Michael Straight

Straight's maternal grandparents were Flora Payne and William Collins Whitney (1841–1904), the United States Secretary of the Navy during the first Cleveland administration.

Straight worked for the Soviet Union as part of a spy ring whose members included Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Kim Philby and KGB recruiter Anthony Blunt.

In 1942, Straight joined the United States Army Air Forces, where he served as the pilot of a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, although he never saw combat.

During his tenure, Straight hired former US vice president and future presidential candidate Henry A. Wallace to serve as the magazine's editor.

However, in 1963, in response to an offer of government employment in Washington, D.C., Straight faced a background check, and decided voluntarily to inform family friend and presidential special assistant Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. about his communist connections at Cambridge.

[8] His second memoir, On Green Spring Farm: The Life and Times of One Family in Fairfax County, Va., 1942 to 1966 was published posthumously by Devon Press.

[16] Straight and his wife spent $125,000 (equivalent to $772,000 in 2023) renovating the home and decided to move to Bethesda, Maryland in 1976 when he was vice chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.