The covert group , founded in 1917 , included the real estate heir Vincent Astor , a close friend of Roosevelt ; the book publisher Nelson Doubleday ; Winthrop W. Aldrich , the president of the Chase National Bank ; Kermit Roosevelt , a son of Theodore Roosevelt ; David K. E. Bruce , a son-in-law of Andrew W. Mellon and a future ambassador to France , West Germany and Britain ; the philanthropist William Rhinelander Stewart ; and Marshall Field III , a newspaper publisher and heir to the Chicago department store fortune .