--- alias: - Mellon family - The Mellons - House of Mellon category: Families & Dynasties created: 2026-10-03 location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania relations: - fn: 1 reverse: true role: descendant of Judge Thomas Mellon and great-grandson of the Gulf Oil founder type: member_of with: '[[Christopher Mellon]]' - end: 1945 fn: 2 reverse: true role: son of Andrew W. Mellon; major in the Office of Strategic Services in Europe start: 1943 type: member_of with: '[[Paul Mellon]]' - fn: 3 role: the Richard King Mellon Foundation granted 575,000 dollars on April 26, 2024 for a third observatory station in Allegheny or Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania; Christopher Mellon 'was instrumental in stewarding this grant' start: 2024-04-26 type: funded with: '[[Galileo Project]]' summary: The Mellon family of Pittsburgh includes Andrew W. Mellon, Paul Mellon, Richard Mellon Scaife and Christopher Mellon, the Senate and Pentagon intelligence staffer who later became a UAP disclosure figure. tags: - Family - Banking - Philanthropy - Pittsburgh - UFO updated: 2026-10-03 --- The Mellon family of Pittsburgh includes the persons named below. A 2003 *Roll Call* "Heard on the Hill" item by Ed Henry on the hiring of [Christopher Mellon](/people/christopher-mellon/) by the [Senate Select Committee on Intelligence](/organizations/senate-select-committee-on-intelligence/) described him as "of that Mellon family," a descendant of Judge Thomas Mellon whose "great-grandfather started the Gulf Oil Co."[^1] ### Andrew W. Mellon and the second generation Andrew W. Mellon was a Pittsburgh industrialist and financier, Secretary of the Treasury from 1921 to 1931 and Ambassador to the Court of St. James's from 1931 to 1932. He founded the National Gallery of Art in 1937 and donated his art collection to the [United States](/places/united-states/). His children were Paul Mellon and Ailsa Mellon Bruce; the Gallery's East Building was financed by Paul, Ailsa and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which was created in 1969 by merging Paul Mellon's Old Dominion Foundation (1941) and Ailsa's Avalon Foundation.[^2] ### Paul Mellon, David K. E. Bruce and the Office of Strategic Services Ailsa Mellon married David K. E. Bruce; after the marriage Bruce "became a confidant and art adviser to his father-in-law," according to a review of Nelson D. Lankford's biography *The Last American Aristocrat*. The review adds that Bruce "began a diplomatic career through his friendship with William 'Wild Bill' Donovan, the founder of the OSS (later the [CIA](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/))," and served as ambassador to France and Britain and on a special mission to China.[^4] Bruce's appointments from the [United States Department of State](/organizations/state-department/)'s Office of the Historian listing were ambassador to France (1949 to 1952), under secretary of state (1952 to 1953), ambassador to Germany (1957 to 1959) and to the [United Kingdom](/places/united-kingdom/) (1961 to 1969), chief of the United States Liaison Office in China (1973 to 1974) and permanent representative to [NATO](/organizations/nato/) (1974 to 1976).[^9] Paul Mellon studied at Clare College, Cambridge (M.A. 1938), enrolled at St. John's College in Annapolis after returning to the United States in 1940, joined the [United States Army](/organizations/us-army/) six months later, received cavalry training and a commission at Fort Riley, Kansas, and "subsequently served with the OSS ([Office of Strategic Services](/organizations/office-of-strategic-services/)) in Europe, attaining the rank of Major." In 1945 he and his wife Mary founded the Bollingen Foundation, which published works including the *I Ching* and closed in 1969; the National Gallery of Art states that the Mellons' interest in the work of Carl Jung had taken them to Europe in the late 1930s.[^2] ### Richard Mellon Scaife Richard Mellon Scaife, an heir to the Mellon banking, oil and aluminum fortunes and publisher of the *Pittsburgh Tribune-Review*, spent "hundreds of millions of dollars" of an estimated net worth of 1.4 billion dollars on conservative causes and sat on the boards of the Heritage Foundation and the Hoover Institution. He was a major underwriter of the *American Spectator* magazine's "Arkansas Project" on [Bill Clinton](/people/bill-clinton/) in the 1990s. He died July 4, 2014, at 82.