Pleasants, Henry III (0914107): Difference between revisions

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|occupation=Spy, music critic

|death_date=4 January 2000

|rank_final=Second Lieutenant

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'''Henry III Pleasants''' (12 May 1910 – 2000) was a Ritchie Boy (~~from United States; Protestant~~) ~~who trained at Camp Ritchie~~ in ~~class 9~~.

'''[[Pleasants, Henry III (0914107)|Henry Pleasants III]]''' (12 May 1910 – 4 January 2000) was a Wayne-born Ritchie Boy (Class 9), Philadelphia music critic, and postwar CIA / music scholar in London.

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== Biography ==

Henry was born May 12, ~~1910~~.

Henry Pleasants III was born on 12 May 1910 in Wayne, Pennsylvania. At nineteen he became a music critic for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and served as the paper’s music editor from 1934 to 1942. Drafted that year, he was commissioned a second lieutenant for his German, Italian, and Russian and trained at Camp Ritchie (Class 9).

~~In 1930,~~ at ~~age 19, he became~~ a ~~music critic for~~ the ~~Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and was the paper's music editor from 1934 to 1942~~, ~~when~~ he ~~enlisted~~ in ~~the U.S~~.

He landed at Naples on New Year’s Eve 1943 and served with a German-speaking order-of-battle team at Fifth Army headquarters in the Royal Palace at Caserta, where Special Services staged San Carlo Opera performances he attended nightly. He later wrote about wartime opera in “War and Remembrance.”

~~Henry Pleasants (May 12, 1910 – January 4, 2000) was an American music critic and intelligence officer. Following the end of~~ the war~~, from 1945 to 1955, Pleasants contributed articles on European musical events to The New York Times. In 1948–49,~~ he ~~re-entered the military as an army liaison officer with the Austrian government.~~

After the war he worked in intelligence in Europe and became a widely read music critic and author in London. He died there on 4 January 2000.

~~He left the army to enter the Foreign Service~~ in ~~1950, serving as an~~ intelligence ~~officer~~ in ~~Munich. His most famous~~ and ~~controversial work was his 1955 publication The Agony of Modern Music,~~ a ~~polemical attack on the direction taken by much of twentieth-century~~ music and ~~an argument~~ in ~~favor of jazz as the "true" master music of the time~~. ~~What we know as modern music is the noise made by deluded speculators picking through its slag pile."~~ He ~~further developed this critique of contemporary music in Death of a Music?: The Decline of the European Tradition and the Rise of Jazz (1961) and Serious Music and All That Jazz (1969).~~

On January 4, 2000, Pleasants died aged 89 in a London hospital after suffering a ruptured aorta. The vein which for 300 years offered a seemingly inexhaustible yield of beautiful music has run out. He was an American music critic and intelligence officer.

He was involved in espionage during the Cold War, living with Reinhard Gehlen, a former Nazi general and a top intelligence official for West Germany, to evaluate his "suitability. The Gehlen Organization, which the former general led, became the forerunner of the postwar West German Federal Intelligence Service.

From 1950 to 1956, he was the CIA station chief in Bern, and subsequently from 1956 until his retirement from the CIA in 1964, CIA station chief in Bonn. Pleasants studied voice, piano and composition at the Curtis Institute of Music, from which he received an honorary doctorate in 1977.

== Gallery ==

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== Timeline ==

* 12 May 1910 — Born in Wayne, Pennsylvania.

* 1930–1942 — Philadelphia Evening Bulletin music critic / editor.

* 1942–1943 — Commissioned; Camp Ritchie Class 9; to Naples / Fifth Army Caserta.

* Postwar — Intelligence work in Europe; music criticism and books in London.

* 4 January 2000 — Died in London.

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</div><div style="clear: both;"></div>

== Sources ==

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Pleasants_(music_critic) Henry Pleasants (music critic) ~~— Wikipedia~~]

* Henry Pleasants, “War and Remembrance” opera memoir (RB Archive)

* [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2000/jan/13/guardianobituaries1 The Guardian — Henry Pleasants obituary]

* [https://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/13/news/obituary-henry-pleasants-89-music-critic-dies.html New York Times — Henry Pleasants obituary]

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Pleasants_(music_critic) Wikipedia — Henry Pleasants (music critic)]

* Camp Ritchie Museum, Inc. (The Ritchie History Museum), Classes 1–31 roster data

* Dan Gross research spreadsheets, including original Excel timeline/roster work, combined with other research and records

@@ Line 23: / Line 23: @@
 |occupation=Spy, music critic
 |death_date=4 January 2000
+|rank_final=Second Lieutenant
 }}
 <div class="soldier-lead">
-'''Henry III Pleasants''' (12 May 1910 – 2000) was a Ritchie Boy (from United States; Protestant) who trained at Camp Ritchie in class 9.
+'''[[Pleasants, Henry III (0914107)|Henry Pleasants III]]''' (12 May 1910 – 4 January 2000) was a Wayne-born Ritchie Boy (Class 9), Philadelphia music critic, and postwar CIA / music scholar in London.
 </div>
 == Biography ==
-Henry was born May 12, 1910.
+Henry Pleasants III was born on 12 May 1910 in Wayne, Pennsylvania. At nineteen he became a music critic for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and served as the paper’s music editor from 1934 to 1942. Drafted that year, he was commissioned a second lieutenant for his German, Italian, and Russian and trained at Camp Ritchie (Class 9).
-In 1930, at age 19, he became a music critic for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and was the paper's music editor from 1934 to 1942, when he enlisted in the U.S.
+He landed at Naples on New Year’s Eve 1943 and served with a German-speaking order-of-battle team at Fifth Army headquarters in the Royal Palace at Caserta, where Special Services staged San Carlo Opera performances he attended nightly. He later wrote about wartime opera in “War and Remembrance.”
-Henry Pleasants (May 12, 1910 – January 4, 2000) was an American music critic and intelligence officer. Following the end of the war, from 1945 to 1955, Pleasants contributed articles on European musical events to The New York Times. In 1948–49, he re-entered the military as an army liaison officer with the Austrian government.
+After the war he worked in intelligence in Europe and became a widely read music critic and author in London. He died there on 4 January 2000.
-He left the army to enter the Foreign Service in 1950, serving as an intelligence officer in Munich. His most famous and controversial work was his 1955 publication The Agony of Modern Music, a polemical attack on the direction taken by much of twentieth-century music and an argument in favor of jazz as the "true" master music of the time. What we know as modern music is the noise made by deluded speculators picking through its slag pile." He further developed this critique of contemporary music in Death of a Music?: The Decline of the European Tradition and the Rise of Jazz (1961) and Serious Music and All That Jazz (1969).
-On January 4, 2000, Pleasants died aged 89 in a London hospital after suffering a ruptured aorta. The vein which for 300 years offered a seemingly inexhaustible yield of beautiful music has run out. He was an American music critic and intelligence officer.
-He was involved in espionage during the Cold War, living with Reinhard Gehlen, a former Nazi general and a top intelligence official for West Germany, to evaluate his "suitability. The Gehlen Organization, which the former general led, became the forerunner of the postwar West German Federal Intelligence Service.
-From 1950 to 1956, he was the CIA station chief in Bern, and subsequently from 1956 until his retirement from the CIA in 1964, CIA station chief in Bonn. Pleasants studied voice, piano and composition at the Curtis Institute of Music, from which he received an honorary doctorate in 1977.
 == Gallery ==
@@ Line 68: / Line 61: @@
 | row_source || both
 |}
+== Timeline ==
+<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed soldier-timeline">
+<div class="soldier-timeline-body">
+* 12 May 1910 — Born in Wayne, Pennsylvania.
+* 1930–1942 — Philadelphia Evening Bulletin music critic / editor.
+* 1942–1943 — Commissioned; Camp Ritchie Class 9; to Naples / Fifth Army Caserta.
+* Postwar — Intelligence work in Europe; music criticism and books in London.
+* 4 January 2000 — Died in London.
+</div>
+</div><div style="clear: both;"></div>
 == Sources ==
-* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Pleasants_(music_critic) Henry Pleasants (music critic) — Wikipedia]
+* Henry Pleasants, “War and Remembrance” opera memoir (RB Archive)
+* [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2000/jan/13/guardianobituaries1 The Guardian — Henry Pleasants obituary]
+* [https://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/13/news/obituary-henry-pleasants-89-music-critic-dies.html New York Times — Henry Pleasants obituary]
+* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Pleasants_(music_critic) Wikipedia — Henry Pleasants (music critic)]
 * Camp Ritchie Museum, Inc. (The Ritchie History Museum), Classes 1–31 roster data
 * Dan Gross research spreadsheets, including original Excel timeline/roster work, combined with other research and records