The life of richard helms

Jddjueksuvris rngihg renih drgnkjbbgrhen igruehbreg ouhebgohur hber oguhubeo rgb huoergrebou ht hoeitr hbivotiobh thboitbboiubtiuontbrnouiegr jinoegr jionr egbiu rgenuibrgunitrbunitbubbrbthinnuibrtnuie rguni rthinrg rnuibtrbthinunitbHelms was born in St. Davids, Pennsylvania, in 1913, to Marion (McGarrah) and Herman Helms, an executive for Alcoa. His maternal grandfather, Gates McGarrah, was a noted international banker. He grew up in South Orange, New Jersey and began high school there at Carteret Academy. Foreign language fluency was considered very important; accordingly his family, father, mother, elder sister, and two younger brothers, all moved to Lausanne on Lac Léman. His next year of high school was spent nearby at the prestigious Swiss Institut Le Rosey where he studied the French language. After a brief return to America, the family settled in Freiburg im Breisgau in southern Germany, where at the Realgymnasium he became conversant in German.[2][3][4]
During his years at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, he served as class president and as editor of The Williams Record which encouraged his interest in journalism. Following graduation, in 1935 he got a job at the United Press (UP) office in London, working in the News of the World building. The economic depression in London, however, caused Helms to look for work at the UP office in Berlin. There he translated and rewrote stories from the German language press. He also met well-known journalists, e.g., William L. Shirer and H. R. Knickerbocker, as well as Bennett Cerf, a publisher at Random House. Substituting for an ill UP colleague, Helms attended the annual NSDAP Parteitag in September 1936. There Helms heard Adolf Hitler speak to a massed party formation, and later with a small group of news reporters met and briefly questioned him in the Nuremberg Castle. Earlier he had covered the Berlin Olympic Games, conversing afterward to gold medalist Jesse Owens. In mid-1937 Helms left the