Talk:Robert G. North

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A fact from Robert G. North appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 29 February 2024 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Maxine North swore never to return to Thailand after the death of her undercover CIA husband, but ultimately settled there and introduced bottled water to the country?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2024/February. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Maxine North.

Wikipedia

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by AirshipJungleman29 talk 00:41, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

( Comment or view )

( Article history links:

)

... that Maxine North thought she would never return to Thailand after the death of her alleged CIA spy husband, but ultimately settled there and introduced bottled water to the country? Source: "Bob North died of polio. The day after his funeral Maxine North went back to the U.S. She swore never to return."[1] "her husband, screenwriter Robert North. He headed the Far East Film Co... The company served as a cover for his work with the Central Intelligence Agency"[2] "Maxine Robert North, an American widow with no experience in Asia, ignored the jibes and went on to pioneer Thailand's bottled water industry."[3] "Some sources even consider the company to have been one of the many fronts for American CIA activities in Thailand, a relationship that would have been neither surprising nor unusual in the country at this time, yet one for which there is (as yet) no real concrete evidence."[4] - Hence the alleged wording.
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Lewes Friends Meeting House (2x), Template:Did you know nominations/Zoé Clauzure
- Comment: Getting these in before the seven days run out, but still working on the Robert G. North article, so please don't hurry to review. Also, those are ancient QPQs that I intended to let expire. Will replace with a newer review when I get the chance. Done. Ready now.

Created by Paul_012 (talk). Self-nominated at 11:20, 17 February 2024 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Maxine North; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.[reply]

Just new enough (6 days, 22 hours, 40 minutes old at time of nomination). QPQ done. No image. Earwig returns 2.9% (Violation Unlikely) on COPYVIO check. Hook is inline cited and interesting, with two notes. First, the sources refer to the husband as a CIA "agent", not a "spy". Referring to someone as a spy is inherently depracatory, whereas an agent could mean anything including a procurement officer, legal counsel, etc. Second, the sources indicate she swore never to return but don't offer greater insight into her state of mind that would support the claim that she "thought she would never return". Other than those items, everything looks good. Chetsford (talk) 21:27, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks. The sources clearly paint him as not a procurement officer or legal counsel, and I thought spy was close enough and sounded more clickworthy, but you do have a point in that he was performing covert operations rather than espionage. But "CIA-agent husband" doesn't quite roll off the tongue... Maybe "undercover CIA" would do the trick? As for returning to Thailand part, the The Record source cited in the article contains the quotation: "I thought we'd never go back; I was bitter." That's what I based the hook on. But the Life magazine's wording does give more of a punch, so I'll also throw it in as Alt0b. --Paul_012 (talk) 22:00, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- ALT0a ... that Maxine North thought she would never return to Thailand after the death of her alleged undercover CIA husband, but ultimately settled there and introduced bottled water to the country?
- ALT0b ... that Maxine North swore never to return to Thailand after the death of her alleged undercover CIA husband, but ultimately settled there and introduced bottled water to the country?
Alt0a and Alt0b both look good to me! Chetsford (talk) 01:41, 19 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Potential source

The "Ratana Pestonji and Santi Vina" article notes that the Far East Film News carried a full-page obituary for him. --Paul_012 (talk) 18:46, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]