Tree, Marietta (1917–1991)

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Tree, Marietta (1917–1991)

American diplomat and social activist who was the first woman to serve as a chief U.S. delegate and a permanent ambassador to the UN. Born Mary Endicott Peabody on April 12, 1917, in Lawrence, Massachusetts; died on August 15, 1991, in New York City; daughter of Malcolm E. Peabody (a Episcopal bishop) and Mary (Parkman) Peabody; graduated from St. Timothy's girls' school in Catonsville, Maryland, 1934; attended finishing school at La Petite École Florentine, Florence, Italy; attended the University of Pennsylvania, 1936–39; married Desmond FitzGerald (a lawyer), on September 2, 1939 (divorced 1947); married Arthur Ronald Lambert Tree (an investment broker), on July 28, 1947; children: (first marriage) Frances FitzGerald (a journalist); (second marriage) Penelope Tree (a model).

Was a Democratic and civil-rights activist (beginning 1940s); worked on congressional and presidential election campaigns; appointed first woman to serve as chief U.S. delegate to the United Nations (1961); became ambassador to the UN on the HumanRights Commission (1964) and served as member of the secretary general's staff (1966–67).

Marietta Tree was born Mary Endicott Peabody in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1917. The patrician Peabody family had long been a well-respected part of New England society; her paternal grandfather Endicott Peabody had founded the Groton School, and her father Malcolm E. Peabody was an Episcopal bishop and an overseer of Harvard University. Her maternal grandmother Frances Parker Parkman , a Boston hostess of some acclaim, had helped Elizabeth Cary Agassiz found Radcliffe College, and her mother Mary Parkman Peabody was dedicated to community service. Mary Peabody was also an exemplar of the stern and frugal New Englander, and raised her children (apparently with little outward show of affection) to feel a sense of the duty to society inherent upon them because of their exalted station in life. Marietta had four younger brothers, all of whom would grow up to excel in their chosen fields of law, politics, education, and administration; Endicott "Chub" Peabody was governor of Massachusetts for two years. With her unquestioned intelligence, drive, background and charm, Marietta, in a later era, might well have become a U.S. senator, an ambition she announced to her grandparents when she was about ten years old. Instead, as she told friends when she was about 20, she decided to pin her ambitions on powerful men.

Tree was educated at St. Timothy's in Catonsville, Maryland, an exclusive girls' school where she was active in sports and the drama club. She was interested in social causes early on, thanks to her father's ministering among the families of the unemployed during the Depression. (She also claimed later that being the only daughter in a family with four boys made her aware of the challenges faced by minorities.) At age 15, she tested her political wings by campaigning for Herbert Hoover among her classmates. She was by then a beauty, blonde and well endowed, and by no means unaware of or unhappy with the effect she had on the opposite sex. After graduating from St. Timothy's in 1934, she spent a year at a finishing school in Florence, Italy. When she returned to the U.S., Tree told her father that she wanted to go to college to study political science. Surprised (despite his intention to pay his sons' way through college), Reverend Peabody agreed to provide her tuition on condition that she earn the money for her expenses. She attended the University of Pennsylvania for three years while working as a department store model in Philadelphia. After finishing her junior year, she left school to get married.

The wedding took place on September 2, 1939. Her new husband Desmond FitzGerald, a lawyer from a prominent family, joined the army in 1940, and until the end of the war they seldom saw each other. At the invitation of her friend Nelson A. Rockefeller, who at that time was Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs for the Department of State, Tree took a job as co-chair of the hospitality division of the Office of Inter-American Affairs. In this position she served as unofficial host for guests of the State Department who visited New York. From 1943 to 1945, she worked as a researcher for John K. Jessup, an editorial writer on the staff of Life magazine. Her research involved memorizing the voting records of all senators and the chairs of the House committees on major issues, and her experience made Tree an ardent supporter of the Democratic Party. She also became active in the cause of civil rights. In 1944, she had helped found Sydenham Hospital in New York City, the first voluntary interracial hospital in the United States. She served on the hospital's board, and was a director or board member of a number of other organizations, including the National Urban League, the Neighborhood Children's Center, the Puerto Rican Board of Guardians, the International Rescue Committee, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Foundation, and the National Conference of Christians and Jews.

