Archibald Roosevelt - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Archibald Bulloch "Archie" Roosevelt (April 9, 1894 – October 13, 1979), the fifth child of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...

, was a distinguished U.S. Army officer and commander of U.S. forces in both World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

and II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. In both conflicts he was wounded. He earned the Croix de guerre

Croix de guerre

The Croix de guerre is a military decoration of France. It was first created in 1915 and consists of a square-cross medal on two crossed swords, hanging from a ribbon with various degree pins. The decoration was awarded during World War I, again in World War II, and in other conflicts...

and Silver Star

Silver Star

The Silver Star is the third-highest combat military decoration that can be awarded to a member of any branch of the United States armed forces for valor in the face of the enemy....

with Oak Leaf Cluster

Oak leaf cluster

An oak leaf cluster is a common device which is placed on U.S. Army and Air Force awards and decorations to denote those who have received more than one bestowal of a particular decoration. The number of oak leaf clusters typically indicates the number of subsequent awards of the decoration...

, respectively. After World War II, he became a successful businessman and the founder of a New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

bond brokerage house, as well as a spokesman for right wing political causes.

Early life

Archibald, nicknamed both "Archie" and "Archikins", was born in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

, the fourth child of president Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt

and his second wife, Edith Kermit Carow. His siblings included brothers Theodore Jr.

Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.

Theodore D. Roosevelt, Jr. , was an American political and business leader, a Medal of Honor recipient who fought in both of the 20th century's world wars. He was the eldest son of President Theodore Roosevelt from his second wife Edith Roosevelt...

, Kermit

Kermit Roosevelt

Kermit Roosevelt I MC was a son of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. He was an explorer on two continents with his father, a graduate of Harvard University, a soldier serving in two world wars, with both the British and U.S. Armies, a businessman, and a writer...

, and Quentin

Quentin Roosevelt

Quentin Roosevelt was the youngest and favorite son of President Theodore Roosevelt. Family and friends agreed that Quentin had many of his father's positive qualities and few of the negative ones. Inspired by his father and siblings, he joined the United States Army Air Service where he became a...

, sister, Ethel

Ethel Roosevelt Derby

Ethel Carow Roosevelt Derby was the youngest daughter and fourth child of the President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt...

and half-sister Alice

Alice Roosevelt Longworth

Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth was the oldest child of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States. She was the only child of Roosevelt and his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee....

. Archibald was named for his paternal great-great-great grandfather, Archibald Bulloch

Archibald Bulloch

Archibald Bulloch was a lawyer, soldier, and statesman from Georgia during the American Revolution.-Early life:...

, a patriot of the American Revolution

American Revolution

The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...

.

As a child, Archie was very quiet but very mischievous - especially when he was with his brother Quentin; growing up Archie and Quentin were very close. They rarely never left each other and had very few fights. But as for the other siblings, Archie was not close to either Kermit and Ethel because they would gang up on him. Ted Jr. would help beat up Kermit for him, so Teddy would be Archie's other favorite brother; Teddy would also tell their mother, Edith, about Ethel - who would often get in big trouble. While Alice was ten years older than Archie, he barely remembers her around, since she would go places with other family members and friends. As for his smartness, Archie was an avid reader and very smart at putting puzzles together quickly. His father remarked to him by saying “Archie, my smart boy, never give up your smartness; that goes for you and your brother Quentin”.

After being expelled from Groton

Groton

Groton is the name of several places :In England:*Groton, Suffolk**Groton WoodIn the United States of America:*Groton, Connecticut, a town**Groton , Connecticut, within the town*Groton, Massachusetts*Groton, New Hampshire*Groton , New York...

(among the alleged speculated reasons: the dean didn't care for him, writing a letter to the Headmaster criticizing the school, for insubordination, for anti-Christian rhetoric; take your pick), Archie continued his education at Phillips Academy

Phillips Academy

Phillips Academy is a selective, co-educational independent boarding high school for boarding and day students in grades 9–12, along with a post-graduate year...

, Andover, Mass., the Evans School for Boys, and Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

, where he graduated in 1916. Upon graduation, Archie's first employment was at the Bigelow Carpet Company, Thompsonville, Connecticut

Connecticut

Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

.

Archie married Grace Lockwood at the Emmanuel Church

Emmanuel Church

Emmanuel Episcopal Church is a historic church at 15 Newbury Street in Boston, MassachusettsThe church was founded in 1860 as part of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. Designed by architect Alexander Rice Esty and constructed in 1861, it was the first building completed on Newbury Street in...

in Boston, Massachusetts on April 14, 1917. Grace was the daughter of Thomas Lockwood and Emmeline Stackpole of Boston. The couple spent most of their married life in a pre-Revolutionary house on Turkey Lane in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, not far from Oyster Bay, where they raised four children: Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt, Jr.

Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt, Jr.

Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt, Jr. , the first child of Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt and grandson of US President, Theodore Roosevelt, was a soldier, scholar, polyglot, authority on the Middle East and a career CIA officer. He served as chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's stations in Istanbul,...

(1918–1990), Theodora Roosevelt (1919–2008), Nancy Dabney Roosevelt (born 1923) and Edith Kermit Roosevelt (1926–2003).

World War I and years later

Archie volunteered for the United States Army

United States Army

The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

during 1917, shipped over to France, and was wounded while serving with the U.S. 1st Infantry Division

U.S. 1st Infantry Division

The 1st Infantry Division of the United States Army is the oldest division in the United States Army. It has seen continuous service since its organization in 1917...

. His wounds were so severe he was discharged from the Army with full disability. He had ended the war as an Army captain. For his valor, Roosevelt received the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

government's Croix de Guerre

Croix de guerre

.

After the death of his father in 1919, he was the one who sent a telegram informing all his siblings.

After the end of the war, he worked for a time as an executive with the Sinclair Consolidated Oil Company

Sinclair Oil

Sinclair Oil Corporation is an American petroleum corporation, founded by Harry F. Sinclair on May 1, 1916 as the Sinclair Oil & Refining Corporation by combining the assets of 11 small petroleum companies. Originally a New York corporation, Sinclair Oil reincorporated in Wyoming in 1976...

, as vice president of the Union Petroleum Company, the export auxiliary subsidiary of Sinclair Consolidated. At the same time his brother Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.

Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.

was Assistant Secretary of the Navy. In 1922, Albert B. Fall

Albert B. Fall

Albert Bacon Fall was a United States Senator from New Mexico and the Secretary of the Interior under President Warren G. Harding, infamous for his involvement in the Teapot Dome scandal.-Early life and family:...

, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, leased, without competitive bidding, the Teapot Dome Field to Harry F. Sinclair

Harry F. Sinclair

Harry Ford Sinclair was an American oil industrialist.-Early life:Harry Sinclair was born in Benwood, West Virginia, now a suburb of the city of Wheeling. Sinclair grew up in Independence, Kansas. The son of a pharmacist, after finishing high school, he entered the pharmacy department of the...

of Sinclair Oil, and the field at Elk Hills, California, to Edward L. Doheny

Edward L. Doheny

Edward Laurence Doheny was an American oil tycoon, who in 1892, along with business partner Charles A. Canfield, drilled the first successful oil well in the Los Angeles City Oil Field, setting off the petroleum boom in Southern California.At first he was an unsuccessful prospector in the state of...

of Pan American Petroleum & Transport Company, both fields part of the Navy's petroleum reserves. The connection between the Roosevelt brothers could not be ignored. After Sinclair sailed for Europe to avoid testifying, G. D. Wahlberg, Sinclair's private secretary, advised Archibald Roosevelt to resign to save his reputation. Eventually, after resigning from Sinclair, Roosevelt gave key testimony to the Senate Committee on Public Lands probing the Teapot Dome scandal

Teapot Dome scandal

The Teapot Dome Scandal was a bribery incident that took place in the United States in 1922–23, during the administration of President Warren G. Harding. Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall leased Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome and two other locations to private oil companies at low...

, in which Roosevelt was not implicated, but where Sinclair and Doheny both gave "personal loans" to Secretary Fall. Following this, Roosevelt took a job working for a cousin in the family investment firm, Roosevelt & Son

Roosevelt & Son

Roosevelt & Son was an investment banking firm connected with the Roosevelt Family for nearly two centuries. The firm was among the oldest banking houses on Wall Street.Many of the male members of the Roosevelt family worked for the firm in some capacity....

.

In the summer of 1932, Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge

Calvin Coolidge

John Calvin Coolidge, Jr. was the 30th President of the United States . A Republican lawyer from Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor of that state...

, William Marshall Bullitt, Richard E. Byrd, and James Harbord

James Harbord

James Guthrie Harbord was a Lieutenant General in the United States Army and President and Chairman of the Board of RCA....

, among others, formed a conservative pressure group known as the National Economy League, which called for balancing the federal budget by cutting appropriations for veterans in half.

World War II: The Battle for Roosevelt Ridge in New Guinea

During 1943, following the Attack on Pearl Harbor

Attack on Pearl Harbor

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...

, Roosevelt petitioned President Roosevelt to put his battlefield-honed leadership skills to worthwhile use supporting the war effort. The President approved his request and he rejoined the Army with a commission as a Lieutenant Colonel. Roosevelt was given command in early 1943 of the US Army's 2nd Battalion of the 162nd Infantry also called the 162 Regimental Combat Team, (RCT), 41st Infantry Division in New Guinea

New Guinea

New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...

commanding this unit until early 1944. Working with the Australian 3rd Division, Roosevelt and his battalion landed in New Guinea

New Guinea

's Nassau Bay, on July 8, 1943. Overcoming significant command ambiguities between American and Australian forces because of overlapping spheres of operation, Roosevelt played an important role in the Salamaua campaign

Salamaua-Lae campaign

The Salamaua–Lae campaign was a series of actions in the New Guinea campaign of World War II. Australian and United States forces sought to capture two major Japanese bases, one in the town of Lae, and another one at Salamaua. The campaign to take the Salamaua and Lae area began with the Australian...

