49
Mr. Coleman was elected captain of the
Old Hundred football and hockey teams
and played varsity football and hockey.
As goalie for the 1941 SPS hockey team,
he was a member of one of the few un-
defeated hockey teams in the School’s
history. He also sang in the Choir for two
years, before his voice changed, and was
a member of the Concordian Society
and the Missionary Society, served on
the Student Council, and chaired the
Yearbook Committee.
In the fall of 1941, Mr. Coleman enrolled
as a freshman at Princeton University. In
the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, he resigned
his place at the school and, after Basic
Training, joined the recently founded
Office of Strategic Services (OSS), where
he qualified for the Operational Groups,
the forerunner of today’s Special Forces.
He saw action in Italy and, in 1944, after
extensive training as a parachutist in the
Atlas Mountains of North Africa, para-
chuted into the south of France with an
OSS team, joining the local French Resist-
ance and harassing the retreating German
Army in a series of attacks over a two-
week period. Mr. Coleman was awarded
the Silver Star for valor, though he would
later tell people that he was decorated
because his commanding officer left him
behind after a raid and felt guilty about it.
At the end of the war, Mr. Coleman
returned to the U.S. and completed his
studies at Princeton on an accelerated
timetable. He joined the CIA in 1947 (for
the next two decades, his SPS alumni
record would list the innocuous “foreign
service officer” as his occupation) and his
first posting was under the cover of vice
consul in Marseilles, France, where he was
tasked with building a network of
intelligence sources extending along the
southern coast of Italy and France.
Mr. Coleman joined a local rugby league,
composed mainly of police officers, who
became valuable sources of information.
He also served in Norway, where he posed
as a writer, dutifully receiving chapters
of his “novel” on a monthly basis from
Langley, which he would spread around
his apartment to appease overly curious
Soviet agents. His mission during this
assignment was to cultivate Soviet nuclear
scientists who wished to defect, probing
the state of the Soviet atomic capability.
His job was made more difficult because
the French and the British, as well as the
Americans, considered him a “joint” asset,
and the Allies’ interests were not always
in sync.
After Norway, during a stint back in
Washington, D.C., he met Julia Montgom-
ery Seymour, a widow, who had worked
for the OSS in Italy during the war, and
had taken a job in Washington to support
her young sons. The couple married in
October 1957 and moved to Italy when
Mr. Coleman took a post in the Rome
embassy as deputy chief and, later, chief
of station. The family lived in Rome for
six years, during which time Mr. Cole-
man’s first two biological children, a son
and a daughter, were born. Another son
was born on their return to the U.S. in
1963, while Mr. Coleman spent the year at
the National War College and continued
working at Langley for the next two years.
In 1966, Mr. Coleman was appointed
chief of station to the Embassy in Madrid,
where he and his family were to remain
for the next four years. An ardent aficio-
nado of bullfighting and a passionate wing
shot, Mr. Coleman was able to indulge
both interests in Spain.
The Colemans returned to the U.S. in
the summer of 1970, when Mr. Coleman
served as a liaison between the FBI and
the CIA. He retired from the CIA in 1975.
In retirement, he and Julia split their
time between Washington, D.C., and a
summer home in Northeast Harbor, Maine.
They spent a great deal of time traveling,
shooting and fishing. For more than 30
years, Mr. Coleman ran a syndicate for
partridge shooting in Spain, which allowed
him to spend time there every year, intro-
ducing other Americans to the sport. In
2007, just as they were preparing to move
to Piper Shores in Scarborough, Maine,
Julia died suddenly and Mr. Coleman moved
into their new home alone. He embraced
his new community, and led an active
social life with friends and family. As
his health declined, he endured it with
characteristic grace, courtesy, and un-
failing humor.
Mr. Coleman loved SPS, giving gener-
ously to the Alumni Fund. He was a
member of the John Hargate Society and
believed strongly in athletics and their
role in the SPS education. He supported
construction of the hockey center and the
Athletic and Fitness Center and donated
a hockey stick that belonged to Hobey
Baker (1909) for display at the School.
He served his class as form agent from
1946 to 1949 and 1981 to 1986 and form
director from 1986 to 1991.
Mr. Coleman is survived by his step-
sons, Peter ’71 and Christopher Seymour;
his daughter, Anne Coleman; his sons,
Craig ’82 and Bruce Coleman; and ten
grandchildren. He will be buried along-
side Julia in Northeast Harbor, Maine.
This obituary was prepared by Mr.
Coleman’s stepson, Peter Seymour ’71.
1942
William E. Benjamin II
a charismatic,
charming man,
who was proud
of restoring har-
mony to the small
community of
Manalapan, Fla.,
in his tenure as
mayor, died at his
home in Pretty
Marsh, Maine, on September 21, 2014,
surrounded by the same family members
who had helped him celebrate his 90th
birthday just a few days earlier.
Born on September 18, 1924, Mr. Ben-
jamin was the son of Henry and Germaine
de Baume Benjamin. He grew up in New
York and attended the Buckley School
before following his brothers, Henry ’39
and John ’39, to St. Paul’s School in the
fall of 1937. He competed with Old Hund-
red and Shattuck.
After leaving St. Paul’s, he attended
Columbia University and served in the
Pacific as a Navy ensign in World War II.
He later worked in publishing and as
director of the American Sugar Company
in Haiti. In the 1950s, he moved his family
from Greenwich, Conn., to Palm Beach,
Fla., where he worked in banking and
property development. In 1957, he pur-
chased Casa Alva, a 35-acre estate on
the south end of Hypoluxo Island, which
included a mansion owned by Consuelo
Vanderbilt. The property, in the small
Palm Beach County town Manalapan, was