Marietta and Desmond had a daughter Frances FitzGerald , but divorced in 1947. Motherhood did not slow her down, and she reportedly paid little attention to her first born, who would go on to study at Radcliffe College and later win the Pulitzer Prize for her book Fire in the Lake. In July 1947, Marietta married Ronald Tree, an investment broker who had been a Conservative member of the British Parliament for 13 years. According to biographer Carolyn Seebohm , this marriage was prompted at least in part by an affair with director John Huston she had had while her first husband was away during the war, the intensity of which had apparently startled her enough to make her seek calmer relations. The Trees relocated to Ronald's estate in England, Dytchley Park, which had been sumptuously decorated by his previous wife Nancy Lancaster . They also had a summer home, Heron Bay, in Barbados (where Sir Winston Churchill and Lady Clementine Churchill would visit them in 1960). One daughter would be born of the marriage, Penelope Tree , who also felt her mother's disinterest and later became famous as a model during London's Swinging '60s. In 1949, Tree and her husband sold Dytchley Park and returned to the U.S., where she took up interracial community work in New York City.

In 1952, Tree followed the advice of Earl Brown, an African-American member of the New York City Council and one of Life magazine's assistant editors, who suggested she take a more active role in the Democratic Party. She volunteered her time at the Democratic State Committee headquarters in New York as a researcher and speech writer, and joined the volunteers for Adlai Stevenson after attending the Democratic National Convention of 1952 in Chicago. "In politics, I can labor for a peaceful world for all children," she said, "a world that will give a better break to everyone. I am impelled by a feeling that I have so many blessings I must somehow try to pay for them in hard work for the community and in gratitude for being an American." She also had a longstanding affair with Stevenson.

During the congressional elections of 1954, Tree co-managed the campaign of Anthony B. Akers, who was a candidate for the House seat of New York's 17th District. She campaigned door-to-door, stuffed envelopes, and supervised volunteers, all in a losing cause. Tree also joined the Lexington Democratic Club, New York's largest and oldest Democratic reform club. That year, she succeeded Dorothy Schiff , publisher of the New York Post, as a state committeewoman representing the 9th Assembly District. In 1955–56, Tree headed the New York branch of Volunteers for Stevenson, turning the drawing room of her home into a Democratic meeting place, but in this second campaign Stevenson was defeated again.

In 1958, Tree was recognized by the Modern Community Developers for her services as a member of the Fair Housing Practices Panel of New York City. She had joined the advisory council of the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing because of her concern that adequate housing be made available to members of minority groups. In 1959, Mayor Robert F. Wagner appointed her to the Commission on Intergroup Relations (later the Commission on Human Rights), on which she served until 1961. She continued her work for the Democrats as well, and was named vice-chair of the New York Committee for special Democratic projects; in this capacity she raised funds for the advisory council of the Democratic National Committee. Tree also joined the advisory council's civil-rights committee, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt , and helped to draft the civil-rights plank of the Democratic platform for the 1960 National Convention in Los Angeles. (On her way home from the convention that year, she visited Huston on the set of The Misfits, starring Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe , and at Gable's insistence made a brief appearance in an opening scene.) She served as deputy chair of the Citizens Committee for John F. Kennedy in the weeks leading up to the presidential election in November 1960; her drawing room, as well as her energy and abilities, were again devoted to the Democratic cause, and this time her candidate won.

Tree's service was rewarded by the newly elected president when, on February 16, 1961, Kennedy appointed her to represent the United States on the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council. She was also made chief U.S. delegate, the first woman ever so named. Tree initially was reluctant to accept the position, but she was sworn in on March 1, 1961. She had great faith in the United Nations; in 1964, she served on the UN's Trusteeship Council, becoming the first woman to hold the rank of permanent ambassador. From 1966 to 1967, she worked at the UN Secretariat as a member of the staff of Secretary General U Thant.

After she left the UN, Tree remained active in Democratic circles and civic groups as well as the social scene. She and her husband spent most

of their time apart, although they remained married, and she had gentlemen friends into her 70s. In the 1980s, she crossed partisan lines to become friends with Henry Kissinger and his second wife Nancy Maginnes Kissinger , and in addition to throwing her own lavish, well-attended parties went to a number given for Republicans Ronald and Nancy Reagan . Tree kept secret her diagnosis of breast cancer and her mastectomy, and it was a shock to many who knew her when she died of the disease in August 1991.