. His service was recognized when one of the hotly contested ridge-lines northwest of the island's Tambu Bay was named in his honor. This piece of key terrain during the campaign was originally referred to as "Roosevelt's Ridge" to mark the ridge nearest his battalion to higher HQ. Later, it was referred to as "Roosevelt Ridge" as it was depicted in the official American and Australian campaign histories as well as the US Army Air Force World War II Chronology. See left map.

On August 12, 1943, Roosevelt was wounded by an enemy grenade which shattered the same knee which had been injured in World War I and for which he had been earlier medically retired, earning him the distinction of being the only American to ever be classified as 100% disabled twice for the same wound incurred in two different wars. At the time of his injury, command of his battalion passed to his executive officer, Major Taylor. Archie returned to his unit in early 1944. For these actions in the Pacific Theater of Operations

Pacific Theater of Operations

The Pacific Theater of Operations was the World War II area of military activity in the Pacific Ocean and the countries bordering it, a geographic scope that reflected the operational and administrative command structures of the American forces during that period...

, Roosevelt was awarded the Silver Star

Silver Star

The Silver Star is the third-highest combat military decoration that can be awarded to a member of any branch of the United States armed forces for valor in the face of the enemy....

with Oak Leaf Clusters in lieu of additional awards.

Conservative activism and controversies

Following the end of the war, Archie Roosevelt formed the investment firm of Roosevelt and Cross, a brokerage house specializing in municipal bonds. It is still a going concern with offices in New York City

New York City

, Providence, Buffalo and Hartford.

During the early 1950s, Archie became affiliated with a variety of right wing organizations and causes. He joined the John Birch Society

John Birch Society

The John Birch Society is an American political advocacy group that supports anti-communism, limited government, a Constitutional Republic and personal freedom. It has been described as radical right-wing....

, and was the founder of the controversial Veritas Foundation, dedicated to the routing out of presumed socialist influence at Harvard and other major colleges and universities. Writing in the book America's Political Dynasties (Doubleday, 1966), Stephen Hess commented: "Archie Roosevelt has, in recent years, added the family's name to many ultra-rightist causes. As a trustee of the Veritas Foundation he was a leader among those seeking to root out subversion at Harvard. He also sent a letter to every U.S. Senator, stating 'modern technical civilization does not seem to be as well handled by the black man as by the white man in the United States.' Present civil rights difficulties he blamed on 'socialist plotters.'" Roosevelt also edited 1968's incendiary Theodore Roosevelt On Race, Riots, Reds, Crime. and was the chief sponsor behind "The Alliance," a short-lived extreme right wing organization of the 1950s.

In 1954, when the Theodore Roosevelt Association

Theodore Roosevelt Association

The Theodore Roosevelt Association is a historical and cultural organization dedicated to honoring the life and work of Theodore Roosevelt , the 26th president of the United States....

made a decision to award the Theodore Roosevelt Medal for Distinguished Public Service to black diplomat Ralph Bunche

Ralph Bunche

Ralph Johnson Bunche or 1904December 9, 1971) was an American political scientist and diplomat who received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for his late 1940s mediation in Palestine. He was the first person of color to be so honored in the history of the Prize...

, Archie loudly protested the award. He even went so far as to write and publish a 44-page pamphlet that attempted to prove Bunche had been working as an agent of the "International Communist Conspiracy" for more than two decades.

In his introduction to Zygmund Dobbs's The Great Deceit: Social Pseudo-Sciences (Sayville, NY: The Veritas Foundation, 1964), Archie wrote: "Socialists have infiltrated our schools, our law courts, our government, our MEDIA OF COMMUNICATIONS. ... the Socialist movement is made up of a relatively small number of people who have developed the TECHNIQUE OF INFLUENCING large masses of people to a VERY HIGH DEGREE."

Later years

Archie's wife, Grace Lockwood Roosevelt, died in an automobile crash near her home on Turkey Lane in Cold Spring Harbor in 1971, with her husband at the wheel. He was greatly affected by the death of his wife; it likely contributed to his physical decline and eventual death eight years later.

On October 13, 1979, Roosevelt died of a stroke

Stroke

A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...

at the Stuart Convalescent Home in Stuart, Florida

Stuart, Florida

Stuart is the only incorporated city of Martin County, Florida, on Florida's Treasure Coast. The population was 14,633 at the 2000 census. As of 2007, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau is 15,964....

. He was 85 years old. He is buried with his wife at Young's Cemetery, Oyster Bay. His tombstone reads: "The old fighting man home from the wars."

External links

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