Alexander Makinsky

Former Coca-Cola Company executive (1900–1988)

Prince

Alexander Makinsky

Александр Макинский

Born|

Iskander Khan Makinsky

(1900-10-13)October 13, 1900

Maku, Qajar Iran[1]

Died| April 24, 1988(1988-04-24) (aged 87)

Paris, France

Resting place| Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery
Other names| Alexander Gautier
Family| Bayat dynasty

Alexander Makinsky (Russian: Александр Макинский; October 13, 1900 – April 24, 1988) was an American businessman and noble born in Maku, Iran.[1] He was a General Representative for Rockefeller Foundation in France, then assistant vice president of the Foundation in Paris and New York. He also served as vice-president of the export of The Coca-Cola Company.

## Early life[edit]

He was born on 13 October 1900 to Makinsky family of Bayat extraction hailing from Maku. His father Pasha Khan Makinsky (1862–1934) was great-grandson of Hoseyn Khan Bayat. His mother Stefania Antonovna Lubielska (1878–1964) was an ethnic Polish and second wife of Pasha Khan.[2] He was also known as Shura among his family.[3] He was born at the time when his father Pasha was visiting his cousins in Maku.[4] His family later moved to Baku where he was raised by a British nanny, from whom he learnt the language.[5] He studied at Imperial School of Jurisprudence in Saint Petersburg, at the time most prestigious place for boys to study. However he had to leave Russia following October Revolution in 1917 together with his younger brother Karim (Cyril). Family first lived in Warsaw, then moved on to Paris.[6]

In Paris, he quickly become involved with European and White émigré society, often attending their banquets.[7] In one of such meetings, he met Catherine Melikoff, a noblewoman from Melikishvili family and daughter of David Melikishvili and granddaughter of Dmitry Staroselsky, Governor of Baku. Marriage took place on 14 November 1925.[8] He also became acquainted with famous faces of European literature like Antoine de Saint-Exupery[9] and James Joyce[10] throughout his life in Paris.

## Professional life[edit]

He was involved in American Red Cross in Warsaw before becoming chief secretary of the Medical Sciences Division of Rockefeller Foundation in France in 1924.[11] He quickly rose to be a representative of the foundation, he was recalled to Washington after Nazi Invasion of France in 1941 and became assistant to vice president of Rockefeller Foundation. He was noted as an influential person, securing escape of several scholars from Nazi regime, including Otto Fritz Meyerhof, Jean Wahl, Ernst Honigman and others[12] thanks to his links to intelligence organizations.[13] He further went on to secure permanent placements for the scholars he rescued, meeting Louis Wirth and Everett Hughes as well.[14] He travelled post-war Europe, interviewing scholars to learn how Rockefeller Foundation can get involved in social sciences, making a comprehensive report on his work, forming American approach to European economy.[15]

He was offered work by Robert W. Woodruff and hired by The Coca-Cola Company in 1946 as chief lobbyist in Europe.[16] He particularly met resistance mostly from winemakers and Communists in France while trying to introduce Cola to market.[5] French protests over its contents, including cocaine, phosphoric acid and caffeine became a national topic and a test for Cola's adventure in European market.[17] However, this only made Makinsky much more ambitious, set himself the goal of selling forty bottles of Coke to every French person in 1952.[18] His wife became anxious and afraid that their house might be bombed by communists, to which Makinsky answered "the best barometer of the relationship between the United States and any country" was "the way Coca-Cola is treated".[19] Makinsky was also active in lobbying for Coca-Cola factory establishment in Egypt,[20] Israel,[21] Denmark,[22] Portugal,[23] Bulgaria and eventually USSR.[17]

Having befriended President Eisenhower in 1954, Makinsky often reported to his assistant Charles Douglas Jackson and consulted government on post-Nazi Europe policy.[24] Thanks to this links managed to get in the party accompanying Richard Nixon and Milton S. Eisenhower on their trip to open American National Exhibition in Moscow in 1959. After this, Makinsky made frequent visits to USSR, however he was accused by Pravda of being CIA spy in 1968 after his last visit. He was claimed to be a spy working for Poland and later Britain before World War II.[25] Apart his lobbying and promoting work, he was also professor of social sciences at Sorbonne University.[26] He was awarded Legion of Honour on 25 July 1957.[27]

## Death[edit]

He died on 24 April 1988 and was buried in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery, Paris. He was survived by his wife Catherine who died two years later and his brother Cyril Makinsky (1910–1991) who died three years later.

