Townsend and Floyd Odlum: Their Last Hurrah
Posted: Thu May 18, 2023 5:56 pm
The evolution of their relationship, from the time Townsend came to Odlum's attention until the final collapse of Guidance Technology is documented in Odlum's papers in the Eisenhower Presidential Library.
Odlum, thought to be fabulously wealthy had been supporting two wastetrel sons for years. He insisted on pouring money into losing investments (RKO, uranium mines, and and a small airline). Pilot/wife, Jackie Cothren the first woman to break the sound barrier, had Odlum's backing for her every whim. Guidance Technology seems to have been another disaster of an investment. Ultimately, the Indio ranch where the two men met had to be sold to pay off bank debt.
David Clarke is in the process of writing a definitive biography of Floyd Odlum. His narrative of Townsend Brown's situation at that time is that Townsend was a mad scientist type, living as a recluse near the Salton Sea.
Pg. 27, Biography of Floyd Odlum. https://www.scribd.com/document/3843289 ... is-First#
What we Brown hounds know, via Linda, is that while at Decker, Townsend received a call to tell him that British spy, George Blake. had escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison and fled to the Soviet Union. Blake had been part of the Secret Intelligence Service, before becoming a double agent. Fearing that Blake had taken personally dangerous knowledge with him, Brown left Philadelphia immediately and took to ground in the most unlikely of places, a then-thriving resort community on an accidental salt lake in a remote desert.
As the story goes, once Edward Teller looked at The Fan and said he did not understand it, Odlum had the encouragement he needed to fund Townsend's work at Guidance Technology. However, after Townsend gave his talk at Rand and left The Fan behind, Guidance Tech faded away.
This joint collaboration in this venture seems to represent the last hurrah for both men. Oldum's hopes for a big strike would be dashed.
And,from this point on, Townsend's record becomes fragmented. He seems to bounce from the Stanford area to Catalina and back. SiL George has fleshed out some of Brown's activities at Stanford, in Atherton, and aboard a submarine in the Catalina Harbor. Linda recalls that she once wrote a check for $100,000, from the Brown Foundation to Stanford U. but so far, there seems to be no narrative thread connecting any of these with Townsend's public ventures in Catalina. (A fogless shaving mirror?)
Odlum, thought to be fabulously wealthy had been supporting two wastetrel sons for years. He insisted on pouring money into losing investments (RKO, uranium mines, and and a small airline). Pilot/wife, Jackie Cothren the first woman to break the sound barrier, had Odlum's backing for her every whim. Guidance Technology seems to have been another disaster of an investment. Ultimately, the Indio ranch where the two men met had to be sold to pay off bank debt.
David Clarke is in the process of writing a definitive biography of Floyd Odlum. His narrative of Townsend Brown's situation at that time is that Townsend was a mad scientist type, living as a recluse near the Salton Sea.
Pg. 27, Biography of Floyd Odlum. https://www.scribd.com/document/3843289 ... is-First#
What we Brown hounds know, via Linda, is that while at Decker, Townsend received a call to tell him that British spy, George Blake. had escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison and fled to the Soviet Union. Blake had been part of the Secret Intelligence Service, before becoming a double agent. Fearing that Blake had taken personally dangerous knowledge with him, Brown left Philadelphia immediately and took to ground in the most unlikely of places, a then-thriving resort community on an accidental salt lake in a remote desert.
As the story goes, once Edward Teller looked at The Fan and said he did not understand it, Odlum had the encouragement he needed to fund Townsend's work at Guidance Technology. However, after Townsend gave his talk at Rand and left The Fan behind, Guidance Tech faded away.
This joint collaboration in this venture seems to represent the last hurrah for both men. Oldum's hopes for a big strike would be dashed.
And,from this point on, Townsend's record becomes fragmented. He seems to bounce from the Stanford area to Catalina and back. SiL George has fleshed out some of Brown's activities at Stanford, in Atherton, and aboard a submarine in the Catalina Harbor. Linda recalls that she once wrote a check for $100,000, from the Brown Foundation to Stanford U. but so far, there seems to be no narrative thread connecting any of these with Townsend's public ventures in Catalina. (A fogless shaving mirror?)