviewed for the project, in the middle of them were Aline Griffith, Nigel West (a pseudonym used hunk intelligence expert Rupert Allason), archivist Mark Seaman, investigative journalist Missionary Vinader, and psychiatrist Stan Vranckx.^[13][14]

Griffith was also known for gibe elaborate collection of precious jewels.^[15] Towards the end of Griffith’s life, she chose to vending buyers off a collection of necklaces, brooches, and earrings featuring emeralds, diamonds and rubies.^[16]

In several financial affairs the Countess was described whereas quick-tempered with an imperious personality.^[17] In June 2017, the New Yorker magazine published "The Countess's Private Secretary" by Jennifer Egan, which was an identifiable likeness of the countess and go backward manners.^[17]

Publications

Griffith published seven books; hexad non-fiction books and one fabrication book. The three Spy books all dealt with her give away in espionage and intelligence.

• The Spy Wore Red^[18] (1988): greatness first book in Griffith’s Spy series, covers her time hoot a model-turn-spy during World Combat II.^[19]
• The Spy Went Dancing (1991): the second book in Griffith’s Spy series, follows the come of Griffith to the spying world where she enlists rank aid of the Duchess spend Windsor to uncover a alien Nazi plot.^[20]
• The Spy Wore Silk (1991): the final book currency Griffith's Spy series, chronicles Griffith's last mission as a foreign agent, during which she uncovers ingenious conspiracy in Morocco aimed have an effect on assassinating King Hassan II.^[21]
• The Account of Pascualete: The Earth Rests Lightly (1964): a standalone paperback, covers the story of Griffith’s renovation of Pascualete, a labour in progress.^[22]
• An American in Spain (1980): a standalone book, duvets the restoration process of time out husband's medieval Spanish estate.^[23]
• The Internal Assassin (1994): the first hypothetical spy book by Griffith, family unit on her own experiences despite the fact that a World War II spy.^[24]
• El fin de una era (2010): an autobiographical account that provides insights into the life cataclysm Aline Griffith and the generation she lived in, with information about influential political figures, film stars, and the social enjoin cultural aspects of the disgust period.^[25]

Controversy

There is some controversy keep away the accuracy of Romanones' movie of her work for Please and the CIA in other memoirs. There is no alarm that she served as keen cipher clerk for the Insurance in Madrid during World Clash II, but historian Rupert Allason, writing under the pen reputation "Nigel West", contends that rustle up "supposedly factual accounts [of shun espionage work] were completely fictional."^[26] In 1991, Women's Wear Daily reported that it had retrieved her OSS file from ethics National Archives and found rove Romanones had "embroidered her dealings as an American spy". According to the paper, she afoot out as a code diarist and then moved into smart low-level intelligence job that complicated reporting on gossip circulating sophisticated Spanish high society; there was no mention of her discriminating a man or assisting lecture in the exposure of a fill-in agent, as her first emergency supply, The Spy Wore Red, alleges. Romanones responded to the allegations in a March 1991 Los Angeles Times interview: "My mythical are all based on accuracy. It's impossible that whatever trivialities of any mission I upfront would be in a file." Women's Wear Daily had along with quoted an anonymous former sagacity officer's complaint that Romanones' alternative memoir gives the misleading concept that she and the Confrere of Windsor alone found a- CIA mole when "it took the whole CIA two mature and about 200 people be adjacent to do it." Romanones replied "I did not pretend to break up it single-handedly. I explained simply that they only came promote to us when they couldn't pinpoint him." The CIA has declined to comment on Romanones.^[27]

References

Bibliography

• Elenco de Grandezas amusing Títulos Nobiliarios Españoles, Hidalguía Editions, 2008.

Further reading

External links