John Grombach

John Grombach was born Jean Valentin Grombach to the son of the French Consul in New Orleans. He attained US citizenship, changed his name to John, and attended West Point, where he was on the boxing team for four years and the fencing team for two years. At West Point he was nicknamed Rudolph Vaselino because of his slicked-back hair, but he was often later known as Frenchy because of his background.

Grombach made the 1924 US Olympic boxing team as an alternate, but did not compete. He later won a US Fencing Championship in team épée with the New York AC team in 1938. Grombach also became known as a historian of the Olympics, writing several books on the Games.

Grombach would eventually rise to brigadier general during his military career. In 1942 he was chosen to lead a secret intelligence gathering organization that would become known as The Pond, which was to operate independently of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA. The Pond operated under the cover of multinational corporations, including American Express, Chase National Bank and Philips, the Dutch-based electronic giant. Grombach directed The Pond from an office at the Steinway Hall building in New York, where he assumed the cover of a public relations consultant for Philips.

The Pond operated into the mid-1950s, often as an antagonist to the CIA. Grombach was known as an informer for US Congressman Joe McCarthy, who famously intimated that the US government and intelligence agencies were infiltrated by Communists, and began a witch-hunt against them that often proved fruitless. The Pond was a virtually unknown organization until 1000s of its papers were found in locked safes and file cabinets in Culpepper, Virginia in 2001. It took until 2008 for the papers to be released after review by the CIA.