American ornithologist
Wolfrid Rudyerd Boulton
(April 5, 1901 ? January 24, 1983) was an American
ornithologist
who worked extensively in Africa. Boulton held positions at the
American Museum of Natural History
and the
Carnegie Museum of Natural History
and traveled widely on expeditions to Africa. With his first wife,
ethnomusicologist
Laura Boulton
, he made the first recordings of African tropical bird calls. Boulton was recruited into the
Office of Strategic Services
(OSS) during the
Second World War
because of his knowledge of Africa and his experience in foreign travel. He was responsible for monitoring the supply of
uranium ore
from the
Belgian Congo
for the
Manhattan Project
. Boulton transferred to the
Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) in 1947 and resigned in 1958.
Boulton moved to
Southern Rhodesia
in 1959 with his third wife and established the
Atlantica Foundation
, a charitable organization to encourage the study of African birds. Atlantica's connection with the CIA was never established, although Boulton was interviewed by Rhodesia's
Central Intelligence Organisation
over his links to the organization. Atlantica lost much of its funding following
Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence
in 1965 and Boulton closed the foundation in 1978. He died in
Zimbabwe
(Rhodesia).
Early life and career
[
edit
]
W. Rudyerd Boulton was born in
Beaver
, Pennsylvania, on April 5, 1901.
[1]
His first name is given variously as Wolfrid and Wilfred but was generally not used, being known as "W. Rudyerd Boulton", "Rudyerd Boulton" or "Rud".
[2]
[3]
He joined the
American Ornithologists' Union
at around the age of 15 ? he would remain a member for the whole of his life.
[2]
He attended
Amherst College
and then the
University of Pittsburgh
, from which he graduated with
Bachelor of Science
degree in 1924.
[3]
Immediately after graduation Boulton was made research assistant at the
American Museum of Natural History
's ornithology department. He was a participant of
Arthur Stannard Vernay
's 1925 expedition to Angola and in the same year married the
ethnomusicologist
Laura Boulton
(
nee
Crayton).
[3]
Boulton transferred to the
Carnegie Museum of Natural History
in 1926 as assistant curator of birds and in 1929 joined the
Sarah Lavanburg Straus
expedition to
Nyasaland
(Malawi),
Uganda
and
Kenya
. In the course of this, with his wife, he made the first ever recordings of the calls of African tropical birds.
[3]
Boulton was also a member of the 1929?30 Carnegie Museum African expedition and the 1930-31 Vernay-Lang Kalahari Expedition.
[1]
[4]
In 1931 Boulton was appointed assistant curator at the
Field Museum of Natural History
and, the same year, accompanied
Ralph Pulitzer
on his expedition to Angola.
[1]
[3]
During the expedition he discovered a previously unknown species of
warbler
that he
named in honour of his wife
.
[3]
In 1933 he published a children's book entitled
Travelling with the Birds
.
[3]
Boulton was a member of the 1934 Field Museum-Straus expedition that traveled 12,900 km from Dakar to
Cameroon
via
Nigeria
and later took part in expeditions to
Panama
, the
West Indies
and the
Galapagos Islands
.
[3]
[1]
Boulton was promoted to curator of birds in 1937, a position he retained until 1946.
[1]
[2]
He separated from his wife in 1938 and remarried four years later to
Inez Cunningham Stark
, an heiress, poet and
patron of the arts
.
[3]
In 1948 he donated extensive film documentation of his research expeditions to the Field Museum.
[5]
OSS/CIA career
[
edit
]
Boulton was recruited into the
Office of Strategic Services
, which was then the US intelligence agency, in 1942 due to his knowledge of Africa and overseas experience. He was appointed divisional deputy for Africa in the
Secret Intelligence Branch
.
[3]
Boulton was responsible, from 1943, for co-coordinating a joint program with the
X-2 Counter Espionage Branch
to monitor the supply of uranium ore, vital to the success of the
Manhattan Project
, which was primarily obtained from the
Belgian Congo
.
[3]
Despite his experience, Boulton was based primarily in Washington, DC, only once leaving the country ? to visit North Africa in 1944.
