Gordon Gray
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Gordon Gray (May 30, 1909 – November 26, 1982) was an official in the government of the United States during the administrations of Harry Truman (1945-53) and Dwight Eisenhower (1953-61) associated with defense and national security. Gordon Gray was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Bowman Gray, Sr. and Nathalie Lyons Gray. He was married in 1938 to the former Jane Boyden Craige, and they had four sons: Gordon Gray, Jr., Burton Gray, C. Boyden Gray and Bernard Gray. After Jane's death, Gray married the former Nancy Maguire Beebe. His father and later his brother, Bowman Gray, Jr., both were heads of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.
Gordon graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1930, where he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. The University presented Gray with an honorary law degree in 1949. He would later serve as president of the University of North Carolina System from 1950-1955.
He began his public life as a lawyer and was elected to the North Carolina General Assembly. Gray's service to the federal government began with his appointment as President Harry S. Truman's assistant secretary of the war in 1947; two years later, he was appointed Secretary of the Army. He served in this post from 1949 until 1950. The following year he became director of the newly formed Psychological Strategy Board which planned for and coordinated government psychological operations; he remained in the post until May 1952. [1] President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed him his National Security Advisor from 1958 until 1961. He served on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford. In 1976, he was awarded the United States Military Academy's Sylvanus Thayer Award.
Gray was also publisher of the Winston-Salem Journal, chairman of the board of Piedmont Publishing Company and chairman of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
His son, C. Boyden Gray, served as White House counsel for President George Herbert Walker Bush. His nephew, Lyons Gray, is chief financial officer for the Environmental Protection Agency
It is alleged that Gordon Gray was a member of the UFO Conspiracy group known as Majestic 12.
[edit] References
- ^ Staff Member and Office Files: Psychological Strategy Board Files. Harry S. Truman Presidential Library.
[edit] External links
| Preceded by Kenneth Claiborne Royall |
United States Secretary of the Army June 1949–April 1950 |
Succeeded by Frank Pace |
| Preceded by Robert Cutler |
United States National Security Advisor 1958–1961 |
Succeeded by McGeorge Bundy |
| National Security Advisors of the United States |  |
|---|---|
| Cutler • Anderson • Jackson • Cutler • Gray • Bundy • Rostow • Kissinger • Scowcroft • Brzezinski • Allen • Clark • McFarlane • Poindexter • Carlucci • Powell • Scowcroft • Lake • Berger • Rice • Hadley |
