Manuel Martínez del Campo y Cuevas was born on 14 November 1913 in Mexico City.
Around 1916, his father was recruited by Sir William Wiseman, an old acquaintance of his, to join the New York station of MI1c, section V (later known as Secret Intelligence Service or MI6), which had the specific mission of “campaigning against German operations in the US as well as the Irish and Indian nationalists with whom the Germans plotted”.
In a ceremony kept secret from the press and his family, del Campo married Astor in 1936, becoming her third husband.
Astor would later recall Manuel, or "Mike" as she called him, as a kind and decent man, albeit an irresponsible one as well, as he rarely contacted her or their son after the war.
[5] After the Second World War ended, del Campo stayed in the UK, where he married two more times.