[3]
[1]
During the war
Adolph W. Schmidt
, later to be the American ambassador to Canada, served as one of his intelligence officers.
[3]
By February 1946 Boulton had to resign from his position at the Carnegie so that he could focus on his work for the government, although he remained a research associate of the museum. He transferred to the
Central Intelligence Agency
when it was established as the successor to the OSS in 1947. An ornithological expedition Boulton undertook in North Africa in 1952 may have been funded by the CIA as cover for an operation, or if not, by his second wife. A further expedition to Southern Rhodesia and Angola in 1957 was funded by the Carnegie Museum. Boulton resigned from the CIA in April 1958, the same year his wife died.
[3]
Rhodesia
[
edit
]
Boulton married for the third and final time in April 1959 to Louise Rehm, the widow of a former OSS colleague.
[3]
Within months the couple had moved to
Southern Rhodesia
where they founded the
Atlantica Foundation
, a charitable organization to encourage ornithologists, particularly students, to study the birds of Africa.
[2]
[1]
Boulton had a farm near
Lake McIlwaine
which housed an extensive art collection that was exhibited at the
Rhodes National Gallery
in December 1960.
[3]
He sold some of his art, including works by
Pablo Picasso
,
Marc Chagall
,
Wassily Kandinsky
and
Paul Klee
to fund the work of Atlantica. Boulton and his wife made frequent donations to the organization, contributing fully one third of their wealth to it. Although there were suspicions, it has never been documented that Atlantica received financial support from the CIA. The foundation funded scholarships at
Nyatsime College
and donated books to more than 100 educational establishments.
[3]
In addition to his work at the foundation Boulton was managing editor of
Rhodesia Science News
and president of the
Rhodesia Scientific Association
. He also assisted with early conservation projects in the region to the south-west of
Lusaka
, which was established as
Lochinvar National Park
in 1972, and experimented with farming termites as a nutritional foodstuff. Boulton carried out expeditions with a mobile laboratory to the
Kalahari Desert
in
Tanzania
. The laboratory included advanced listening equipment and map-making tools, which he may well have used to carry out surveys for the CIA. Rhodesia's
Central Intelligence Organisation
was suspicious of Boulton's CIA connections and advanced equipment and he was interviewed by them.
[3]
Boulton lost his international funding following
Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence
in 1965 and the introduction of US sanctions in 1967. As a result, Atlantica was forced to heavily reduce its programs. It may well be that the Boultons would have left the increasingly isolated Rhodesia if Louise was able to, but she was struck by blindness and senility and required 24-hour care. Louise died in 1974 and two years later Boulton returned to the United States to manage the process of closing Atlantica. He transferred the remaining funds to the
Conservation Trust of Rhodesia
in 1978. The Atlantica properties were used to educate students from within the country and from Mozambique by the new black-majority government of Zimbabwe (which Rhodesia had been renamed).
[3]
Boulton had two strokes in later life and was a wheelchair user.
[3]
He died on January 24, 1983, in Zimbabwe.
[1]
A species of African gecko,
Rhoptropus boultoni
, is named in honour of Rudyerd Boulton.
[6]
See also
[
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]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
Shavit, David (1989).
The United States in Africa ? A Historical Dictionary
. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. p. 26.
ISBN
0-313-25887-2
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Traylor, Jr., Melvin A. (1986).
"In Memoriam: W. Rudyerd Boulton"
(PDF)
.
The Auk
.
103
(2): 420.
doi
:
10.1093/auk/103.2.420
. Retrieved
July 31,
2016
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
l
m
n
o
p
q
r
s
t
Jacobs, Nancy J. (2015).
"Marriage, Science, and Secret Intelligence in the life of Rudyerd Boulton (1901?1983): An American in Africa"
.
Kronos
.
41
(1): 287?313.
JSTOR
43859443
.
- ^
"Field Museum News"
. January 1930
. Retrieved
May 6,
2020
.
- ^
Boulton, Wolfrid Rudyerd.
"Boulton Expedition Films (Reel 1)"
. Retrieved
April 16,
2020
.
- ^
Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011).
The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles
. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp.
ISBN
978-1-4214-0135-5
. ("Boulton", p. 35).
External links
[
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]