L. Patrick Gray

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Louis Patrick Gray III
L. Patrick Gray

L. Patrick Gray
In office
May 3, 1972 – April 27, 1973
Preceded by J. Edgar Hoover
Succeeded by William D. Ruckelshaus
Born July 18, 1916
St. Louis, Missouri
Died July 6, 2005
Atlantic Beach, Florida

Louis Patrick Gray III (July 18, 1916 – July 6, 2005) was acting director of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 1972-73. Gray was nominated as permanent director by Richard Nixon in 1973 but his nomination was withdrawn after he admitted to destroying documents given to him by White House counsel, John Dean. His deputy director W. Mark Felt admitted in 2005 to being Deep Throat, the famous source of leaks to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

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[edit] Early career

Gray was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 18, 1916. He attended schools in St. Louis and Houston, Texas, graduating from St. Thomas High School in 1932. After attending Rice University for a period, he enrolled at the United States Naval Academy and received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1940. The Navy commissioned Gray as a line officer and he served throughout World War II and the Korean War.

In 1949, between his two tours of duty, Gray received a J.D. degree from George Washington University Law School where he edited the law review and became a member of the Order of the Coif. He was admitted to practice before the Washington D.C. Bar in 1949; later he was admitted to practice law by the Connecticut State Bar, the United States Military Court of Appeals, the United States Court of Appeals, the United States Court of Claims, and the United States Supreme Court. Before retiring from the Navy in 1960 with the rank of captain, Gray served as Military Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1961, he entered private practice.

[edit] Nixon Administration 1968-1973

In the late 1960s, Gray returned to the federal government and worked in the Nixon administration in several different positions. In 1970, President Nixon appointed him as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division in the Department of Justice. In 1972, Gray was appointed Deputy Attorney General but before he could be confirmed by the full Senate, his nomination was withdrawn. Instead, President Nixon designated him as Acting Director of the FBI after the death of J. Edgar Hoover. Gray served in this position for less than a year. Day-to-day operational command of the Bureau remained with Associate Director W. Mark Felt.

Felt was responsible for heading the FBI investigation of the Watergate break-in and started leaking information about the investigation to Woodward. The White House tapes reveal that Nixon suspected that Felt was the source of the leaks. Gray claimed that he resisted five separate demands from the White House to fire Felt stating that he believed Felt's assurances that he was not the source until Felt admitted that he was in May, 2005. Gray claimed that Felt's bitterness at being passed over was the cause of his decision to leak to the Washington Post.

In 1973, Gray was nominated as Hoover's permanent successor as head of the FBI. This action by President Nixon confounded many, coming at a time when revelations of involvement by Nixon administration officials in the Watergate Scandal were coming to the forefront. Under his direction, the FBI had been accused of mishandling the investigation into the break-in, doing a cursory job and refusing to investigate the possible involvement of administration officials. Gray's Senate confirmation hearing was to become the Senate's first opportunity to ask pertinent questions about Watergate.

During the confirmation hearing, Gray defended his agency's investigation, however, during questioning he let it be known that he had provided copies of some of the files on the investigation to White House Counsel John Dean, who had told Gray he was conducting an investigation for the President. Gray testified that before turning over the files to Dean, he had been advised by the FBI's own legal counsel that he was required by law to comply with Dean's order. He confirmed that the investigation supported claims made by the Washington Post and other sources of dirty tricks and "ratfucking" committed and funded by the Committee to Re-Elect the President, notably activities of questionable legality committed by Donald Segretti. The White House had for months steadfastly denied any involvement in such activities. During the hearing Gray testified that Dean had "probably lied" to the FBI, increasing the suspicions of many of a cover-up. The Nixon administration was so angered by this statement that John D. Ehrlichman told John Dean that Gray should be left to "twist slowly, slowly in the wind."

It was later publicly revealed that, while serving as Acting FBI Director, L. Patrick Gray had destroyed documents from E. Howard Hunt's White House safe after White House Counsel John Dean had assured Gray that the documents were not Watergate-related. Dean instructed Gray, in the presence of John Ehrlichman, that the documents "should never see the light of day." Following this revelation, Gray resigned from the FBI on April 27, 1973.

[edit] Aftermath 1973-2005

In 1978, Gray was indicted along with Mark Felt and Assistant Director Edward Miller for allegedly having approved illegal break-ins during the Nixon administration. Gray vehemently denied the charges and they were dropped in 1980. Felt and Miller, who had approved the illegal break-ins during the tenures of four separate FBI directors, including J. Edgar Hoover, Gray, William Ruckelshaus, and Clarence Kelley, were convicted and later pardoned by President Ronald Reagan. Gray was never indicted in relation to Watergate but the scandal dogged him afterwards.

On June 26, 2005, mere days before his death from pancreatic cancer, Gray spoke about the Watergate scandal for the first time in 32 years, after his former deputy W. Mark Felt, was revealed to be the secret informant Deep Throat. Gray told ABC's This Week that he was in "total shock, total disbelief," noting, "It was like I was hit with a tremendous sledgehammer."

Before his death, Gray, using his extensive and never-released personal Watergate files, began working on his memoirs with his son, Ed Gray, who finished them. The book, entitled In Nixon's Web was published on March 4, 2008 by Times Books, a division of Henry Holt and Company.

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links

Preceded by
J. Edgar Hoover		 Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
1972-1973		 Succeeded by
William D. Ruckelshaus
v • d • e
Directors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Finch • Bielaski • Allen* • Flynn • Burns • Hoover • Gray* • Ruckelshaus* • Kelley • Adams* • Webster • Otto* • Sessions • Clarke* • Freeh • Pickard* • Mueller
* denotes acting
Seal of the Federal Bureau of Investigation