Tom,
.......
A question for the moderator(s):
Are we permitted to make insane asylum-based jokes here?
I did not write this, the insane (your wording) grandson of Phil Strong wrote it. It was spring, 1937, USMC Reserve
Captain Philip G Strong was beginning a two year walking tour of Germany and Russia. His guide in Berlin was
future Time magazine editor in chief, Otto Fuerbringer....
https://www.tor.com/2013/08/09/toby-barlow-cia-agent-babayaga/
I Never Knew My Grandfather, Only What He Pretended to Be
Toby Barlow
Fri Aug 9, 2013 11:15am Post a comment Favorite This
Toby Barlow?s Babayaga is out this week from Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and follows the travels of a CIA agent posing as an ad executive CIA agent in Europe in the 1950s. What begins as a relatively straightforward operation quickly becomes something bigger, and weirder. Read an excerpt from the novel and see for yourself.
What you might not know are the life events that inspired Barlow?s story. Read on as the author tells us a tale about his grandfather, waiting on a German train in 1937?.
My grandfather sits on a train, waiting. It is early spring, 1937. His name is Philip Strong and he has boarded here in the Hamburg station, preparing to head to Berlin. Although I possess a volume of his letters from this trip, letters I have read many times, I am still not exactly sure why he is here.
He is 36 years old, a U.S. Marine Reserve Captain. But as a reserve officer, he is not travelling in uniform, instead he?s wearing an old tweed jacket. He has a bulky backpack stashed on the overhead rack. In his pocket is tucked his smoking pipe along with a small pouch of his treasured Dunhill tobacco.
Beside him sits a much younger man named Leko. They are on this sightseeing trip together. By all appearances, it is nothing more than that. They stay in youth hostels and ride on many trains such as this one, sitting back in the third class smokers.
It doesn?t make actually make sense that my grandfather would be here in any official capacity. He does not speak German or Russian, only a little French and only the most rudimentary Spanish. If the army had wanted someone to observe the European situation, they probably would have sent an agent who understood at least one of the various languages.
But it also seems too odd for him to be embarking on a journey with an itinerary that will take him through such a large number of the looming conflicts? many theaters. He will travel from Germany on to Poland, the Balkans, Russia, then down to Kabul and Tehran, driving from there over to Baghdad and Beruit before shipping off to the already jittery East.
Also, there?s the fact that he doesn?t know this young man sitting beside him very well at all. ?Leko and I are getting on well together ? we have likes in common with are being mutually discovered and so far have developed none which grate on each other,? he writes to his sister. It seems they are only socially connected, but not relatives and, until this trip, not friends. They do not agree politically, Leko, my grandfather reports, is pro-fascist, though my grandfather himself is not.
What is Philip Strong doing here? Maybe it is a bit of self-motivated opportunism. Perhaps he senses history coming and is cleverly placing himself squarely in its path.
Once they arrive in Berlin, Leko will strike up an acquaintance with a fellow name Otto Fuerbringer. This Otto fellow knows Berlin well so they all start travelling around town together. Otto is a Kansas City reporter, tall and handsome, my grandfather reports, a Harvard man. One day he will become the managing editor of Time Magazine. These are the sorts of people idly wandering around Hitler?s Germany in 1937, visiting all the various art museums, gardens and zoos (?the keeper who did the animal feeding was a born comedian.?)
Five years later, my grandfather will no longer be in the reserve, he will be very active. ....
Is not insane, the acceptance of the premise that Willard Robertson arrived in NOLA from New Haven, CT as middle aged
sales rep. for soon to fail Steelcraft Boats, soon left his wife and two kids, promptly marrying the 23 year old secretary
of the NOLA Steelcraft office, was driving the car in 1959 his young wife was killed in, and just happened to stay in business eight more years with his deceased wife's father, Ernest Gossom despite remarrying in 1962 and starting a
new family, founding and funding both INCA and Truth or Consequences and sponsoring Gordon Novel, on the way
to becoming, literally from scratch as the insane or incurious simply accept, to rise to multi-millionaire king maker of
both the McKeithen and Garrison political careers? Tooth Fairy probably has an authorative explanation...is he a member
here?
....All of the other Volkswagen regional distributors were, to say the least, a cut above Robertson, both in wealth and in imported automobile marketing and servicing.
Charles Urschel, Jr. was step-brother of Tom and Earl F Slick. Willard E Robertson, Jr. was the employee of failing Steelcraft Boats of West Haven, CT in 1952. He is buried in New Hampshire.
Philip Robertson and Patricia Anne Robertson Miller v. Willard E ...
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/477982/philip-robertson-and-patricia-anne-robertson-miller-v-willard-e/
Oct 22, 1986 - Willard E. Robertson, Jr., and Marlin Head, 803 F.2d 136. ... Willard Robertson, Sr. married Sally Moss Robertson in 1935 and lived with her in Connecticut. ... In 1947, the family moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, where ...