[^5] The Mellon heiress Cordelia Scaife May met [John Tanton](/people/john-tanton/) in 1978 and gave 50,000 dollars to start the [Federation for American Immigration Reform](/organizations/federation-for-american-immigration-reform/), according to Nicholas Kulish and Mike McIntire of the *[New York Times](/organizations/new-york-times/)*.[^10] ### Christopher Mellon *Roll Call* reported on February 12, 2003 that Senator Jay Rockefeller had hired Christopher Mellon as minority staff director of the Intelligence Committee, writing: "It's starting to look like [the Rockefellers](/people/rockefeller-family/) and Mellons are taking over the Senate Select Intelligence Committee." The same item said he had spent a decade on intelligence issues for Senator [William S. Cohen](/people/william-s-cohen/), followed Cohen to the [Pentagon](/organizations/pentagon/) when Cohen became Secretary of Defense, and had until recently served under Secretary [Donald Rumsfeld](/people/donald-rumsfeld/).[^1] [Politico](/organizations/politico/)'s Bryan Bender described Mellon in 2021 as "a scion of the Pennsylvania oil and banking family."[^6] Christopher Mellon was a paid adviser to [To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science](/organizations/to-the-stars-academy-of-arts-science/) from 2017, per Bender, and its annual report for 2020 states he resigned from the advisory board in November 2020 (see the page on the company). On October 30, 2021 he became a research affiliate of [Harvard](/organizations/harvard-university/)'s [Galileo Project](/organizations/galileo-project/). On April 26, 2024 the Galileo Project announced a grant of 575,000 dollars from the Richard King Mellon Foundation for a third instrument station in Allegheny or Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, stating that Christopher Mellon "was instrumental in stewarding this grant"; the press release quotes him: "It is exciting and deeply gratifying to see the Richard King Mellon Foundation continue to support cutting edge science here in Western Pennsylvania."[^3][^7] The foundation's EIN, as listed by [ProPublica](/organizations/propublica/)'s Nonprofit Explorer, is 25-1127705.[^8] [^1]: Henry, Ed. "Unholy Alliance?" *Roll Call,* February 12, 2003. https://rollcall.com/2003/02/12/unholy-alliance/ [^2]: "Paul Mellon: A Legacy." National Gallery of Art press release, 1999 (Internet Archive copy). https://www.nga.gov/press/archive/mellon-legacy-1999.html [^3]: "Richard King Mellon Foundation awards $575,000 to Galileo Project." The Galileo Project, Harvard University, April 26, 2024. https://galileo.hsites.harvard.edu/news/richard-king-mellon-foundation-awards-575000-galileo-project (Internet Archive copy). [^4]: Review of Lankford, Nelson D., *The Last American Aristocrat: The Biography of David K. E. Bruce, 1898-1977.* *Kirkus Reviews,* August 19, 1996. https://kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/nelson-d-lankford/the-last-american-aristocrat. The review gives the Donovan friendship and the ambassadorships; the year of the marriage and any OSS posting of Bruce are not stated in a source opened for this page. [^5]: "Richard Mellon Scaife, 82, billionaire publisher." *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* July 5, 2014. https://www.inquirer.com/philly/obituaries/20140705_Richard_Mellon_Scaife__82__billionaire_publisher.html [^6]: Bender, Bryan. "The Hidden History of How Washington Embraced UFOs." *Politico Magazine,* May 28, 2021. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/05/28/ufos-secret-history-government-washington-dc-487900 [^7]: The Galileo Project. "The Galileo Project Welcomes Christopher Mellon and Luis Elizondo as Research Affiliates," October 30, 2021. https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/galileo/files/mellon-elizondo_announcement_final_2.pdf (Internet Archive copy). [^8]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer search, "Richard King Mellon Foundation" (listed as "Richard King Mellon Foundation Dtd 01-01-47," Ligonier, Pennsylvania). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/search.json?q=Richard+King+Mellon+Foundation [^9]: U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian. "David Kirkpatrick Este Bruce (1898-1977)." https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/bruce-david-kirkpatrick-este [^10]: Kulish, Nicholas, and Mike McIntire. "Why an Heiress Spent Her Fortune Trying to Keep Immigrants Out." *The New York Times,* August 14, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/us/anti-immigration-cordelia-scaife-may.html (as read for the vault page on the Federation for American Immigration Reform).