Mary Van Rensselaer Thayer (née Cogswell; June 16, 1902 – December 10, 1983) was an American socialite, journalist, and author.
Throughout that decade she wrote a column for the New York Journal and was a reporter in Eastern Europe in the aftermath of World War II.
Thayer spent the 1950s to 1970s working for Magnum Photos and continuing to write news articles.
[1] In 1929, she visited with Mabel Ingalls as part of a business trip of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce.
During World War II she worked in the United States Department of State in Washington, D.C.[1][2] Thayer was also a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force Reserves and did some reporting from Eastern Europe when the war ended.
She continued to publish news articles, covering when her close friend Jacqueline Kennedy traveled to India and Pakistan in 1962 and Hope Cooke's marriage to Palden Thondup Namgyal, the 12th Chogyal of Sikkim.
[1][2] In 1943 she worked with Oei Hui-lan, the wife of Chinese diplomat Wellington Koo, in publishing an autobiography.