Whitney Shepardson

Who was Whitney Shepardson?

Whitney Hart Shepardson was an American businessman and foreign policy expert. He headed the Secret Intelligence Branch of the Office of Strategic Services during World War II.

Shepardson was born in Worcester, Massachusetts. He attended Colgate Academy, where his father was principal. He graduated from Colgate University before attending Balliol College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He completed his education at Harvard Law School. He would practice law only briefly, serving as an attorney for the United States Shipping Board between May 1917 and July 1918.

Shepardson's involvement in international relations began when sent to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference by the State Department as an aide to Edward M. House, where he became secretary to the commission responsible for drafting the Covenant of the League of Nations. He was secretary also to a group of Americans seeking to organize the international relations institute which would become the Council on Foreign Relations. Shepardson was a founding member of the board. From 1920, he wrote for the Round Table, a British journal edited by former Beit Lecturer in Colonial History, Lionel Curtis.