Michael Whitney Straight was an American magazine publisher, novelist, patron of the arts, a member of the prominent Whitney family, and a confessed spy for the KGB.
15 Facts About Michael Straight
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Michael 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.
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Michael Straight finished third in the 1934 South African Grand Prix, a race dominated by his brother Whitney.
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In 1940, Michael Straight went to work in the Eastern Division of the United States Department of State.
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In 1942, Michael Straight joined the United States Army Air Forces, where he served as the pilot of a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, although he never saw combat.
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In 1956, Michael Straight left the magazine and began writing novels.
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However, in 1963, in response to an offer of government employment in Washington, DC, Straight faced a background check, and decided voluntarily to inform family friend and presidential special assistant Arthur M Schlesinger, Jr.
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Michael Straight served as the deputy chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts from 1969 to 1977.
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Michael Straight wrote several novels, including Carrington, about the Fetterman massacre of 1866, and A Very Small Remnant, about the Sand Creek massacre of 1864, both Westerns that received respectful reviews, as well as Happy and Hopeless, a love story set in the Kennedy Administration that he published himself.
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In 1965, Michael Straight purchased the former Georgetown home of Jackie Kennedy, located at 3017 N Street, for $200,000.
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Kennedy bought the home when she moved out of the White House and Michael Straight purchased it when Kennedy moved to New York City.
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In 1974, Straight married his second wife, Nina G Auchincloss Steers, the daughter of Nina Gore and Hugh D Auchincloss.
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Michael Straight lived in the Georgetown home from 1964 until 1976 when he sold it to Yolande Betbeze Fox, the former Miss America 1951.
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Michael Straight died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Chicago, Illinois, on January 4,2004, aged 87.
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Michael Straight had a home on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts.