Reply #49: Yes, that was William Stamps Farish Sr.

[starroute]

A few months ago, I went digging and found out a lot about the Farish family -- none of it reassuring.

In 1942, Farish was the president of Standard Oil of New Jersey, which had not only continued doing business with Germany after the entry of the U.S. into World War II, but had also provided certain patents for artificial rubber to the Nazis while hiding them from the U.S. government.

Farish's wife was connected with several prominent Houston families -- her mother was a Botts (as in Baker and Botts) and her father was a Rice (as in Rice University.) The Farishes' son married the daughter of General Robert E. Wood, a leading old-line right-winger of the 1940's and 1950's, and their daughter married into the Harriman family.

There were multiple business and personal ties between Farish and the Bushes, involving first Dresser Industries (of which Prescott Bush was president), which sold drill bits to Standard Oil, and then the Harriman connection

Farish's grandson, William Stamps Farish III, is currently married to a DuPont heiress, great-niece of the DuPonts who tried to overthrow FDR in 1934. He is one of George H.W. Bush's closest friends and is the current U.S. ambassador to Great Britain. He's extremely rich and extraordinarily secretive and has been so nearly invisible as ambassador that the British are wondering what he's doing there at all.