Born to parents Harold & Helen Jane Fitzgerald in 1910. Harold was in the banking business and the family lived in Manhattan. Desmond was educated at St Marks School in Southborough, Massachusetts, graduating in 1928. He then attended Harvard (1932) finally Harvard Law (1935). Desmond practiced law on Wall Street until World War II started at which time he enlisted in the Army as a Private: however by the time the war drew to a close he had transferred to the Office of Strategic Services, promoted to Major and participated in the campaign to retake Burma from the Japanese. After the war, he worked as a lawyer in New York City where he was active in fighting crime and corruption. In the OSS he had made friends with Frank Wisner who persuaded him to rejoin his friends in the CIA as an officer in the Far Eastern Division. He was based in Taiwan during the Korean conflict, and then became CIA station chief in the Philippines and Japan. He then was elevated to Director of Latin American Operations in 1961. As a result--in 1962 he was right in the middle of President Kennedy`s Cuban mess. In the year 1966 Fitzgerald succeeded Richard Helms as Deputy CIA Director. Under Helms he was in charge of the operational side of the agency`s work, including its clandestine activities. In this position he was considered to be one of the most influential men in Washington. His untimely death at 57 was a shock to the Agency. In 1939 Desmond met and was smitten by a tall leggy blond by the name of Marietta Endicott Peabody who was the daughter of the Rt Rev. Malcolm Endicott Peabody. They were married September 2, 1939 and had a daughter named Frances in 1940. The marriage was plagued by his absence and the fact that they were polar opposites. finally in 1947 the couple went their own separate way.