1700
Elihu Yale
was born near Boston, educated in London, and served with the British
East India Company, eventually becoming governor of Fort Saint
George, Madras, in 1687. He amassed a great fortune from trade and returned
to England in 1699. Yale became known as a philanthropist; upon receiving
a request from the Collegiate School in Connecticut,
he sent a donation and a gift of books. After subsequent bequests, Cotton
Mather suggested the school be named Yale
College, in 1718.
A
statue of Nathan Hale
stands on Old
Campus at Yale University. There is a copy of that
statue in front of the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
Yet another stands in front of Phillips Academy
in Andover, Massachusetts (where George H.W. Bush ('48) went
to prep school and joined a secret society at age twelve). Nathan
Hale, along with three other Yale graduates, was a member of
the "Culper Ring," one of America's
first intelligence operations. Established by George Washington, it was
successful throughout the Revolutionary War. Nathan was the only operative
to be ferreted out by the British, and after speaking his famous regrets,
he was hanged in 1776. Ever since the founding
of the Republic, the relationship between Yale and the "Intelligence Community"
has been unique.
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