## References[edit]

1. ^ a b Ter Minassian, Taline (2014). Most Secret Agent of Empire: Reginald Teague-Jones, Master Spy of the Great Game. Oxford University Press. p. 244\. ISBN 978-0190210762. "Among other names in the book are those of Mrs Halleck A. Butts, widow of a former American commercial attaché in Tokyo, and Prince Alexander Makinsky, known as 'Shura', a White Russian émigré born in 1902 at Maku in Iran."
2. ^ Abutalybov, Ramiz (2008). Azerbaĭdzhanskai︠a︡ Demokraticheskai︠a︡ Respublika : sbornik stateĭ, posvi︠a︡shchennyĭ 90-letii︠u︡ Pervoĭ respubliki. Moscow: SALAM Press. p. 95\. ISBN 978-5-7164-0590-5. OCLC 298927970.
3. ^ Chavchavadze, David (1990). Crowns and trenchcoats : a Russian prince in the CIA : an autobiography. New York, N.Y.: Atlantic International Publications. p. 219\. ISBN 0-938311-10-7. OCLC 20652764.
4. ^ Grigoriantz, Alexandre (1981). Jean Martin, tailleur de pierre. Jean Martin. Monaco: Éditions du Rocher. p. 196\. ISBN 2-268-00102-4. OCLC 10941656.
5. ^ a b Allen, Frederick (2015). Secret formula. New York, NY: Open Road Integrated Media. p. 5\. ISBN 978-1-5040-1983-5. OCLC 921994205.
6. ^ Chingizoghlu, Anvar (2011). "Makinsky family". Soy (3): 7.
7. ^ "Le Figaro : journal non politique". Gallica. 1926-11-14. Retrieved 2021-06-04.
8. ^ Ferrand, Jacques (1983). Familles princières de Géorgie: essai de reconstitution généalogique (1880-1983) de 21 familles reconnues princières par l'Empire de Russie (in French). J. Ferrand. p. 135.
9. ^ Cate, Curtis (1970). Antoine de Saint-Exupéry; his life and times. London: Heinemann. p. 270\. ISBN 0-434-11040-X. OCLC 1126932.
10. ^ Cornwell, Neil (2016). James Joyce and the Russians (2nd ed.). London: Palgrave Macmillan Limited. p. 23\. ISBN 978-1-349-11645-4. OCLC 1084425889.
11. ^ Penfield, Wilder (1967). The Difficult Art of Giving: The Epic of Alan Gregg. Little, Brown. p. 218.
12. ^ "Refugee Scholar Program - The Rockefeller Foundation: A Digital History". rockfound.rockarch.org. Retrieved 2021-06-04.
13. ^ Reymond, William (2007). Coca-Cola, l'enquête interdite : document. Paris: J'ai lu. p. 236\. ISBN 978-2-290-35553-4. OCLC 492615285.
14. ^ Schrecker, Cherry (2009). Sociology at the New School for Social Research, an intellectual and pedagogical history. p. 20.
15. ^ Benest, Serge (2021-05-26). "The Politics of Funding: The Rockfeller Foundation and French Economics, 1945-1955". doi:10.31219/osf.io/3gmf5. S2CID 243131809. `{{cite journal}}`: Cite journal requires `|journal=` (help)
16. ^ Kahn, E. J. Jr. "Selling Coke". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2021-06-04.
17. ^ a b Pendergrast, Mark (2013). For God, country and Coca-Cola : the definitive history of the great American soft drink and the company that makes it (Third edition: revised and Expanded ed.). New York. ISBN 978-0-465-02917-4. OCLC 808413532.`{{cite book}}`: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
18. ^ Millau, Christian (2000). Paris m'a dit : années 50, fin d'une époque. Paris: Fallois. p. 25\. ISBN 2-87706-388-7. OCLC 45064248.
19. ^ ""Espèce de buveur de Coca-Cola !" : quand le lobby du vin et les communistes déclaraient la guerre au soda américain". Franceinfo (in French). 2019-02-28. Retrieved 2021-06-04.
20. ^ Jarnagin, Andrew (2016-03-01). "When Coca-Cola Grows Citrus on the Nile, Who Wins? Revisiting the End of the Arab Boycott in Egypt". Grand Valley Journal of History. 4 (1). ISSN 2381-4411.
21. ^ Labelle, Maurice Jr M. (2014). "De-coca-colonizing Egypt: globalization, decolonization, and the Egyptian boycott of Coca-Cola, 1966–68*". Journal of Global History. 9 (1): 122–142. doi:10.1017/S1740022813000521. ISSN 1740-0228. S2CID 162705017.
22. ^ SØRENSEN, NILS ARNE; PETERSEN, KLAUS (2012). "Corporate Capitalism or Coca—Colonisation? Economic Interests, Cultural Concerns, Tax Policies and Coca—Cola in Denmark from 1945 to the Early 1960s". Contemporary European History. 21 (4): 597–617. doi:10.1017/S0960777312000392. ISSN 0960-7773. JSTOR 23270687. S2CID 163347256.
23. ^ "A história da Coca-Cola em Portugal | Coca-Cola PT". www.cocacolaportugal.pt (in European Portuguese). Retrieved 2021-06-04.
24. ^ Cook, Blanche Wiesen (1981). The declassified Eisenhower : a divided legacy (1st ed.). Garden City, New York. p. 159\. ISBN 0-385-05456-4. OCLC 6918342.`{{cite book}}`: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
25. ^ "7 May 1968, 2 - The Capital Journal at Newspapers.com". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2021-06-04.
26. ^ "3 Jun 1945, Page 10 - The Courier-Journal at Newspapers.com". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2021-06-04.
27. ^ "Paris-presse, L'Intransigeant". Gallica. 1957-08-28. Retrieved 2021-06-05.