Stork Baby To Wed; It's News to Pop
  By Nancy Radolph

   The Stork Club has always been a haven for secrets of one kind or another, but here's one that even the Stork owner, Sherman Billingsley, didn't seem to suspect last night:
   His beautiful blonde eldest daughter, Jacqueline, plans to be married tonight in a quiet, practically secret, ceremony to Alexander I. Rorke Jr. Jacqueline and Alex became engaged in August, 1951.
   Right along, there has been strong opposition to the match on the part of the bride's family, It is reported.
   Reached by telephone, the bride's father stated "I know nothing about it."
   Uptown bistro gossip yesterday pieced together the story, with the time, place, names of participants.
   Jacqueline and Alex plan to wed tonight at 6:30 in the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Trinity in W. 82d St., where the bride-groom's family worships. The attendants for the bride, her future mother -in-law, Mrs. Alexander I Rorke Sr. of 321 matron of honor. acting as best man. Gene Cavallero Jr.. son of another proprietor of a famous restaurant, the Colony.

Go Ahead, Said Dad.

It was also reported that when Jacqueline persisted in plans to wed. her father recently said: "Oh, well go ahead if you must, but I don't want to hear anything more about it." Jacqueline, a member of St. Bartholomew's (Episcopal) Church in Park Ave., stated on her license application that she is 25, daughter of J. S. Billingsley and Hazel Donnelly Billingsley of Bedford Village. Alexander said he is 26.
   The bride-to-be. a graduate of Spence School and Finch College, has made a name for herself in radio and TV in the "Lights Out" and "Ellery Queen" programs. Rorke is a graduate of Loyola School and St. John's University. In World War II he served in the ETO with the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment and the 1st Constabulary Squadron as an intelligence specialist.

[Daily News, New York, NY, 18 Sep 1952, Thu, Other Editions, Page 52]

TV Actress Weds Ex-GI
foto by Harold Mathewson

   THE FORMER Jacqueline Billingsley, 25. TV and radio actress, leaves Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Trinity in W. 82d St. with bridegroom, Alexander I. Rorke Jr., yesterday. She is the daughter of the operator of the Stork Club. Rorke's father is an attorney. The bride's parents did not attend the wedding. The couple received 300 friends at a reception in the Barclay- Hotel. Rorke, a graduate of St. John's University, served during World War II with the 508th Parachute Infantry.

   The husband of Jacqueline Billingsley. Son of Alexander Rorke a New York City Assistant District Attorney and later a New York State Appellate Judge. A graduate of St. John's University and a student of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. He served as a military intelligence specialist in the U.S. Army during World War II. He was responsible for the security of five German provinces and participated in the capture of SS men and the first postwar roundup of Communist agents in the Allied military zones of Germany. His plane, flown by commercial pilot Geoffery Sullivan, disappeared on 24 September 1963 enroute to Cuba just two months before the Kennedy assassination. His father-in-law, Sherman Billingsley, held a press conference at the Stork club offering a $25,000 reward for his return with that of his pilot. It was rumored that the CIA was involved because of his friendship with and allegiance to Kennedy. In 1975 the CIA described him a "former witting collaborator (relationship terminated)." J Edgar Hoover wrote "No. I do not want in any way to get involved in this....H" on papers pertaining to correspondence and inquires by Billingsley. He was declared legally dead in 1968.

[Daily News, New York, NY, 19 Sep 1952, Fri. Main Edition, Page 4 ]

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ALEX RORKE
by John Chamberlain

   This is a story that is hard to write, for it is about someone had become a good friend. Alexander Rorke Jr., the friend in question, is missing somewhere in the Caribbean region, along with his aircraft pilot, Geoffrey Sullivan. The two may be alive in some jungle in Honduras or on some self-imposed infiltration mission in Castro's Cuba, or they may be dead--or. as one must hope, they may be returned to the U.S. by the time this column is in print. any case, Alex Rorke. a brave man if there ever was one, should have some tribute. The trouble with Alex is that he took freedom seriously. He had a vast number of friends among anti-Castro Cubans, and he wanted them to recover their country. He also had a family tradition to uphold-the tradition of fighting to forestall the triumph of Communism anywhere and everywhere it happens to threaten. His father, Alexander Rorke Sr., formerly an Assistant District Attorney of New York County, indicted the original founders of the American Communist Party way back m and Alex took his own anti-Communist mission as a filial duty. No doubt with considerable brashness, Alex felt it was morally right and necessary to carry on the battle against the Communist enemy even when the U.S. State Department, in pursuit of a "relaxation" of tensions, opposed it.'
   Alex was never the soul of discretion, which he regarded as a namby-pamby virtue. It was only a few short weeks ago he sat in my living room in Conn., and outlined his hopes for helping his Cuban friends recapture Cuba. His pilot, Geoff Sullivan, who lives just over the hill from Cheshire in the neighboring city of Waterbury, was with him. The two had relinquished the idea that the U.S. would ever again be willing to permit anybody to mount raids on Cuba from Florida. But they persisted in hanging on to the prospect that the Cubans might be helped to build an invasion force somewhere in Central America.
   They wanted to be in on the of Castro if and when it should be permitted to happen But to be of tangible assistance to the Cubans in Central America, Alex and Geoit Sullivan had first to recover a powerful boat and a good airplane which the U.S. government had confiscated because of suspicions that they had been used against Castro from Florida bases. To press the issue against the government, which refused to prefer any formal charges against him yet refused to return his property, Alex needed money.
   Alex's plan was to rent a plane and, with Sullivan at the controls, to engage in an import-export business in the Caribbean area. The two were sanguine that money could be made bringing tanks of tropical fish back to the U.S. for private aquariums. By carrying valuable quick cargo, Alex hoped to enough money to continue the time payments on his sequestered boat, the Violynn III, and his sequestered plane and to pay for legal advice about getting them back.
   Alex didn't think the government could prove that he had violated any law. But he was willing -- and anxious -- to take risk of being proved guilty. He would never admit to me that he and Sullivan had taken off from mainland America on their flight which resulted in an unsuccessful bombing of Havana oil installations. But, no matter what the question of his or innocence, he wanted a trial in order to compel certain U.S. officials to take the stand. He wanted them to submit to relevant questioning about the State Department policy of clamping down on private citizens whose sin is that they have our promises to the Cuban Bay of Pigs veterans seriously.
   When last heard from, Alex and his pilot had refueled a rented plane at the island of Cozumel off the coast of Yucatan. They had with them a Cuban whose name has been given as Garcia. They took off in the evening, at a dangerous hour, and have not been heard from in a month. They could be or they could have fallen into the hands of Castroites. Who knows?
   Admittedly, Rorke and Sullivan are--or were--romantics. But when America ceases to produce such romantics, its doom will have been sealed. A search should be organized for them and, regardless of official sense, carried through.

[The Daily Courier, Connellsville, PA, 04 Nov 1963, Mon. Page 14]