WIFE OF U.S. AMBASSADOR

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28747, 19 November 1958, Page 2

WIFE OF U.S. AMBASSADOR

Big Task For Mrs Whitney

\By SUSAN VAUGHANI

Mrs John Hay Whitney, mistress of the £500,000 American stately home in Regent’s Park, faces this month the biggest task since her husband was appointed United States Ambassador in London two years ago. On November 25, Mr Richard Nixon, Vice-President of the United States, and his wife will be staying at her home. Two days later she entertains the Queen and Prince Philip to dinner.

But Mrs Whitney has had plenty of experience of entertaining on a grand scale. She comes from a wealthy family and she was formerly married to Mr James Roosevelt, son of the former United States President. Her second husband is a multimillionaire, reputed to be worth 60 million dollars. Even her palatial 40-roomed London home, Winfield House, was built by a millionairess—the Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton.

Mrs Whitney—Betsey to her friends—is one of the three beautiful daughters of the great Surgeon and humanist, Dr. Harvey Cushing.

She has two daughters by her first marriage—2l-year-old Kate Roosevelt and Sara. 25, wife of the concert pianist Anthony di Bonaventura, with two daughters of her own. Kate and Sara were legally adopted by Mr Whitney shortly after his marriage in 1942. Mrs Whitney looks too young to be a grandmother. In fact, Marlene Dietrich, known as the world’s most glamorous grandmother, has described the Ambassador’s wife as one of the four most beautiful women she has ever seen.