Laurence Duggan
Laurence Duggan (May 28, 1905 – December 20, 1948), also known as Larry Duggan, was a 20th-century American economist who headed the South American desk at the United States Department of State during World War II, best known for falling to his death from the window of his office in New York, ten days after questioning by the FBI about whether he had had contacts with Soviet intelligence.
His father, Stephen P. Duggan, was a professor of Political Science at the City College of New York before founding the Institute of International Education.
[1] Duggan received early education at the Roger Ascham School in Hartsdale, New York, and White Plains Community Church, where he learned simplicity, courtesy, and democracy.
By 1929, his father, then director of the Institute of International Education, created a bureau for Latin America and offered the position to his son.
Howland forwarded the report to Dana Munro, chief of the Latin American Division, who offered Duggan a position.
For 9 years he was head of the Latin American Division and for 4 he was adviser on political relations (his Harvard friend Noel Field had joined State in the late 1920s).
"[1] Shortly thereafter, Herbert H. Lehman (New York governor) and Dr. Eduardo Santos (former president of Colombia asked Duggan to serve the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) for six months (in 1936, Noel Field had taken a position for the U.S. with the League of Nations and in 1941 become director of the American Unitarian Universalist Service Committee's relief mission in Marseilles).
One of his first actions was to make the board more inclusive by adding women, union representatives ("labor men"), and African-Americans including Benjamin Mays of Morehouse College.
"[9] Duggan provided Soviet intelligence with confidential diplomatic cables, including from American Ambassador William Bullitt.
[1] On December 20, 1948, Duggan fell to his death from his office at the Institute of International Education, located on the 16th floor of a building in midtown Manhattan.
[1] A few days later, the New York Police Department made public the result of its investigation, which concluded: "Mr. Duggan either accidentally fell or jumped.
[1] Friends published a memorial book about Duggan, with contributions made directly to the book or gleaned from the press by: Eleanor Roosevelt, Tom C. Clark, Sumner Welles, Marquis Childs (friend), Edward R. Murrow, Roscoe Drummond, and Raymond Moley, Joseph Harsh, Elmer Davis, Martin Agronsky, Henry R. Luce, Clarence Pickett, and Harry Emerson Fosdick.
[13] He is referenced in the following Venona decryptions, which provided information to the Soviets about Anglo-American plans for invading Italy during World War II:
