Gordon Gray (politician)
Gordon Gray (born May 30, 1909 in Baltimore , Maryland , † November 26, 1982 in Washington DC ) was a public official in the United States government . Gray was during the presidencies of Harry S. Truman (1945–53) and Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953–61), among other things, Secretary of the Army and National Security Advisor .
Career
Gordon Gray was the son of Bowman Gray, Sr. and Nathalie Lyons Gray. In 1938 he married Jane Boyden Craige, his first wife, with whom he had four sons: Gordon Gray, Jr., Burton Gray, Clayland Boyden Gray and Bernard Gray. After her death, Gray married Nancy Maguire Beebe. His father and older brother Bowman Gray, Jr. were chairmen of the RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company.
Gray received his PhD from the University of North Carolina in 1930 , where he was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon brotherhood . During World War II he served in the Army, most recently as a captain in the headquarters of the 12th Army Group in Europe. In 1949 the university awarded him an honorary degree in law. Between 1950 and 1955, Gray served as president of the University of North Carolina.
Gray first appeared in public as a lawyer. He was later elected to the North Carolina Senate. He began his service in the federal government in 1947 after being appointed Assistant Secretary of the Army by President Harry S. Truman. Two years later, Gray was briefly Under Secretary of the Army and finally Secretary of the Army in the same year. He held this office until 1950. When the Psychological Strategy Board was established to plan and coordinate the government's psychological operations, Gray became its first director. He remained in that position until May 1952. From 1955 to 1957, Gray served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, then as Director of the Office of Defense Mobilization . In 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed him National Security Advisor , an office he held until 1961. That year he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom . Gray also served on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under Presidents Kennedy , Johnson , Nixon, and Ford . In 1976 he received the Sylvanus Thayer Award .
Gray was also the editor of the Winston-Salem Journal and the chairman of several media companies and the National Trust for Historic Monuments .
His son Clayland Boyden served in the White House under President George Bush . His nephew Lyons Gray was the chief financial officer of the US Environmental Protection Agency .
Allegedly, Gordon Gray was a member of the UFO Secret Committee, better known as the Majestic 12 .
Gray as a literary figure
In 1964, Heinar Kipphardt used Gray as a character in his partially documentary play In the J. Robert Oppenheimer case .
Web link
Individual evidence
- ^ Staff Member and Office Files: Psychological Strategy Board Files . Harry S. Truman Presidential Library . Retrieved January 1, 2011.
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| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gray, Gordon |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 30, 1909 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Baltimore , Maryland |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 26, 1982 |
| Place of death | Washington, DC |