Gordon Gray (30 May 1909-26 November 1982) was the United States National Security Advisor from 24 June 1958 to 13 January 1961, succeeding Robert Cutler and preceding McGeorge Bundy.
Biography[]
Gordon Gray was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1909, and he came from a family that included several heads of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. He practiced law for two years in New York City before returning to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he became a lawyer and publisher. Gray served in the North Carolina General Assembly from 1939 to 1943 and from 1947 to 1949 as a Democrat, and he served as a captain in the US Army during World War II. Gray served as Secretary of the Army from 1949 to 1950 under President Harry S. Truman, and he installed a portrait of Robert E. Lee at West Point. Gray went on to serve as President of the University of North Carolina System from 1950 to 1955, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs from 1955 to 1957, Director of the Office of Defense Mobilization from 1957 to 1958, and National Security Advisor from 1958 to 1961. In 1954, he presided over the board that stripped J. Robert Oppenheimer of his security clearance. Gray headed the Federal City Council economic development organization in Washington DC from 1962 to 1963, and he died in 1982.